Don't Be Part of the Problem

Advice for academics who don't want to be part of the problem. Submissions invited. Follow @an_academic !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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be twice as good

If you're a white person who studies race, you have something to prove.  If you’re a man who studies gender, you have something to prove.  We’ve all been in rooms where white people are embarrassing themselves talking about race, or men are mansplaining gender to women.  Don’t let that be you.  

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be a resource

Share the load by making it clear underrepresented students can come to you.  Graduate and undergraduate students who are worried about gender, race, sexuality, or disability end up going to faculty who share those attributes.  Do the work to be an ally.  Do the work to make it clear that you’re an ally. Don’t leave all that burden on your colleagues.  

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don’t mistake dialect fluency for intelligence

People who grew up speaking a language other than English, or a dialect of English other than standard white academic English, are just as smart as people who are fluent in academic prose.  

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Be careful about setting people up to be the Only One

Putting one woman or one person of color on a committee risks putting that person in the impossible situation of representing All Diversity on that panel. Try to put minority faculty in places where they'll have allies. Prioritize putting minority faculty on committees that matter.  Maybe let a committee that doesn’t matter stay all male.  

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If you want women to be half the people on a panel, or in a syllabus, or in a journal ON AVERAGE, there have to be panels and syllabi and journals that are more than half women. If you think 50/50 is enough, panels and syllabi will vary between 0% women and 50% women, and the mean will be well below 50%. We need panels that are 70, 80, 90% women. We need panels with no white members. If you want the mean of the distribution to be 50%, you can't also set the max to 50% unless every single panel will be evenly split.  It’s just math.  

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Your fellow panelists are professional adults, too. "Panel chairs often fail to paint the picture of a competent professional, instead lingering much longer than in the case of male speakers on the women’s physical attributes, age, country of upbringing, family situation etc. "

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*while Foreign Policy editors expressed initial interest in this post, a long-delayed response time to its actual draft suggests to me that such interest has faded, though I cannot imagine why. I’ve decided to self-publish it here on RI. Recently, … Continue reading →

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No, I Am Not Pregnant

Why women in academe feel our bodies are "always under watch."

Maybe just don’t do any of this.  Don’t ask women if they’re pregnant, don’t ask grad students if faculty are pregnant, don’t act like pregnancy is a failure.  Say no to scrutinizing your colleagues’ bodies.  

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don’t put junior people in impossible situations for the sake of equity

Say you don’t want to have an all male panel. Do not have senior male speakers and a junior woman moderator to follow the letter of the law. Mix ranks and genders among the speakers. Otherwise you will put the moderator in an impossible position and everyone will learn less than they would otherwise.

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protect your co-authors

People with less social power have a lot of stories of being ignored.  Conference invitations go to the two male co-authors, not to the woman.  People of color get moved out of research teams.  Don’t let that happen to your co-authors.  Put them back on the email thread.  Keep their names on your joint work.  

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Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives

How to fine-tune the internal monologue that scores every aspect of our lives, from leadership to love.

Adopt a growth mindset about your students, graduate or undergraduate, especially if you work in a quantitative field.  Believe that your students can succeed.  Believe it’s your job to make sure they do.  Talk about math like it’s something people get good at via work rather than talent, because it is.  Treating math like it’s a special talent makes quantitative fields much less friendly to people who’ve been told their group doesn’t have that special talent. 

 Practically, this means getting rid of courses designed to fail the “unsuitable” students.  It means never describing someone as “good at math” or “bad at math.”  It means lots of support in the early stages of graduate programs for people with different backgrounds. 

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don't let people who say gross things hold positions of power

Even if they're senior scholars. Even if they're great at fundraising.

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A few years ago I used to be a hothead. Whenever anyone said anything, I’d think of a way to disagree. I’d push back hard if something didn’t fit my world-view. It’s like I had to be first with an opinion – as if being first meant something. But what it really meant…

Make space for other people’s ideas.  This goes double if you’re feeling personally defensive.

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Lean Out: The Dangers for Women Who Negotiate - The New Yorker

Research suggests that women who stand up for themselves in negotiations may not get what they want. The tactic may even backfire.

Don’t blame women for not acting more like men.  Remember they often get punished if they do.  

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Don’t ever say race doesn’t matter.

Full stop.  If you do, you’re part of the problem. 

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these aren’t side issues

When you’re reading grant applications, articles, or job materials, treat gender, race, sexuality, disability, etc like they’re central issues in your discipline.  Don’t discount work on them as niche.  

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stop valuing overconfidence

It’s incredibly common to think someone’s smarter or their research is more important because they make bolder claims.  That’s gendered: men are socialized to be overconfident, women are socialized to hedge (and when women make big overconfident claims they often get shot down). It’s also cultural.  Being careful about what your data does and doesn’t show is smart as fuck.