Wednesday, December 14th 2011
I submitted the first round of my materials for my third year review recently. The third year review is the half-way point between one’s hire as a tenure-track professor and going up for tenure. You can be fired at this point. But the most common outcome is that you get a strongly worded letter from the college detailing what you’ve done and what will be necessary from here on out if you want tenure. If you then don’t do as they say (get a grant, increase the number of publications, improve your teaching) then they have the grounds to deny you tenure.
If you’re in a supportive department as I am, then your third year committee’s job is to make the best possible case for you for when your case goes before the college. They pore over your curriculum vitae (academic resume), your papers, your teaching evaluations and research program. They observe your teaching, read your grants, and try to figure out how to articulate just how important you are to the department.
However, the job of an academic, and our expectations, are largely increasing. More papers are expected, more grants, even while teaching and service loads are increasing. And what it means to be an academic is changing. More online instruction actually means that teaching is more time-intensive – it takes a lot longer to build a week of good online material than it does to write a few lectures. Students no longer wait to talk to you after class, they email you at all hours – and will resend their email repeatedly if you don’t answer within 8-12 hours. Being slightly removed from our students but supposedly available 24 hours a day makes for a demoralizing, full inbox each and every morning.
But there are many wonderful things about how our jobs are changing, too. As depressed as end of semester emails make me, I am thrilled the other fourteen weeks of the semester because I can identify the ways in which my students have grasped basic skills and concepts better in my current blended teaching style, compared to the passive lectures they once received. For some academics, blogs and social media serve as both public outreach and scholarly work; for others they are an important place to give and receive mentorship. And the shrinking of many PhD programs mean undergraduate research experiences are on the rise as some of us look for other students to mentor, and I find these experiences especially rewarding.
So that third year review committee has a tough job ahead of itself in a case like mine. I don’t look like most of the people who have gotten tenure before me, at least in terms of how I allocate my time. They can figure out how to talk about my educational activities, because they can recognize components even if the medium or students look different. The research part should be a breeze too. But what they really want to know is, how do they talk about my blog?
It doesn’t help that “blog” doesn’t sound very academic (oh, if only I had thought to call this the Context and Variation Monograph). And it doesn’t help that this writing isn’t just for scholars, but for everybody. That’s not because non-blogging academics don’t see the point of interacting with the public, but because this particular way of doing it is so strange to them. This isn’t a radio interview, or a book, or a talk at the local library, but a style of writing where the jargon is not academic but from the internet. We talk in ALL CAPS, we use emoticons and use extra exclamation points!!1!!1 😀 We use the word “fail” in a way totally different from its traditional meaning, which led to members of the American Anthropological Association getting angry and hurt when online anthropologists referred to the removal of science from its mission statement last year as #aaafail.
Then there are the takedowns. Blog posts can be a number of things, but within science blogging two of the more common are explainers and takedowns. Explainers are when you provide background information or context for a particular topic – this may be timely, as when there is a new primate fossil discovery and several anthropologists then explain its meaning in the context of the fossil record or modern primates, depending on their expertise. Or it may just be interesting or timely to them, as with my piece on inducing labor last month.
Takedowns, though, are critical and controversial. They are intentionally provocative. They do not write behind a veil of careful academic prose that weighs and measures each sentence. They take the criticisms that many academics privately share at the nearest coffee shop (because we so rarely have a watercooler) into the public sphere. And so these are particularly unsettling to read and categorize, if you are trying to understand a blog’s place in academia.
At Science Online last year, John Hawks said that “blogging is at best a tertiary activity.” And I would agree. But that still puts it on the radar for those of us blogging pre-tenure today. I have no desire to alter my writing style or choice of topics on my blog to help me get tenure. At the same time, I would like to be able to articulate the ways in which the process of blogging, the networking from blogging, and scholarly blog posts are a meaningful part of my identity and production as a tenure-track professor. ETA: I’m embarrassed that I missed this important and delightful post by Greg Downey on this topic, just last month. Read it! Thanks to Kristina Killgrove for pointing it out in the comments!
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Blogging to build a network
One part of blogging that is easy for most academics to understand is that it helps you network. Blogging has given me connections to anthropologists I might otherwise have never met (to name just a few). It exposes me to potential students, potential employers, potential external letter writers (those are the people who write letters on your behalf when you go up for tenure, and can make or break your case). When graduate students and junior faculty become fans of my blog, they tell senior faculty, and recently several of those senior faculty have told me. Now those senior faculty also read my blog.
This increased exposure also means that more journalists know who you are. When a journalist needs an anthropologist or scholar of ladybusiness, they are more likely to call me. And while academics have for a long time feared talking to journalists because journalists will “get it wrong” or fellow academics will think they are grubbing for fame, times are changing. For one, you can certainly say no if a journalist’s time table is too short for you to give the considered response you want to give, or you don’t feel she or he is from a reputable organization. But you can also set some ground rules that allow you to see your quotes ahead of time. If you are in the blogging community and the journalist also blogs, there will likely be a mutual trust that will allow you to answer honestly and without fear.
I would also add that the stigma of interacting with journalists is decreasing in a climate where universities are competing for the best students and looking for ways to set them above their rivals. My university LOVES that I write for Scientific American, because every time you read one of my blog posts you likely note that I am an assistant professor at the University of Illinois. Now you won’t just associate that university with having had a terrible football coach (our bowl game sure will be interesting), but as a place that appreciates public service. Public engagement is a priority that is growing in Illinois’s mission, which is a good thing since many other people from here do amazing online science writing and outreach.
Finally, and this may be the most exciting part of how blogging improves networks, is that it can lead to giving talks at other institutions. This demonstrates our impact on the field, and how much respect we have from our colleagues. Every talk I have been invited to give so far this semester (and upcoming next semester) has been a direct result of this blog. Every single one. Yet many of them have been research talks or hybrid research/blog talks, which has allowed me to put my own work out there in front of another set of anthropologists. These have an enormous benefit for me, because I get to test out my ideas and receive constructive criticism from my colleagues. And, if the talk goes well, I’ve gained their respect as a scholar.
Blogging as scholarly writing
Blogging is scholarly writing in that it is writing as thinking. I put ideas out here, or explain basic concepts like life history theory, in a way that has enormous benefit to me, because the writing secures it in my brain. I am a more broadly knowledgeable anthropologist because of this blog; I read and write more than I would without it. Some of my posts are drafts of actual papers I hope to write. And other posts are ways to help me get through something about my job that is keeping me from fulfilling my potential as a scholar.
Blogging has improved my writing and analytical skills. For instance, while many aspects of evolutionary psychology have been unsettling to me for over a decade, it is only in writing about it on my blog that I have been able to better articulate why. And while I have been critical of the clinical study of women’s health for some time, I rarely get the opportunity to discuss the historical or cultural context except for in this space.
But blogging is not just a writing exercise. Blogging is a different way of having an academic conversation. I have had many important interactions with other scholars about evolutionary theory, the biocultural approach in anthropology, women’s health and other topics that have helped us each develop our own thinking. It’s just that the conversation is more public.
Finally, writing a blog can lead to peer-reviewed manuscripts. I’ve now been selected to be in the Open Lab anthology twice – last year and this year. This is a peer-reviewed process, and I do list my contributions to these anthologies on my CV.
Examples of posts as scholarly writing:
Blogging as service
Finally, my blog provides three kinds of service: mentoring to junior colleagues, outreach to the public, and post-publication peer review. I’ve met with undergraduates and graduate students from other institutions as part of invited talks to discuss issues for women in science and academia as well as my research. I do a fair bit of email correspondence with young female students. I also write honestly about the “work/life balance,” one of the dumber terms for a near-permanent state of sleep deprivation. In fact, I’ve discussed my third year review in the context of my attending the Purdue Conference for Pre-Tenure Women, and that post led to emails from novelists, doctors, and academics in all disciplines all over the country.
Other posts are intended for a more general audience, in order to raise awareness of the disconnect between women’s knowledge from peers and doctors and the often different information gleaned from anthropological science research. I have written on iron-deficiency anemia, labor induction, homebirth, and hormonal contraception, often contrasting medical assumptions with evidence-based reality.
A third kind of post serves as public outreach and a new form of scholarly writing: post-publication peer review. The peer review process is imperfect, and a growing number of blogs are devoting a significant portion of their space to analyzing published papers. This takes private academic conversations public, which is useful for layreaders and fellow academics. In addition to many solo efforts, I have collaborated twice with Scicurious, a pseudonymous postdoc in neuroscience and all-around kickass person. Our most recent tag–team, on a paper about maternal tendencies and facial femininity, resulted in an exchange with the lead author of the paper on the Scientific American Guest Blog, on its comment thread, and even spawned a separate post by another psychologist.
Post-publication peer review makes the scientific process more transparent to the layreader and, I hope, demonstrates the ways in which science is not straightforward but requires creativity and thoughtfulness alongside objectivity. This may prove increasingly important for young people, who see scientists as smart and good at taking tests, linear thinkers, and people who don’t need help understanding anything (Shanahan 2011). This scientist archetype prevails in graduate school and beyond, manifesting itself as “impostor syndrome” if the scientist doesn’t feel they have these attributes or otherwise occupy an othered space in their field.
Finally, the main reason this type of scholarly writing is important is that it makes critiques public among fellow scholars. By airing our grievances, we may arrive at new ideas, or at least achieve a grudging respect for our differences. And this type of post-publication peer review can happen more quickly than letters to the editor in a journal, allowing for faster transmission of ideas. So far, daring to be critical at times has made me a more bold scholar, allowed me to articulate for myself and others why an anthropological lens is so important in understanding human physiology and behavior, and given me space to engage not only with people who agree with me, but with those who don’t.
Examples of posts as service:
Wednesday, November 30th 2011
An ultrasound of my daughter during her #occupyuterus movement
Summer 2001. I had just graduated from college with a joint degree in biological anthropology and women’s studies which, as my father pointed out, was not a degree with an obvious vocational angle. I was headed to graduate school in anthropology that fall, an experience for which I was woefully underprepared. I spent the summer loafing. It was the last summer I would ever have to just loaf around, so I was going to loaf, dammit.
But I did have one job. A dear friend was pregnant and asked me to attend her birth. I prepared like a champ: I watched A Baby Story twice a day while lounging on my boyfriend’s couch (I squeezed these in between yoga, George R. R. Martin novels, and trips to Whole Foods). I also read through some of my old textbooks, including books recommended to me by a few professors, The Woman in the Body, Birth as an American Rite of Passage and Immaculate Deception II.
One early morning in July, my friend called. “We’re on our way to the hospital. I’m in labor. It will be a while, so don’t hurry,” she said. I hurried. When I got there, conditions couldn’t have been worse: as it turns out, the nurses at the hospital were on strike, the doctor my friend hated the most was the one on call, and the epidural she got once active labor commenced slowed down her contractions. The doctor broke my friend’s water without her consent then began pressuring her and her husband to have Pitocin. Pitocin was the one intervention my friend had been adamant she wanted to avoid, but the doctor kept pulling the husband to the side telling him they were risking the baby.
The nurses were not familiar with the hospital or the doctor and so could offer little support. The husband was beside himself with worry. The doctor had the bedside manner of cardboard. I thought, This is my moment. My college degree will be useful for something!
“How about nipple stimulation?” I asked.
My friend and her husband looked at me blankly. The doctor had already left the room to attend to another patient.
“Pitocin is synthetic oxytocin. Oxytocin is produced by nipple stimulation, like when you breastfeed a baby. Maybe making your own oxytocin will bring back your contractions.”
My friend and her husband continued to stare at me.
“Well, some people do use nipple stim…” one nurse said, sounding unconvinced.
That was all the endorsement the husband needed. Eyes wild, he reached across his wife’s body… and, er, stimulated her nipples. Aggressively.
My friend’s contractions started back up again, and didn’t let up for the remainder of labor. A few hours later she gave birth to a gorgeous, big baby boy.
* * *
Ten years later, I’m in the same position. My sister has asked that I attend her birth along with her husband. Her official due date was Sunday, so we’re within the window when he will be born and are playing a waiting game. Culturally, we consider the due date as a sort of deadline; if you are still pregnant after that deadline your baby is “overdue,” and you may feel you have failed as a mother (you haven’t). You may also just be sick of being pregnant, or eager to meet your new kid. Maybe your favorite midwife or obstetrician is about to go on vacation and you won’t be able to deliver with her.
Two issues contradict the notion that inducing labor when “overdue” is a good idea. First, due dates are notoriously inaccurate, as they are calculated by date of last period instead of by ovulation or implantation. This makes sense, of course, because women rarely know their ovulation or implantation days. The first half of the cycle, or follicular phase, is even more variable than the second half (Lenton et al., 1984), meaning the assumption built into calculating a due date – that the follicular phase is fourteen days long – introduces a lot of error.
Second, if you are past your due date but your baby is happy inside of you, that means you have produced a healthy, hospitable environment for her or him. More hospitals are creating 39-week cutoffs before which doctors cannot schedule inductions; this is because birth before that point carries increased risks for the baby. Further, many researchers support the maternal crossover hypothesis, which suggests a fetal trigger for the onset of labor: once the fetus begins to starve, it sends a stress signal to the mother, which commences labor (Ellison, 2001; Wildman et al., 2011). The idea is that the mother has “crossed over” some point after which she cannot provide adequate nutrition for the growing fetus through the umbilical cord. If she or he wants to keep growing, then it makes more sense to be born and receive more energy dense food, and fat, through the nipple in the form of breastmilk.
This means a baby usually should be born when it wants to be born, rather than when you, your mother in law, your boss or *cough* your sister want him to be born.
However, the cervix of a woman who hasn’t had any children yet does take longer to ripen, and so first pregnancies can be longer than the second or third (Mittendorf et al., 1993). And so the question is whether there is anything the mother can do safely to encourage the fetus to consider starting things up, or to help the cervical ripening so that any signal the fetus is sending will be more effective. Some of the most common interventions mothers try on their own include exercise, sex, and eating spicy foods (Chaudhry et al., 2011).
I am about to share some of the literature on these and other interventions. I do not explicitly recommend any particular course of action, as I’m not a licensed midwife or obstetrician. As I learned when I had my own daughter, having book knowledge is not the same as practical knowledge.
Exercise certainly makes sense as a mechanism to induce labor: bouts of physical activity temporarily increase systemic inflammation biomarkers (Kasapis and Thompson, 2005), which are associated with labor onset. Exercise also increases energy expenditure, which might increase fetal stress and cause it to decide it can get more calories out than in.
However, the evidence doesn’t seem to support exercise inducing labor or shortening pregnancy. Many studies support a role for exercise in supporting normal-weight babies (Bell et al., 1995; Campbell and Mottola, 2001; Klebanoff et al., 1990; Leiferman and Evenson, 2003), which is a great thing: have a too-big baby and birth complications can arise, and a small baby can have health issues. Exercise may also reduce the risk of cesarean deliveries in nulliparous women (that’s women who haven’t had any prior kids) (Bungum et al., 2000). And, exercise reduces the incidence of pre-term birth (Hatch et al., 1998; Hegaard et al., 2008; Jukic et al., 2011), though work-related and potentially stressful forms of physical activity may slightly increase the risk (Misra et al., 1998). So it seems as though habitual physical activity has a very beneficial effect on mother and baby. But it doesn’t make the baby come out any faster.
Unprotected sex with a man can be fun if you’re straight or bi and it’s consensual, and its role in triggering labor has mixed support. Semen contains prostaglandins, and prostaglandins can bring on uterine contractions. Further, oxytocin is produced at orgasm, which ripens the cervix (and of course, you don’t need a consenting male partner for this one). I found one study that showed that women who were scheduled for an induction but had sex at term to avoid it had a shortened gestation length (Tan et al., 2006). The same author also found, however, that both sex and orgasm were inversely correlated with spontaneous labor (Tan et al., 2009).
Spicy foods? So far, no one has systematically looked at it, though intestinal distress may trigger contractions (Chaudhry et al., 2011). And while a few herbal preparations may increase your chances, the side effects and lack of FDA regulation dictate caution without a licensed midwife or physician overseeing the process.
But there is one more intervention worth further study. Remember when my friend’s husband semi-publicly twiddled my friend’s breasts? Nipple stimulation is effective not only at helping contractions along once labor has started, but possibly also inducing labor. One paper I read reviewed the varying recommendations by midwives for inducing labor, and their nipple stimulation protocol included massaging with oil by hand until one feels contractions, or using an electronic breast pump for fifteen minutes on, fifteen off (Knoche et al., 2008). One study demonstrated that nipple stimulation leads to greater cervical ripening than a control group (Adewole et al., 1993). So the mechanism is there, the link between nipple stimulation and cervical ripening pretty well established, and cervical ripening is one of the major first steps to labor.
That said, think of late pregnancy as an #occupyuterus movement. If current events are any indicator, no good comes of forcing peaceful protestors to leave by violent means.
References
Adewole I, Franklin O, Matiluko A. 1993. Cervical ripening and induction of labour by breast stimulation. African journal of medicine and medical sciences 22(4):81.
Bell RJ, Palma SM, Lumley JM. 1995. The Effect of Vigorous Exercise During Pregnancy on Birth‐Weight. Australian and New Zealand journal of obstetrics and gynaecology 35(1):46-51.
Bungum TJ, Peaslee DL, Jackson AW, Perez MA. 2000. Exercise during pregnancy and type of delivery in nulliparae. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing 29(3):258-264.
Campbell MK, Mottola MF. 2001. Recreational exercise and occupational activity during pregnancy and birth weight: a case-control study. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 184(3):403-408.
Chaudhry Z, Fischer J, Schaffir J. 2011. Women’s Use of Nonprescribed Methods to Induce Labor: A Brief Report. Birth.
Ellison PT. 2001. On Fertile Ground. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hatch M, Levin B, Shu XO, Susser M. 1998. Maternal leisure-time exercise and timely delivery. American Journal of Public Health 88(10):1528.
Hegaard HK, Hedegaard M, Damm P, Ottesen B, Petersson K, Henriksen TB. 2008. Leisure time physical activity is associated with a reduced risk of preterm delivery. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 198(2):180. e181-180. e185.
Jukic AMZ, Evenson KR, Daniels JL, Herring AH, Wilcox AJ, Hartmann KE. 2011. A Prospective Study of the Association Between Vigorous Physical Activity During Pregnancy and Length of Gestation and Birthweight. Maternal and Child Health Journal:1-14.
Kasapis C, Thompson PD. 2005. The Effects of Physical Activity on Serum C-Reactive Protein and Inflammatory Markers: A Systematic Review. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 45(10):1563-1569.
Klebanoff M, Shiono P, Carey J. 1990. The effect of physical activity during pregnancy on preterm delivery and birth weight. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 163(5 Pt 1):1450.
Knoche A, Selzer C, Smolley K. 2008. Methods of Stimulating the Onset of Labor: An Exploration of Maternal Satisfaction. The Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health 53(4):381-387.
Leiferman JA, Evenson KR. 2003. The effect of regular leisure physical activity on birth outcomes. Maternal and Child Health Journal 7(1):59-64.
Lenton EA, Landgren B-M, Sexton L, Harper R. 1984. Normal variation in the length of the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle: effect of chronological age. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology 91(7):681-684.
Misra DP, Strobino DM, Stashinko EE, Nagey DA, Nanda J. 1998. Effects of physical activity on preterm birth. American Journal of Epidemiology 147(7):628-635.
Mittendorf R, Williams MA, Berkey CS, Lieberman E, Monson RR. 1993. Predictors of human gestational length. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 168(2):480-484.
Tan P, Yow C, Omar S. 2009. Coitus and orgasm at term: effect on spontaneous labour and pregnancy outcome. Singapore medical journal 50(11):1062-1067.
Tan PC, Andi A, Azmi N, Noraihan MN. 2006. Effect of coitus at term on length of gestation, induction of labor, and mode of delivery. Obstetrics & Gynecology 108(1):134.
Wildman DE, Uddin M, Romero R, Gonzalez JM, Than NG, Murphy J, Hou ZC, Fritz J. 2011. Spontaneous Abortion and Preterm Labor and Delivery in Nonhuman Primates: Evidence from a Captive Colony of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). PLoS One 6(9):e24509.
Thursday, November 17th 2011
Some of the anthropologists you would have found at the 2005 Yale strike.
I have spent a lot of time in my life being employed or educated by an organization that I find problematic in some way. At Harvard, my main gripe involved the way in which the dissolution of Radcliffe College and the women’s spaces there occurred with little engagement with undergraduates: two deans met with me and two other women who were on the board of the Radcliffe Union of Students. That’s it. In response, we created a tent Women’s Center outside of the Science Center and a list of demands of what we would want out of a real Women’s Center; years later when they finally did form a real Women’s Center they did so in the basement of Canaday, which happens to be only a hundred feet or so from our temporary structure. (I say this without taking any actual credit, as I doubt our action had much of an effect.)
At Yale, my issues centered around the condescending attitude that characterized labor relations with both graduate students and the largely African-American population surrounding the gentrified center of New Haven. I committed and was arrested for civil disobedience two times in my six years there. I also went on strike twice. The graduate students do have a union, but it is still unrecognized by Yale.
At the University of Illinois where I now work, I cancelled my 750-student class during a GEO strike, despite a phone call to my home to dissuade me from such a decision. I walked the picket lines instead, and as it happens an agreement was reached when my class would have been taught, and we celebrated on the steps of Foellinger Auditorium, where I taught my class. (Again, I doubt my own decision made a difference, but you wouldn’t have known it from the tears streaming down my face as grad students sang and danced because they got the raises and benefits they needed to support themselves and their family.)
My actions had impact for me and many other people: I radicalized many female friends in college, many more colleagues in grad school, and know I served as an example for other faculty when I decided not to cross picket lines here at Illinois. These were moving, important experiences in my development as a scholar and activist. But in each of these cases, my actions as an individual had little impact in a way the institution would understand. If anything, these actions were derided by those in power, except, and this is important, when our numbers were great. If there were thousands of us picketing, that had meaning. If 700 of us got arrested, that had meaning (this happened long enough ago that I can’t find any of the longer pieces on it online). And I will return to this later in this post.
This time, my anger is with Nature Publishing Group (NPG), who owns Scientific American. My experience at Scientific American suggests that most folks here understand social media and blogs, and are respectful, thoughtful and kind. These are people who want to make the world a better place through science and science communication. And so I do my best to forgive the fact that some improvements to our network (*cough* commenting) have been under-resourced.
But NPG is a totally different lot. We’ve seen how their blog network stalled, how archaic and ridiculous their commenting policy is. We’ve seen who they employ. To be honest, I don’t read Nature unless someone pushes something to me. Instead, I enjoy my SciAm bubble and network of bright, fun thinkers.
I can’t do that now, because Henry Gee has seen fit to publish a rather limp attempt at humor that relies on fundamental stereotypes about male and female interests, desire and behavior. You can read the intelligent commentary by countless others: Anne Jefferson, who first brought this post to my attention, Emily Willingham, Christie Wilcox, Janet Stemwedel, Dr. Isis, Alex Wild, Drugmonkey, and I am probably missing several others. The only reason this article even turned up on anyone’s radar is because Nature just published two pieces of correspondence against the piece, by Ylaine Gerardin & Tami Lieberman, and Pieter van Dokkum.
I will not add to that commentary here, because frankly they said it better than I could. Instead, I want to talk about what the right thing to do is, and how to have impact, because I am struggling with answers to this myself.
When I read Womanspace, my first reaction was nausea. I felt completely sick to my stomach because I couldn’t believe that NPG would knowingly publish overt sexism. I felt completely alienated and abandoned by a journal that is supposed to publish science, not fiction that represents offensive cultural biases. Further, I am employed, however marginally or distantly, by NPG. What does this say about me and my blog? What does it mean that NPG employs someone like me who writes on feminism and science if they also publish that? Is my blog just a joke then, or a way to improve their appearance without actually changing who they are or how they think about science and scientists?
So then my next reaction was to consider the steps I needed to take to leave SciAm, since it meant being associated with NPG. I discussed it on our backforums and asked for advice. I talked a few friends about it. Would leaving have an impact? What would have an impact?
Leaving would diminish my impact, as my readership would probably not stay quite as high were I to return to my old blog. Yet, leaving would make a statement that I am not complicit with NPG and their actions. I’m not sure I know the correct choice.
Here is what I do know: leaving would allow me to feel better about myself and save face. It would allow me to walk away from the problem, back to my safe corner of the blogosphere where all my commenters were women and they were always kind and encouraging. I desperately want to do this because I am so tired of sexism and bothered by the uptick in sexist comments since moving to SciAm. There have been a lot of public attacks on women lately and calls to discuss those attacks. I haven’t contributed anything yet, first because the attacks I’ve received have been so mild compared to the death and rape threats experienced by others, and second because writing personally takes so much out of me. Being a leader, even an imperfect one alongside many other fantastic women and men, is exhausting. And every now and then even the bringer of Ladybusiness Justice needs to nap and cuddle while her daughter watches Sesame Street.
I didn’t get that nap yesterday, but I did go to bed early. And seven hours of sleep made it easier to think than five.
Maybe I would feel better if I left, at least at first. But my impact would not be the same. For now, I am not leaving, but instead am using this space to speak up against NPG policies when necessary, an #occupynpg movement, if you will. That means that, in essence, NPG is paying me to criticize them. And I can live with that, because this isn’t going to be the first time I do it. In fact, if you spot racism, sexism, heteronormativity, homophobia, or any other oppressive behavior happening at anything associated with NPG, I would like you to tell me, dear readers, so that I may write about it. If NPG doesn’t like it, they can shut down my blog or they can stop hiring and enabling sexists.
Remember when I mentioned that institutions listen when there are enough people shouting? In grad school when I spoke I reached one person at a time, across the table in a coffee shop, at the door of their home, beside them at the lab bench. Here, I can reach thousands, maybe more, and if you have a blog you can too. Write about why you find Womanspace, or anything else about NPG oppressive, and share it with a link in the comments.* Tell me about existing posts I’ve missed. Tweet about it with the hashtag #occupynpg. And share with me what you think it will take to produce a scientific community that holds itself more accountable around issues of inclusivity and scientific rigor (and yes, this might mean you disagree with my decision, and yes, I want you to be able to express that too).
*Comments that contain links often get held for moderation, so don’t double post; just give me a little time to approve it.
