"I got told what to call this poem by my male colleague"
March 14, 2019 1:27 PM   Subscribe

Thank you for the first-year PhD student | Who gave me advice on how to prepare for my viva | Within the first three minutes of our conversation | (Yes, I timed you)
posted by DarlingBri (21 comments total) 131 users marked this as a favorite
 
Beautiful, beautiful murder.
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:40 PM on March 14, 2019 [12 favorites]


I love any poem that is just a well-done list of sick burns. Ha!
posted by emjaybee at 1:41 PM on March 14, 2019 [10 favorites]


The previous entry on that blog, Resilience or Fuck You Neoliberalism also really resonated with me. Not because of the situation precisely, because she is obviously stuck in the particular employment hell that is academia and I am not, but just because of the overall sense that employers create stressful situations and then try to abdicate responsibility for the stresses they create by giving us training on how to better handle stress.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:42 PM on March 14, 2019 [26 favorites]


Okay, that was seriously great - and will you forgive me if I also applaud the next link in her blog archive, Resilience or Fuck You Neoliberalism – a strike poem, which seems like it would make a great contribution to the recent thread on Self-Care Won't Save Us?

(On preview - seconding jacquilynne!)

Thank you for posting about this, DarlingBri - I've added Grace Krause to my regular reading list.
posted by kristi at 1:43 PM on March 14, 2019 [12 favorites]


Oh my God, yes. My wife was two years into her PhD a couple of summers ago when a drunk guy at a dinner party, one with no particular knowledge of or experience with the subject aside from having listened to her explain the broad outlines of her thesis for a minute or two, proceeded to loudly and confidently explain how she should be going about her research and what she should be writing about.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:20 PM on March 14, 2019 [4 favorites]


oh my...
posted by supermedusa at 2:33 PM on March 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


Wow, that is a really beautifully crafted poem. What a great find.
posted by plonkee at 2:49 PM on March 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


If you liked this poem, you may also like/empathize with this Twitter thread yesterday

What's the most on brand thing a man has ever explained to you?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 3:06 PM on March 14, 2019 [10 favorites]


Absolutely incredible poem. Thank you for posting.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 3:06 PM on March 14, 2019


My kind of poet. If I'd ever bothered to do a doctorate it sounds like something I would have written.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:15 PM on March 14, 2019


If you liked this poem, you may also like/empathize with this Twitter thread yesterday

in a similar vein, this
posted by juv3nal at 4:28 PM on March 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


But I am sure you are doing good work elsewhere
With your undivided left.


This part was my favorite.
posted by davejay at 5:21 PM on March 14, 2019 [17 favorites]


My favorite is the time a colleague in my own lab suggested to me that I should consider looking into the topic of my thesis and the actual title of my first slide in a presentation I had given the department two months previously. We had worked together for... five years. at that point. He had listened to me present my work at least once per semester by that point. And yet... he was confused when his helpful suggestion was not immediately well received.
posted by sciatrix at 5:57 PM on March 14, 2019 [39 favorites]


My dissertation topic was about postmortem prenatal ventilation, and the ethics therein. No male advisors at my university thought it was important enough, either in scope or bioethics to be approved. Because they are never going to be treated as gestational machines who bring nothing but nutrients to pregnancy.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:03 PM on March 14, 2019 [18 favorites]


I will walk away mid-sentence

:raisedfist:
posted by Etrigan at 7:01 PM on March 14, 2019 [5 favorites]


At about the point she mentioned identity politics, my eye fell on the scroll bar and I thought, I'm not even a quarter in, just how long is this poem? I was a little relieved to find that most of the page was comments. (Only a little, because: comments.) It seemed completely plausible that she had enough material to fill the entire page.
posted by mersen at 7:06 PM on March 14, 2019 [6 favorites]


Brilliant!
posted by medusa at 10:25 PM on March 14, 2019


Brilliant.

I am sorry
That I will not try harder
To win your respect
I will not seek you out
I will walk away mid-sentence
I will mute you on twitter
And let you shout into the void
Because I care nothing for your approval.
I am done leaning in.

Because there are more than enough
People who will build a community with me,
Which is not built on dominance.
And I am sorry
That you will not have a place in that community
Until you learn that one half of the population
Does not just exist
To listen to you
Explaining their research to them.

posted by I_Love_Bananas at 2:07 AM on March 15, 2019 [12 favorites]


This is very good. In addition to bits already mentioned, I love the subtle burn-by-omission on Zizek at the end: "And an apology (also real) to David Graeber, Noam Chomsky and Paul Krugman, whose work I greatly respect."
posted by Pink Frost at 3:08 AM on March 15, 2019 [23 favorites]


Did the male colleague suggest that she call it "Mansplaining"? Because that would be a good title! Here's a link to the Wikipedia article explaining what it is.

And have you heard of Rebecca Solnit? I read an article about her once and I think she says a lot of the same things.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:50 AM on March 16, 2019 [7 favorites]


Grace came across this thread and liked it. :)
posted by ClarissaWAM at 9:16 PM on March 24, 2019 [5 favorites]


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