Pre-Orders for Sexism Ed! (Holy cow!)

So, I’m late on this (because deadlines and life), but Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia is now available for pre-order. As you might already know, this is my newest book, and it will be published on April 2. (Eek! That’s less than two weeks from now.)

Here’s the blurb:

Why aren’t more women at the top of the ivory tower?

The academy claims to be a meritocracy, in which the best and brightest graduate students gain employment as professors. Kelly J. Baker, a Ph.D. in Religion, assumed that merit mattered more than gender. After all, women appeared to be succeeding in higher ed, graduating at higher rates than men. And yet, the higher up she looked in the academic hierarchy, the fewer women there were. After leaving academia, she began to write about gender, labor, and higher ed to figure out whether academia had a gender problem. Eventually, Baker realized how wrong she’d been about how academia worked. This book is her effort to document how very common sexism—paired with labor exploitation—is in higher ed. (more…)

No Silver Lining

It happened again a few weeks ago.

Someone, who hadn’t read Grace Period, asked me about my transition out of the academy. I gave the short version because the book is the long version. They considered me thoughtfully for a moment and broke into a big smile. (I knew what was going to happen next, but I’m never quite prepared for it.) They said, “Well, everything turned out fine!” Followed by a reflection on doors and windows or rivers and streams or silver linings or some other analogy that I’m equally tired of. When I tried to suggest that the happy ending was not necessarily happy or even an ending really, I got nowhere. Everything was already declared to be fine, so I must be so. It didn’t matter what I said, as long as I was sitting there, lacking obvious distress.

When this happens, I want to give them a copy of Grace Period, on the house. I want to show them everything was not fine. Everything was nowhere close to fine. Just because they declared that “my life turned out fine,” based on a few minutes of interaction, is not enough to make that true. Just because they seem to think they see a “silver lining” doesn’t mean there is one. I trained for years and years for a job I never got. Sure, I have a different job now. (It’s a job that I like and consider important work.) Sure, I can occasionally smile for a head shot and appear happy. Sure, I can seem OK.

I can seem OK because I transitioned from one type of life to another, but my survival wasn’t ever guaranteed.

It was a struggle. I was a disaster as I tried to figure out what should come after academia. I flailed. I floundered. I wanted to settle from something easier than remaking who I was. I wanted to pretend that I could cleave away the life I had and start from fresh. I wanted to ignore all the effort I put in for nothing to turn out as I imagined. I wanted to give up. And yet, I somehow didn’t. Five years after I left academia, I have a different life, a better one even. But, I had no idea that was even possible when I decided to take a year off academia. I had no idea that anything would turn out remotely close to OK. (Fine appeared out of the realm of possibility.)

It’s so weird to me that strangers, acquaintances, friends, and even some relatives think that my new career is the end to my story. It’s even weirder that what they imagine to be an ending should somehow wipe away all the pain and suffering I endured to get where I am now.

I wrote Grace Period, essay by essay, to document the struggles, raw emotions, and heartbreak that I experienced, not as an attempt to minimize them. Transitions are hard, and I hoped to detail what hard looked like for me. After my partner read an early draft, he noted that Grace Period felt a bit like a roller coaster because of the ups and downs. Things appear to work out, and then, they don’t. Over and over and over again.

So, I get angry when people assume that “everything is fine now” because I have a job, I seem cheerful and friendly, or I manage to smile in some author photos online.

(more…)

Grace Period is now a paperback!

As most you likely know, Raven Books, an imprint of Blue Crow Publishing specializing in non-fiction, decided to publish Grace Period: A Memoir in Pieces as a PAPERBACK. If the shouty caps weren’t enough to clue you in, I am so, so, so excited that my memoir is now a physical book that you can read or hug or use as a coaster for your coffee mug. I’m equally glad that all of you who don’t read on Kindles or iPads will get a chance to read it. I can attest that Blue Crow did a fabulous job with the cover and book design. I pretty much happy-cried my way through checking page proofs because everything was so beautiful.

So, I’ll hope y’all will do me a favor: If you get a copy, please tweet me a photo, so I can see the book out in the wild. I promise that I will be sharing photos of my two adorable children with their copies as soon as my author copies arrive. (Hurry, please, postperson!)

Additionally, Blue Crow is giving away TWO copies of the uncorrected proofs of Grace Period. The details of the contest are here. Please note that the the winner will be randomly selected on Wednesday, October 4th.

And finally, I’m hosting an Amazon giveaway right now to celebrate my book’s paperback publication. I’m giving away 10 eBooks of Joan Didion’s After Henry: Essays because I adore Joan Didion and I love excellent essays.  The giveaway ends October 10 at midnight PDT, so check it out!

Graham Cassidy

Here’s the letter I sent to Senate Finance Committee opposing the Graham Cassidy repeal. The letters/emails are due tomorrow, Monday September 25th by 1:00 pm EDT. Wall-of-us provides both the email ([email protected] ) and a script for your letter.

Please consider sending one.

Greetings,

I’m writing today because my family relies on ACA for quality, affordable healthcare. Because of this, I oppose the Graham Cassidy repeal.

Currently, I work as a freelance editor/writer, and my husband works for a small start-up company. For the last couple of years, we’ve relied on ACA for insurance for our family, which includes an eight-year-old and a four-year-old.

This week, our four-year-old complained about his leg hurting. We thought he might have bumped it, but he hadn’t fallen. Then, he started limping and refused to climb stairs or climb into my SUV. When I attempted to carry him on my hip to give him a break, he yelped and started to sob. I called the pediatrician for an appointment, once I realized that a limp is always something their office recommends having checked out.

I handed over my insurance card when I took him to pediatrician. He sat in my lap while we waited, which is unusual because he’s usually too busy to sit still. The PA looked over his leg, but called in the pediatrician for an evaluation. The doctor explained that he needed x-rays to determine if something was wrong with his hip or if it was toxic synovitis, inflammation of the hip joint that can sometimes occur after another virus. (more…)

Not Nice

“I was just trying to be nice.”

“I just wanted to be nice.”

“Not nice,” I say to the toddler after he bludgeons his sister with a random toy, “NOT NICE.”

I find myself thinking about “nice” a lot lately, often before recounting a story of something gone terribly awry. Exasperation lingers in my tone. Frustration coats my words. I was just trying to be nice, but things go sideways. They tend to when I start with nice.

I’m not sure why this happens. Maybe, my attempts at niceness appear as sign of a polite weakness. Maybe, nice renders me a pushover, a people-pleaser, who will go out of her way to remain pleasant. Initial friendliness suggests the desire to be agreeable at all costs, even when other people become increasingly unpleasant. Being nice shows that I can be dismissed without much effort or time. Being nice makes me easy to overlook, ignore, and disparage. (more…)