What to do with an academic? And who are we anyway?

In September I left academics for the second time to put my family before my career. The first time I took the year off before my Master's to support my partner while he did a year-long education degree in Fredericton. The second time, which began this September, I am home taking take of our newborn before beginning my PhD in English Literature. Both leaves have given me time to pause and reflect upon this thing I, and so many of my friends, do and aspire to do for the rest of our working lives. Now, I could rant about how I love it, how I look forward to hours of coffee-drenched hours in the library, how I love the scent, the touch, of the books to which I -- like Hermione -- so "desperately cleave," but how even more I love the words. I love to roll another writer's sentences in my mouth, and best of all, to discuss books with some of the most brilliant people I have had the privilege to meet.  I could spend this post talking about how rewarding it is to help younger students write better, read better, and how fantastic it is to spend my days writing and considering text. But instead, I want to write about perception, and how other people perceive what academics do, their expectations of us, and our expectations of ourselves.

Often I meet with the stereotype of the absent minded academic, the academic that cannot keep track of their every day finances, or remember to wear their shirt on right-side-in. And I do not want to rebut this. (However, I can tell you I know more than a few academics who are both incredibly fashionable and put together, and very capable of being organized). I am horribly disorganized. I am so scattered that I walk into things because I am more present in the thought I am thinking than the place I am going. I walk into rooms and forget why I am there. I get out of the shower and realize an hour later that I did not wash my hair.  

I often get asked how I can be so apparently smart, and yet be so incredibly ditsy. The other day, I got asked by a friend of mine "what is it that you are good at, actually?" in response to being informed that I had received a prestigious fellowship. I don't mind saying that her question gave me pause. Yes, what is it that I am good at? I read books...I like books...but is that all I do? Read books and think? But I am not smart enough to understand the basics of money management, and the most basic math gives me the sweats. But I think. 

Recently what keeps bothering me is this notion that we don't DO anything, us academics. We point out the problems of our society but so often do not have any solutions. Even some of my friends who are academics have an existential dilemma about what it is they do, as if they didn't live in the real world, as if they sit in their ivory tower and never get their hands dirty. This "real world," I wonder...where is it? As if the University is not in the world, it is somehow outside. Or, even worse, it presupposes that us academics never leave the university and carry on lives in the world. While it is true that there have been days I, and many of my fellow grad students, have not left campus, I assure you we do go home and have lives -- partners, arguments, our fair share of existing of ramen noodles, families that require our attention and so on. And so, with this in mind, what do we have to offer the world in which we exist?
Thought. Perhaps, as the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek posits, what we really need is more philosophy, more thinking, and less impulsive action based on emotion. We see that change needs to occur -- and I don't dispute that it does -- but the most meaningful action will occur after sufficient thought and rational discourse. The time for action needs to be put on hold, and there needs to be more emphasis on engaging in thought. Boredom, reflection, consideration, quiet, these things have gone missing in our society. Young academics are desperately trolling for jobs, frustrated and bitter and angry, posting in forums about what to do to make yourself more hireable. While I don't discredit the necessity to find gainful employment, this ramped marketing of oneself in place of doing what it is we do as academics and intellectuals makes me sad.
I do not need a university in which to think. It is, instead, a place where other people who do what I do hang out. It is where thoughts are born and breed and grow bigger. The arguments I have had over carbs and beer with people in my department, or people outside my department for that matter, have made me not only a better scholar, but a better person. Maybe I am a romantic, and you can call me naive  (the you out there in the Internet void) but knowledge is a privilege, and as scholars we can and should nurture it and share it. We can ask the hard questions, and we shouldn't feel guilty about not having the answers. Once the right questions are asked, the right answers come more easily. So, I think, thinking needs to be the new marching...at least for now. And us academics should take pride in our ability to think -- HARD -- about things that are important to our world in which we DO live.
Perhaps it is our thinking that keeps us questioning ourselves, what we do, and why it is relevant. But there can hardly be any doubt that keeping ourselves mentally sharp by asking the questions we want to ask about the things we want to ask them about (even if it is about the significance of buttons in Jane Austen), is vital to maintaining an advanced level of social and cultural discourse about a great many things. So, dear academics, intellectuals, scholars, grad students, aspiring grad students, we are important; our research is important; our teaching is perhaps the most important of all. And, hey, you're beautiful. 

Now It's Time.

For the last months, during the abortion debate on PEI, I have kept my mouth shut and my fingers calm. I have tried to consider how to best articulate myself. On my own, I have vented and raged to my partner and my friends. But today, as I listened to Anne Marie Thomlins (a pro-life advocate on PEI) attack Kandace Hagen (a youth leader for the PEI Reproductive Rights Organization) I could no longer keep my thoughts to myself. I have to admit, Thomlins's comparison between Hagan and Hitler particular enraged me. Let me admit the following before I begin: my research area in my graduate study is in eugenics which has its own ties to Hitler and abortion (so I spend a lot of time reading historical accounts of similar debates regarding reproductive rights); I got pregnant with my close friend and lover in the third year of my undergraduate study and I made the decision not to abort and to raise my son regardless of the father's involvement (luckily he has been the most supportive partner I could have asked for - many women are not so lucky...even in committed relationships); and, I am currently pregnant with our second child. Also, I should say, I did my undergraduate degree in PEI, and am now a graduate student in Winnipeg.
In our society the pregnant body is abject. Mothers are treated like they should be all powerful, all accomplishing, busy bodies. They should work and maintain perfect homes. Mothers should not ask for help. They should understood motherhood from the moment of conception. They should know how to breast feed without support or assistance. And, above all, they should have an intense attachment to their own bodies ONLY at specified moments (specified by whom, I am still not sure) pregnancy and childbirth/re childrearing. However, their births should happen quickly and efficiently and in a hospital. Their bodies are seen as unreliable in birth, and should be aided with induction drugs, epidurals, demerol, episiotomies and c-sections (as someone who faced most of these in my first birth I have decided to have a natural birth out-of-hospital this time around). These expectations are incredibly unfair and unrealistic. I am not suggesting that these expectations are true for all mothers but, if I can draw on my own personal experience, they were true for me. As a twenty-one year old first-time mother I can assure you, I was not prepared. I suffered from depression during my pregnancy due to feelings of intense isolation, alienation, abjection and powerlessness. After the birth of my son, I suffered from post-partum depression for many of the same reasons. Motherhood is made more difficult because mothers are not given the tools they need, or the community being a mother requires. Women are not given enough access to knowledge about their own bodies or experiences, and it seems that motherhood and pregnancy (the two places where the most support should be given) are the sites which spur the most anxiety and fear.
Women have been educated on their bodies for centuries (until the growing power of the medical establishment in the 1800s), and were well aware of how to abort their own babies with the use of teas/herbs etc. They knew at what time an abortion was possible. They also knew to trust their bodies. If the pregnancy did not occur at a viable time, or in a situation which would not be ideal for the raising of a child, they knew how to terminate the pregnancy. Now, this kind of knowledge is foreclosed to women and they must go to a doctor and request an abortion. It does not matter why. Women have a right to their own bodies and should be able to decide when, and under what circumstances, they wish to have a baby.
To answer Thomlins's concern about regret: I am sure that most women who have abortions regret it at one point or another. I am sure that they wonder "what if." But, to take a woman's agency away and say that her knowledge of her own regret is repressed is ridiculous. Why do we take women's power away as a justification for a position? This has been happening for hundreds of years and it needs to stop. Women are not scapegoats and we are not the gate keepers of morality. We are allowed to make mistakes, and to be given the tools to fix them. And we are not stupid and ignorant about our own feelings and bodies. Stop making us feel that way!
I recently read a story of a woman who had an abortion and was later consumed with guilt after the birth of her first child. Later, her daughter told her, "Mom, the baby you aborted was me. It just wasn't the right time for me. I understand. I came when you were ready for me. I'm not angry with you." Following the logic of this little girl, we need to change how we perceive abortion. It is not the killing of a "child." It is the aborting of a fetus. If a woman is to miscarry what would we say to make her feel better? That it is the will of God? It just wasn't the right time? Why can't a woman take the will into her own hands? She should be able to say "It was my will"; "it just wasn't the right time". She should be given emotional and monetary support to make decisions about her own body.
As someone who faced the choice to abort or not, I am aware that it was my choice. I have my reasons for choosing not to abort my fetus, and those reasons are mine and mine alone. No one else has the right to know those reasons. If I had chosen to abort, I would hope that my family and friends would have supported me and I would expect that they would know that my reasons were none of their business. Perhaps it is naive of me to think that no one would have judged, scorned or have shunned me. I know that women face tremendous backlash about their abortions and I have to wonder if that may have a larger effect on their ability to rid themselves of feelings of guilt. Women need to support each other, and have the support of others, without the fear of guilt or derision.
Our choices are our own, and we are smart enough to make them. Now, give us the right tools to make those decisions so that no one else has to pay with their bodies or their lives.

A great loss

I am so thankful for my life. I am so thankful for the people who have moved through my life and made me the person I am. One of those people was Matt Sloan, who was found dead in Fredericton yesterday morning. It still upsets me too much to discuss where, and under what circumstances, he was found. Needless to say, it leaves me with a lot of questions. But, the answers to those questions will not change the fact that he is gone. It is a great loss to the world that he will no longer be able to light it up with his handsome smile.
Matt was a rare catch. He could play more instruments than I could try and count right now. He was always so proud of having learned a new one. He always made me laugh, and I think that is the resounding quality that I hear about him. The night I met him I was scrounging around in the fridge at a party, and I turned around to a gorgeous man who simply stated; "hey, I like your frames". I giggled then, and thought he was making fun. I felt that way every time I was around him. I couldn't help but smile.
When I left Fredericton -- where he lived -- he made sure to keep in touch. He would surprise me on skype, would send me messages saying that he thought I was great, or he missed me. Graduate school is not easy, and on the days that I would get frustrated, he never failed to make me feel better. I always felt lucky to have him in my life. Now, I feel very lucky to have met him and spent the time we did together.  
I have returned to Fredericton a few times since I moved away, and most times before I left he was the last person I saw. We would sit on his front porch and drink coffee. I always left Fredericton smiling. I know I will hold those moments for the rest of my life. I don't pretend to know what happens to people once they have stopped breathing, but I know that the memories we have of Sloan will continue to make us proud to have known him. He will never really die because he made such an impression on all of us. Life is so short, and it is mornings like this that I will -- with a heavy heart -- go out and enjoy the sunshine. I will sit on my front porch and drink a beer and wish that he was there with me. But, I will remember all the moments we shared (even the ones when we argued -- by the way buddy, I was right!...but I guess you can have the last word). Goodbye my darling friend, I am sure that somehow we will see each other again. I hope that I turn around to see you say "hey, I like your frames".

CreatureTenderness

This afternoon I made my way to the forks on the hunt for ethically raised beef. I have been a vegetarian on and off over the years. But, admittedly, I have usually put my wallet in front of the desire to know just where my food was coming from. There was always something about the consumption of meat that bothered me, but coming from a family that is very full filled by the preparation of food (especially meat) I have usually let my concerns float to the back of my mind. This week I have been reminded of my hesitations at the butcher. I have been reading Erika Fudge's Animal and, although I do not always agree with her, I find her argument compelling. What I have taken away from her book is this: we need to be more kind. Humans need to be more tender. The paradox that Fudge outlines is that we can be kind to the extreme to our pets, but we are not to the animals that we eat or wear. I would like to push this further. We are kind to the creatures (including humans -- because, after all, we are creatures) that are near to us -- our family, friends, pets -- but we do not always consider the delicate feelings of others. More than that, we often ignore the fact that they are creatures and feelings involved in our decisions. Over the last couple of months my MA research has lead me in a number of different disturbing directions. I have found myself welling up over the terrible experiments that were inflicted upon human beings. But, it only occurred to me today, as I was reading an article on the testing of hormones on rats, that I noticed that I was much more sympathetic to the human beings than the rats. I think this is because we can understand human suffering but we cannot understand rat suffering. Does a rat suffer? No, not in the way we believe it does. The only understanding we have is the one that we exist within. Rats have a distinctly different culture than human beings, and thus we cannot possibly understand their perception. But, that does not mean that we should ignore the cruelty that exists in our behaviour of these animals. The cruelty is the same whether we inflict it on humans or rats.  
There seems to me to be a lot of hardness in the world. Does it matter that we can truly "know" the suffering of another creature in order to stop the cruelty against them? Does it matter what the corporate justifications are for fracking a piece of land that holds historical and cultural significance to a group of people, if the result is the damaging of the land, the water and human health? At the core of our rational minds and hearts there must be the ability to know the difference between right and wrong. I know that I am talking about personal ethics and that some would argue that these ethics are debatable and individual. I do not think it is that difficult. In our hearts we must know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Would you want this to happen to you? If not, you should not let it happen to other people. Can ethics be that simple? I believe they can be. Perhaps that makes me naive, and if so, then I am quite happy to be so.
We need to be better, bottom line. We need to work harder to empathize, to be reasonable, and to stand up for the rights of other creatures. It is not reasonable to destroy the earth. It is not reasonable to intentionally harm another being without provocation. Even with provocation, I find it hard to justify violence.
We will never be perfect, and we will always be stretching toward a better version of ourselves. The key to the betterment of our world is through the mutual tenderness and patience of each of us. We cannot expect perfection, or Utopian idealism, but we can expect betterment. We can expect compassion. We should expect more from our world and those people in it. We need more people like these strong women: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2011/09/blood-nation-women-arrested-during-blockade-fracking

We can only hope that we can all follow in their example.

Being a mom and being "smart".

Ok, being a mom....I've been thinking about my role, and society's perception of this job (and privilege) a lot lately. And, after reading an article about mothers in med school, passed on to me by my best friend (who is in medical school, a mother of one -- preggers with another, and the wife of a soldier, currently at war)(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/opinion/12sibert.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&ref=general&src=me) , I realized it may be time to voice my opinions.
|An argument I hear often is that smarter people have fewer babies and thus the population is getting dumber. Statistically, less educated people have more babies. More educated people have fewer babies because it is more difficult. That is all. People like me (graduate students, med students, lawyers), are discouraged to have children because of the time they will take away from their jobs for maternity leave. Notice, the maternity in that sentence. The pressure is put on the women. As Sibert would suggest, women should not be part time doctors, they should be dedicated to their profession. I have heard a similar argument about lawyers and PhDs. We spend so much time being educated, once we are we should be present all the time. It should become our lives (and men are, therefore, more viable candidates for these professions because they are "deadbeat" parents anyway, and should leave the parenting to the mothers). What a load of bullshit. If you want a smarter population make it easier for educated people to have babies.
Let me tell a little story: Recently my babysitter bailed on me for this September (I am in my second year of graduate school in English Literature), and I rushed to find another. I did, but after needing to double check my course schedule, she gave the spot away. I have called everyone I can think of, and have tried to post ads. I need childcare for two and a half hours for four days a week. Finally, I got so frustrated I sat down and wept like a baby. I felt so helpless. I want to stay home with my child, but I also want to continue with my education. I have gotten through two years of undergraduate and a year of graduate school with a baby, and it has never once been easy or gone the way I expected. People have not been as supportive or caring as I anticipated when I got pregnant (despite their exclamations of promised support). My friends can't understand my concerns because, for the most part, they do not even have committed relationships never mind children. I cannot, and do not, fault them for this. But, often the reaction is "why don't you just quit". You have no idea how many professors, family members and so forth have suggested I "give up". And do what, I ask? You need two incomes nowadays, especially with both parents being young professionals. So, I would trade grad school for a job in retail? Is that more justified? Would I get less slack? Having worked retail for a year my answer is this: I would. People are much more receptive to you taking time away from your children if you are "doing something" -- suggesting that grad school is not "doing something". I have been told, blatantly, by members of my family to "get a job already", as if being in school is some kind of selfish endeavour.
As of this moment I still do not have childcare for the fall, and I can assure you that I question myself on an hourly basis. Should I just give up? After all, I am destined to feel guilty about every conference I go to, every time I stay late at the university for a beer with classmates, every time I read an article while my son is watching Backyardigans and so forth. But, then I remember that I am good at what I do. I will be a better Prof because I have a life -- I have a child, I know what it is like to struggle with money, I know how to balance my life, I understand boundaries, and I can multi task like a machine.
The point is that Mothers are good professionals, even if they may spend less time at work (ie. not be workaholics), or may take time off for maternity leave (do I even have to mention the paternity leave issue?). We need more help, and to be more accepted. Feminism is about being able to be WOMAN and have to be equality as WOMAN, which includes child birth, and parenting if we want to continue as a species. Being a mother is the most valuable job in the world. We create and raise new people. So, let us do that. Support us while doing it. Don't judge us and push us out of academia, med school, and law school. Let us be fully rounded members of the world. We can succeed in and out of our homes, if we are given options that make sense for both the society in which we work, and the families in which we exist. I love being a mother, and I love being a graduate student. One really does make me better at the other.

Money, Marriage, and Managing Expectations. (I could write a self help book...but I won't...because I need more help than I could give myself).

Good morning world. Now, I'm no genius and I have not looked at any statistics, but I am noticing a particular kind of stress around me these last few years and it distresses me. When my friends who have never had a mental illness in their lives know the names of every anti-anxiety medication on the market we can be assured that we are in trouble. This morning my neck feels like a petrified version of its former self, my brain is full of numbers and lists of goals, and an even longer list of things I feel guilty about. I'd have to be an idiot if I did not know that this is not the way I wish I felt every day, and I can see the same sentiment in the faces of my friends and family. Of course, as an avid socialist my first finger points at the consumer driven society in which we live, which tells us to consume more than just things, but also certain partners, relationships and so forth. It is interesting how we allow the media, movies, books and marketing campaigns create for us an entire ideal life. And yet, I do believe the most detrimental thing about this process is allowing these structures to define our relationships and our expectations within those relationships. I think it sets up an ideal lover that does not exist, and an ideal relationship for that lover to exist within -- marriage. I am not suggesting that marriage cannot be a wonderful, mutually beneficial, stimulating thing. But, to be the person that has to be a perfect lover, a perfect friend, a perfect partner, a perfect son/daughter - in - law, perfect financial contributor, perfect community member, and a perfect parent (or to-be parent) is impossible -- my god, blow my head off now. Then, on top of that, to have to be the ideal friend to your friends, the ideal child to your parents, the ideal employee and so forth becomes the incredibly exhausting endeavour. No wonder we're all on valium, zoloft, ativan, prozac, and so on. One would have to dull their minds just to be able to say "mehhhh, I don't give a fuck today. I'm going to read a book/take a bath/take my kid to the beach without the perfect packed lunch, and four extra hats/ bake some cookies with *gasp* white flour."
We need to be kind to each other, and lessen our expectations. These movies, for example, are terribly toxic for romantic relationships. We cannot all be what's his name with the nice teeth and the ripped abs and the easy going demeanor from all those romantic comedies; or what is her name from all those other romantic comedies with the cute smile, the innocence, and the 45 pairs of shoes? They have scripts, and they are representations of the ideal some other person made up in their minds. This is not a new concept, but I know I am prey to these fluttering thoughts in my mind when I watch these things: "why can't ----- be more like that?", or "see, that's the kind of thing that ---- should do for me.". Holy cow. No. Next time you sit down to watch any popular movie, please bring along an elastic band, place it around your wrist, and every time you feel the urge to think "if only....", just snap it. It's a trick I learned from ER, but hey, it might just work in this case!
The point is, we KNOW these are ideals, we KNOW we cannot possibly live up to the expectations set before us by commercials, or cute romantic comedies, but yet we still seem to put these pressures on ourselves and those around us. We do need to live more simply, but it is hard in a system that does not promote that kind of life. Productivity is king in a capitalist society, and people are more productive when they are working toward something they may never achieve (like the horse with the carrot dangling infront of its face). Also, extreme productivity keeps us from really considering our lives, wants and desires. We may realize that we are content with less crap in our houses (because there is less to clean and be responsible for), less hours at work (more time with family), less money (less fear of losing it). So, carry around your elastic band, and every time you get the urge to buy some extravagance on credit, or feel guilty for eating a popsicle, or for taking an hour a day to sit in a quiet place and read a book with your mobile device turned off, your tv in the next room, and your laptop closed, snap it. The next time you want to yell at your partner for not being perfect, or feel guilty for the same thing, snap it. Try to think about WHY you feel that way, really think. I know I am going collect all of the elastic bands in my house and line them up my wrists. People might think I am strange, but hey, it's about happiness and forgetting the names of all the pills that help us "deal" with our lives. Just take a step back and breathe. It will all be ok. 

Election day...hmmm

So, today is election day in Canada. I really have only a few things to say. First, we are so blessed to live in democracy, but that also means allowing other people to think differently from you. So, before the political slandering begins, let us make good arguments instead of bashing each other for being "wrong". That said, let's all think with our heads and hearts instead of our wallets. Secondly, Osama was murdered yesterday. Yes, murdered. And like in any good western, everyone cheers when the "bad guy" is killed. But, I ask you, is murder ok in any circumstance? Did he not deserve a trial?
I am torn today, and my head is full of questions. With privilage comes responsibility, but is that responsibility to kill another human being? It's revenge, not justice as a lovely friend of mine pointed out this morning. Revenge is never thoughtful, never fully considered. I am concerned about our world, as ever. I am just happy that today I was given the privilage to vote.