Academic Twitter is terrible. It’s full of bragging and horror stories, and nothing in between. Either somebody is posting about achieving tenure, publishing a new book/article, or starting a new role, or they’re lamenting how toxic/racist/sexist academia is today. But if social media is good for anything (and that’s a different discussion), it’s good for airing secret grievances. Things that we used to confess to close friends and colleagues can now be shared with the world in Twitter threads. I came across one that asked academic moms how long after having their kids it took for them to feel ‘back in the game’ and perform at work like they did before having kids. The replies were overwhelmingly (oddly comfortingly?) negative, with descriptions of the toll motherhood has taken on their careers.
I’ve been struggling to establish myself in academia since finishing my PhD in 2014. I’ve applied to so many postdocs, lecturer jobs, fellowships, with no luck. Year after year of rejection has been soul-destroying–and then I read a Twitter thread like this, and it seems even more hopeless. I’m not sure how “in the game” I ever was (I was only working part-time, despite wanting and trying to get a full-time role), but now I’m definitely out of the game and I’ve been out of it for two years now. Other people might think I’ve intentionally stepped back to be a full-time mom, but staying home hasn’t been intentional at all–I never stopped applying for jobs, I’m just not getting hired. It’s so shameful.
But then again, I read academic Twitter and question whether I want to keep trying at all. I’m working hard, paying a ridiculous amount of money for part-time daycare, to write academic journal articles I won’t get paid for and which nobody’s going to read (assuming they even get published–I’ve had 2 desk rejections in the past 6 months). All in the hopes of eventually, some day, getting a job that will probably turn out to be toxic, if the complaints on Twitter are anything to go by. What’s the point? There must be a better way…
Humanizing International Relations 