I will celebrate others, particularly other women….but I am terrible at celebrating my own successes.
I assume that my successes are flukes, or that whatever I was working on or towards was obviously easy enough for any incompetent fool to have achieved. I will brush off successes, feel uncomfortable when others congratulate me on pretty much anything, and always know I could have done better at anything I do….if only I’d tried harder.
Until my values and sense of social justice are violated.
Then, and only then, will I find a little bit of pride.
Here’s the rub. I will find the amazing in anyone…and I will highlight their amazing, because they are amazing.
And I will tear myself to pieces because I don’t think I am amazing.
But when someone tells me that I am less than I am, belittles me using gender biased language, or says or does something that trivializes the work that I have done in my life or the degrees that I have attained, it does tend to trigger my rage button. (“How dare you de-value me in that way! Not OK!”)
And if someone else is the target, male or female, you better believe I will stand up for them.
Christopher Hitchens said “Never be a bystander to unfairness or stupidity” …to do so is to be complicit and supportive of injustice. If you do nothing, you are equally guilty of whatever is being committed.
I try to remind myself that three science degrees and 25+ years teaching science have some value, even if others seem to think it doesn’t and find ever new and inventive ways of trivializing me or slapping me in the face (figuratively) through their actions, choices, and decisions.
Even though I have my Doctorate, I do not typically use my title outside of teaching, and even there I frequently don’t adhere to the formality.
I started adding the PhD behind my name in my work signature block, but I still don’t add the Dr. before my name. It feels pretentious, arrogant, uncomfortable (and it confuses some people because they assume I am a veterinarian given my fish health expertise).
But why should it feel uncomfortable?
I earned the damned letters….but it does feel like society penalizes a woman who uses them outside of academia?
I bought this mug a year ago because I was so angry at someone who spent most of his efforts with me in using belittling, gender biased, language. I saw it online and thought “Yes, I need that...”. Too many women have degrees and don’t celebrate their achievement. Society still seems to present the “proper” woman as one who is compliant, one who fades into the background.
I am none of these things, and so I suffer the subtle consequences.
So, to all the women I know, you are all amazing….every last one of you….and I have learned something from each and every one of you.
Happy International Women’s Day…..may we continue to fight gender bias and may the future continue to improve so that those of us who have struggled to find a successful path through male dominated fields, and suffered the consequences of doing so…will have hopefully helped those who come after us to find an easier way through.
And I will continue to drink tea from my mug and remind myself that I did, in fact, accomplish something that I should be proud of.
And, on days like today where my sense of who I am feels devalued, I will also go for a rage run to try and get the anger out through physical exertion….because even though I end up tired, sweaty, and angry….I guess there is also a physical benefit from it.
