coldhearted scientist وداد

This is another of my not exactly true, composite stories, which meld various stories to make a point.

My size is 8. I can be size 6, 4, 2, but it takes work and at some point long ago I realized it would be far more practical to simply remain at 8.

There is someone my height who used to vacillate between 8 and 10. I knew this because I knew her, and I had stopped noticing which size she was at any particular moment.

We then interviewed her at the MLA, and she was size 8, but by the time she got to campus, she was size 10. My senior colleagues were already worried because she was married — would her husband “let” her come? They had not noticed the weight change, nor had I, but my colleague the feminist scholar (this being one of the reasons I mistrust official academic feminists) noticed and told our senior colleagues she might be pregnant.

They wrote the dean on this in an effort to block the job offer and the dean sent the memo to the chair (who had not seen it previously) with a post-it on it saying: “Please control your faculty.”

She took another job, and no – she was not pregnant, and yes, her husband “let” her take it. Years later we hired a truly slim colleague who in fact was visibly pregnant the second semester she was here.

When I saw this at the January meeting I felt my mother’s voice rise in me: What are you doing? Do you not realize what you are risking? Abortion is legal now! This is not required and you are throwing your career away and therefore, your life!

It took me an entire minute to realize: this is what we have been working for.

Axé.