Of the posts on why academic life is stressful this is the one I like the best besides Dr. Crazy’s, but I would modify virtually every point.
1. Cranking it down. Having to crank down the level of your work so people do not feel threatened or because the latest news has not arrived yet and it will not be believed coming from you — it has to come from a consultant. Inner conflict since cranking it down also means jeopardizing success. Difficulty of cranking down since it is a form of self-mutilation undertaken for purposes of survival only.
a. The above is not well expressed and I am not sure how to express it. I am not talking about publishing enough or too much or anything like that — it is always good to achieve. I think it may be that I do not have the right woman skills — you have to really play a less intelligent character and yet not have this affect you. (I live in the South, where men are deferential and women, conformist.)
b. Here perhaps is a good example. The difference between dealing with people who will answer an informed question because it is asked, and dealing with people who will first decide whether the asker is of the right class-race-gender to have the right to be capable of formulating such a question. The constant looking up and down, the constant assertion of hierarchy.
c. Ever since I became a professor I have wished for the kind of training in handling oppression minorities get from their parents and other older relatives. It is the sexism and gender discrimination, and here also probable discrimination against field because it ain’t white, and it is my difficulty even recognizing these things, let alone being to name them and have strategies to deal with them, which is what is actually required. I internalize these things without even realizing what they are. “You do not deserve to have the expertise you have, and your having it hurts me.” The reason I am in school is that that used to be the one place I did not hear this; when it also became a place I heard it I did not know what to do and I still do not.
2. Politics. Conflict is inherently stressful but it is not that there is time for it, it is that there is no time. That is why poor decisions are made, or issues are fought out while people are already tired and irritable.
3. Money. I do not make enough or have enough funding to be able to do my job as I should. For example, I lack all conference funding and almost all books published in the last twenty years. We have not had raises in five years and are below the regional average salary anyway, and I can no longer afford to make up the difference out of my own funds.
4. Low ceilings. A large percentage of my time and energy must be spent on activities I undertook in very early graduate school and then moved on from. I am not saying I am “too good” for this, I am only saying it leaves less space for growth than would be desirable. The question here, I see, is how to make these activities really creative. “Saving time” on them does not work.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Thanks! I haven’t experienced the cranking down or the low ceilings. My post has limited validity because it reflects only my own experience and perceptions.
I could have responded by cranking down in my first job, where I was very threatening to a group of faculty we called la falange española at Ohio State. I didn’t because [choose best explanation] (a) I was young and dumb about politics so I took being threatening as a good thing. I was going to show them! (b) I was smart and knew that cranking down would give them an excuse to say I hadn’t published enough.
At a place like OSU you can do that and survive, it is a research oriented place with lots of research oriented people campus wide, so it is much safer and much more predictable.
In other places, every article you publish is seen as having taken time from what you could have done for students, their parents, the men in the department, and so on. They will tell you that in writing, tie it to your performance evaluation and use it as a paper trail at tenure / promotion time.
Also, OSU is a nationally visible place and it is subject to state law.
This is the reason I have PTSD. A huge part of Reeducation is a couple of the jobs I have had, the people in them, the power they had, and the things they did. Not things I feared they might do — things they actually did and that were quite surprising.
OK here is what it is: I was innocent and believed that (b) was the smart attitude! Only to find out that it did not apply! I am not over this, apparently, because it was such a profound shock. I need to remember that at present it is no longer the foolhardy attitude and that even when it was foolhardy for the immediate and medium term it was not really for the longer.
On 1a, are there women you can think of who manage both to achieve and to play the right humble role? Maybe this applies to 1c, as well. Observe, collect information, see how it’s done. It seems like you work out the theory very well, but putting it into practice is harder. Is this because practice is impossible, or only because it is hard for you? (I don’t mean this to be critical—not saying it should be easy—it seems quite unnatural to me. Only that if there are people who do this, if it is not inherently impossible, then there must be some tricks to it.)
Well, I have been working on these things for something like 20 years, if not more. This post is sort of general, doesn’t correspond to current situation but is more retrospective, what I have found to be stressful impediments over time.
To answer these questions, I’d say there is no way to do the woman thing and even if it works for you in some limited you remain a second class citizen, just self-mutilated and rewarded for that. I do scandalize the Yankees with makeup and nail polish and by remaining a lot more impassive than they say they would, and it is a good strategy. But I am not going to turn into my colleague Ms. Mentor (of the CHE column) because I am not willing to pay the price (and there is one). The key is to recognize subtle gender discrimination and not internalize, and this is a lifelong project.
The race thing is more interesting for this because the standard strategy is not to become a “good Negro” and get rewarded for that, which is basically what the women do. It’s to recognize all the signs of discrimination, not internalize, and have your own networks and goals and stick to them. They train for this from birth and that still doesn’t mean they are unaffected. And still, not as many people make it.
It’s: remember your real goals and remember who you are. This is why Reeducation was bad, because that was what it took away. It is also why one must stick very close to one’s real passions. My reason for law school was that: if I am to live here I want to be openly fighting these things, not to have to be constantly working around them. Stick close to writing group and the fun parts of work and to contacts outside is the most important part of my strategy, and the other important part of it all is that this university really is changing — we have all these terrible things happening yet on the other hand, the old guard really is falling away and things are getting easier for this reason.
Or to say the same thing more briefly: I had a first job experience somewhat like Jonathan’s, above. In a different type of school, but still, essentially the same experience. At the time I reacted in the same way, which was the correct reaction for one’s integrity and career long term, but I did not get away with it as he did because of type of institution and I am sure also gender. So I have less confidence in the validity of that reaction than he does, but it still is the right reaction. I tend to forget that I really do have the liberty to have this reaction with impunity now and not only impunity — it will also be appreciated.