I woke up yesterday happy but terror grew as the day went on. The terror: If I do not show I am curbing my research orientation by cheerfully engaging in extra service, I will be killed. I am in a state of sin by not being oriented toward lower and intermediate level teaching and if I do not spend extra time and effort becoming really good at those things I will be killed.
I am not domestically oriented enough and not oriented enough toward serving men and it is a crime that I should, para colmo, also feel I have the right to do things they do.
These are the things I learned as a child and at the academic jobs I have had, but not in school. I learned them in the United States, so I have difficulty saying the gender repression is worse in the Hispanic world.
I also learned that by reason of gender I am not realistic or mature enough to know which research projects are valuable and feasible. I should just obey above all. My own views could not be professional opinions; they are toddler style petulance by definition.
You should not raise people in fear, guilt, shame, or derision. Really.
♦
I just spent three hours extendiéndome on these and related matters. I could have posted it all but then I would have had to reinvent it later, after the next wave of terror I experience. Instead, I put the text in a Lyx document next to my article, my abstracts, and my book prospectus and it will give me the answers to any doubts I have as I go.
Every piece of anxiety, fear, shame, doubt, difficulty and block I experience melts away when I remind myself it is no sin to be an abstract thinker, to have a scientific mind, or to want to work objectively.
♦
I will allow myself to respect myself the way I imagine men to respect themselves, and I will continue this exercise for three days.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 