Don’t Quit Before You Get There

“Hi Anna! I love your content. I have a complicated question/request for content or your hot take. I am a scientist in academia (working on my PhD) and being a female in academia is often not a friendly place not only from men, but actually from women. And the pushback from women in power is actually what I find to be some of the most disturbing because it often involves WOMEN not believing women when they are harassed, abused, threatened, or even worse, that they should put up with feeling unsafe at work because “that’s the way things are.” Do you have advice for dealing with these perspectives professionally and also emotionally?”

My Dearest Bad Biddie,

I was thirty-two years old when I first learned what the term “pick me girl” meant (it means, to my understanding, a girl who sides with boys over girls in order to gain acceptance from the latter). When I was young enough to be cool, we called it “being a guy’s girl,” but whatever you want to call it, it all means the same thing: internalized sexism. There’s a subsect of women who believe that siding with the men in power, however abusive they may be, is the way forward, because, for many decades or even centuries, it was the only way forward. While Stockholm Syndrome is colloquially used to define when an abductee develops fond feelings towards his/her abductor, I think it’s a useful concept to illustrate what I’m trying to describe here.

The women you speak of have likely faced an enormous amount of sexism and overall bad behavior from their male counterparts. Many of them also owe their success to these same men, who gave them the opportunities they needed in order to become the powerful women of academia they are today. These women have developed either A) some form of Stockholm Syndrome, wherein they think they are indebted to the men around them because they needed them to survive or B) don’t want to pave the way for the younger generation of women because they had to pay their dues so why should anyone else have it easier?

These women are not your heroes. You will have to pay your dues as a young woman in academia. You have and will likely continue to face gender inequality in your workplace and you will have to summon every ounce of strength that lies within you to continue on to climb the ranks amongst your colleagues. But, and I’m going out on a limb here, you love academia, and there was something about this environment that drew you to its’ halls in the first place. Don’t forget that. You put up with the bullshit because one day, you will arrive at a place where you are a woman in academia, in a position of power, and you will be a hero to a younger woman who comes after you, because you chose to make a change when you had the power to do so. Your legacy will not only be what you achieved in your research, but in the countless lives you have yet to transform because you chose to make things better rather than accept the status quo. It will be not be easy; most good things worth fighting for aren’t. But first and foremost, you have to get to a place of power. Don’t quit before you get there.

Love,
Your internet hype woman