Doing Academia Differently: “I Needed Self-Help Less Than I Needed a Fair Society”

Bisaillon, Laura; Cattapan, Alana; Driessen, Annelieke; Duin, Esther van; Spruit, Shannon; Anton, Lorena; Jecker, Nancy S.

doi:10.15767/feministstudies.46.1.0130

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…I owed it to myself and my family to enjoy life and all the other amazing things it has to offer. In line with Bisaillon et al's (2020) paper on women's experiences in academia, the stress of taking on contract jobs can have harmful effects on a person (e.g., burn out, acute illness).…”

Section: Timelinementioning

confidence: 69%

“…Themes of this paper connect to Bisaillon et al's (2020) collective offering of seven women's experience with responsible, meaningful work and caregiving, identifying lack of fairness to women, tensions between tending to the profession and those dependent on us for care. My story and those of many others (e.g., Comer & Stites-Doe, 2006;Pitt et al, 2015;Willey, 2020;Williams, 2015) are proof of the disproportionate realities of women in academia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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The Intersection of Motherhood and Academia During a Pandemic: A Storytelling Approach to Narrative Oral History

Porta¹,

Ingrao²

2022

INYI

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This paper takes a storytelling approach to narrative oral history using reflexivity as analysis, making meaning through social engagement between co-authors, friends, family, and colleagues. The story presents the first author's lived experience as a mother and academic, both journeys at their peak as the pandemic loomed closer to and arrived in Canada. These journeys and their intersection are presented in chronological order, detailing the stressors and struggles of mothering in academia during a pandemic. The second author played an integral role in telling this story, by drawing out the narrative through an open-ended interview. Reflexive thoughts, authentic accounts, and interview quotes are embedded throughout conveying lived experience, feelings, and concerns. The paper magnifies structural gender inequality in academia by sharing struggles, such as loss of opportunity for scholarly contributions, pregnancy secrecy and career advancement anxieties, the reality of maternity “leave” in academia, and accounts of personal support and lack of professional support. We hope this piece gives mothers in academia comfort in knowing they are not alone in work-life challenges, encourages women in similar positions to share their stories, opens the academic world to these lived realities, and inspires equity-informed change for the good of mothers and academia.

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Section: Timelinementioning

confidence: 69%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Intersection of Motherhood and Academia During a Pandemic: A Storytelling Approach to Narrative Oral History

Porta¹,

Ingrao²

2022

INYI

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“…Committee work during COVID, particularly those committees that were mandated or "volun-told", was characterized as a particular nexus of frustration. Bisaillon et al (2020) reinforced that "women's extensive engagement in academic service work comes to displace activities that are more readily visible and tangibly auditable," (p. 146) and furthermore, during COVID, our participants felt the strain of feeling like they were only involved to fill a seat. Melanie pointed to a difference "between being on a committee and actually doing work for that committee right?…”

Section: Meaningful Workmentioning

confidence: 75%

“Relationships of Care”: Care and Meaning in Canadian Academic Librarian Work during COVID-19

Paterson

Eva

2022

Partnership

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In March and April 2021, we conducted semi-structured interviews with academic librarians from across Canada about their experiences working through COVID-19 thus far. Topics included workload, collegiality, and overall satisfaction with their working conditions during a pandemic. Themes emerged around job scurity, meaningful work, workload shifts, working from home, relationships with colleagues and administrators, and hopes for the future. While individual experiences varied greatly, the biggest uniting factor was the care and deliberation that characterized both our participants’ framing of work that was meaningful to them as well as their ideal relationships with colleagues and administrators. This research connects to previous literature on vocational awe and emotional labour in libraries. For librarians, this study connects isolated individual situations with the overall picture of what our work looked and felt like during the COVID-19 pandemic. For library administrators, we have identified some general trends, which can provide insight in the areas of communication, flexibility, and institutional support as we work toward a post-pandemic new normal.

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Doing Academia Differently: “I Needed Self-Help Less Than I Needed a Fair Society”

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

The Intersection of Motherhood and Academia During a Pandemic: A Storytelling Approach to Narrative Oral History

The Intersection of Motherhood and Academia During a Pandemic: A Storytelling Approach to Narrative Oral History

“Relationships of Care”: Care and Meaning in Canadian Academic Librarian Work during COVID-19

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