1.
I got back onto Twitter about 1.5 years ago after Facebook algorithm made it impossible for me to interact with anyone. (No matter what I do, every time I refresh, FB gives me an entirely different timeline.) I’ve always been a bit nervous about using Twitter professionally. The way how comments are not strictly “comments” makes interaction odd. But I figured I’d give it a try.
A few people from my academic circle use Twitter, so I started following them, the people they retweeted, random people that showed up on my timeline, etc. I didn’t tweet much (I still don’t) and I was terrified of saying something wrong — not wrong in the factual incorrect sense or even in the coming off as rude sense, but wrong in the not fitting to my social role sense. Because, you know, that’s what professionalism is.
I came across an article in the New York Times — or was it Inside Higher Ed? — about something related to accessibility. I don’t even remember now. The article was paywalled, so I tweeted that this was ironic. I wasn’t especially committed to reading it and, I suspected that my school probably had an institutional subscription if I bothered to look. But then someone responded “odd, I can see it just fine, maybe it’s because you are off-campus.” “Maybe,” I responded, not knowing what else to say.
He then private messaged me a link and said “try this link”. So of course, I thanked him like any good woman would. For a long time this interaction was filed under “good professional interaction on Twitter” in my brain.
The link he sent me was, in fact, a link to the library “connect from home” page from my university. I had used it hundreds of times since I moved off campus.
I continued to follow this man on Twitter for some time, and this exchange continued to be the only exchange in my Twitter inbox. Whenever I came across it, I would feel something weird. It’s that strange feeling of confusion that, I’m sure, many women are familiar with.
It took me 1.5 years to finally unfollow him.
2.
For an academic, I’m pretty good about emails. The ones that are hardest for me are emails where I ask someone for something, especially if that someone was not even an acquittance.
One problem is that I often don’t know what exactly the other person has to offer — just that they might have something, and that it’s okay if they don’t. The “it’s okay if you don’t have things to offer” is the hardest sentiment to convey.
I was encouraged by a mentor to apply for a grant, which I’ve never done before. So, naturally, I put on my researcher hat and spend a day chasing down the first couple pages of Google. I read the grant agency’s website thoroughly, and asked around. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to know anyone who’s applied to this exact thing before and many of the things I found online were inconsistent in format not only amongst themselves but also with the agency’s official guideline. A mentor then suggested that I reach out to our school’s grant writing center to see what they can do to help.
The thing is, I don’t know what they can do to help — maybe they offer a review service, or a workshop, or maybe they have past successful applications to share. So I emailed someone who seems to be in charge. I explained my situation and asked, quite generically, whether she could help in some way.
She responded in the same day, saying that I could consult with a few examples. She then attached some links which I’ve already visited, and said “incidentally I simply googled [the name of the grant] which led me to these sites”.
Now, if your first instinct is rage, you’re doing it right. My first instinct was apology. I was going to reply along the lines of “sorry I don’t mean online resources, but resources internal to the school”. I was also going to make a mental note for next them when I had to write an email like this, that I include a list of things I’ve already done.
But then I caught myself — see, I do learn. Why did she think her answer was okay? People don’t usually attach “… and I’ve already Googled” at the end of every question, do they? How is communication possible if everyone assumed the way she did with me?
3.
The answer, of course, is that it’s not possible.
My favourite writer Tressie McMillan Cottom recently wrote a brilliant piece about her post-MacArthur Genius life.
A strange thing happens next. People assume that my time is valuable. Just today someone offered to just “email [my] test results” because they know that I am so busy.
I am busy. That is true. I have been busy since 1998. Yet only now do people agree that my time is valuable.
It dawned on me today that this must be what it is like to be a man. People assume I know what I am talking about. Some people look for opportunities to smooth the way for me in routine interactions. My errand time is cut by at least 25%. I save time and energy because…people believe I am worth it.
That pisses me off.
Think of all the time I could have saved.
4.
I’m not an especially shy person — I once was. But no woman of colour can survive the academy while retaining shyness. But still, I often find myself afraid to ask for help.
It’s not that I’m universally afraid to ask for help. Another feature associated with women in philosophy is that we must develop some base level entitlement to stay in the room, and once you can do that, you can do most things.
I’m afraid to ask for help because I see an inevitable “clump of stuff” that must exist before I can get the information I need. And I don’t ask when my estimated probability of the information being there at the end of the tunnel is lower than the bother of the clump.
If you have trouble seeing this picture, just consider a (real or fictional) picture of an old uncle who insists on telling you the history of the village before he can even process your question. All you want to know is whether the post office is to the left or the right of the square. But here goes a history lesson about the town square which you’ve heard 10 times over. And there’s a good chance that, after wading through all this, he doesn’t actually know where the post office is.
That’s what I feel sometimes. Asking for help is not difficult; the difficult part is to convince someone who has turned on “help mode” that I no longer need it.
5.
I have a thing with Gmail undo-send. It’s such a brilliant invention which, apparently, many people don’t know about. So, whenever a friend complains something about forgetting an attachment or noticing a typo just after hitting send, I tell them about undo-send.
I know they weren’t looking for “solutions”, and it’s not like undo-send can prevent all cases of email mishaps, and it’s not like people who choose to not use undo-send have thereby lost the right to complain. But I say this nonetheless because I thought it might be useful. In fact, it has proven useful a few times.
All this is to say: I get that people have different knowledge bases, and you don’t know what other people don’t know. If information is transmitted at all, it’s inevitable that some such transmissions are unnecessary.
Gauging what other people know or don’t know, are or aren’t asking, is difficult work. It’s also work that people disproportionally do for some people but not others.
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