This poem is for all the men
Who have sacrificed their time
To explain my research to me.
In train stations and hallways
At 1am drunk at a party
And over bad coffee after a presentation.
Often knowing no more about my research
Than a title
You have sacrificed your chance to learn
In order to enlighten me to the depth of your knowledge.
Thank you for telling me “it’s all just greed”
When I told you I was researching moral beliefs in finance
Thank you for telling me about the gold standard
And for explaining the plot of The Wolf of Wall Street to me
And that financial crises would not hit people so hard
If they only diversified their portfolios
And thank you for telling me to read Chomsky
And Žižek and Graeber
And all the other Great Men.
And no, I did not know that Paul Krugman had a blog.
Thank you for reminding me to cite your book.
Thank you for the first-year PhD student
Who gave me advice on how to prepare for my viva
Within the first three minutes of our conversation
(Yes, I timed you)
A special thank you to my dissertation advisor
Who, when I told him what I wanted to write about,
Told me about his son’s last holiday abroad
And how his son had told him something interesting
Vaguely related
To my interests
And wouldn’t that be a more interesting topic to write about?
I’m sorry I never went to another meeting with you
And stuck to my topic.
Thank you for giving me a B minus.
I’m sure you weren’t punishing me
Even if the thesis got a straight A from the second marker
And won a distinction when I defended it at a conference.
Thank you to the professor who in the Q/A after my presentation
Informed me that I should not have included
Discussions of the Stanford Prison Experiment
Or the work of Stanley Milgram
In my work on war crimes
I did not know psychology wasn’t a real science
And that it can’t possibly tell us anything
That isn’t completely obvious
To you.
Thank you also to the lecturer from a different university
Who shouted in my ear
In the pub after my presentation
That I had to read the Walking Dead comics
If I really wanted to understand the genre
Because the 12 films in my sample
Were not sufficient
And yes, you were standing very close
But you were a star
And everyone said you were hot
And I was flattered
So I guess it wouldn’t be fair to call you creepy retrospectively.
Thank you also to the professor
Who, at a meeting about what principles should guide universities,
Took care to make it clear that his point,
About a commitment to truth,
Was more important
Than my point
About working conditions.
Because I might have thought that my voice mattered as much as yours
Had you not thought to include the words
“This is the most important thing”
And
“If we don’t have an absolute commitment to truth
(Or was it a commitment to absolute truth?)
All the other details, like working conditions, don’t matter”
I am still not sure what you meant.
But maybe that is just my own financial insecurity
Clouding my judgement and distorting my priorities
And if I were just a white male professor
I could better be objective
And less worried about working conditions
And more committed to absolute truth.
And thank you dear self-described libertarian on twitter
For informing me
That I wouldn’t have such a victim mentality
If I hadn’t decided to do a PhD in unemployment
And yes, extreme virtue-signalling bitter feminazi bitch is a good description of my character
How insightful of you.
Thank you to the young man
Who dropped out of organising a workshop
Based on principles of anti-oppressive pedagogy
Because he disagreed with our decision not to invite a charismatic male speaker
Who he liked
Who would have had so much more appeal
Than me.
Thank you also for the lengthy email explaining
You weren’t interested in taking part in something so niche
That would only appeal to a postmodern crowd
Whereas you were more interested
In getting students excited
About revolution.
Thank you for your feedback.
It was surely helpful in making our event the success it was.
I’m sorry I missed your event with broader appeal
I seemed to have missed the invite for that.
I hope it went well.
Thank you also, of course,
To the numerous men
Who have informed me about the importance of putting class politics in front of identity politics
And that talking about racism or sexism is a distraction
From the real issues
And that wanting to talk about how oppression affects different people differently
Divides the left.
It is a little strange that I never see any of you at the union meetings
Or on the picket line
And I am not sure what class politics are
Beyond shouting at people
But I am sure you are doing good work elsewhere
With your undivided left.
I owe you all a debt of gratitude
And an apology, I suppose.
I am sorry that when we met
All I was good for
Was your assertion of dominance
A canvas for your insecurity
Which is frankly an underutilisation of my skills and my intellect
I am sorry for your stunted growth
For your arrested development
Which made a real engagement between us impossible
And that is more your loss than mine.
And I am sorry
That I will not try harder
To win your respect
I will not seek you out
I will walk away mid-sentence
I will mute you on twitter
And let you shout into the void
Because I care nothing for your approval.
I am done leaning in.
Because there are more than enough
People who will build a community with me,
Which is not built on dominance.
And I am sorry
That you will not have a place in that community
Until you learn that one half of the population
Does not just exist
To listen to you
Explaining their research to them.
By Grace Krause
Follow me on Twitter for more extreme virtue signalling bitter feminazi victim mentality @TheGraceK
With thanks (real ones this time) to Will Mason-Wilkes for naming this poem and to Ellie Johnson for providing me with the most amazing picture of her cat Brenda.
And an apology (also real) to David Graeber, Noam Chomsky and Paul Krugman, whose work I greatly respect.
Brilliant, again. Love your Tweets, blogs and opinions.
Thank you 🙂
You are lovely as always.
For twenty years I was known as “Mike the bus driver” many people spoke to the bus driver as we waited at stops on and off campus, there was no risk in that. It was most often a woman that really spoke to me and in turn listened. They didn’t demand awe or respect but earned it and the reward of believing in magic. Thanks to them I have a life of adventure and a promise never made but always kept.
Thanks for sticking with your own ideas/ideals despite everything. Equality is progressing but oh, so slowly. Mothers arise to teach your sons!
Recently I have been thinking about why & how the attitude you, Grace, describe in your poem occurred. As a mother, now 76, who raised a son to be equal to women,
I have learned that this is where changing the attitudes of men toward women has to come, although he fought me every inch of the way – I was competing with his peers.
A few years ago the Dalai Lama said that Western women would be the ones to change the world. Thank you, Grace, for being part a focal point of that change.
Yes, let’s ask women to do one more thing for men. How about fathers? Other men? Arise to teach young boys and men how to be good, how to be better men. I don’t think asking women to take this on as well is fair or getting things very far.
Thank you – My daughter has just completed a, PhD on gender and its consequent dynamics, and I will forward this politely understated dissection of a familiar mythology of dominance and entitlement to her. ( I trust that you won’t object to this ? )
<3
This epic poem is a shiny beacon of hope for those men willing to open their minds without opening their mouths. Leave off the snark in parentheses and you might have been complimentary instead of proving her point by trying to force her to acknowledge you, which is a clear and obvious attempt at a power move. Self edit and you might actually learn something. Your daughter might appreciate you more if you stop expecting to get a head pat for washing one fork, that you used, in the sink and actually believe and live it.
Brilliance.
Signed,
Yours in Femi-nazi Sisterhood
Brilliant! This should be printed onto a billboard outside every University building.
Very up for that lol
Thank you for this. I studied physics and engineering and I was always the only woman in my classes, and I think I don’t even have to finish this sentence for you to know how much I relate to your words.
Let me guess, you are very unused to finishing your sentences because you rarely get the chance to?
Brilliant!
This is so fantastic I nearly forgot about the amazing ragdoll kitty at the top by the time I finished. I’ve worked (in the administrative/tech side of things) in academia for twenty-five years, and have witnessed and heard so many awful stories like this.
Wow! Ironically, i didn’t want this to end! And yes definitely to be printed and posted everywhere!
Brilliant! Also, I love that Žižek is not included in the apology to the authors at the end 🙂
This began to teach me things I didn’t know. I will follow you and hope to learn more
I’m retired now, but can relate to so much of this. Thank you!
I’m not in academia, but as a trans person, I knew I was no longer “passing as a man” (an onerous burden of failed effort that I joyfully gave up a decade ago) when men started doing this to me too (the defining moment was when some bloke offered to show me how to replace my car’s windscreen wipers). The struggle is real, and it’s so healthy to realise we can sometimes just step aside and let them sail into the void xx
The offer re windshield wipers strikes me as lovely, actually! I’d let him.
I think this may be two thoughts:
Let me do that for you.
Let me show you how to do that.
I’m a 43 year old mom with 5 kids, ages 21 to 6. I played volleyball professionally, and have been playing since 1986. Now I’m a high school teacher and just recently took over our girls volleyball team as head coach. And believe me when I tell you that almost every other coach for every other sport on campus (all of whom are male) has began telling me how to run my practices… unsolicited, of course. Thanks, guys.
Well, duh, how else will you succeed at your job .
Sheesh.
This is so, so brilliant! May I share this with my classes? (I’m teaching Intro to Gender Studies and Women’s Studies, as well as some FYW courses focused around Gender and Sexuality.)
I found this relatable and witty, but have just had a half hour argument with my partner about it. He is a great person and says he’s a feminist. He read this as ‘unwilling to hear others’ views’, and felt it was ‘passive aggressive’. I explained how these experiences are gendered etc, but it wasn’t working, so I gave up and resorted to repeating over and over what are my favourite two lines:
“You have sacrificed your chance to learn
In order to enlighten me to the depth of your knowledge”
We have such a long way to go.
I should have done that with my partner just now who has gone into a fifteen minutes rant about how he’s never done that…instead I just wrote an email apologizing for passive aggressiveness….what is wrong with me??????
Thank you. Just what I needed right now. Thank you.
Oh Grace, you are wonderful and your poem is wonderful. I also wrote poems during my SSRM year about the patriarchal academy. They are a bit too scream-of-pain for me to want them on the internet but here is an extract for you about one of my patriarchal lecturers as my thank you for your poem! <3
He thinks that reining in
his calm, intellectual attack
would be a proof
that he does not think of me
as a colleague, an equal –
which would make
marginally more sense
if I was his colleague
Thank you Netta!
I’d love to read your poetry if you’re up for sharing!
This is absolutely brilliant.
Brilliant!
Inspirational. A life time of kowtowing to the interests of men, or mankind as some some folks like to call humanity, leaves me stunned at the excesses of those men in your academic life who strive to dominate. I recognise so many of them, from my life, which is why I’ve tended to stick with women as colleagues. If only this need to know it all that is inculcated into masculinity from birth could be vaporised, so we could all explore new ideas together without all the toxic certainty about who’s right or wrong.
That was powerful
This is why I got labeled ‘strident ‘ in my performance review at a maledominated technology company. Being talked over and interrupted or just not heard made me sad, angry and frustrated.
Thanks for converting your experiences into a poem. Distills it for us all.
Don’t lose hope!
Best regards
Marianna
I f*cking love this poem.
Wish I could send it to the man who unfriended me, after many years of friendship, when I asked him not to explain to me the application of legislation I had drafted, in a field in whivh he had never practised.
And I wish I could send this poem 20 years ago to the male VP of marketing at the company where I was hired on staff to build their first branding website, who invited an outside male designer to pitch designs for the site after he, the VP, failed to understand what I was doing. I had to explain why the other designs wouldn’t work — they were nonscalable. I had to explain what nonscalable meant. Then I had to read and ignore email from the other designer explaining to me why it was inappropriate that I had tried to keep my job. Which I succeeded in doing.
The outside expert…Wow!!!
So sad that so many of us relate.
Thank you for being exactly who you are and for sharing.
Grace,
Wonderful poem! I’m an instant convert. I’m an anti-mansplaining crusader in secondary teaching. Kudos to you.
Clive
I love this! Thank you a million times over for writing this poem and sharing it with us.
Brilliant.
When I say this reminds me of William Carlos Williams, and my own attempts at poetry, I hope that it is taken with all the love and admiration I mean. It feels (more than a little silly), to say ‘this is awesome, and reminds me of some dude’s work’ — given the subject. But… I love his poems, and I love to try to write poems like them, and I love this one, even though it makes me want to bite faces, and spit freckles, because when I find myself acknowledging all of those shitty guys, I feel both helpless and furious. So, I love this, and thank you for writing it, and I’m sorry you had to go through any of it.
What a wonderful phrase, “bite faces and spit freckles!” I love it.
So good. Thank you for this.
I am a male finance professor. If your dissertation was really about “moral beliefs in finance”, then I would be interested in reading it. Would you care to send a PDF copy at nalinaksha@gmail.com?
Thanking you.
Your use of “really” here could be interpreted several ways, not all of which are particularly good but which might reinforce the purpose of this poem.
Apply Occum’s Razor and take the simplest interpretation of the term “really”. With your approach, you can raise a typhoon in any tea cup!
Hi Nalinakasha,
I’d love to send you something but unfortunately I don’t have anything ready for people to read right now.
Just writing up my PhD and will hopefully have some stuff ready for publishing this year!
Thanks though !
Good luck with your PhD. Do send me a copy of your dissertation when you are done. I am professionally interested in it.
To the male finance professor who asked that she send you her entire body of work, just because you asked- she does not owe you her work.
Umm, no I don’t. But, like probably any other academic in the world, the thing I want most is for people to read my work.
I don’t know where the misunderstanding here is, but “can you send me your work I want to read it” is both a very normal and very nice thing for one academic to say to another. 🙂
I think the post author has already responded to it adequately. You are just whipping up a non-existent issue out of a completely normal commonplace academic request. Asking an academic to send his/her paper/dissertation is a straightforward request and does not mean anything else.
A well-told story with an important point: but not a poem. It doesn’t sing. It does not use language aesthetically.
I think it does. But what do I know?
LOL. Wouldn’t be a comments section on a woman’s blog without some internalized misogyny, now, would it? Thanks for showing us it’s #notonlymen.
As a teacher of literature, I am very tired of people telling me something “isn’t a poem.” That is not for you to say. Only the poet.
“This is not a poem” does seem like the most pointless form of gate-keeping ever.
I mean what exactly are the stakes here? And what do any of the criteria mean?
I think you just summed up why I never completed my Fine Art (painting) degree; how can qualitative assessment metrics be consistently applied, by different assessors, to material intended to elicit subjective responses? Why would anyone presume to try? Why would someone wander in here, into *this* particular post, and pick that fight?
I did complete a degree in Information Technology. That was before the word “mansplaining” had entered my sphere, but I can report that the main compensation for being talked down to, excluded, and treated as the tea-lady of my cohort was that there was never a queue for the faculty “Ladies” toilets. Conferences were worse. Such a weird feeling of being alone in a crowd; when there are 16 stalls and 16 hand basins, and I’m the only one there. Peaceful, though. About the only way to avoid being told “well actually”. lol
we can almost guess your generation Jac by your HAVING a ladies room (tho being lonely there). how long was it before women in Congress got restrooms? 1993 for the Senate, 2011 before House women had one as near as the men do.
Wow….. It pops. It moves with rhythm. It flows with passion. It is definitely Poetry. Do you only read Dr. Seuss?
What did you want? A limerick?
As a non-tt older woman who spent decades in field biology and the classroom, I can SO identify with this. It is on going, even in less competitive arenas like aikido (http://aikidoofmaine.com/teaching-mat-part-one/)
This is fantastic. You speak for so many of us.
This is a brilliant poem and you are brilliant for writing it. Thanks for giving voice to sentiments that many of us feel yet cannot put into words as artfully as you have done here. I could hear the rhythm of your words as I read and the images you constructed splendidly illustrate important problematic dynamics in the left-academy. Thanks for writing and sharing!
*standing up and clapping LOUDLY!*
Your poem had me reflecting on my interactions with collegues, students, and everyone else during my PhD program. I was on all sides and in between these conversations constantly trying to understand how I fit in. It was exausting and I ultimately left the academy. Thank you for articulating what it feels like to be a woman in this world. April
Wow. As a fellow former PhD so much of this resonated with me. Particularly the supervisor. Wow, so many of us out there & I know more than a few brilliant women that didn’t make it through to the other side. Brilliant piece. On another point, I’m quite interested in reading your research.
Thanks for this!
I can particularly relate to the white male marxist figure who is always reminding us that class is more important than everything whilst using language and a dominating approach that alienates everyone around them, particularly working class people (if there were actually any around because they tend to just be ranting in academic circles).
Brilliant!
Well done! Stoked that your poem was featured as quote of the day for the journal Nature!
Contundente!
Maybe it is not a great poem poetry-wise, but it is illuminating and fun. Thank you.
Lovely poem but too true for me to appreciate it as much as those who shared their similar experiences. Thank you for holding up a mirror. I don’t think I am as bad as some of those you describe, but I recognise enough from my own past behaviour to make me cringe.
Solidarity! I work on paternity. So…you can imagine the rest. While I can say I have wonderful male colleagues and had a fantastic dissertation chair, conferences and social settings bring out a lot of thoughts about paternity that I surely haven’t considered. Here’s hoping your poem is read far and wide and brings about the appropriate amount of discomfort to those who need to feel it.
As a white male not in academia, thank you for this.
Comments about the aesthetic quality of your poem are wide of the mark and irrelevant. It works well as a poem (I studied English literature).
As for its content and message, it is superb and clearly strikes a chord with many who have seen it. I have tried (and continue to try) to avoid such stupidities and I am sorry for those occasions when I failed.
Thank you for the reminder.
Brilliant!
Loved this.
Thank you for sharing it.
Great!
May I try a translation, so I can share it with my colleagues?
That would be amazing!
Would you mind sharing the translation with me?
Sure, if I can get something decent enough to share it!
But should I post it here? It is in Italian
You nailed it!
Sarcastic tears of laughter landed in my coffee cup this morning. No critique needed. 🙂
I shall print off a copy to share with our sons, three, eight and ten. They might not yet “get it,” but they will in time. I would like to hope, as any mom would, that they will be allies to the women around them. They will still need reminders.
YES!!! Unfortunately this is perfectly captured.
Thank you for this. I wish I didn’t relate to it as much as I do, but my dissertation is on the social ethics of soccer. “Yes, random dude in the sports bar, please tell me more about this game and how it is played,” said the woman at a pub at 7am on a Saturday morning, wearing a jersey, drinking beer, and yelling at a TV when she’s not writing in a notebook covered in soccer stickers.
This is absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for so perfectly articulating such a horribly familiar experience.
I have a Master’s Degree in Social Work and studied homelessness from the inside for 4 years – while traveling across the country 7 times. I can not tell you (and obviously don’t need to) how many times men have explained my research to me. The thing is – it didn’t really occur to me to question them doing it. It didn’t occur to me that the reason I didn’t pursue my PhD after getting a BA in Philosophy was because no one took me seriously. I proved one of their theories wrong, and they still didn’t take me seriously.
I always felt like the game was that I had to work 10x harder to be seen as worthy in their eyes. And the games in the old paradigm were like that. It didn’t occur to me until recently not to care and to go about doing my own thing – and pieces like this gave me the idea. Thanks for being a good role model and leader in the new paradigm. <3
Brilliant! You hit the nail on the head.
Ms Krause, thank you for writing and publishing this poem. I wish it had existed when I was in academia at Oxford 20+ years ago. My 20-something-year-old self would have benefited greatly from reading it. My 40-something-year-old self will benefit from it now.
I very much hope you continue to write and to publish.
With respect and best wishes… Dania Sheldon (DPhil)
Reminds me of Tom Wayma‘s poem, „Did I Miss Anything?“
I’m usually against this kind of gender blaming because I’ve had so many experiences of women explaining things to me when it’s not appropriate – and consistently thinking they know better – and without blaming a gender, I just think it’s the way people are.. however, when it’s your own research and some unqualified hick is pushing his unqualified drivel, that’s another level annoying.
Thank you, David. I’m sure we’ve all been refreshed and enlightened by your unique point of view.
You know, your poem doesn’t rhyme. You should do something about that.
Your sincerely,
A Very Clever Man.
About to head to a job interview with 4 male surgeons who will doubt my sincerity, commitment and ability as their equal.
This is exactly the solidarity I needed to feel right now.
Sister, go slaughter the sods.
(PS: first daughter is training to be a surgeon and I hope she similarly triumphs over any male a* hole.)
Preach sister! Thank you for this!
*So* very much a part of your community.
You seem full of yourself.
Love this. It is so true. I know this – I am a man. But I want to do better, be part of a better world. Otherwise what would my daughters and partner think of me when I am done.
I think too often that’s me too.
I am lucky that I have some friends at work that give me friendly reminders when I talk too much, or interrupt too much. But: if it is by a male colleague, everyone else just chuckles. If it is by a female colleague, more likely few chuckle, and she may get some stares or tuts – if she isn’t interrupted anyway…
Can I read your thesis please? It sounds fascinating! Strength, love and persistence sister, I’ve had two careers end now because I couldn’t continue to persist.
I wish I could say yes to that!
But I do need to finish writing it first
As a former NIH-funded researcher (now retired), I too have experienced this. I eventually quit, in part because I was tired. Tired of pushing against being isolated, dismissed, and demeaned in my department, at conferences, etc. So, to all those who are still pushing, keep it up! Your contributions should be heard.
This is exactly my experience way over in the not-so-soft cushion of the literary world. For a while I chose to title my books with an “ing” in them just as a slap back to the powerful man who ripped apart everything I wrote and told me no poem should contain a word ending in “ing.”
Appreciate the slap in every line of your poem. Sharing on the tubes, reading aloud at the next workshopping event.
Can you get in touch with me? I have translated your poem, and would like to post it on the website of our association Donne e Scienza (women and science, in italy http://www.donnescienza.it ). However, I need your formal permission. Thanks, Monica
So why didn’t you just tell him that you have a more sophisticated explanation?
Thank you. I am so happy to be introduced to you this way. I would not be nearly so eloquent, nor deliver such wit.
I will continue to do my bit as an ally, and I am delighted to dig in to your extraordinary life’s work.
Thank you for arming me with your eloquence, when all I would have said would be something in the vein of “piss off, douchebag”.
If you would be so kind, would you recommend a good place to begin in study of your work? A few personal favorites?
I loved the entire piece but this I really love: “I am done leaning in.”
Hi!,
I’m happy to tell you that the Italian translation of your poem is on the website of the Associazione Donne & Scienza (Association of women scientists), here: http://www.donnescienza.it/%ef%bb%bfun-collega-mi-ha-spiegato-come-intitolare-questa-poesia/
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
I also thank the many authoritative men
who found my frivolous, insistent homosexuality
so distracting, especially
the hand gestures and whining voice,
thank you so much for helping me understand
that humour and fun have no place
in the deep, worldly discussions
you all undertake with such vigour.
Thank you for teaching me
that I will never properly swill beer,
and that my ideas and voice are needlessly strident.
Thank you for telling me, repeatedly, what I did,
should or could know.
Equally, like Grace,
I thank these men especially
for insisting that class politics ‘Trump’ everything else,
and that oppressed lower class white men
cannot be expected to question the heteronormative.
Thank you all.