So you think you can do my job?

Random Family Member: What is is that you do all day?  Just sit around?
Me: I actually work on projects, teach classes, do coursework
RFM: So, you're basically a college student still?
Me: No.
RFM: You just write about your opinion all day, then, right?
Me: No.
RFM: Then what do you do?
Me: Research.  Teaching.
RFM: You must have a lot of fun and free time.  Anyone could do that.  When you do something useful, let me know.

Yeah, this is a conversation a lot of academics will probably experience and HAVE experienced in the upcoming holiday season if they are like me.  One of my grandmothers has determined that I live a pretty cushy life where I don't do anything except scare away potential suitors.  My work week pre-comps was somewhere around 70 hours a week and it was like that for most of the first three years of my PhD.  Everyone thinks life in the ivory tower is easy and silly at times.  We sit around on our asses and twiddle our thumbs.

And if you are a political scientist, you have recently probably had a similar conversation to this:

Random family member's facebook post: If only there were {insert asinine political solution here such as term limits, a balanced budget amendment, no political parties} we wouldn't have this problem.  Those Democrats are the worst!  Tea Party 4EVAH!
Me: Actually, that wouldn't solve the problems that we face {present rational argument here}
RFM: No, that wouldn't do it. We have to have to get them to DO things.  This system is so screwed up and slow!  It's full of so much ARGUING!  If only they followed the Constitution!
Me: Actually, the Constitution designed the system to be inherently conservative.  That's why we see these issues here and not in a Westminster system like in the UK.
RFM: Conservative!  It's the stupid libs!  Liberalism is the death of this nation!  Socialists are running everything!!! ELEVENTY!!!
Me: None of those words mean what you think they mean.  This country was founded on liberalis and both parties come from a "liberal" political tradition.  Socialism requires common ownership of things like the means of production and the provision of service by government, generally.  That does not happen here.
RFM: I think I would know! You're a Democrat, so you don't matter!  GAHHHHHH.  I've been paying taxes for 50 years! You young idealistic liberals won't get it!

Yes, it's frustrating as hell.  Not that I don't have about 8 years of training in the subject or anything!  I guess I'm pretty useless.  It's enough to make your head explode.  It offends me a great deal because when people say things like this, it means (to me) that what I do isn't worthy of recognition or respect.  What I do is not only "silly" or "useless" but somehow begins to OFFEND people.  You wouldn't tell an accountant how to do an audit.  Why would you tell me about politics or teaching?  Why would you make assumptions about what we do?  I don't know but it makes me reel.

The worst part is, the more you dig your heels in and try to make it clear that you know more, the more you try to educate these people, the worse it actually gets.  Because then you just look like an elitist snob in their eyes.  Let's face it, we speak PhD now.  We talk about what we do in ways that people can't understand and it's very, very hard to explain what we do in "normal" terms.

I felt bad recently when my boyfriend told me his parents thought I seemed to be genuinely smart but they couldn't understand what I did at all.  I knew that they didn't get it because I hadn't explained it well.  So, the next time they ask me, I will try even HARDER to explain it in common terms.  We use very artificial, technical language like ABD, comps, R&R, etc to explain our lives.  It's not easy for our parents, family members, spouses, significant others, and friends outside of academia to "get" it.  It's something I have to work on.  And in the case of the boyfriend's parents, I never intended to do anything.  I generally don't intend to confuse anyone.  So, getting upset when people don't get it can be a natural response but not something you should immediately get offended over.

Still, how do you deal with people trying to do your job?  Do you avoid all family gatherings so you don't have to listen to Uncle Joey berate you about how your job is useless to "average people" and how you've gotten so uppity since going away to school?  Do you write Grandma out of your Christmas card list (does anyone still make those anyhow?)?  Do you unfriend everyone from facebook?

The truth is, there are no easy answers.  I try to avoid getting into it with people.  It's a situation where assuming everyone is simply ignorant and means well is the only way to go.  If I just assume that people are ignorant, I look at my responses as needing to be diplomatic.  I see myself as sort of an ambassador to my career and discipline with these people.  They may say things that annoy me but they don't mean it.

Well, except sometimes they do, right?

Yeah.  Yeah, sometimes they do.  You will encounter Uncle Jed the Shitstirring Teapartiest at various gatherings but just smile and treat him the same.  If it gets down to the point of name calling on his point, take the high road.  I had this happen at my sister's graduate party 4 years ago. A cousin would NOT leave me alone and called me a little girl.  He got downright rude, called me a useless person who could "only" think, and then made fun of the way I dressed.  It was clearly coming from a place of insecurity and inebriation, so I wrote it off.

I won't lie and say these things don't annoy me or bother me.  They do.  After all, what I do every day is part of my life's work.  How could I not feel offended when people resort to personal attacks and name calling about it?  Academics is a lot about "love" of what you do.  If someone attacks the thing you love, you tend to get offended.  That's what makes it a little different from a 9 to 5 at a bank (as if those exist!) or a job for a government contractor.  It's all culminating, you can't turn it off, and you have to preach it on a regular basis to students!

The reality is that there are a lot of insecurities. If you approach the situation assuming that, you will be infinitely better off.  When it gets to hitting below the belt, shove off.  Ignore the person.

Hopefully, the people you value the most will either "get it" or at least be supportive and not deny that you do happen to know more on a subject than they do.  Also, they probably won't be ignorant of all the important things you have to do, the amount of time you put in, etc.  My boyfriend gets most of it and he's very supportive of me.  My parents have no clue what I do, in reality, and don't understand a word of methods jargon that comes out of my mouth but they are glad I do what I love.  Those are the people that matter, anyway.

Sexual Assault: as a research topic and as a practical discussion

I usually stick to a few key topics around here: academia, mental health, and bikes.

But today, things are going to be a bit different because I can't avoid talking about the inherent need to discuss rape and sexual assault a it's implications in our society.

Why?  Well, most importantly, I study the way that bureaucracies deal with sexual assault.  Secondly, I've actually had to help a student make a referral about a sexual assault my first year here.  Third, it's a huge problem in society and one that has affected me personally.

A recent discussion started on a blog I frequent.Jezebel ran a story about Whoopi Goldberg and Serena Williams's misguided comments about the Stubbenville case.  It just shows how crazy rape culture because women are parroting this dialogue.  Rape effects women unfortunately all too often.  Vassar College has some important statistics about the prevalence of rape among college-aged women.  By college, 1 in 4 women has been sexually assaulted.  I was one of them so, yes, I have a horse in this fight.

Let me define what this means. Rape and sexual assault are basically ALL situations where consent was not had and sexual advances were made.  Assault is a wider definition than rape and covers more bases but, essentially, it's advances without consent either way.  There is no "rape rape", there is no "legitimate rape".  There is just rape.  No consent = rape.  Why does this seem to be so hard for people to understand?

There are two main problems that I have with Goldberg and Williams's reasoning.

1. The normative "should have". The "women should protect themselves by no dressing provocatively and drinking too much" idea of covering your drink and altering your behavior to stay safe!  These women alleged that the victim in question should have better protected herself.  It's something that is said generally, but especially of college-aged women who are "date raped".  This means drinking, roofies, and being assaulted by a person you know, generally.  There are two big problems with this line of reasoning.  The first is that when you trust people, you tend to let them in and you don't expect them to, I don't know, rape you?  And if that person wants to hurt you, they will likely do it - regardless of "precautions".

There is another problem with the "protection" aspect.  Victims tend to blame themselves.  They don't need victim blaming.  Do you NOT think that this victims has played the decisions in her mind over and over and over again regarding that night?  She likely has.  And, despite taking any other precautions, these guys would have either found a way to hurt her in a different manner or would have hurt someone else.  The thing is, if someone wants to hurt you they will.  The self-blaming feelings after rape are awful to deal with.  The student in question that came to me was feeling all of the same.  A friend took advantage of her at a party and she wasn't sure where to go.  Two weeks after the fact, she broke down and told me this was why her last paper was awful.  I directed her to the very well-equipped sexual violence response center on campus but I knew how she felt.  The evidence was gone by then.  People would ask her why she had waited, why she had drank so much, and criticized even what she was wearing.  All I could do was hand her resources and be as supportive as I could without crossing that instructor-student line.  I tried to be compassionate above all.

What happened to me was far less-intense but similar.  A friend hurt me.  I was younger than my student and younger than the person in question.  It was reported to school officials but they did nothing.  I never told my parents the whole story out of shame.  I blamed myself for not "doing more" but it happened at school in a situation where I was sure I would get detention if I left.  I didn't want to talk to anyone about it for a long time and didn't even have the words to describe it because I was too young to really have that vocabulary.  The Stubbenville victim is a child.  She faces similar problems.  Blaming her for "not doing enough" only makes the situation worse.


2. Putting the onus on women excuses men from their own guilt.  Going back to those Vassar numbers, 84% of men that actually committed rape (most of it was actually date rape, remember) claimed it wasn't.  What does this tell us?  Well a couple of things.  The first is that people, in general, don't understand what constitutes rape or sexual assault.  We tell women how to avoid rape but we never tell men how to avoid RAPING women.

I will never forget talking to a man from RWAMREC, the Rwandan Men's Resource Center, a non-profit that educates men AND women in Rwanda about the roles involved in sexual violence and encourages men to step up and be masculine in positive ways.  Basically, they have a campaign that says men need to recognize what rape is and to stop when consent isn't there.  I oversaw a number of meetings and talked to a number of Rwandan bureaucrats at the center charged with policing sexual and domestic violence reports.  The number one misconception found among average people and bureaucrats was simply their lack of knowledge about what WAS rape.  These people were well-meaning but facing the exact same problems we do here in the U.S.   Was it "rape-rape" or what?  My conclusion was that these issues were leading to bureaucratic discretion being unintentionally used to thwart the intended way of implementation and enforcement of the Gender-Based Violence Law passed by the Parliament years before.  Rwanda is making great strides in this aspect but it faces the global problems of stigma.

A similar organization in the United States also deals with this problem.  Men Can Stop Rape also gives tools to educate people on what constitutes rape and teaches men about consent.  Rape culture hurts men AND women.  The problem won't be solved until we educate everyone.


So, how does this affect what I do on a daily basis?

Well, it affects my students - male and female - as I said before.  It doesn't help women because they end up getting assaulted on a regular basis on college campuses.  It doesn't help men because it doesn't inform them of what constitutes rape.  Don't take this to mean that I think all men are prone to raping or hurting women.  Absolutely not.  But when you live in a culture where it's considered okay to have sex with a totally incapacitated person despite that meaning that consent no longer exists, it means we aren't doing enough to educate people about what rape is.  And college, based on culture, parties, etc, seems like a place ripe for this sort of misconception to cause problems.  Sexual assault has serious consequences far beyond the immediate.  PTSD, depression, and panic attacks are common with survivors.  Reliving that experience is common.  That can lead to students dropping out, doing poorly, or suffering unnecessarily.  We need to improve mental health resources on all campuses.  My undergrad did a pretty poor job of coping with sexual assaults.  I can gladly say that my current place of study has made HUGE strides to deal with the problem.  It's nowhere near perfect but the administration has been very adamant about dedicating resources and personnel to address the problem.


So, think about how this matters and what you can do to help?
1. Be educated about what constitutes rape.
2. Don't perpetrate myths and when you see them - speak out.  Especially you guys out there.  When men get involved, it makes the message of what rape is clearer to men in your social circle and sets a good example for future generations of guys.  Be a trend setter and get your hands dirty, ladies and gents.  Don't let people think this is okay.
3. If a student or friend comes to you, know about the resources available.  Be supportive but don't make demands about what they should do.  I.E. if they don't want to go to the authorities, the best thing you can do is give them their options and support whatever choice.  Legal recourse is a really scary matter and isn't the right choice for everyone at that moment.  Remember, you aren't the one who was assaulted so you can't know how you would feel in that instance.  Things are not simple.
4. Press for more resources and education on campus. 
5. Get involved with feminist organizations that pursue similar goals.  Volunteer at the rape crisis center, a women's shelter, or participate in the Vagina Monologues to raise awareness.
6. Be mindful of how your words affect others in both positive and negative ways.  Don't make rape jokes.  Don't assume things about victims or blame them.  Realize that if you are surrounded by 4 women, one of them has probably been the victim of an assault.  Your words carry weight.
7.  Small things make a big difference.  One defense of a Stubbenville victim or someone similar may make my day and make me feel like I can go on to share my story with others.  It has only been through the kindness and acceptance of others that I have been able to find some peace and confidence in relating my experience to others.  Sharing experiences helps others.  Not everyone can do it and it's not something everyone will necessarily want to do but small statements of support, even indirectly, give me a lot of hope for the future.

Soapbox: Young People and Sex

Usually, I post about general school things and my life, but this time, I am going to go up on a soapbox.

Time sent this out recently.  It's a sad, fascinating look into what young people think about sex.  The respondents in this CDC survey are all young women who had unplanned pregnancies.  I think it's a very interesting sample and certainly worth discussing.

How is this related to college students and my life as a TA?  Well, believe it or not, I was once a college student and I see college students every day.  Well, not right now because I am stuck at home with a terrible case of strep throat.

What I have encountered both as a TA and a student is a total lack of sexual health knowledge.  It's appalling.  I feel as though my friends and students have been failed by a lack of education from their schools and parents.  You see, sex ed was a non-issue at my middle/high school.  It didn't exist.  It was all, "Don't have sex and this won't happen".  In middle school, two friends got pregnant.  They both had unprotected sex and didn't think it could happen to them.  In high school, two close friends got pregnant and my school had a serious problem with all of this.  We were actually the 2nd highest rated county for pregnancies.  This was ahead of Lake County, which has numerous large cities such as Gary and Hammond where low socioeconomic status by all rights statistically should lead to more pregnancies than the more affluent cities in LaPorte county.  Marion county, that which houses the state capital (Indy) was the only county with a higher rate of teen pregnancy per capita.  That's really sad.

At home, though, I was very lucky.  My parents were open and honest.  By age 10, I had safe sex education at home.  It was embarrassing no doubt, but now I am thankful.  My sister and I grew up unashamed of my sexuality.  We were educated and in control of our safety.  We both waited a long time to have sex.  We both felt secure in that choice.  That said, most of my friends didn't have that experience.

In college, I was the go-to person for sex ed my freshman and sophomore years despite my lack of actual sexual experience.  Girls in my dorm had no clue they were putting themselves at risk and were afraid to talk because they felt ashamed.  This has been the experience many of my students have had as well.  Overhearing conversations and having a student have a conversation with me about being sexually assaulted and breaking down in my office drove the point home.  She didn't know she could be pregnant and was ashamed to do anything.  Her exam grade was incredibly low and she came to me to see if she could re-take.  As an A student prior to this, I did go to the professor and explain that while I was not at liberty to discuss her circumstances, she had been through a great deal of trauma.  Without question, he allowed her to retake another version of the exam and she ended up with an A-.

I am sure she was still reeling from what she had encountered, but I was glad that she had come to me and felt comfortable explaining it.  I, myself, was sexually assaulted in middle school - AT school, by a classmate.  I didn't tell anyone the whole story for years, but my parents were there for me.  They didn't make me feel ashamed.  They didn't blame me.  They didn't push me on the issue because they were educated enough of the subject to just love me and come about a resolution in my own time.

My friend is in charge of the vagina monologues at school.  She is in charge of arranging sex education talks for the often very young college students participating.  The stories she tells me are appalling.  These girls are sex-ashamed and sex-ignorant.  I am glad she does what she does for them because she is dedicated to educating these women.

I don't talk about men here, not because I don't care.  I feel instead that women are more vulnerable and made to feel ashamed by a society that either sees them as sexually promiscuous or incapable of desiring sex. It isn't like this everywhere, but in the U.S., it is a huge problem.  When I lived in England, I was amazed by how proud women were of their sexuality and how sex ed was pushed by the public school system.  Things were even more open in Germany.  I think we can learn a lot from this.  And I don't say that just because I am a comparative politics person, but I think it certainly has informed me to these policy lessons.  Men deserve the same education - both about sex and abuse - but I think we need to be especially worried about women.

Abstinence simply doesn't work for everyone and it is a lousy choice for sex ed.  Sex ed should certainly explain that abstinence is not a bad thing and it is the only way to be sure you don't get preggers or receive an STD.  However, abstinence-only programs are labeled ineffective by agencies such as the CDC and the DHHS.  I have a department contact over in the policy school here who is personally involved in local sex ed programs in the schools.  She was responsible for putting together a sex ed program based on a "highly effective" program that had been tested elsewhere and evaluated by the CDC to be especially good at protecting young people from STD's and pregnancy.  It was awarded a grant for this reason.  The Obama administration is trying really hard to push money to these programs.  That said, the Bush legacy is hard to correct in one term.  I fully support this.

If you are college student reading this, please get involved, gather knowledge, and don't feel alone.  Don't feel ashamed.  If you have been sexually abused, please don't feel like you are to blame - regardless of what people have told you.  If you are a grad student who comes into contact with students, be aware of this.  Perhaps you can get involved.  Most colleges have resources for you to both educate yourself on sexual assault and provide resources.  I encourage you to make yourself aware of them.  I never expected a student to come to me, but I was able to refer her to services that could help and be there for her.  I advocated for her because I knew it was important.  Most profs will understand, even if you don't outline what happened.  I told her I would not tell my prof that she had experienced an assault.  I promised.  I told him instead that she had experienced a very painful life event that I think was worthy of this retake.  Most professors ARE human and will understand.  If a student comes to you with questions and you are uncomfortable with talking about it, please refer them to services and know what is available.

No one should be made to feel guilty about sex.  No one should be assaulted, but people who are should know about services and know that there are places to go.  Kids should know about safe sex.  They should know about sexual abuse and "no means no".  We are failing our kids if we don't both talk about this at home and in school.