Abstract: The intensification of work so characteristic of our "postmodern condition" has produced new struggles for women (and men) in the academy. I came to academia "accidentally" and certainly much earlier than I had anticipated. I had completed a master's degree in Canada in 1983, for reasons that had more to do with personal relationships and geography than with career aspirations, and returned to Australia fully intending to return to my position as a secondary school physical education teacher. Before the school year commenced, however, I attended a conference at which, serendipitously, I was offered a short-term lecturing contract. In the couple of years which followed, despite having enormous teaching loads—in one semester I had 19 hours of classes on 7 different subjects!—I somehow managed to find time to engage in all kinds of other activities. Yes, I worked hard, but I also managed to play, to read, to cook, to exercise, to have long lunches with friends and extended conversations. Now, post Ph.D., tenure, promotion, research grants, publications, and baby, there seems to be no time. Instead, my life, like that of many colleagues, feels taut, almost to breaking point. It is all too easy, as Liz Ellsworth (1993) put it, to "kill oneself" in the academy. And these pressures seem to be widely experienced (at least where I work), crossing boundaries of seniority, gender, and other markers of social and institutional differentiation. Indeed, the day before I started writing this piece, a young male academic asked me how I keep going, how I maintain the pace.
Publication Year: 2021
Publication Date: 2021-10-15
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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