“But while I pondered I had unconsciously, in my listlessness, in my desperation, been drawing a picture where I should, like my neighbour, have been writing a conclusion. I had been drawing a face, a figure. It was the face and the figure of Professor von X engaged in writing his monumental work entitled The Mental, Moral, and Physical Inferiority of the Female Sex”.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own. [1]Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Hogarth Press, 1929, p. 17.
Villanelle #21
He waved his hands this way and that, full of swagger.
Professor von Hector [2]This piece was inspired by a writing workshop activity run by Dr Emma Cooke and Dr Laetitia Coles during a DRAW (Departing Radically in Academic Writing) summer school. The provocation was made to … Continue reading, I shall call him,
Dick-tating and dom-man-ating, what a fucking bragger!
So little lady, are you looking for a seat at this table?
2 PhDs and 2 babies, what makes you think those numbers quantify, I mean qualify you? [3]This really did happen – at a University Faculty Committee meeting not long after the birth of my second child, while sitting in a room full of male academics, mostly Professors. I was in the … Continue reading
He waved his hands this way and that, full of swagger.
If you are going to join this academic procession you must dress like a smart lady.[4]This also really did happen – during a career progression mentoring program for academic women to support us in promotion from ASsociate Profressor to Prifessor. At the end of the program we … Continue reading
“Strike a power pose, assume the mantel of capital T testosterone – I mean truth”, he mansplains to me.[5]Sigh, as part of the same program, this was one of the tips and tricks that was given to us to walk into our promotion interview full of confidence and guaranteed to result in success. We were even … Continue reading
Dick-tating and dom-man-ating, what a fucking bragger!
Now, that’s better sweetheart, what a pretty thing you are!
Lie back and think of Descartes, Freud or Strauss any master will do you.
He waves his hands this way and that, full of swagger.
“Once we have penetrated you with our phallanges of logic,
You will see your fallaciousness as failure”, he assured me.
Dick-tating and dom-man-ating, what a fucking bragger!
Professor von Hector turned to walk away, but then looked back as I attempted to speak.
He said, “Hush now, be a dutiful daughter and don’t make a fuss”.[6]A line inspired by the 2021 work edited by Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss: The Undutiful Daughters of Virginia Woolf, University of Minnesota Press.
Then waved his hands this way and that, full of swagger
Dick-tating and dom-man-ating, what a fucking bragger!
References
| ↑1 | Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Hogarth Press, 1929, p. 17. |
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| ↑2 | This piece was inspired by a writing workshop activity run by Dr Emma Cooke and Dr Laetitia Coles during a DRAW (Departing Radically in Academic Writing) summer school. The provocation was made to take up a “hectoring” writing genre (after Laurel Richardson, 2018, “So, why poetry”) which deliberately “talks and behaves towards someone in a loud and unpleasantly forceful way” – and I decided that the subject and the tone of this villanelle was fit for purpose. Emma, Laetitia and their colleague Jasneek Chawla’s work in relation to this can be read here: “Confronting meanings of motherhood in neoliberal Australia: Six crystallised case studies”, in Biographical Research and the Meanings of Mothering” edited by Lyudmila Nurse, Lisa Moran, and Kateřina Sidiropulu-Janků, Policy Press, 2023, pp. 158–193. |
| ↑3 | This really did happen – at a University Faculty Committee meeting not long after the birth of my second child, while sitting in a room full of male academics, mostly Professors. I was in the middle of giving my report, paused slightly and was interrupted by the Chair who declared, “Take your time, we can wait for your double baby brain – 2 doctorates and 2 babies!” Everyone burst into laughter; I left the meeting and cried. |
| ↑4 | This also really did happen – during a career progression mentoring program for academic women to support us in promotion from ASsociate Profressor to Prifessor. At the end of the program we were to be honoured by the Vice Chancellor’s presence at a dinner. We were told, “The VC said to dress like smart women”, and after all, as he was the Chair of the Promotion Committee, it was in our best interests. |
| ↑5 | Sigh, as part of the same program, this was one of the tips and tricks that was given to us to walk into our promotion interview full of confidence and guaranteed to result in success. We were even made to watch a TedTalk on the topic given by Amy Cuddy- you can view it here. There were many wonderful wedges of wisdom imparted from women who had been there and done that on this program, but my feminist sense-abilities resists claiming this as one of them. |
| ↑6 | A line inspired by the 2021 work edited by Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss: The Undutiful Daughters of Virginia Woolf, University of Minnesota Press. |