Category Archives: Academic Inequality

Adventures in Publishing Volume 2

by

This week’s post is the second in a four part series where Xan and J share experience and tips managing academic publication and reviewing.  In this post, J offers 5 more tips for publishing in academic journals that build upon the first 5 outlined in last week’s post.

In last week’s post (Volume 1), I outlined 5 lessons I have learned about publishing journal articles to date. The following lessons build on those so I encourage all readers to check out Volume 1 before reading this one. That said, these are all lessons that have become equally important and obvious to me throughout my experiences publishing journal articles. As noted in the previous post, I do not expect everyone to agree with my experiences, but rather I share the lessons I have learned and encourage others to debate and discuss their own experiences with these dynamics.

Lesson 6: Publishing journal articles is about recognizing that reviewers only really matter if you get an R&R.

I know the standard marketing slogans that you hear everywhere about the importance of reviews, the need to consider every review seriously, and the fears of not doing so and it coming back to hurt you. Once again, I find most of this discussion to be “wishful thinking” or “anxiety statements” coming from people that believe in meritocracy or some other imaginary version of the academy. I can tell you that in my experience paying much attention to reviews that do not come with an R&R is at best a waste of your time and at worst will cause you more time wasted on extra work later.

Don’t get me wrong here, I would suggest (and I do) reading and thinking about all the reviews you get on any paper. Sometimes reviewers note important aspects of your paper or useful literature that you can use no matter where you send it next, and in such cases you should incorporate these elements. Sometimes reviewers will say things you wanted to say or agree with but left out, and you may then want to put those things in the next submission. Most importantly in my experiences, sometimes reviewers will note details that tripped them up or distracted from your manuscript that you may want to clarify or drop from the piece to avoid the same distraction or confusion again. The fact is some of the best and most useful feedback I have gotten on papers came in the process of a rejection so I would argue it is in fact important to take the reviews you get seriously even if they are part of a rejection.  The problem, however, arises when you grant reviewers that have no power (i.e., you got rejected, they cannot get you published no matter what they wrote) some power by spending days, weeks or months working on comments instead of getting your paper back under review somewhere else where it might have a chance of publication (see lesson 2 again).  Put simply, finding what is useful in a review is important, but in the end you have no way of knowing if that review will ever matter in relation to publication so it should be a tool you consider rather than something that eats up a lot of time.

The person I know that has published the most since I came to the academy does not even read reviews that come with rejections at all and simply flips every paper until ze gets an revise and resubmit. In fact, I will admit that 8 out of 10 times I simply flip an article from one journal to the next exactly as it was at the first journal or with very minor adjustments (i.e., clarifications).  The other two times out of ten are when reviewers say something I find useful for any journal in terms of publishing the article (i.e., I agree with them and think “Damn I missed that”). The vast majority of the time (all but 1 so far) I get very different reviews from the next journal and if I get an R&R I revise and if not I do the same again. In 1 other case thus far, I even experienced the horror story I have heard in graduate programs and at conferences (i.e., you get the same reviewer you had at the first journal who notes they already reviewed the piece and you didn’t change it like they wanted back then), but I can tell you that it apparently did not matter since I got an R&R and got published in the course of that experience (in fact, the published version also doesn’t have the changes they suggested because I disagree with them and apparently the editor did too). Once again, the point is simply that reviewers have little power (they hate it but editor likes it = published; they love it but editor hates it = not published; they agree with editor = published or not based on agreement) so while pretending they have more power than they do might make them feel good it may also simply waste your time and energy. So my advice is simple when you get reviews with a rejection = study them to see what may be useful to your paper and what you agree with, incorporate those things quickly, and get it to another editor and set of reviewers where the reviews might end up mattering more to your chances of publication.

Lesson 7: Publishing journal articles is about recognizing reviewers are simply other people sharing their opinions based on their own training, assumptions, biases, and backgrounds.

Again here, I know the standard marketing slogans spread throughout disciplines – reviewers are experts in a field, reviewers donate their time so must be respected, and reviewers are important to listen to and please. Once again, I simply disagree with this because my experience – and those shared with me by others – do not support these assertions. Reviewers are people like anyone else, and thus they have their own standpoints and perspectives. Reviewers are scholars like you and me, and thus they have their own background training, favorite theories, and methodological assumptions. Reviewers are varied ages like the rest of us, and thus they may know this theoretical framework or that one from graduate school, but not necessarily the latest developments in that field or theories not covered in their training or experience or they may know older or other theories useful to you that you did not get exposed to. I want you to notice that each of these aspects of reviewers can be good and bad. On the good side, this means they may add something to your work, and they may catch things you miss – this is useful. The fact is there are some amazing reviewers out there, and in the next two posts Xan will discuss some aspects of these reviewers.  When you get these amazing reviewers, you can learn a lot and greatly enhance your work.  On the bad side, however, this means they have their own values and beliefs and limitations so they may be wrong, misguide you, or otherwise problematic just as easily. The fact is you will run into some horrible reviewers and biases and assumptions along the way (unless you’re very lucky) and you need to be ready to manage these and sort them out from the good ones in practice.  Simply put, in order to publish journal articles, you must learn to spot the difference, and make your case. If you agree with the reviewer, do what they say in your way, but if you disagree with them, do so and explain why in a memo. In my experience and that others have shared with me, both of these options happen regularly, and in the end the editor (see Lesson 5 from the first post again) is the only one with any real power in the process.

I understand that most of us are taught to assume reviewers know what they’re talking about, but in reality – as editors will even tell you if you ask – they are simply selected first and foremost on their willingness to review and no one checks to see if they actually know what they’re doing in regards to your paper. Here are some fun examples:

  1. I think of the reviewer who suggested I go read x book because x book would show me that my entire paper was wrong. I went and read x book, and it turned out that x book said my entire paper was right, necessary, and important. I responded in the memo that the reviewer should go read x book that they had suggested to appreciate my paper, and even quoted the findings from x book so the editor could see that the reviewer either never read x book or simply got it wrong.
  2. I think of the reviewer who explicitly told me “be nicer to” privileged group x “in my analysis” because we all know politeness trumps empiricism right?
  3. I think of the reviewer who admitted in their review they were not familiar with (i.e., had not read or studied) the theory at the heart of my paper. How they expected to evaluate my paper without any understanding of the theory it was using is beyond me.  I also wonder (since this is what I do when I agree to review something and then realize I don’t know the literature in the piece) why they did not go read the theory first before completing their review instead of reviewing the paper without this information.
  4. I think of the reviewer who expressed anger because they had “read this manuscript already and it is no good” when reviewing a manuscript I had never submitted anywhere before, and I wondered if they either (a) just didn’t want to read it but wanted to do a review, (b) were not much of a reader and thus got it confused with some other paper they read, and / or (c) had simply had a bad day and didn’t want to bother with doing a review.
  5. I think of the countless reviewers who have told me to read my own or one of my coauthor’s works because that work totally destroys the piece in question, and I am lucky I did not get me or one of my coauthors as a reviewer on this piece, which is just plain hilarious and for me quite a lot of fun honestly.

Once again, I could offer so many more examples it is scary, but the point is the same – reviewers are people who are offering their opinions, and there is no reason to believe their opinions are any better (or more accurate) than yours automatically. You should thus make sure you know your work so you are ready to defend it if necessary or accept useful feedback (I honestly get quite a lot of that too and it makes me smile – there really are some seriously good reviewers out there so don’t let the bad ones discourage you too much) when it is provided.

Lesson 8: Publishing journal articles is about recognizing that storytelling is more important than data.

It is not uncommon to hear many scientists in a wide variety of fields talk about the importance of data (regardless of what kind of data they prefer themselves). Not surprisingly, it is also not uncommon for many emerging scholars to assume that data is what matters in journal article publishing. Sadly, this is false. In every field I have come across and among every scholar I have encountered (with a few notable exceptions), the reality is that publishing journal articles is about your ability to tell a good story. In some fields, this emphasis is more explicit so you will hear people regularly say that you must have a “theoretical” contribution to get published no matter how interesting, new, or fun your data is. You must put that data into an existing storyline for it to matter at all because the theoretical discussion (i.e., the storytelling in that journal and in your field) is what matters most. In other fields, this is more implicit, but the pattern still holds – it doesn’t matter what your data is or says unless you can find a way to tell a good (theoretical) story about it. If, for example, your data says that x and y correlate, then you must creatively construct a storyline where this correlation theoretically implies some possible concrete thing in the world beyond. If, for example, your data says that x accomplishes y by doing a, b, and c, then you must creatively construct a storyline where what x accomplishes (the y) matters to existing theoretical assumptions, beliefs, and values held by others in your field or another field. The story – not the data – is what matters; the theory – again not the data – is what matters.

While I cannot say I’m correct or not because I simply do not know, my own guess is that this counterintuitive reality (i.e., that stories (theory) matter more to science than data (empirical observations) stems from the emergence of Western Science within societies dominated by Christian traditions that prioritize belief (i.e., agreeing about the right story) over action (i.e., what one actually does). As a result, science was founded and developed as an attempt to theorize (i.e., come up with stories people could agree upon that were not necessarily religious) instead of simply observe or document (i.e., catalogue what actually happens in the world). To this end, we value attempts to explain the world (i.e., theory and belief) over attempts to document the world (i.e., data and empiricism). Stated another way, we care more about what the correlation might suggest in a possible scenario and less about the fact that what we actually documented was simply a correlation. Whether you like this or not again does not matter – the reality is that empirical papers (i.e., those about data instead of about a story) will rarely get published and theoretical papers (i.e., those about a story whether or not it necessarily fits or has data) will get published so learn to be good storytellers if you want to publish journal articles.

Lesson 9: Publishing journal articles is about recognizing that “contribution” means nothing and a thousand different things all at the same time.

Related to lesson 8, publishing journal articles requires figuring out what anyone means when they say “contribution.” In some cases, this means you have found something that others have not discussed yet, but this is rare in my experience (in fact, editors often reject such findings even when reviewers love them because they disrupt existing storylines). In other cases, this means you studied something other people have not yet studied (i.e., some new data), but again this is rare in my experience as people generally privilege theory / belief over data / practice. In most cases I have seen, heard about, and experienced, “contribution” actually means an addition to existing literatures and lines of thought (i.e., you’re adding a new wrinkle or detail or chapter to the latest published story). This means that a “contribution” is basically anything an editor (and then reviewers) see as complimentary or additive to whatever they have already read and / or agreed with at that point. Not surprisingly, this means a contribution can mean anything. If, for example, you get an editor who has never heard of theory b but loves theory a, and your piece adds a detail to theory b, you will likely be seen to have no contribution. On the other hand, if your piece adds a detail to theory a, you have a contribution. In the same manner, if your piece makes theory b look bad, you may have a contribution if the editor and / or reviewers don’t like theory b, but you may not have a contribution if the editor and / or reviewers do like theory b. See how this works?

This gets even more complicated since the vast majority of reviewers (positive or negative) will offer a similar critique of damn near any manuscript = you didn’t use literature on x. To interpret this critique, you have to realize that what they are saying is “you didn’t use this literature I like or know that is somehow maybe related to your study and I want you to use it or I’m not going to like your paper.” So, if reviewer k loves literature in this subfield and you don’t use that literature, you do not have a contribution, but if you do use that subfield you either (a) have a contribution or (b) have to add the literature they like in that subfield to have a contribution. Again, note that the literature (i.e., the established storyline) is more important than the data in your study.  In either case, “contribution” is shorthand for “what I as a reviewer or editor deem important at present,” which is something you can rarely guess since any paper will only use a limited amount of any given literature to make its point. Publishing journal articles thus requires giving up any belief in an absolute or easily guessed “contribution,” and instead embracing that this term can mean anything or nothing in a given context because it is based on what the reader themselves (a) thinks matters, (b) is familiar with, and (c) feels comfortable with. In fact, if you embrace this reality you may – as I have many times already – have the hilarious experience where you get the exact same unchanged paper rejected from journal a because “you have no contribution” and then accepted at journal b because “you have a significant contribution” as a result of the lack of actual concrete meaning the term “contribution” actually has in practice.

Lesson 10: Publishing journal articles is a social process.

As all the above suggest, publishing journal articles is a social process wherein a multitude of variables influence whether or not something appears in print. While it may be comforting to think of journals as containers of truth and merit, the reality is that they are created based on the actions and assumptions of people like any other result of social processes. In many ways, the process is kind of like dating wherein the author seeks an editor (and then reviewers) who like their outfit, agree with their worldviews, and find things about their work important. When these things line up, you have a nice time, but when these things are incompatible you simply swipe to the next potential lover on your app.

This is complicated because like any other social process journal article publishing is not uniform, but rather varied in relation to existing assumptions, biases, opinions, experiences, and expectations held by parties on each side of the interaction. The editors and reviewers behind the scenes are just as human and socially created and influenced as the authors, and as result, their opinions and biases and expectations influence the outcome of the interaction dramatically. There are many people, for example, that adjust their names, the language used in articles, and other facets of their self presentations simply to avoid or protect against assumptions and biases they have experienced in the process at times in the past. All these intersections and interactions (as they do in other social processes) influence outcomes and experiences in nuanced ways.

This is further complicated because – again like any other social process – journal article publishing is varied in status and prestige. Like other normative institutions, the mainstream or most valued journals (think the top 10 to 20 in any field) tend to be more conservative in what they publish than lesser established journals are (I was lucky that senior scholars explained this one to me early on since as someone who does work often deemed “innovative” or “controversial” this is an important detail about the structure of academic publishing often not talked about in official spaces). As a result, pieces that are more controversial or create problems for existing stories often get published in brand new or niche journals (or in books removed from the journal article process) and only really effect the mainstream conversation over time or as a result of many people citing those works in their own endeavors. At the same time, someone will gain more immediate benefit in their career for publishing a more ordinary or conservative or usual piece in the top ranked journals than they will for pushing boundaries in lesser known journals. These factors – not surprisingly – dramatically influence what knowledge counts and leads to better careers as well as each of the lessons outlined above.

This is even further complicated because – again like any other social process – journal article publishing requires resources that are not evenly distributed. One example may be found in the topic of time, and who does or does not have time to shop multiple editors, who does or does not have writing time built into their job, who does or does not have time for conference networking or library searching in the midst of their work. All these factors play prominent roles in who can even pursue publishing in journals in the first place. We can run down a similar amount of inequitable dynamics if we look at money, research support infrastructure, course releases to focus on writing, or assistance in research just to name a few examples. All of these resource distributions influence who can publish in journals by limiting or expanding the ability one has to work through the process and play the game.

Adventures in Publishing Volume 1

by

This post is the first in a four part series wherein J and Xan outline some tips and lessons concerning publishing and reviewing they have picked up over the years.  In the first two posts, J outlines 5 lessons learned about publishing journal articles over the 4 years since submitting zir first manuscript to a journal.  Next week, J will outline 5 more lessons from these experiences, and then the following two weeks Xan will offer tips and lessons about being a good reviewer for journals and the ways this may help one’s overall publishing and other career-related experience.  

Every year, I attend conferences and come into contact with graduate students seeking to find answers to a multitude of questions concerning publishing and other aspects of academic careers. As I often do in such cases, I wanted to use this post (the first of two on the subject) to share some lessons I have learned about publishing in academic journals over the years just in case it may be helpful to emerging scholars navigating these activities. I do not mean to claim my experience is in any way exhaustive or some kind of ideal approach, but I realize (if for no other reason than the number of graduate students that seek me out each year) that such information may be useful to many people.  I further admit that many people may disagree with my own approach and the lessons I have learned so far, and I think that is quite fine – my goal here is to offer what I have learned and experienced in hopes of helping others, and I would suggest others simply do the same if they see things differently.

To this end, I offer the following lessons I have learned in the 4 years since I submitted my first manuscript to an academic journal. Considering that I have since published 19 journal articles, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the journal article process, and so I hope to share some insights from behind the scenes while recognizing that many other people likely approach things both the same way I do and much differently in practice. In this post, I offer 5 lessons learned, and in the next post (Volume 2 forthcoming) I will offer 5 more.

Lesson 1: Publishing journal articles is something one learns by doing.

If you walk through any conference or graduate program I have come across so far, you are likely to be able to find lots of advice about how one should go about publishing, but best I can tell most of such advice is not all that useful in practice. I say this as someone who was lucky enough to have mentors that answered any question and provided examples along the way.  What I learned, however, is that the process itself is simply one that takes practice. I cannot tell you how I know when a paper is ready to go out for review or which reviewers to agree with or disagree with because these are ongoing processes of interpretation I have simply picked up with practice over time. I can tell you that such practice is very important, and thus I encourage you to spend at least as much time submitting your work as you do asking others how you should go about submitting work.

Lesson 2: The people who publish the most generally are those who submit the most.

It may be comforting to believe in meritocracy or other ideal scenarios where the cream rises to the top no matter what in academic work and beyond, but realistically everyone I know (self included) that other people say “wow they publish a lot” or “how are you so productive” has a ton of rejections to go with those publications and always has something in the pipeline (if not ten somethings, hell I have 20 at various stages of review as I type this and I know of two colleagues that have more than that in the pipeline right now). To get published, you have to write and you have to submit. I was granted this advice by a scholar I met while in graduate school who, to quote a senior scholar at the time, “published a ton,” and their advice was simply – “if you want to publish a lot, you have to submit a lot, get rejected a lot, and keep submitting – it’s a numbers game like any other, the more chances you get the more times you’ll score a publication.” I can thus tell you that no matter how much (or how little) you workshop, present, or otherwise agonize over your papers, in the end what will matter is how many of them go out for review and how willing you are to keep submitting them (with adjustments along the way) following rejections. Like any other game, you have to play to have a chance.

Lesson 3: Publishing journal articles is about rejection.

Everyone I know that actually enjoys the publication process (as opposed to worrying about it, fearing it, and / or stressing about it) expects every paper they submit to get rejected – period, no exceptions. I say this as someone who has already had 2 papers get conditionally accepted on first submission and as someone who has published a lot – I assume each thing I submit will get rejected and I look forward to getting the rejection, disagreeing with the reviewers, and one day celebrating when I can say (no matter how accurate or inaccurate) “see they were wrong” when another journal wants the piece. I do not expect to get accepted, and thus each time this happens feels like a damn holiday and miracle. The rejections hurt (they suck), but like any other pain, it stings less if you are expecting it from the start instead of hoping for something that you do not get. I thus treat submissions like a game – I throw the pass or accept the dare or spin the bottle assuming it won’t go well so I can dance and sing when it occasionally works out great. I also never developed a “thick skin” as some professors suggest – rather I curse, scream, cry or whatever I feel about every rejection and use that emotion (or pain) as motivation to keep going (i.e., I’ll show them!!!) with the paper in question. I would thus say think of it like this you have nothing to lose since they’re going to reject you anyway so why not give it a shot.

Lesson 4: Publishing journal articles is about patience.

When submitting an article to this or that journal, there is no way to know how long it will take to get a decision. Almost every journal says they do things in x or y time period, but in reality these are averages at best or ideal guesses at worst from what I can tell. The shortest turn around from submission to decision I have experienced so far was 1 month, and the longest was 13 months. I have also experienced everything in between these two extremes. When you submit something, my advice is to forget about it the best you can and work on something else. Watching the pot will not likely do you any good at all, and may increase any anxiety you experience in relation to publishing or submitting in general from what I’ve seen.

Lesson 5: Publishing journal articles is about editor shopping.    

I know the standard marketing slogan, sermon or whatever you want to call it that damn near everyone repeats constantly – “the best papers get published here,” “this journal will get you good reviews,” “your paper is a perfect fit for this journal,” and “if you get good reviews you’ll get published” to name just a few. This is all “wishful thinking” best I can tell because the reality is – as many of my mentors and colleagues have expressed and I have experienced – that all you’re doing when you submit a paper is waiting to see if a given editor wants that paper. Some examples may help de-mystify this statement for those of you who might still cling desperately to beliefs about merit and objectivity in publishing:

  1. I think of the time an Editor rejected a paper of mine because they wrote “they did not believe in qualitative methods,” which kind of automatically meant the merit of any qualitative work would not matter because they did not believe in the work in the first place. This was after the paper had gotten all positive reviews during both rounds (yes I said both, initial and R&R rounds) of review.
  2. I think of the time an Editor rejected a paper of mine because they wrote I had “published too much” in that journal recently, which simply ignored the 3 glowing positive reviews the piece got (i.e., merits) in favor of journal politics and desires.
  3. I think of the (too many to count to date) times I have received rejections at various journals only to realize I got 3, 4, and even 5 glowing positive reviews with statements like “This is the most innovative piece I’ve seen in x field” or “This could be a major contribution to the discipline.” In such cases, editor taste trumps the merit documented by reviewers. In fact, a colleague and I have a running joke that if someone calls our work “innovative” or “original” we know we’re going to get rejected (unless we go to a small niche journal or a brand new journal where they appear to be more open to NEW ideas in my experience) because the last thing any editor at a well known journal seems to want is something innovative or original.
  4. I think of the many times (at least a dozen or so) where reviewers have slaughtered a piece (i.e., they hated it – I even had one write they hated it) by giving it the worst reviews I could imagine only to get a glowing R&R from an editor who apparently liked the piece. Once again (though more positive for the writer) the editor’s taste trumped the merit established (or denied in such cases) by the reviewers.

Sadly, I could give plenty more examples of these experiences, but the end point remains the same – publishing is about finding the editor that wants the piece and merit doesn’t matter unless the editor says it has merit. You have to keep in mind that editors are people with their own biases, assumptions, perspectives, tastes, agendas, etc, and they can (and do) ignore the reviewers (positive or negative) regularly. You can love this or hate this, but in either case, this is the process so you will need to learn to accept it. If your paper is great according to your colleagues and / or the reviewers, but an editor doesn’t want it, it will not get published at that journal. If your paper is horrible according to your colleagues and / or reviewers, but an editor does want it, you will get published at that journal. In the end, the process is about editor shopping because in the end editors decide what has merit and what does not. As a result, you can spend years trying to get your writing group, advisor, friend, magical creature, pen pal or whoever to like it, but in the end unless they are the editor of the journal you choose it won’t matter all that much.

I hope these 5 lessons are useful to readers, and I encourage debate and discussion of them here on the blog since I know from experience people view publishing processes differently. In the next post, I will offer 5 more lessons learned that build on these 5 so until then I wish you well in your own adventures in publishing.

All the Pain Money Can Buy: How Far We Haven’t Come with Pain Control

by

Editor Xan Nowakowski, whose own experiences with a painful chronic disease have inspired much of their own research, reflects on seven years of scholarship on clinical pain management, and what they have learned from lived experience along the way.

When I started doing pain management research as a graduate student at Rutgers in 2008, it was an exciting time for the field. New technologies as well as off-label uses of less recent ones like the Interstim device seemed to hold tremendous promise, and intrathecal pumps and ambulatory catheters were achieving significant penetrance among a variety of service populations. Especially in the world of post-surgical pain management, new reasons to envision a bright future were cropping up all the time.

In the long-term pain management field, pharmaceutical companies were racing to develop drugs to address underlying causes of chronic pain. At the time, I was taking one of those drugs—Elmiron, the much-lauded “wonder drug” for management of interstitial cystitis. Those of us with chronic conditions dared to hope a bit too, even as we rode the capricious waves of hope and despair that living with persistent illness always seems to bring.

The summer of 2009 was a watershed time for me. I was completing my Master of Public Health fieldwork, preparing to finish the program, and thinking about my next moves. Though I did not know it at the time, within six months of completing my research I would make the life-changing decision to move to Florida. I would leave behind the place where chronic pain had brought me to the brink of suicide, and where I had learned firsthand why pain and post-traumatic stress so often go hand in hand.

I drove all around New Jersey that summer, interviewing hospital providers and administrators about the pain management modalities they provided, and the barriers they encountered in offering alternatives to opioid narcotics. One of the most instructive aspects of my own experience with chronic pain had been the Scylla and Charybdis choice I faced for over a decade, trying to reconcile my fears of opioid dependency and functional disability with my equally pervasive fears of ultimately losing my will to continue living with intractable agony. I would later learn that I was hardly alone in these fears.

The hospital personnel I interviewed were many, representing about 35 percent of all hospitals in New Jersey. They held a variety of advanced degrees and came from a variety of backgrounds, with differences in beliefs and practices that reflected the variations in their training. But what stood out most to me was the levels and awareness and compassion I consistently observed in the people I interviewed. Every single person I talked to viewed chronic pain as a serious problem worthy of serious clinical attention.

Likewise, each and every one of them reported feeling frustrated with insurance companies’ lack of willingness to pay for non-opioid treatment modalities. According to my study participants, this was the most prominent barrier to providing what they viewed as truly effective and responsive pain management in accordance with national guidelines. We shared those frustrations—I told my story to many of those providers after we wrapped up our interviews, and learned a lot of things “off the record” that have informed much of the work I have done since.

The people I interviewed shared my frustrations over care practices not being able to keep pace with scientific innovations as a result of funding barriers. Predictably, these problems were often worst in hospitals with a high charity care population. Some of these hospitals found creative solutions for their patients with chronic pain from conditions like sickle cell anemia by working with local Federally Qualified Health Centers. But as often happens in low-resource communities, need for these services greatly exceeded clinics’ capacity to provide them.

We still had plenty of reasons to hope, though. With so many new medications and technologies hitting the market and starting to permeate best practice recommendations for clinical care, there was ample justification for thinking about a pipeline effect in which impactful innovations would reach more and more health care users with each passing year, becoming more affordable in the process. The promise of affordable health care legislation from the Obama administration gave additional weight to this vision.

The summer of 2015 is now drawing to a close, and once again I am wrapping up a study on clinical pain management. This time I had a partner in research and less driving to do, and a ready team of MPH students and undergraduate research assistants eager to assist. We conducted semi-structured interviews with university health care providers, working excitedly to fill a gaping hole in the published literature on pain management. We had a wonderful experience getting to know one another and completing our study, and I loved every moment of watching my students shine as they enhanced their key informant interviewing and qualitative content analysis skills.

Yet as we finish coding our data and begin writing up our findings, my happiness has become increasingly bittersweet. My students’ achievements mean everything to me, and always will. Their thoroughness, however, has proven to be a double-edged sword. What my students unearthed in their probing of our study participants was an old familiar tale that rang all too true: lots of good options offered up by science, but no functional translation of these modalities into affordable clinical care for people with chronic pain.

It is 2015, and I still have to carry a bottle of opioid medication everywhere I go. This mostly achieves the purpose of quelling the crippling fear of not being able to control my pain if nothing else works. Indeed, the literature suggests that often the most helpful aspect of opioid medications is their ability to confer a sense of mastery to people who live with painful conditions. I feel this restoration of personal agency quite a bit when sitting in relative comfort as I am now, typing away on an article or blog post that makes me feel like my own experiences are gifts that yield professional insight.

I do not feel it as much during those times every few weeks when I lie curled up beneath my desk, praying into empty air that my medication will kick in. I do not feel it when phenazopyridine stains the edges of the toilet bowl, or when bleach fumes rise into my nostrils as I wipe away the evidence of how far we haven’t come in providing real options for people like me.   I especially do not feel it when the phenazopyridine fails to enhance the effect of the diphenhydramine I have already taken, and I have to reach for the bottle of narcotic tablets that I still associate with defeat.

I also do not feel any mastery when I remember why I stopped taking Elmiron—the surreal moment of standing in my parents’ kitchen holding an absurdly dainty gingham-topped jam jar of my own urine, staring in suspicion at the rubbery threads of unidentifiable discharge that had started appearing with alarming frequency. I had a moment where I realized that urinating through a tea strainer to catch “specimens” was about my limit. One is perceived as deviant enough when one lives with a mysterious autoimmune disease, even without making a habit of urinating in jars to inspect the contents.

I should interject that these shortcomings in the field are not entirely the fault of insurance companies. As the Affordable Care Act was being developed and organizations like the Institute of Medicine were continuing to refine their recommendations for best practices in clinical pain control, a storm was brewing that set the field of innovative chronic pain management back substantially. The retraction of some two dozen published studies on multimodal analgesia crippled other clinicians’ efforts to incorporate integrative approaches using new therapies into their own programs of care. As predicted, the field has yet to recover fully.

Of course, when you live with a painful chronic disease, you learn quickly that you never truly recover. Your body changes; your life changes; and your brain changes right along with them. Illness management becomes the name of the game—one that often feels like Whac-a-Mole rather than a game in which one defeats a series of bosses and wins. Good science, conducted by people with curious minds and compassionate hearts, is one of the best weapons we have in this game. But abuses of research ethics—even by scientists who may have the best of intentions in mind—can leave us fighting fisticuffs against enemies we cannot hope to vanquish on our own.

Later this fall, I will be doing a follow-up post here about the 2009 multimodal analgesia scandal and its broader implications for ethics in medical research, adding a perspective of lived experience to the insights offered by other clinicians as they reacted to the news about Dr. Scott Reuben’s research fabrications. In the meantime, I know that when many of you Write Where It Hurts, you are doing so in the most concrete and literal sense possible! So I encourage all of our readers to share stories and insights about pain management, including any research you have done on the topic and any lived experiences that inform your work.

Teaching Where It Hurts

by

In this post, Xan Nowakowski and J. Sumerau reflect on their experiences personalizing sociology in the classroom (see their recently published Teaching Sociology article on this topic here) in hopes of facilitating dialogue and debate about the benefits and limitations of incorporating professor biographies into sociological curricula.

As people who write about, teach, study, and engage in advocacy related to chronic health conditions, social inequalities, sexual and gender experiences and identities, and managing trauma, we have become intimately aware of the potential personal experience and stories can have for facilitating learning and motivating concrete action among our students, colleagues, and communities. At the same time, we know all too well that structural factors regularly limit who can say what in classrooms in much the same way they do beyond the academy, and that academic traditions have long privileged rational or remote notions of instruction over emotional and personalized approaches. As we did in our recently published Teaching Sociology article, we would like to encourage our colleagues to consider these options and structural patterns in hopes of spurring dialogue about the potential of using our own experiences within inequitable structures to help students and colleagues see the pain created by social inequalities on a more personal level.

As we did with the establishment of ongoing conference sessions, an upcoming book project, and the creation of this site, our focus here lies in the potential of writing (or researching, teaching and advocating) where it hurts. When Xan shares stories of almost dying or struggles with doctors and other medical professionals unfamiliar with what to do to treat their chronic physical health conditions, for example, students come face to face with the results of our flawed healthcare system in the midst of their own lives and worldviews. Likewise, when J. shares stories of being physically assaulted for daring to go on a date with a cute boy or watching a lover die amidst both caring and supportive and judgmental and hateful medical professionals, students witness the concrete tears, pain, and sorrow that come from experiences within interlocking systems of inequality embedded throughout our society. In these and many other cases, we utilize our own pain to pull social inequality out of the abstract and into the actual lived experiences of the students and colleagues who interact with us.

As we advocate in our recent article and practice in our own classes and on this site, we seek to personalize social inequalities for our students. Rather than things they read or hear about in class that happen somewhere “out there” unseen to them, we use our own experience and narratives shared by other people occupying marginalized positions or experiencing traumatic events to translate “out there” into personal realities with actual faces, personalities, voices, and bodies in the eyes of students and colleagues. In fact, both students and colleagues regularly experience their own organic emotional reactions to social patterns in the process, and tend to very quickly make the link that if it could happen to “their professor” then it could happen to “them” or “their loved ones” as well. Not surprisingly, such realizations very quickly transform societal patterns of inequality into anything but abstract concepts. As a result, our willingness to talk about the pain or teach where it hurts often translates into incredibly passionate and engaged rooms full of students especially willing to discuss and consider concrete steps they can take toward more positive social relations.

As we note in our recent article, we developed these approaches – individually and collectively – over time by building the entirety of our class offerings around discussion, consent, and application of scholarly materials to personal experience. In terms of discussion, for example, our courses are organized – from the first to the last day – around personal or collected emotional narratives that we share with students in relation to each course reading and topic. In so doing, we ritualize personal narratives within the class so students become accustomed to this form of interaction and dialogue throughout the course. Likewise, our courses are built upon an emphasis on consent wherein students are never required to disclose their own personal experiences or use ours in their work, but they are allowed to do both of these things on any assignment or in any class meeting where such things are relevant to the given assignment or class topic or assigned material. We thus remove grading from the equation by giving students ample resources to do just as well in the class no matter their experience and / or interpretation of the personal content we or other students share. Finally, we strategically link every scholarly piece or activity in a given class to specific personalized examples so students are able to always see the real world (or applied) aspects of the materials we cover in their own lives, in our lives, and / or in the lives of other people. Our experiences – as well as some initial negative experiences others have had when first attempting styles like our own without these ingredients – tell us these (and maybe other) efforts to create classrooms where students get used to and feel safe with vulnerability may be essential ingredients in personalizing instruction.

With all this information in mind, we invite dialogue, commentary and discussion on the possibility of personalizing scholarly work through teaching and other methods. Whether one seeks to join this conversation on this site or in relation to our call in Teaching Sociology or in any other space, we invite and appreciate other educator’s perspectives on these matters. To this end, ask yourself what ways you do or could personalize sociology? What might be the benefits or limitations of doing so? What institutional and structural steps might we need to take to serve and protect those who share their pain in the service of education and advocacy by and for their students and other colleagues? While we will not pretend to have some “right” or “absolute” answers to these questions, our experiences to date within and beyond classrooms tell us these questions might be incredibly important and useful in many ways.

When it won’t go away – on managing chronic conditions in the academy

by

An important part of the initiation of Write Where It Hurts came from Xan Nowakowski and J. Sumerau’s experiences collaboratively managing chronic conditions in relation to their professional and personal relationships.  Building on Xan’s previous post in this area, in this post J. Sumerau reflects on aspects of managing chronic mental and physical health conditions in hopes of facilitating dialogue about these issues within and beyond the academy.

Although often invisible to the naked eye in social and professional interaction, estimates suggest as much as half the American population live with chronic mental and / or physical health conditions, and must manage such conditions throughout their daily lives. In this post, I reflect on some of my own experiences as one of these people in hopes of facilitating dialogue on this subject.

In so doing, I am seeking to build on the bravery of other scholars who have already addressed experiences with chronic conditions in many ways. Whether we look to recent blog posts (often anonymous) by people exploring, for example, aspects of bipolar conditions, experiences along the autism spectrum, managing dissociative identity disorders, or persistent anxiety, we can already see the silence around chronic conditions beginning to dissipate. I thus seek to contribute to these voices in hopes of continuing to, as DeWelde and Stepnick title their important volume exposing gender inequality in the academy, “disrupting the culture of silence” around chronic conditions in the academy.

To this end, I want to start by noting that on the surface – or from the outside so to speak – I generally appear to be a rather productive scholar. In fact, I regularly encounter people (well meaning, kind and complimentary people, best I can tell) who say things to the effect of “how do you get so much done” or “I wish I was as productive as you” when they realize that I only began graduate study 7 years ago but already have over 30 academic publications. I appreciate the kindness and compliments these people offer me, and I am proud of my work personally and professionally because doing this work is the closest I ever get to feeling like I might fit in somewhere.

I do not, however, note these experiences to boast in any way. Rather, I note these experiences because people might never think of me when they hear about scholars managing extremely painful and difficult chronic conditions. I have regularly heard people at conferences and in other settings assert negative stereotypes about people with enduring mental and physical conditions, which suggest these people are rare (false) and / or that these people are obviously or automatically different or deviant (false) and / or that visibly managing conditions or otherwise these people are somehow less capable than their normatively bodied or mental colleagues (false again). Like many of the scholars I am aware of managing such conditions, my constant struggle to exist is invisible to the casual glance, and still others face similar struggles managing more visible conditions. In both cases, every scholar I have come in contact with who is managing one or more chronic health conditions is at least as competent as any other scholar I have seen and often actually perform well above the average in their fields (Charles Darwin likely being the most famous example).

The mismatch between stereotypes and actual scholars managing chronic conditions is likely familiar to anyone versed in inequalities scholarship. Similar to people stigmatized via normative or dominant notions of race, class, gender, sexualities, and age to name a few, people whose minds and bodies work differently are typically framed as deficient or deviant. We are called diseased instead of simply different, our experiences are called disorders instead of variations, and our abilities are called lesser instead of diverse. In all such cases, we are assaulted for not fitting artificial norms about how human bodies and minds “should work” so that others who benefit from these norms do not have to reevaluate their own mind and body assumptions. As has traditionally been the case, many of us have realized that these patterns will only change if we begin announcing ourselves to the rest of the world and challenging mental and physical ablest assumptions embedded within academic and other social arenas.

To this end, I would like to share some things about my experience managing chronic conditions that I hope people will think about when they assume bodies or minds should be or work in a certain way. While strangers, colleagues, and acquaintances may look me up, meet me at a conference, see me speak, or otherwise come into contact with me, their view will generally be different from the people closest to me. While such people (based on their reactions to date) will likely see my “productivity” or “talent” first and foremost, those closest to me see how little I sleep because my brain won’t stop working, how many hours and days (and even at times weeks) I spend curled up in a ball in the dark because I feel like the world is trying to kill me, how confusing normal or common speaking patterns are to me and how much energy it takes me to have a five minute conversation with another person, scars scattered around my body from the regular times where it feels like my skin is too tight, and the constant headaches I live with and medicate.

The people closest to me also know that I always keep pills and ice packs nearby because I’m always in at least some physical pain due to issues with my legs. They also know that I regularly hear and see things that other people do not, and get used to me randomly having conversations with people and things they cannot see when we’re together. They also understand what its like to get a call from me when I’ve forgotten who I am, when I don’t know where I am, when I’ve gotten lost on the way to work again, when I think they’re dead but I want to check, when I think I’m dead but want to check, or when I can’t figure out how to put on clothes or feed myself. They also have the patience to look after me when, for example, I wander off following something that they can’t see, disappear mentally in the middle of a conversation without realizing it, or ask them if they’re real because I suddenly don’t know. They also understand when I throw out all my spoons because I’m convinced they’re out to hurt me, when I go whole semesters without working on our projects because my brain just won’t work, when something as simple as going to the grocery store terrifies me or tires me out emotionally, or when I just can’t interact at all for a while and need to be completely alone in silence or with music.

The people closest to me also are not surprised when I don’t buy shoes with laces because they already know that while I can memorize books I can’t tie shoelaces. They are not surprised (and often kindly try to protect me) when the thought of anyone being behind me terrifies me, when human contact makes me literally sick to my stomach (a wonderful example was a friend at a conference who once made controversial statements each time someone went to shake my hand so they would be distracted and I wouldn’t have to explain why I was not going to touch them), or when I have trouble even breathing in a large group of people (even people I like and care about) because I feel like the presence of others is suffocating me. They can even explain to other people why I spend so much time outside since sometimes walls feel like cages, why its much better to contact me online where I don’t have to talk to or see anyone, or how I might shift from the most hyper person they’ve ever met to the most comatose person they’ve ever met within a few minutes.

As you can probably tell, the people closest to me are wonderful people who make a very difficult world more comfortable for me in numerous ways. I find myself appreciating them more than words can say every moment I’m conscious, and without their efforts every aspect of my life other than writing would be much more difficult because I work in a profession where who you know, networking, and other social interaction skills are often just as and / or far more important to careers than how productive you are. This was a hard lesson for me when I arrived in the academy because I can write 10 or more solid articles in a semester but I will never know what to say at a mixer or conference surrounded by frightening strangers. This is all the more important because the conditions that facilitate the above examples are not likely to ever go away, and thus an academy based on the ability to “make small talk with the right people” automatically disadvantages me no matter how good a researcher I am or become.

I am able and willing to share these aspects of my experience, however, because in many ways I have been lucky enough to receive incredible emotional and instrumental support throughout my time in the academy. The people closest to me and especially my life partner, for example, are very understanding and protective of me, and many of them have the resources to protect me even if my disclosure leads other to stigmatize me in some regard. Likewise, I am incredibly productive because, as Matt Damon’s character says in Good Will Hunting, when it comes to research and writing – I can just play. I might not be able to do most of the things normatively bodied and minded people do so easily every day, but I write on as high a level and as fast as anyone I have ever met. The same things that make most of social life so hard for me provide me with abilities that are perfectly suited to the scholarship part of an academic career (i.e., I can read a book in an hour and memorize it, cite findings from years past off the top of my head, take apart anything I read or see or hear and turn it into patterns and themes without even meaning or actively trying to, etc.).  Further, from my earliest days in graduate school to my present academic position, I have had mentors in my programs, in other programs, in Sociologists for Women in Society, and in Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction who were and still are kind enough to accept and help me in countless ways as I try to survive the necessity of being social in the construction of an academic career.

It is also with these resources in mind that I remain well aware that many people managing chronic conditions everyday cannot safely speak out about their experiences, marginalization, and /or aspects of ablest bodily and mental assumptions and norms that impact their academic careers. I also know all too well that in many cases chronic conditions do limit productivity in terms of normative metrics like publishing in much the same way they limit me socially, and the only way to shift these burdens is for those of us who can to start speaking out and advocating for a more realistic understanding of the multiple aspects of scholarly experiences and lives and the natural variation in the ways human bodies and minds operate.

I thus share my experiences in hopes of facilitating dialogue concerning the management of chronic conditions in the academy (and elsewhere), steps we could take to provide resources for such management within academic settings and programs, and concrete ways we could begin to shatter the stigma and silence surrounding this prominent and widespread experience. For many people, mental and physical conditions will not go away, but if we work together, we could get rid of the ways current academic norms, simplistic and conformist assumptions about bodies and minds, and silence surrounding mental and physical health within and beyond the academy punish people for their pain. In so doing, we might instead create a culture where people experiencing the wide variety of empirically common bodily and mental types and forms are celebrated, affirmed, and accepted as full beings capable of providing diverse perspectives on a complex bio-social world.

Making the Most of a False Arrest

by

In this guest post, Dr. Jerome Krase reflects on an experience of false arrest in the 1990’s and the perils of navigating academic, legal, and political systems.  Dr. Krase is a public activist-scholar serving as a consultant to public and private agencies regarding urban community issues residing in Brooklyn who writes regularly on local and global social and political issues.  

The following, slightly edited, first person narrative was originally published in The Brooklyn Free Press in the Spring of 1998 as “Bill, Me and Sexual McCarthyism.” It is the kind of experience most people, not to mention, college professors would rather forget. I am grateful for the creation of a space to Write Where it Hurts to share and reflect upon very personal and emotional aspects of my own teaching and research.

Bill Clinton and I have two things in common; we both lean to the left and have been accused of sexual misconduct. The similarity ends there. Bill did “it”. I didn’t. For most of us an accusation of Sexual Harassment or Sexual Abuse would be punishment enough. In my case, the accuser, someone I choose to call Student X, understood the power of Sexual McCarthyism by which the fear of even unfounded accusations leads one to silence. He was also aided and abetted by incompetent and indifferent public authorities who assumed that their crimes of omission would be covered up by my embarrassment. I will not be silent.

For years critics have complained about “standards” at The City University of New York. Having gone through a year of personal hell I can tell you that the “standards” of officials in the Police Department, Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, PSC/CUNY Faculty Union, and Brooklyn College are much lower than those of my most unprepared students.

March 25, 1998, 10:30 A.M. I stood in Criminal Court as Bogus Charges of Sex Abuse in the Third Degree against me were dismissed. How I got to this low point in my life is a story only Kafka could appreciate.

Tuesday, December 2, 1997, 6:30 P.M. Brooklyn College. While I was addressing my class Student X entered, tossed a second rewrite of his failed mid-term onto my desk and made his way to the back of the overcrowded classroom. It had an extra page for “Comments by Professor Jerome Kraze.” When he became disruptive I indicated that he should leave. He went out, but stood in the hallway glaring at me through the open door. I closed it. He opened it. I closed it. He opened it, stepped into the classroom, kicked in the doorstop, and then retook his post outside. I closed the door again. During the next hour and a half he entered and left the class at least twice more. Finally it was time for the student evaluation. Mr. X asked what was going on. I told him to listen to the student proctors. I smelled alcohol. He wanted to speak with me, “Now!” I hurried out and down the long corridor. He stayed on my heels, muttering. “You going down the elevator?” I knew it was not a good idea.

On the escalator, I told him he was a problem in class. He said the “other colleges said the same thing”. He called me “the white professor”. I said if he didn’t leave me alone I would go to Security. He said if I reported him, he would report me. At the exit, I asked the guard to hold him while I went to my car.

Thursday morning, December 4. Brooklyn College. I spoke to Dr. Wertheim in Counseling about my problem student. Her first question was “Do you have tenure?” Then she said protect yourself and contact the Student Life Office for disciplinary action. She asked for his name and social security number. She left me a copy of “How to Identity, Assist and Refer Students with Personal Problems and/or Disruptive Behavior” in her office. I never heard from her again.

I assumed that Student X was entitled to “special” protections because of mental or emotional problems. In the past, such “persons” had been placed in my classes because I was a “sensitive” instructor. I called the Vice President for Student Life to find out his status. He was at a meeting. I was referred to his assistant, who was also not available. They sent me “forms” to fill out.

Sunday evening, December 7. There was a message to call Professor Natov at home. She informed me that Student X had accused me of Sexual Harassment. He also made a complaint to the Police that I had “grabbed his groin” on the escalator. She said the charge is unbelievable but the school is required to go through a process. I told my wife, three daughters, son-in-law, and my daughter’s police office fiancé, Juan Carlo, who all had joined us for dinner. They thought I was joking. I called my chairperson. He said, “not to worry”.

After several unanswered calls Juan Carlo and I took a ride to the 70th Precinct and found the civilian clerk eating at her desk while the phone rang off the hook. Student X had filed complaint #14135 that I had “grabbed comp in his groin area”. I filed complaint # 14307 against him. I was assured it would be treated as another “he said-he said” dispute. I called an NYPD lawyer friend of mine. He felt there was no need for me to get an attorney because the police are required to make a thorough investigation.

Monday morning, December 8. I called Student Life VP Hillary A. Gold. He had already seen the student’s accusation. I asked him to bar the student from the college and protect me. He couldn’t do anything until he “had paper” on the student. I made an appointment with his assistant, Dr. Williams. He said he would call back. He never did. Later that day, Public Safety Director Donald A. Wenz, called. Mr. Wenz said he had assigned me a guard. There were, however, no notes in the Security Log about the incident.

Mid-day, Tuesday, December 9. Dr. Williams said she had worked in the Brooklyn DAs Office and “it seems like an ex-con thing”. Student X didn’t have the course pre-requisites and she was not surprised he was floundering. I asked if she heard from Dr. Wertheim from Counseling. She said the offices don’t communicate with each other.

I went to my class. The students were worried because they heard him muttering threats, saw Student X follow me out of class, and also had smelled “liquor” on his breath. They tried to call me but something was wrong with the phones. When two female students were bringing the student evaluations back to the office Student X verbally abused and threatened them. A Security Guard intervened. Later that night Student X, confronted and threatened one of them on the subway. I asked them to tell the security guard what had happened. He told them to go to Security to fill out forms.

After class, I was told to call Detective Belgrave at the Seven O. I told my story, and what I learned that night. He had already spoken to Brooklyn College. He reassured me that he thought the charge was false, but had to proceed. I informed him that I had filed a counter complaint against Student X. He said he would interview him, and that I should call him on Thursday.

Wednesday morning, December 10. I called a NYC official, for help and advice. He said he didn’t think there would be a problem. Then I called Dr. Williams’s office about what I learned from the students on Tuesday night and about the guards not taking notes or filing reports. She said they were “not required” to.

Later that day my friend-the-official called to say that the best he could do was that I not be put “through the system” (held overnight for arraignment). I told him that my son-in-law-the-dentist thinks I should get a criminal attorney. He agreed it was a good idea. I called Detective Belgrave and asked him to complete the processing in time for me to meet my Thursday classes. I left a message for my lawyer about my impending arrest.

Early Thursday morning, December 11. My wife and my first-year-law-student-daughter accompanied me to the 70th Precinct where we met Belgrave who said he was sympathetic but must arrest me. He asked me how I spelled my name. I told him. He smiled. Student X had said my name was spelled Kraze.

Belgrave left the room several times. During one trip another detective called out that there was a lawyer (mine) on the phone looking for him. When he returned they said nothing to him. I told him that my lawyer had called. He said it was “too late”.

The detectives were comedians. The Columbian Association representative was trying to recruit them. One said: “Where’s the headquarters of the Columbians, the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club?” When I was taken for my mug shot another called out “Get the Brooklyn College ID in the shot!”

As a Black police officer, Belgrave didn’t seem to have much rapport with the Caucasian wise guys. But his own ironic racism had more subtle expressions. He explained that Student X was “credible” because he wore “clean” pants, and “spoke well,” as if this was unusual for Black complainants. I asked Belgrave if he contacted any of my other students. He hadn’t. I asked him if he would act on my complaint. He said “No.”, because it was only a Class E. Misdemeanor. I said as a “Bias Crime”, it was a felony. He said he would check with his Lieutenant. I never heard from him again. He handed me a Desk Appearance Ticket for January 12, 1998 to answer to a charge of Sex Abuse 3.

Friday, December, Court Street. 8:30 A.M. My attorney informed me that District Attorney, Charles Joseph Hynes, had implemented a Mandatory Arrest Policy in cases of domestic violence and sex abuse. By his fiat the IV, V and XIV Amendments to the United States Constitution no longer applied in Kings County. Hynes allegedly told defense attorneys; “I don’t care if they can prove they were in bed with a judge at the time.” I became a victim because the NYPD and the DA had been burned too often for not arresting really dangerous people. And, perhaps because Hynes needed Black support in the gubernatorial primary, justice for a white man who was brought to the Abner Louima Precinct for sexually abusing a black man was impolitic.

I asked my attorney how much this was going to cost. He said although I can’t be convicted, it could cost a lot. He told me to forget about “justice”. It is merely a “process”. He said the DA’s Office would contact him. They never did. He advised me against participating in the Sexual Harassment hearings.

A few days later I asked my union for help. They didn’t believe that what the college had done to me was a “grievance”. The PSC/CUNY Union attorney advised that although the union is sympathetic it can’t help, but for my $600 a year dues he did wish me “Good luck.”

December 16. I learned that Student X was a transfer student from an upstate Community College, that he failed the CUNY Quantitative and Writing Entrance Exams, and that he should not have been in my advanced Sociology class.

Monday, January 12, 1998. My wife and daughter came with me for my first court appearance at 9:30 A.M. at 120 Schermerhorn Street. My lawyer told us to get there early. It was good advice. The ground floor lobby was a huge cattle pen, and the line of innocents-until-proven-guilty flowed outside and snaked around the corner. We took off our jewelry, and emptied our pockets. I took off my belt. We put our things in a basket, handed it to a court officer, and went through a metal detector. Then we crammed ourselves onto an elevator. We waited in the hallway outside the courtroom for an hour. When my attorney arrived they told him my files were not there. He asked for a new date. I asked what was going on. He said it was normal – “It’s part of the process.”

The next day, I received a Certified Registered letter from Brooklyn College dated January 12, 1998. It read in part: “…I concur with the “findings that there was no evidence to substantiate the allegation of sexual harassment.” Sincerely, President Vernon E. Lattin, Brooklyn College. I faxed my attorney a copy.

Thursday morning, February 19. My wife and I made our second Court appearance. Although some of the paper work was still not presented charges were filed against me. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK V. JEROME KRASE…THE DEFENDANT DID GRAB INFORMANT’S GROIN AREA WHILE TRAVELLING ON AN EXCALATOR OF THE BROOKLYN COLLEGE. I pleaded “Not guilty”. Student X was granted an Order of Protection against me. My attorney asked for another court date.

Wednesday morning, March 25. We made our third court appearance. The prosecution was still not ready to proceed so my attorney moved to dismiss because the case had not met some requirement. After a discussion with the ADA his motion to dismiss was approved without opposition. I was not elated. I had to pay $5 for each copy of my Certificate of Disposition #502235. I sent one to President Lattin of Brooklyn College.

My attorney explained that although my record would be officially sealed, my name was now “in the system”. I got to hope that another 40 year old black male doesn’t walk into a station house and say he was grabbed by a middle-aged blue eyed white male with a Ph.D.

I have since learned that at one of the Sexual Harassment hearings Student X appeared drunk. He denied he disrupted the class during the night in question as described by other student witnesses. He also refused to account for several years of his life history. Student X took four or five classes in the Fall 1997 Semester. Two or three were remedial. He received only one grade – an “S” for Remedial Writing (Probably for my mid-term essay rewrite). In the Spring he registered for two classes but never attended them.

I asked Brooklyn College to bar Student X from campus for my own protection, and that of the other faculty, staff, and students. The College sees no need to bar him from campus. If he comes they will refer him to the Office of Student Life where “He will be advised that he is neither to contact you nor to retaliate against you…” And, appropriate security measures will be taken.

I asked the College to pay for a criminal attorney if Student X makes another false charge, and also reimburse me for my first attorney. Pamela Pollack, the college attorney, said she’d get back to me on that. She never did.

Finally, I asked why after learning all they had about Student X, even before my first court appearance, the college never contacted my attorney, the Police Department, or the District Attorney. Counselor Pollock said they never called. My attorney was right, it is just a process, and, I might add, one that never seems to end.

As I have reflected on this experience over the years, I have increasingly thought about what might have happened to me had I not been so privileged. I was, as he said, a “white professor.” I also had political connections enough not to suffer the immediate consequences of arrest. What would have happened had the alleged victim been a white woman and I a black professor or fellow student? There was also some implication on the part of police that I was Jewish and gay, and was hitting on black students so anti-Semitism and homophobia may have also played a role in their lack of interest in investigating the accusation. There are so many ways in which this could have been played out, but the most important factor in broadcasting my troubles was my wife’s insistence that I write and publish the story as soon as the charges were dropped. It should be noted that only the student in this story remains unnamed. Given the suggestion that he had been incarcerated, as an African-American male he was more of victim than I. I was just a more or less convenient target for his rage.

What “team”? Some thoughts on navigating monosexism

by

In this post, Lain Mathers reflects on zir experiences navigating monosexism in contemporary society.  Lain Mathers is a doctoral student in Sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago and the Assistant Editor here at Write Where It Hurts, this is zir first blog.

Earlier this week, Dr. J Sumerau posted on Conditionally Accepted and this blog about the disjuncture between lived experiences and academic definitions of bisexuality. Specifically, ze wrote about how the definitions generated by academics, often with little or no experience interacting with bisexual people (that they know of) or living bisexual lives, are then used to enforce and regulate what is “really” considered bisexual. In this post, I am going to reflect on what it is like for me to move through the monosexual world (i.e., a world defined by sexual binaries) as a bisexual person and bourgeoning sexualities scholar.

Some of my earliest memories about bisexuality came from high school. I often heard my classmates joking about bisexuality (or “bicuriosity” as it was often reduced to). In the hallways, at the lunch tables, in the parking lot after school, such pejorative comments ended up reducing bisexuality to some “true” gay or lesbian “nature” (often in far less neutral language) and were always followed by hysterical laughter. In addition to these comments, my male heterosexual peers often leered at groups of teenage girls, audibly fantasizing about how “hot” it would be if one of them were bisexual so that she would presumably engage in a threesome with one of them and another “hot chick”.

I observed this trope of the “hot bisexual girl” (never a “hot bisexual woman,” only ever a “hot bisexual girl,” reducing adult bisexual women to an infantilized position) expand into my college years, as many of the teenage and young adult heterosexual men I met mused over the possibilities of finding the “right bisexual girl” that would be “down” for a threesome with him and another woman. At one point, I witnessed one of my female college peers follow up this statement with the question, “Well, why don’t you engage in a threesome with a bisexual guy? Maybe your girlfriend would prefer that!” This particular guy responded with, “Fuck no. I’m not having sex with a homo.” Following his blatantly homophobic, biphobic, and monosexist remark I asked, “Would you ever want to date a bisexual girl that you theoretically would have this threesome with?” He paused for a second, “Nah, I don’t date sluts.”

It was at this point that the messages about bisexuality I heard up to that point (from heterosexual people) congealed into a clear dichotomy – the hot, sexually available bisexual girl that you only have threesomes with, but never date contrasted with the always-already “truly homosexual” male who can never actually be bisexual because of the “one act rule” that is particularly pervasive in dominant heterosexual paranoia around males who sleep with other males. I even remember this theme coming up in interactions with some of my early heterosexually-identified boyfriends when they begged me to watch “bisexual girl porn” with them to “get in the mood”. This always made me uncomfortable, a feeling I attributed at the time solely to my discomfort with the sexist objectification in much of mainstream porn. While this was surely a large component of the equation, the fact that I also experienced bisexual desires (that I had yet to acknowledge) was likely another.

Despite the overwhelmingly derogatory lens through which I learned to view bisexuality from my heterosexual peers, I began to openly identify as bisexual during my last year of college. During this time, I did a great deal of research on the Internet and managed to find more positive messages about bisexuality in the form of online conversations among self-identified bisexuals. Additionally, after the negative experiences I had talking to heterosexual people about bisexuality in the past, I was encouraged by the presence of what I understood to be a fairly radical scene of activists and lesbian, gay, and “queer” individuals in the community where I resided at the time. I eagerly hoped that shifting my peer circle from a predominantly heterosexual and sexist scene to a supposedly “queer” scene would be a refreshing start to fully embracing my bisexuality in a positive and supportive environment.

You can imagine the disappointment, then, when a conversation like the following ensued:

At a coffee shop I frequented, some people that I knew were discussing the Occupy movement (this was in the early days of its existence, and many of the activists and “queers” in the place where I lived were planning a similar demonstration locally). The issue of sexuality came up and the conversation slowly veered away from Occupy and towards a conversation of sexual politics. At one point in the conversation I identified myself as bisexual, still a relatively new phenomenon for me, so much so that speaking it out loud felt disingenuous even though it wasn’t. The conversation lulled, some people’s lips pursed, one person pulled out his phone, another took a deep inhale of their cigarette. Finally, the quiet broke when one of the women sitting near me who I was accustomed to seeing rotating in this circle took a large gulp of coffee and then ardently informed me that:

“It’s actually pretty offensive that you use that language. After all, you’re limiting the existence of everyone to either men or women and there’s a lot more gender identities that exist beyond that. Just, like, politically try to be more aware.”

I was stunned, particularly because (unbeknownst to her) I was also reconciling my own non-binary gender queer existence at the time and did not at all see my bisexuality as an invalidating force in that regard. I was perplexed at how she arrived at the conclusion that the “bi” in “bisexuality” only meant “men and women.” From the hours of research that I did on the Internet, on bisexual community pages and Facebook groups, this was not at all the consensus. In fact, I read through a multitude of conversations of self-identified bisexual people reflecting on the beautifully multifaceted fact that “bisexual” can mean one’s own sex and other sexes, men and women, cisgender and transgender, intersex and non-intersex, or no preference for bodies and/or gender identities whatsoever!

I was beside myself trying to sort out why a college-educated supposedly “radical lesbian queer” individual would assert such a myopic view on the meaning of bisexuality. Yet, this was a circle I was fairly new to, so I did my best to disappear from the rest of the conversation (unsuccessfully based on the condescending looks of disapproval directed at me for the next half hour, what are also referred to as “microaggressions”).

In the midst of all this, I could not shake the questions running through my head: if the implication of bisexual attraction and desire supposedly means that I am saying only “men and women” exist, then why is it that no one interrupted the self identified gay male to my left when he discussed his sexuality? Wasn’t he suggesting that only men existed and that there was some “essential” type of being called “man”? Why was bisexuality the sexual identity and set of (extremely diverse) practices solely responsible for reinforcing the problematic and essentialist gender binary? Also, how did these people, a group of supposedly “radical activists, and members of a lesbian, gay, and queer community” not see that they were engaging in a kind of erasure that was not so dissimilar than what they experienced from heterosexuals? I was crushed and disappointed to learn that not only did I not belong in this space either, but also that my existence was offensive.

Be “hot” or be “offensive.” As a bisexual, what I first learned from heterosexual and lesbian/gay people was that I could not be considered fully human with ideas and desires of my own.

A few months after this interaction, I moved to a large city for school and hoped that I would find a more welcoming space for bisexuals in a big city (unlike where I previously lived). I started going on dates, primarily with self-identified lesbian women, in hopes of getting a chance to meaningfully engage this component of my desire and attractions (and also because I had no clue where to find other bisexuals). After the interaction I had with the woman at the coffee shop, I was apprehensive to disclose my bisexuality to anyone – straight, lesbian, or gay – and attempted to avoid talking about my sexual desires other than the ones that would be immediately relevant in that situation (while, ironically, cultivating an interest in studying sexualities). On these dates, I became acutely aware that not only was I offensive (as the woman at the coffee shop had informed me), but that I was also not to be trusted, since, as one woman put it, “bisexual girls can’t make up their minds,” (here, again, bisexual girls can’t make up their minds, reducing bisexuality to childhood not unlike the heterosexual males at my high school).

Eventually, I began to meet other bisexuals and became entirely frustrated with the notion that I was just not “gay” enough, and I began openly identifying as bisexual again (sometimes). Yet even when I did this, I found myself sitting around tables and making sure that those near me knew the story that I fashioned to shield myself from any potential judgment – that I was “like 85-90% gay, though,” generally followed by a laugh and a sip of whatever I was drinking at the time with the hope of concealing my profound discomfort and disdain for this practice of “quantifying” just how bisexual I really was just to avoid negativity from straight, but predominantly gay and lesbian people. In time this did not prove to be much better of an approach than entirely obscuring my desires altogether.

This dissonance was buttressed by the fact that, despite the multitude of ways I tried to present myself while navigating the changes in/with/to my gender, others most commonly read me as a lesbian woman. This was most clearly relayed to me in an interaction I had with a man one day while purchasing a pack of cigarettes at a corner store in the city.

“Congratulations!” The man behind the counter exclaimed as I walked through the door.

I looked around, unsure of whether he was addressing me, or someone familiar that he knew who happened to enter right behind me. I quickly realized there was no one else in the store and since all I had done that morning was get out of bed and walk to the corner, I inquired about the reason for his congratulations.

“Oh, well now you can get married!”

Setting aside the reality that I did not, in fact, have a partner at this time, I quickly realized that, in this man’s eyes, I was a lesbian woman and the day before our interaction the former governor of our state signed gay marriage into law in the state where we lived. Not only was I apparently a lesbian woman, but one who would, of course, automatically want to marry. His assumptions not only erased the fact that I, actually, could have been married to some of my partners long before this date, but that perhaps marriage was not something I had any intention of engaging in regardless of my partner choice. Alas, this man not only reflected his limited familiarity with only the most “respectable” of “LGbt” issues for many straight people, but also the erasure of bisexuality completely from potential “intelligible” forms of existence.

All of these encounters are just a sampler of my experiences navigating bisexuality in a monosexual/monosexist social world. In my adolescence and college years I primarily confronted the dynamics of heteronormativity (and still do). Yet, heteronormative regulations are only one side of a monosexist coin, the other side of which involves navigating the imperatives of homonormativity. For many bisexuals this is a phenomenon all too familiar. We are either too straight, or not straight enough. We are not gay enough either, or we’re really just gay and waiting to “pick a side already.” We’re hot, offensive, untrustworthy, a specter of danger, and volatile. Yes, we are destabilizing for homo and hetero normative assumptions in the most fluid of ways. This is a reality I continually have to work to embrace while navigating hostility from lesbian, gay, and straight others.

While I have often heard – from straight, gay, and lesbian people alike – that bisexuals have it easier because we can “just choose to be closeted” I want to stop and interrogate this assumption –especially since recent reports reveal that bisexuals suffer from more severe health complications than straight, lesbian, or gay people, and because the same assertion was made against lesbian and gay people not so long ago. Additionally, one of the most cited difficulties that bisexuals report is lack of community support. Monosexism is not just inconvenient for bisexual people, it is a form of violence, and it is quite real in its consequences, particularly for bisexual people who already occupy other marginalized structural positions.

My hope in sharing this information is to continue dialogue concerning how we define “bisexuality” in our own communities compared to the academy. I am hoping that perhaps we might opt to challenge where we see monosexism in our own classrooms, writing and research agendas, and community engagement projects.

Lain Mathers

To Be Seen, Not Heard at the Boys’ Table: Sexism in Academia

by

The following guest post is by a doctoral candidate in sociology at a public research university in the United States. In this post, ze reflects on experiences with sexism at academic conferences.

 

The systemic problem of gender inequality is often a driving force behind individuals’ decision to specialize in sociology and, more specifically, in the areas of sex and gender. Doe-eyed graduate students, such as myself, believe academia is where merit and opportunity are derived from hard work and meaningful contributions to science. A place were females, males, cisgender, and transgender individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexualities or social class, are accepted by their peers and discrimination is checked at the door. Academics, certainly those in sociology, would never discriminate against minorities and those who are different. Right? Wrong! So wrong, unfortunately. As a first year PhD student in sociology, and also a female, I have already experienced evidence that the boy’s club is still alive and kicking in academia.

For instance, I have been counseled multiple times that it is in my best interest this early in my career to abbreviate my feminine-sounding name on scholarly publications. The second and probably more disheartening sexist experience took place during an annual sociology conference; ironically, the theme of the conference was gender. I feel compelled to share my experience as well as the experience of my co-author (who is also a doctoral student in sociology) during our paper session at this particular conference in the hopes that others can read this and know that they are not alone. Our experiences as minorities deserve to be shared in hopes that they will act as a wakeup call to our more privileged peers.

Nobody Wants to Hear a Female Talk Longer than 6 Minutes

Although I had previously presented at this particular conference when I was a master’s student years ago, this was my co-author’s first time presenting at a sociological conference. We were both excited and bit nervous to present our paper among more seasoned academics. However, our enthusiasm was quickly stifled by the patronizing demeanor of the moderator during our session.

Our session was scheduled to begin at 11:00 am and end at 12:15 pm. This was a fairly small paper session with five presenters and only five audience members, so the moderator decided to start the session at 10:58 am. The moderator asked the five audience members as well as the presenters if any of us anticipated having questions at the end of the session. When one member said yes, the moderator decided that the presenters would have 12-13 minutes to present their work in order to leave sufficient time at the end for questions.

The first presenter was a female professor of sociology, who, mind you, traveled several hours by plane to present her research. About halfway through her PowerPoint presentation the moderator abruptly cut in to tell her that she needed to bring her talk to a close. Flabbergasted, she quickly attempted to finish her presentation while insisting that she was not given the 12-13 minutes promised. Dismayed by this, the first female presenter headed to the back on the conference room and began timing each presentation.

The next person to present was a male who was also giving a PowerPoint presentation. This presenter was politely and unobtrusively shown a written three-minute, hand-written warning by the moderator. The male presenter was then not only permitted to talk for those three minutes, but beyond that time as well, enabling him to complete his presentation in full.

Next up, my co-author and I, both females, were scheduled to present. Unfortunately, I forgot to start the timer on my phone, but the first female presenter had her timer going. Besides, I was confident that my co-author and I would not go over our 12-13 minute time limit. However, we were only about five minutes into our presentation when the moderator interrupted me, mid-sentence to tell us that we needed to conclude. He did not offer a three-minute warning as he had for the previous presenter, instead I was brusquely cut off from speaking. I fumbled to collect my thoughts and wrap up our presentation. The female who was timing us also feverishly waved her hands and stated that we were only given five minutes to talk, but it did not matter. Our time was up – all the practicing and nervous anticipation for five damn minutes!

The next presenter, a male, had time to complete his presentation in its entirety without interruption or suggestion from the moderator that he needed to “wrap it up.” And yes, his presentation took all 13 minutes. The moderator presented his paper last and adhered to the 12-13 minute time limit he set at the beginning of the session. When the moderator concluded, the time was 11:48 am. As the session began at 10:58 am with five presenters, it is obvious that not every presenter received an equal amount of time to convey their research, averaging around 10 minutes each. It was also quite apparent that the two presentations given by females were the two (and only two) that were cut short of the promised 12-13 minutes.

But it does not stop there. The remaining 25 minutes were devoted to putting each presenter, one-by-one, in what the moderator called “the hot seat,” inviting audience members to question each presenter. During the other female presenter’s “hot seat” time, the moderator challenged her in a condescending tone rather than engaging her professionally. He provoked an argument with her rather than a discussion and disrespectfully dismissed her responses to his questions. Finally, this awful, degrading paper session came to an end a few minutes early. The moderator quickly offered a general apology for cutting the session short and insisted that it was important for the audience to be permitted to have ample time to ask questions.

However, the moderator’s hollow apology was not directed at anyone in particular. As graduate students, we spent a great deal of time practicing and preparing our presentation to ensure we did not exceed the anticipated 10-15 minute time slot. Besides the frustration of only being allowed to speak for six minutes, the fact that this clearly only happened to the females and not the males at a sociology conference focused on gender seemed especially terrible.

It is in these very moments where I feel like throwing in the proverbial pink towel and walking away from academia. But, I am stronger than that. I have to remind myself that I earned my spot at that conference table and I will not allow sexist, close-minded individuals to make females (or anyone, for that matter) feel any less deserving. So, fellow minority grad students, let us beware: while we study the systems of inequality outside the walls of academia, the frontline of social injustice may still lie within.