spent a large part of my 30s suffering \u2014 largely in silence \u2014 because I couldn\u2019t seem to get pregnant. And whenever I did, I had a miscarriage. Those were also my years on the tenure track, when I was working madly to publish, perfect my teaching, and do academic service in order to achieve a decent salary, job stability, and a successful career.<\/p>\n
My body didn\u2019t cooperate with the need to do well in my job, stay sane, and get pregnant. Mostly I didn\u2019t talk about it, though. Because in academe, you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
In recent years, we\u2019ve had plenty of discussions about “Academia\u2019s \u2018Baby Penalty\u2019”<\/a> \u2014 i.e., that men with young children are 35 percent more likely to get tenure-track jobs and 20 percent more likely to earn tenure than women in the same boat. Even male professors have published op-eds<\/a> about how “family-friendly” policies in higher education \u2014 such as paternal leave \u2014 could actually result in career advancement for men and career decline for women.<\/p>\n But in that public conversation, there is a glaring absence of discussion about the private reality of miscarriage. About 15 to 25 percent<\/a> of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. Yet in the United States, as anthropologist Linda L. Layne has shown<\/a>, pregnancy loss is our “taboo.” The culture of silence surrounding miscarriage adds a further strain to the ability of female faculty members to succeed in academe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read the entire post here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" spent a large part of my 30s suffering \u2014 largely in silence \u2014 because I couldn\u2019t seem to get pregnant. And whenever I did, I had a miscarriage. Those were also my years on the tenure track, when I was working madly to publish, perfect my teaching, and do academic service in order to achieve… Continue reading