“You are so excited about your research… like a grad student!”

The first time I heard a variation of this comment, I was indeed a grad student. It was my first big, international conference. It was in 2014 at a biannual international high energy physics conference, ICHEP, held in Valencia, Spain. I had just given my 15-minute talk. An older man came up to me at the coffee break after the session and asked if I was a graduate student. I said “Well yes, I am.” He responded “That is what I guessed because you were so excited about your research.” 

I wrote about it on Facebook that day, asking my more senior colleagues what they thought. Is it expected in academia that you will become less excited about research as you mature? Will I magically/forcefully morph into this person I don’t see myself becoming? Is this a compliment about my enthusiasm about my work or a drawback for me that my academic age is inferred like this? Back then I didn’t know the concept of microaggressions. I didn't have the vocabulary to describe the pattern of abuse that grows amidst the whiteness, maleness of academia. My naive resolution at the time was: I am an enthusiastic person and I hope I will never change and the world just needs to deal with that. 

I didn’t know how to take this comment back then. After hearing it again and again in the 5 years post PhD, especially after hearing it during a job interview, I am sure this sentiment is not a compliment. It positions me as “a woman doing cute science”, in the words of the A WOC Space moderator Kelcie Chiquillo. She is right, and I often rationalized this comment by thinking “I guess I am a small person, maybe that is why.” But then I heard the same complaint from a woman physics professor who is a very tall, built professional athlete. When you are giving a talk, or being interviewed as a faculty candidate, the last thing you want to hear is that they think of you as a much more junior researcher than you are.  This comment always puts me off balance. I work hard to establish a place of authority for myself, only for it to be diminished like this. Women can’t seem to acquire authority and respect through education nor through our appearance. Even our enthusiasm about our own research is used against us.

I wholeheartedly believe that it is a good thing to be excited about one’s research. Why would you put so much time and energy into it if you are not? Especially when you have your own academic independence as to what research you can do! Shouldn’t it be the norm that academics love what they do and that love translates into excitement? If you ask them, any academic would say “yes!”, I am sure. After years and years in academia, now I realize that the norm that conveys research enthusiasm is very old and white male. In hindsight, this is very easy to see. Only about 15% of faculty in physics are women. White people are overrepresented in physics PhDs. As in every other male dominated workplace, women’s voices, literally, are judged to be too far away from the normal. Too high, too girlish, not authoritative enough. I believe that this comment is used to infantilize my behavior. 

My clothing, my voice, my enthusiasm do not fit in the academic norms. I fight, with the support of many great women, to change those norms. I absolutely believe that we will rebuild this space for ourselves, together and our voices won’t be considered anything but the strong forces that they are.