This poem is for all the men

Who have sacrificed their time

To explain my research to me.

In train stations and hallways

At 1am drunk at a party

And over bad coffee after a presentation.

Often knowing no more about my research

Than a title

You have sacrificed your chance to learn

In order to enlighten me to the depth of your knowledge.



Thank you for telling me “it’s all just greed”

When I told you I was researching moral beliefs in finance

Thank you for telling me about the gold standard

And for explaining the plot of The Wolf of Wall Street to me

And that financial crises would not hit people so hard

If they only diversified their portfolios

And thank you for telling me to read Chomsky

And Žižek and Graeber

And all the other Great Men.

And no, I did not know that Paul Krugman had a blog.

Thank you for reminding me to cite your book.



Thank you for the first-year PhD student

Who gave me advice on how to prepare for my viva

Within the first three minutes of our conversation

(Yes, I timed you)



A special thank you to my dissertation advisor

Who, when I told him what I wanted to write about,

Told me about his son’s last holiday abroad

And how his son had told him something interesting

Vaguely related

To my interests

And wouldn’t that be a more interesting topic to write about?

I’m sorry I never went to another meeting with you

And stuck to my topic.

Thank you for giving me a B minus.

I’m sure you weren’t punishing me

Even if the thesis got a straight A from the second marker

And won a distinction when I defended it at a conference.



Thank you to the professor who in the Q/A after my presentation

Informed me that I should not have included

Discussions of the Stanford Prison Experiment

Or the work of Stanley Milgram

In my work on war crimes

I did not know psychology wasn’t a real science

And that it can’t possibly tell us anything

That isn’t completely obvious

To you.



Thank you also to the lecturer from a different university

Who shouted in my ear

In the pub after my presentation

That I had to read the Walking Dead comics

If I really wanted to understand the genre

Because the 12 films in my sample

Were not sufficient

And yes, you were standing very close

But you were a star

And everyone said you were hot

And I was flattered

So I guess it wouldn’t be fair to call you creepy retrospectively.



Thank you also to the professor

Who, at a meeting about what principles should guide universities,

Took care to make it clear that his point,

About a commitment to truth,

Was more important

Than my point

About working conditions.

Because I might have thought that my voice mattered as much as yours

Had you not thought to include the words

“This is the most important thing”

And

“If we don’t have an absolute commitment to truth

(Or was it a commitment to absolute truth?)

All the other details, like working conditions, don’t matter”

I am still not sure what you meant.

But maybe that is just my own financial insecurity

Clouding my judgement and distorting my priorities

And if I were just a white male professor

I could better be objective

And less worried about working conditions

And more committed to absolute truth.



And thank you dear self-described libertarian on twitter

For informing me

That I wouldn’t have such a victim mentality

If I hadn’t decided to do a PhD in unemployment

And yes, extreme virtue-signalling bitter feminazi bitch is a good description of my character

How insightful of you.



Thank you to the young man

Who dropped out of organising a workshop

Based on principles of anti-oppressive pedagogy

Because he disagreed with our decision not to invite a charismatic male speaker

Who he liked

Who would have had so much more appeal

Than me.

Thank you also for the lengthy email explaining

You weren’t interested in taking part in something so niche

That would only appeal to a postmodern crowd

Whereas you were more interested

In getting students excited

About revolution.

Thank you for your feedback.

It was surely helpful in making our event the success it was.

I’m sorry I missed your event with broader appeal

I seemed to have missed the invite for that.

I hope it went well.



Thank you also, of course,

To the numerous men

Who have informed me about the importance of putting class politics in front of identity politics

And that talking about racism or sexism is a distraction

From the real issues

And that wanting to talk about how oppression affects different people differently

Divides the left.

It is a little strange that I never see any of you at the union meetings

Or on the picket line

And I am not sure what class politics are

Beyond shouting at people

But I am sure you are doing good work elsewhere

With your undivided left.



I owe you all a debt of gratitude

And an apology, I suppose.

I am sorry that when we met

All I was good for

Was your assertion of dominance

A canvas for your insecurity

Which is frankly an underutilisation of my skills and my intellect

I am sorry for your stunted growth

For your arrested development

Which made a real engagement between us impossible

And that is more your loss than mine.



And I am sorry

That I will not try harder

To win your respect

I will not seek you out

I will walk away mid-sentence

I will mute you on twitter

And let you shout into the void

Because I care nothing for your approval.

I am done leaning in.



Because there are more than enough

People who will build a community with me,

Which is not built on dominance.

And I am sorry

That you will not have a place in that community

Until you learn that one half of the population

Does not just exist

To listen to you

Explaining their research to them.



By Grace Krause

Follow me on Twitter for more extreme virtue signalling bitter feminazi victim mentality @TheGraceK

With thanks (real ones this time) to Will Mason-Wilkes for naming this poem and to Ellie Johnson for providing me with the most amazing picture of her cat Brenda.

And an apology (also real) to David Graeber, Noam Chomsky and Paul Krugman, whose work I greatly respect.



