key: cord-0062513-cmtkbnn8
authors: Lawless, Brandi
title: Examining Inequitable Workload in a Time of Crisis: A COVID-19 “Sabbatical”
date: 2021-04-14
journal: Commun Cult Crit
DOI: 10.1093/ccc/tcab016
sha: d7b2b4ea6c9e477bf6435b13873dc5dba64c0fb2
doc_id: 62513
cord_uid: cmtkbnn8

nan

The COVID-19 pandemic greatly exacerbated already existing disparities for women in the academy (Guy & Arthur, 2021; Hayden & Obrien Hallstein, 2021; Sills, 2020) . This is seen most prominently for mothers of infants, toddlers, or school-aged children who are expected to take on the bulk of childrearing and maintain their academic prowess. Institutional efforts to stop the tenure clock may do little to help these women "catch-up" or address the fact that they are more likely to fall behind their male counterparts. Even still, such accommodations do not change the fact that delaying tenure and/or promotion will increase pay inequities. For contingent women faculty, such a blow to productivity may halt the ability to secure long-term employment. These gaps have reached every corner of academe and threaten the future of the professoriate and our discipline. Women in academia are forced to choose between having a successful career and being a good mother. Or they are expected to perform the idea that they can "have it all." The pandemic has made this discourse more evident.

As a cisgender white woman in a heteronormative partnership, I am privileged in many ways and am able to escape the harsh realities of racism, neoliberal multiculturalism, and poverty that have disproportionately impacted BIPOC and international faculty on U.S. campuses. In some ways, I can ride the pandemic wave and appear unscathed on the other end. Yet, as a mother who struggles with an anxiety disorder and moderate depression, COVID-19 was mentally destructive.

When I was visibly pregnant, my colleagues would tell me how lucky I was to be taking a "sabbatical" after my maternity leave. They used air quotes. They assumed I was not taking a sabbatical, but rather, an extended maternity leave. Both my maternity leave and sabbatical were deep privileges afforded to me and yet, the gendered expectation that I temporarily leave the workforce to set up house was sexist. In each of these encounters, I would respond with frustration, thinking to myself that none of my male colleagues would be accused of taking a "sabbatical." I had a book to write and planned to use childcare to create the time to finish this ambitious project. I rolled my eyes when people said I should slack and spend the time with my child. "You'll never get that time back!" they would warn. I was determined to prove them wrong. I believed I could do it all.

In the first semester of my sabbatical I was still struggling with post-partum depression. I had just stopped breastfeeding and my hormones were returning to some semblance of normal. I struggled to write but made some time. I used the rest of the time to reclaim personal space and independence-something I longed for during my parental leave. In January 2020, when the final stretch of my sabbatical loomed, I found a rhythm. I had drafted several chapters by this point and felt like I had found my stride. I attended my first conference post-baby. I was invigorated. Two weeks later, the academic and personal independence that were just starting to re-emerge disappeared. COVID-19 stole my sabbatical and placed me on extended maternity leave.

When daycares closed I became the default stay-at-home parent that I swore I would not be. I heard the voices of my colleagues reminding me of such good fortune to have taken a "sabbatical" at the right time. I reminded myself of the privilege that came with not having to worry about losing income by staying home with my child. My book was set aside. My baby was set on my lap. I was stuck on the couch. When we were told that we should "stay home to save lives," I had flashbacks of being stuck on the couch with a nursing baby. I saw posts from childless friends talking about how fun it was to go hiking, play board games, and catch up on research." Meanwhile, my post-partum depression reappeared and surged.

I tried to reach out to colleagues so I felt some connection to academia. I heard echoes of their earlier words, "you're so lucky to be on sabbatical because you don't have to rush into remote learning!" How was this luck? In a competitive, neoliberal university, I would inevitably be compared to those around me who used the time "wisely" to retool and write. This anxiety, compounded by a resurgence of post-partum depression, left me teetering on mental stability. I reached out to a therapist who said, "everyone's doubling their medication right now." Indeed, Inside Higher Ed boldly titled one report, "Faculty Pandemic Stress is Now Chronic" (Flaherty, 2020) . The pandemic has affected women's mental health greater than men's (Thibaut & van Wijngaarden-Cremers, 2020) .

This increase of mental illness for faculty needs to be examined in close connection to the growing disparities experienced by different genders in academia. Expectations for productivity greatly disadvantage academic women, particularly those who mother young children (Gonçalves, 2019; Sotirin, 2008; Townsley & Broadfoot, 2008) . This has been exacerbated by COVID-19. Indeed, the "COVIDbind" has resulted in women submitting fewer manuscripts to academic journals (CohenMiller, 2020). COVID-19 creates the perfect storm for women/mothers in academia by reinforcing glass ceilings, closing doors, and taking down ladders.

At the same time, I must acknowledge my privilege in being offered a sabbatical (and maternity leave, for that matter). While the inability to engage in meaningful work was detrimental to my mental health, I am not a single parent, I do not experience great financial insecurity, I own my home, and my tenured job was (for the most part) not in jeopardy. I am a white cisgender woman who does not experience racism. The impacts on women described above are exponentially greater at these intersections. Knowledge dissemination about this topic continues to highlight stories like mine and ignore voices from women of color and trans* women and men, for example. The need for equity at these intersections has never been greater.

The irony of being on "sabbatical" is that I neither wanted the air quotes nor was I successful during this time. I pushed hard to complete my sabbatical project despite major setbacks. Some might look at this past year and say, "You should be so proud of yourself. You overcame obstacles, despite all odds!" And yet, this view validates discourse that says, "Women can do it all!" without addressing inequitable systems that promote these dominant discourses, because we shouldn't have to do it all.

My "sabbatical" story reveals a fissure in the discourse about women's labor. To suggest that women's labor should be shifted to childrearing during a research leave implies that women cannot balance work and home life, even though the expectation is that they should. While this fissure existed pre-pandemic, it ruptured during COVID because the expectations for men did not similarly shift their rates of academic productivity. Women's labor needs to be prioritized because the pandemic has exacerbated inequality for women across intersectional identity positions. Institutions of higher education need to think about their own role in childcare so that the women of academia can (re)focus on educating the next generation of leaders-among them, women who should be able to balance their work with home and live emotionally stable lives.

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