There are words you shouldn’t call academic (or any) women. Words you might think are innocuous, but have a long history of being used to dismiss, devalue, or discredit women. You might not be aware that these words should be avoided. A 🧵
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#WomenInSTEM 1. Is she ‘aggressive’ - yelling, shoving, in your face? If not, the word you probably want to use is ‘assertive’.

I thought I had work-life balance. Didn’t work weekends, was productive, an involved mom. But I was always exhausted. I was full-tilt at both work and home. I never sat down. Because moms calculate work-life balance as work-family. And that equation doesn’t include yourself.
1/ The demands of early career and early parenthood lead to neglecting yourself, and it becomes a habit. You forget what it felt like to have yourself as a valid priority and not a guilty pleasure.
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In #Academia there are some common ‘good practice’ mentoring things. But we can do more – much more – than the basics, without it taking a ton of time. Here are some of the more unique mentoring things I do.
1/10 Get more out of group meetings. Like many labs, we meet each week. But we rotate what we do, each in approximately equal measure: standard journal article discussion, discussion of a research article on Equity/Diversity/Inclusion (EDI), “Slide Improv”, and Fact or Fiction.
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In Academia, people aren’t always supported when they need it. I want to share what @WesternU did when my husband died right after the pandemic shutdown. It should be shared with other uni’s as a model for empathy and proactive care when someone is in crisis.
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#AcademicChatter My husband died, suddenly and traumatically, a week into shutdown. Myself and our 3 kids had intense grief and trauma when anxiety was already high, all services were closed, everyone was isolated, and travel was nearly impossible. This could easily have sent us over the edge.
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