On Class

[tinyshel]

One of the things that I think I'm finding the hardest about getting a PhD is that I feel like I'm from a completely different class bracket than everyone else. ALL of my friends' parents are either academics, doctors or lawyers--or some combination of these. I'm not kidding--I can only think of ONE of my friends who can join me in saying that we

Comments

[lavendertook]

I hear you. I had never been around so many professor's kids until I was here at UMD for the PhD, and this is just a high ranking state university.

I have definitely felt the class split from a good many people. My family has always been the lower side of middle class--my parents in psychology and social work. And I came to realize that without family support (emotional and financial) and being single without a friend-support network in the area for possible housemates, my economic situation really was more precarious here than most--there is an economic disadvantage to being single.

Without good emotional support and lots of luck with the system and lack of the regular life crises to boot, I think few people can make it through writing their dissertation while trying to make ends meet on the teaching stipend alone. And with the gatekeeping that goes on, there isn't a lot of support offered from within lit programs--the humanities are worse about gatekeeping than the other fields, I'm afraid. And that all leads to a high degree of self selecting for the upper class.

Here in the States, if academia really wants to fight this bias, then they need to encourage the unionizing of teaching assistants and grad students and demanding more support for the lower eschalons in pay who make the universities run. Those who have family or spousal support that allows them to take off summers or key semesters to write will always have a decided advantage in making it through in a timely manner, if at all.

An added problem here in the States is the pay split between faculty--within departments, but especially between them. Many (not all, of course) humanities profs look at what science and business profs are making and feel deprived, and so are completely unwilling to help the people who really are working at deprivation levels and want to hold on to what little authority and support they can get from the old patronage system, and so aren't interested in viewing grad students as equals in the need for a living wage. Being squeezed between the capitalist system and the patronage system is really a bad place to be and has to spill over to the side of the pond you're on.

Anyway, this is all my rambling to say, I sure know that out of place feeling.

OK, back to see if I can get a teeny bit of writing in before bed.

[tinyshel]

This was amazing. Thank you! And yeah--what's with the 'professor's kids' situation? It's a bit disturbing!

What you said about unionising really hit home with me because right now there is a huge strike going on in England. It's a national union for junior staff members and it's causing MANY problems. Those who are more senior are turning against the more junior members, and the junior members are trying to pull in support from graduate teaching assistants who are now placed in a very icky political situation. It's all too complicated to explain here, but I've been shocked by how many people who I thought *would* be supporting the strike are suddenly turning against these staff members and calling them irresponsible, lazy opportunists.

You're right about the being single thing too. The only other way around this I suppose is to share a house with a bunch of people, which is just something I've never been cut out for. As a result, I'm paying FAR more to have my own place, and in England this also means that I have to pay ALL the taxes myself, which are just overwhelming. I'm saying that I'm anti-tax, but I do struggle to pay all of my household taxes as one person and not part of a couple.