The (In)visible Patriarchy//Urvi Paralkar, M.A.

Photo from: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/january/why-does-the-patriarchy-persist---a-discussion.html

As I try to navigate the demands of graduate school and the exhaustion it entails, I find myself searching for the “perfect recipe” that will help me attain the coveted “successful graduate student” status. I have spent precious time ruminating over this, trying to chase it. Is it excelling in classes? Is it being involved in half a dozen research projects? Is it assuming leadership positions? Is it contributing to community? Is it developing professional relationships with the professors? For those in clinical and counseling programs such as myself, the demands of graduate school extend beyond research, classes, and assistantships. Successful clinical and counseling students also need to demonstrate continuous progress and improvement in their clinical work. It seems a bit much, doesn’t it? If we consider all the roles we are expected to excel in, it is not surprising then to experience that our demands often exceed our resources. How many of us can relate to feeling exhausted after just three weeks into the semester? Many experience feeling stretched, fatigued, and burned out. Self-care starts becoming a luxury. Mental health days begin to appear as a privilege.

It is not an unfamiliar experience for graduate students, particularly female identified graduate students, to feel like they are not meeting scholastic expectations. While, the imposter syndrome is true, it is also true that women experience it far more than men (Parkman, 2016). It is not a figment of our imagination as it is often made to seem. After careful consideration, I found myself discovering that I had a problem with chronic fatigue being termed as a “phase.” Well-meaning directors, advisors, and supervisors will readily offer encouraging words about perceived expectations and ways to go about managing them. Being productive, busy, tired, and sleep deprived is normalized and in some cases glorified. It also doesn’t help that within the academic community there are not many role models for a convincing work life balance. Rarely though do we speak about what leads to the development of these expectations that graduate students place upon themselves. Is it just a personal attribute as it often made to seem?

I find it unconvincing that high need for achievement and high expectations of self are

just personal attributes. Sure, there might be some individual variation with respect to what people feel driven to accomplish. However, it is bizarre to explain an overwhelming majority of graduate student experience as a product of individual difference factors. While there is nothing wrong with an adaptive achievement need, believing in productivity, and a desire to be successful, there is something grossly problematic about superimposing a certain criteria of achievement on students. Individuals differ in their experiences in graduate school. Minority stress affects students differently as well. However, I challenge the explanation of this shared feeling of stress and fatigue in graduate school as being due to individual personal attributes. I have heard of professors blaming students for the stress they experience, minimizing the reality of the situation and expecting the student to control factors beyond plausible control. There is some recognition in the field that graduate education is difficult and rigorous. However, I wonder how that view evolved. I wonder why a system that affects the mental and physical health of students continues to function without any accountability? The patriarchal and capitalistic nature of graduate school is hopefully not unnoticed by individuals in the profession. I wonder the reasons then as to why this system continues without any change? I wonder how many programs actually focus on self-care and mental health of their students? Professing values of self-care does very little when provisions to incorporate those are never made. Similarly, espousing feminism does little when institutions and systems perpetuate the very idea that feminists critique.

As I thought more deeply about this topic and shared my thoughts with colleagues and

friends, the pervasive patriarchal  philosophy of graduate school became more and more apparent to me. Patriarchy is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the control by men, rather than women or both men and women, of most of the power and authority in a society.” In higher education, the manifestation of patriarchy is through domination and acceptance of the ideas of success and excellence. Thus, my dilemma about this “perfect recipe” for a successful graduate student became clear to me. There indeed is a “perfect recipe” and my opinion is that graduate school expectations are rooted in this “perfect recipe.” Students are not imagining the demands, rather there are certain explicit but more often implicit demands placed upon students. When we deviate from these patriarchal expectations, there are consequences. This issue is compounded for individuals of color, individuals with disabilities, and other individuals with one or more intersecting marginalized identities.

Today, we have more female identified individuals enter higher education than what was

true in the past but there is also more stress that is experienced at the graduate school level. When we think about graduate education from a cultural lens, we have acknowledged the White privilege embedded in higher education in the U.S. We are also aware of sexism at even the most premier pillars of higher education. However, patriarchal pedagogy is a prevailing yet less acknowledged factor. Not to mention the faulty notion held by many, there exists equality of sexes, hinders a true acknowledgement of the deep entrenched patriarchy around us even in the most basic professional conversations. Jeong (2001) in his article Pedagogy of Patriarchy: A Window on American 21st Century Gifted Education, describes the differences between excellence driven patriarchal philosophy and equality driven matriarchal philosophy. Jeong is proposing a patriarchal pedagogy in gifted education because it matches the U.S. society’s striving and acceptance of individualism and masculinism as superior. We are caught up in a excellence driven system at graduate school which helps explains the heap of expectations, tasks, and roles to be fulfilled in order to be considered successful.

Higher education is assumed to help us challenge and question biases, at least in the field

of psychology. Many of us chose to pursue higher education to make a substantial difference, to give back to our communities, and to dismantle systems of power. Personally, the realization that I am caught up in patriarchal system was shocking and revolting. The idea that I might be consciously and unconsciously perpetuating the system was even more disturbing. However, I believe that reflection of what seems like an ironic situation is a starting point. An awareness of my roles and expectations in higher education is the stepping stone toward modifying it.

Written by Urvi Paralkar, M.A.

References

Jeong, T. (2001). Pedagogy of Patriarchy: A Window on American 21st Century Gifted

Education. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 12(3), 160-162.

Parkman, A. (2016). The imposter phenomenon in higher education: Incidence and

impact. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 16(1), 51.