‘That women’s writing thing you do’ Reflections on Early-Career Decision Making

Abstract

This article takes its title from an experience in a liminal moment after completing a PhD but not yet finding a comfortable academic home to offer reflections based on what to contemplate when making decisions after the PhD. It considers how to find spaces to work in which there is the possibility for congruency between what we do, what we believe in and the realities of needing to earn a living. These reflections and experiences are read through the theoretical lens of work on gendered silences and the relationships of our gendered selves to knowledge and research. The article interweaves narratives of early-career decisions, gendered and feminist experiences of cultural studies with the relationships between me and my research project.

Keywords

• Early-career
• nineteenth-century
• Margarita Práxedes Muñoz
• silences
• haunting