An online exchange about the challenges, sacrifices and support systems involved in pursuing a doctorate and life in academia reveals mutual frustrations as well as senses of satisfaction for African-American women.
During a Twitter conversation yesterday on “Black Women + the Ph.D.,” hosted by TTG+Partners, a communications consultancy that produces monthly Twitter chats to foster communication on diversity and equity issues in higher education, Dr. Natalie T.J. Tindall, associate professor and co-graduate director/area director in the department of communication at Georgia State University, and Dr. Danielle N. Lee, a postdoctoral research associate in the department of zoology, tweeted with numerous women of color with doctorates about the experiences of Black women in the academy and on the Ph.D. track.
“There’s an isolation that happens among Black women with Ph.D.s, especially in academia,” said Tia Gordon, founder of TTG+Partners.
The chat, which TTG conducted with media partner Politic365, posed questions that were met with insightful answers, such as, “What is the number 1 quality anyone needs to persist to a Ph.D.?” and “What stereotypes have you confronted as a Black woman pursuing and receiving your Ph.D.? What kinds of -isms have you experienced?”
“Women in academia, but especially Black women in academia, don’t really get a chance to discuss these things because it’s always about the grind,” Tindall told Diverse after the Twitter chat. “When we find spaces that we can, it all sort of bubbles up to the surface.
“Sometimes, people don’t feel a welcoming space to talk about these things or have the discussion or even ask questions about, ‘How do you find a mentor?’ when traditionally everybody has a mentor in a graduate program,” Tindall continued. “Even in that one-hour chat it was creating a community of people who could help [and] relate to [each other], give advice and [let] them know they are not alone. There’s a level of shared involvement.”
