The professorette has some bad news

—First off, please observe this summer's required shoe for the early-mid-career academic mommy picking up her infant at daycare:

Yes, you should cry. (The professorette is.)

—Tight ragged jeans are never appropriate for the post-doc attending a conference, no matter how expensive they are. They may be acceptable for a graduate student, but only if she's (a) giving a plenary address or (b) spending the entire meeting standing at the back of talks giggling with her friends.

—The young Turk sitting next to the professorette, the one with his legs spread so wide he took up nearly three little folding chairs? The one with a tense woman of higher academic rank than his on either side, legs compactly crossed? The one making the back row of the talk as welcoming to women as a typical three-quarters-full number 7 train on its way to Flushing? Yeah, him. He was wearing a Daily Kos T-shirt.

Comments

[KF]

I think I know that guy...

[AinH]

I feel like I'm one of the inappropriately dressed post-docs this year. I don't fit any of my teaching clothes after having my baby this summer and I refuse to continue wearing my maternity clothing. Luckily I'm a mathematician, so I'm still better dressed than everyone else in the department--it's just that I've always tried to raise the bar in the past so I feel woefully undressed now.