Posted on by Lonwabo Makapela · 1 Comment

Reimagining the Process: Key Lessons Learned

Reflecting on my PhD journey, I am kind of amazed by the significant influence that moving across different countries has had on me. This unique experience has allowed me to hit the reset button on certain aspects of my postgraduate journey that weren’t exactly contributing to my progress and well-being. This month’s blog post focused on what I would change if I could rewind time and restart my PhD degree. In this reflective journey, I’ll be discussing various aspects, including how I’d alter my approach to managing time, handling relationships, and more. So, without further ado, let’s get to it.

Knowing When to Say No

I’ve always had a hard time saying no, particularly when it seemed most crucial for my academic progress or rest – be it lending a hand, lending an ear on lengthy phone calls, being asked to proofread or compile documents, attending functions, or socialising. I was constantly showing up as a ‘yes-girl’, and unsurprisingly, that’s exactly how people treated me. My days were filled with endless requests for favours, leaving me drained and under immense pressure to cater to everyone’s needs. However, I’ve made significant strides in setting better boundaries for myself, a resolution I made before moving to the U.S.. Although I’m still a work in progress, I can’t help but wish I had learned and implemented this valuable lesson earlier.

Keeping Flexibility in Your Routine

In previous posts, I’ve shared how my ability to adhere to a strict routine has been instrumental in my achievements, particularly during my undergraduate studies. However, moving to the U.S. and dealing with significant time differences, poor eating and sleeping habits, and reduced energy levels presented a challenge. My well-curated routine no longer served its purpose, and acknowledging its ineffectiveness was a difficult truth to accept. Despite these obstacles, I had to find ways to get my work done. This experience taught me a valuable lesson: the importance of flexibility in my routine, and the need for guilt-free rest. Sometimes, these elements are crucial for academic success.

One Good Therapy Session Isn’t Enough

Since the onset of my PhD, I’ve been attending therapy sessions, a beneficial suggestion from my sister. It’s worth noting for fellow postgrads that universities often provide counselling services at no extra cost. My therapist even transitioned to virtual sessions when I moved to the U.S., a time when I needed support the most. However, I sometimes misinterpret a successful session as a sign that I can postpone sessions until I’m overwhelmed. If I could change one thing, it would be to maintain regular therapy sessions, rather than sporadic ones, for a healthier PhD journey.

Keeping Regular Communication with Your Supervisor

As an introvert who tends to overthink, I’ve learned a valuable lesson: your supervisor can be a great ally in holding you accountable. It’s up to you to establish the rhythm of your relationship and subsequent progress. Whether that’s weekly check-ins updating them on your progress, communicating your intended submission dates, discussing delays due to your health or other reasons, actively seeking clarity on the feedback received, or sharing new ideas for your research. Regular communication is key. This approach was highly effective during my master’s degree, however, I struggled to apply this to my PhD, which somewhat delayed my progress, and though I’m currently in a much better place, it took time to understand that this was primarily my responsibility.

Letting Things Be, Sometimes

To be honest, in pursuing a PhD, you might encounter many moments where things don’t go as planned. It’s crucial to understand that it’s okay to let things be sometimes. This doesn’t mean giving up; but rather, it’s about finding alternative routes and continuing to make progress. If you don’t, uza kuphambana (you might find yourself overwhelmed). The lesson here is that it’s okay to take a step back, reassess, and move forward in a different direction.

In my recent day-in-the-life vlog, I shared that I was supposed to be in Nigeria, gathering data for my PhD. I had hoped to pen my November blog from Lagos, but due to some visa complications, that plan fell through. However, like dealing with imposter syndrome, these setbacks are part and parcel of the PhD journey. So, I picked myself up, reinitiated my visa process, and used this time to review my literature and other work. 

It’s interesting how these unexpected lessons, which I’d do differently, often teach us more about life than our PhD. So, stay tuned for my next blog post, which I plan to kick off with ‘HELLO FROM NIGERIA!’ 🙂

Posted on by ijeomaopara

Demystifying Gender Politics: A Lexicon for Empowerment

Bridging the gap between academia and the real world is so important. For starters, if our work is not impacting the communities we write about or the world we live in, then what is the point? In my discipline of political science (and especially in gender politics), there is a lot of confusion about the terms that are used. If political science is the study of the world we live in, and gender studies is the study of gendered dynamics in the world we live in, gender politics brings together the opportunity to study what happens in the world with a consideration of gendered power dynamics. There may be some terms that you recognise, as they have made their way into mainstream language. As a result, it becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction when originally academic terms become part of the everyday lexicon. This blog will be decoding eight terms within gender politics (with some others sprinkled in between!). The hope is that this can help foster a deeper comprehension of critical issues at the heart of these areas.

1. Gender: Gender is the expression, behaviour and identity through which you experience the world. The genders that society is often familiar with are ‘man’ or ‘woman’, but there are a plethora of genders that people identify with (or don’t identify with e.g. non-binary people/gender non-conforming people). It is essential to know that people’s gender expression (through clothes, hair, behaviour, voice) is not the same as gender identity (which has to do with self-identification), or sexual orientation. Within feminist scholarship, there are also those that challenge the idea of gender being a separate categorisation, they state that a binary understanding of the body is a product of social-cultural realities.

2. Feminism (feminist theory): Depending on where you get your information from, the term feminism can be defined on a wide spectrum. But is there a ‘right’ definition of feminism, and what would an accurate example of feminism be? This is a difficult question to answer in a straightforward manner. According to UN Women, feminism is “a movement advocating for women’s social, political, legal and economic rights equal to those of men.” Feminist theory is different in that it is a way of thinking and understanding how gender affects people’s lives. Examples of prominent feminist theorists include Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler, bell hooks and Ama Ata Aidoo.

3. Neo/liberalism: Within the discipline of political science, liberalism refers to a specific school of thought. Liberalism refers to the ideology of individual autonomy against state intervention. Over time the term evolved to also include protection against private businesses. However, in mainstream media, liberalism often refers to being a ‘liberal’, which is different from leftist ideals. Neoliberalism refers to the economic policies that highlight the political ideology of liberalism i.e. minimal state intervention, a competitive trade market and the principle of self-efficacy.

4. Patriarchy/Toxic Masculinity: Patriarchy can be defined as a system or hierarchy in which gender inequality is perpetuated through the unequal distribution of power that favours men and oppresses women. Toxic masculinity is a result of patriarchy, whereby the attitudes and behaviours of men towards women create a sense of entitlement towards violence and dominance. A popular example of toxic masculinity is the TikTok famous social media personality Andrew Tate, whose views and beliefs on men’s and women’s places in society have had a massively negative impact on young men.

5. Intersectionality: The term ‘intersectionality’ was created by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s, which was meant to highlight the intersecting ways in which differences (race, class, gender) amongst groups of people showcase imbalances in the legal context of the USA. However, intersectionality went mainstream around the mid-2010s, and the conservative backlash to the term created a fear-based idea about who deserves to be a victim, and who does not. At its core, intersectionality functions as an observation of power imbalances in varying socio-political contexts and is a tool through which said contexts can be examined and dismantled.

6. Cis-hetero patriarchy: There are three different terms in this one word, namely; cis-gendered, heteronormative and patriarchy. We know that patriarchy is a system that prioritises men by valuing behaviours, attitudes and systems that oppress women. Heteronormativity is the assumption everyone is ‘naturally’ heterosexual (romantic/sexual attraction to people of the opposite sex i.e. heterosexual men are attracted to women, and vice versa). Cisgender is the gender identity of a person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth. Therefore, when we put it all together, cis-hetero patriarchy is a “system of power based on the supremacy of cis-gendered heterosexual men through domination and exploitation of women and other marginalised genders/gender nonconforming identities.

7. Gender Equity/Gender Equality:

8. LGBTQIAP++ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Pansexual, and more): This is an acronym that has changed over time to reflect other identities not included. Although it is shortened to LGBT, this can have different implications for those who do not identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Trans. The earliest use of the term LGB was in the 1990s when lesbian, gay and bisexual activists adopted the acronym for the community they were part of.

Maybe other terms came to mind when reading through this that you’d like to understand more about. Also being aware, there are different implications for these definitions when applying them to different contexts and examples. Let me know in the comments below!