--- breaking the silence ---Toward a Theory of Women's Doctoral Persistence
© Roberta-Anne Kerlin, 1997
In addition to the demands of course work, employment and program relationships, the women in this study also contended with the demands of other relationships, those with their partners and non-university friends and those associated with the roles of child and elder care.Other Role Demands
All the women in this study were partnered throughout most of their doctoral programs, but it was during the course work phase of their programs that these relationships began to change and ultimately would impact their lives in ways they might otherwise not have anticipated.
Three women, Helen, Zoe and Maggie were married and Helen and Zoe had children prior to entering their doctoral programs. Denise and Camila were in sustained partnerships that extended beyond completion of the doctorate. Four of the women, Zoe, Camila, Sarah and Tracy experienced breakups with their partners at some time during their studies and Denise lived apart from her partner throughout much of her program. Maggie was the only woman in the study to have given birth (twice) during her program. Three women, Sarah, Maggie and Zoe, experienced significant changes in their relationships with friends outside the university. The one relationship common to all the women was that first and foremost, they were, themselves, daughters. All of these relationships - daughter (and in some cases, sister), partner, parent and friend - presented challenges to the women in completing their degrees.
For Sarah, the most significant of these relationships was that with her partners. Her marriage at the time she began doctoral studies influenced, not only her choice of institution, but her self-confidence in her ability to finish her program. Already divorced once from a husband threatened by her entry into an MBA program, her second husband decided to leave just three weeks after she entered the doctoral program.
I remember my first quarter full-time in the doctoral program ... We were using Moore's _Winning the Ph.D. Game_ in a seminar class. It was the third week of the quarter and our reading assignment was the chapter talking about relationships and the Ph.D., and citing stats on how many marriages break up due to the pressures of doctoral work, etc. I remember skimming that chapter because I thought to myself, "Hey, no problem here. I'll concentrate on other assignments instead." ... Anyway, two nights after that class, one of my evening classes was cancelled and I was excited because it meant I would get to spend an evening with my husband. Also, we had just had our kitchen floor redone that day--new tile. I was excited about that, too, because it was the first major renovation thing we had done to our house since we had moved. So I was in a great mood, chipper as hell. My husband (boy, does that phrase sound weird now!) came home around 6:30 or so and I plunked down on the couch to talk to him, just like normal couples do, and he informed me that he wanted a divorce. Blam. Just like that.Sarah eventually became involved in a relationship with a man who left just six weeks prior to her final defense - allegedly because the degree was taking up too much of her time. Sarah and her doctoral colleagues agreed that Ph.D. programs "were hell on a marriage."
I pointed out that the only people from our cohort to finish thus far were a nun, a single mother whose ex-husband was pretty good about taking the two girls so she could write), and me. Everyone else in the cohort is married; none of them has finished.Many times Sarah described the isolation and loneliness she felt during her studies - being stuck in the library on a Friday evening while all her friends were out having a good time.
Did you ever see Matt Groenig's _Big Book of Hell_? He's a cartoonist. He did several series on various types of hell (life is hell, school is hell, etc.), and one part of the "school is hell" series dealt with grad students. I remember distinctly one cartoon wherein someone is on the phone, from a party, calling someone else who is a grad student. The guy at the party says "hey, come on over. We're drinking beer, playing softball, having fun..." and the grad student says "Sounds great. I'll be there in five years." Which is about right. I've seen this now from both sides of the fence. When I was in school (i.e., actively taking classes) or writing, I know I was probably a lot less fun than I am now. There were many times when Ken would go to a party and I would either meet him there several hours later...or I wouldn't go at all because of studying.And even when Sarah and Ken were together in the same room there was a psychological absence that enveloped the relationship.
There were countless weekends when he came over to my apartment and spent the afternoon watching TV while I was hunched over the computer in a different room. And then there was what he called my "dissertation face." That was when I wasn't actually writing, but he could tell that all I was thinking about was some part of the dissertation. It was like I was in the same room physically, but not mentally.For Tracy, the significant relationships during her course work were those with her parents and partner from whom she eventually separated during her program. The very pursuit of doctoral studies became something of a wedge in Tracy's relationship with her mother. Her mother had been opposed even to the idea that Tracy would pursue a Ph.D. in preference to marriage and starting a family. They had huge fights about it and Tracy often thought about how her choices had been a great disappointment to her mother. Tracy's father wasn't as actively unsupportive of her goals. It was more that he just really didn't understand. Two events, the dissolution of the relationship with her partner and, more significantly, the death of her mother in 1992, would impact on Tracy's mental health and her resolve to complete her degree.
Camila was raised by her mother, a single parent, in Argentina and has always maintained close ties with her family despite the miles that separate them. In the third year of her program Camila's mother was diagnosed with cancer and only three weeks later, her brother almost died following a serious sports related accident. Because Camila's family knew she was preparing for her preliminary exams they chose to "protect" rather than inform Camila of these events for some time. When Camila did learn the news from her family the meaning of both her work and the degree itself, shifted significantly in this new context.
when my mom got cancer and my brother got into an accident ... i just shiver when i think about what happened ... both my mom's family and my dad's family [my brother belongs to this family not to my mom's family] did not tell me what was going on right away ... it was the lowest low cos i was far away and the phd seemed totally meaningless ...A less significant event that occurred about eight months prior to her completion was a visit by her family. She had wanted to spend time with them and she was torn between visiting and completing her writing. She found she didn't really enjoy the visit because she couldn't easily commit the time to either their visit, or her dissertation.
Camila also identified a period in which she was separated from her partner as contributing to her difficulties in completing her degree. They had been living together for two years at the time and just three short months before filing her dissertation Camila moved out - an event she described as being "190% related to her finishing." She thought it had been her own "ambition" and self-centeredness - what she called her own "stupidity" - that got in the way of the relationship. Ultimately, they did get back together and were married nine months after she completed her degree. Balancing the demands of personal relationships with the time needed to complete the doctorate were challenges that gave Camila cause to reflect on her priorities and, at times, nearly undid her resolve to finish.
Unlike the other women in the study, Denise lived apart from her partner throughout much of her doctoral program. Only after she had completed her course work were they again able to live together. Denise's partner, also a Ph.D., believed in her ability to finish and was encouraging of her efforts and it was his support that carried her through when she had self-doubts.
For both Maggie and Zoe, the demands of course work, their jobs - Maggie's job in the library and Zoe's teaching assistantship - and attending to the care of their children, there was little time left over in a day to maintain friendships outside the university. For Maggie, it was also a factor of living in a new town that gave her little time to make new friendships. For Zoe, the nature of her friendships with others outside the university had begun to change even earlier. Both her undergraduate and master's work had broadened her perspective on life and her strong identification with feminist issues left her feeling different from the other couples she and her husband had socialized with. She had changed in many ways as a result of her previous educational experiences. She wrote of her 'old' friends:
now as i see it i was probably a threat-- for to listen to me would have meant that my friends would have had to question their own lives.As a doctoral student, Zoe's friends were more acquaintances - people she met as a result of her active involvement in her children's lives. Like Maggie and Sarah, she had little time to nurture friendships outside of academe.
Then just two weeks before Christmas in 1991, while Zoe was in the midst of completing her course work for that semester and grading the final 150 papers for students in the classes where she was a teaching assistant, her father died suddenly and unexpectedly.
I remember getting the call that dad had died. it was 7:30 at night, i was sitting in front of my computer desperately attempting to complete a major paper and the call came in. By 9:00 that night i was on the highway headed to my family home with my daughter. I left my husband at home to put together things on the homefront, collect our oldest son who was attending college 3 hours away, and eventually head to [the] western [part of the state] to join me for the funeral.After her father's death, Zoe's brother assumed responsibility for her step-mother's financial affairs and Zoe assumed the "supportive duties." This entailed numerous trips back and forth across the state to help and spend time with her as she adjusted to life without her husband.
Those duties were with me throughout my graduate school experience. it was only this year [1994] that i failed to make my first trip to be with my step-mother on the anniversary of my father's death. with the dissertation demands, graduation, etc. the fatigue and mental strain were both just too much and for once i said no to the caregiving duties other people asked of me.When the new semester began in January, 1992, in addition to her regular course load, Zoe had to contend with a number of incompletes she'd taken the previous semester following her father's death. She also had comprehensive exams in the summer ahead to begin preparing for and it was during this period that Zoe began isolating herself.
This was a grueling time for many reasons. i was still dealing with my father's death, providing the emotional support for my now widowed step-mother, taking care of the usual stuff on the homefront, commuting for the coursework (i continued as a full-time student while prepping for comps), and doing the "extra" reading and studying to be ready for the exams. I was working so hard at this time that it was not at all unusual to dream about the material i was reading, wake up in the middle of the night to "self-test" about the material, and keeping some very demanding hours.Helen's experience was somewhat different from the other women. While her mother hadn't been thrilled with the idea of her daughter travelling several hundred miles away to go to university, Helen did move with her husband and one son so that she could devote her first year to being a full-time student. Helen's husband and son took care of her, looking after the shopping, cleaning and paying the bills and without their support, Helen said, the degree "simply wouldn't have happened." So for Helen, friendships during her year of course work revolved primarily around her colleagues at the university.
I cooked (which was a good relief) and did laundry (which kept me in touch with reality) and read. I took a full load (three or four seminar classes and one credit of pedagogy since I was a first-year teaching assistant) and taught two sections of freshman comp ...
Figure 7. Detailed View of Task and Relational Dimensions of the Course Work Phase of the Doctorate.
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