Diary Entry: The way I am really feeling about Underclass coming out
Dr Jess writes a personal diary entry about her feelings about 'Underclass' being published in a few days' time
I did say that my Substack subscribers would get access to my diary entries, and as I sit here today, getting ready for my first sold out event tonight to celebrate the book, I thought I would try to get my feelings down on paper - maybe to try to help me process them.
Underclass comes out next week, shipping begins tomorrow, and I have hundreds of pre-orders to sign and personalise. I do love doing those, especially when I spot the name of a follower or reader I recognise, because I always write something special in their book. Or maybe some banter if I know they can handle it!
Underclass is such a different book to anything else I have written, and I am feeling increasingly nervous. Everyone around me loves the book, and it is getting great literary reviews, but I am still feeling pretty shaky about it. It’s made me reflect on a lot of things, but especially the way I have been treated in the last 5-6 years or so.
Order your copy of Underclass now
I realised the other day that I had always thought that academia and professional practice would be based on our skills - a meritocracy, if you will. I completed my degree easily, and then went on to my PhD, which truth be told, I found easy. I could certainly do another one, or multiple PhDs. I don’t think they are as hard as they are made out to be, to be honest. I think universities and academics like to pretend they are hard, but if you consider that most PhDs are just one large body of writing and discussion, of between 50,000-120,000 words, that you have had THREE YEARS to write, and then one verbal exam which you have also had YEARS to prepare for - I think it is one of the easiest qualifications you can take. Exams, degrees and masters are much harder than PhD. I digress.
I learned the hard way that it doesn’t matter how smart you are, if your face doesn’t fit. If you don’t look or sound the part. If you don’t play by their rules. Your abilities, your ideas, your skills - they mean nothing. In fact, they mean less than nothing - and people will work hard to frame you as talentless, inferior, and thick. I’ve seen plenty of academics calling me thick, stupid - and one guy (a board-licensed medical doctor) even dressed up as me, put a blonde wig on, and filmed himself mocking me, flicking his hair and giggling, pretending I was some stupid little girl. No one called out his blatant misogyny and his weird behaviour, because I am a working class woman who deserves everything she gets, apparently.
Underclass examines two different parts of my life that end up colliding later on. One part of the book is taken from the time when I was between 13-16 years old. The second part of the book is taken from a few months of my life when I was 28. I never really expected those two parts of my life to end up intertwined, but the book explains how my childhood was dragged up to haunt me when I thought it was all over.
The discrimination I have faced as a working class academic has been destructive and traumatic. I struggled with who I was, who I should be and who on earth they wanted me to be. I never succumbed to pretending I was one of them, but I certainly felt the cold shoulder.
There were times when I genuinely questioned why the hell I was continuing my studies or my writing. If the criticisms or the issues were made about my work, and it stuck to just the substance of the arguments or the theories I use, it would be different. But the vast majority of it has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. It’s been very personal. Lots of it has been about my background, my childhood, my social class, my accent, personal life, my sexuality or my appearance. Grown adults - academics and professionals - posting on the internet with their full names about my appearance, my body shape - even my boobs, for god sake!
Being able to write about this in detail for the first time has been strange. I have never spoken in detail about what was done to me, and the people who tried to get me kicked off my PhD. It’s a story I always said I would tell one day. I guess that day has come?
I was discriminated against. I did win my case. I was proven to be right all along. I went on to become very successful, and dare I say it, much more successful than those who sought to harm me for years.
So, what am I nervous about?
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