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Language matters... Have you ever been hurt by the words of others? Probably yes! Have you ever felt the need to communicate the need for improving the way those words were conveyed? Do you know what to consider when talking about mental health? The mental health stigma is rampant in academia and language plays a contributing factor. Avoid propagating the stigma and be a good ally! Our Speaking team can help your university facilitate this conversation. Write to events@phdbalance.com to find out how they can support you.

This week we are super excited to have current PhD Balance president Susan Egbert, sit down with host Linda to talk about her day-to-day as a chemistry PhD candidate! The episode is now available on the PhD Balance YouTube and on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast & Apple Podcasts (And more!) Just search "Grad School Life" on your favourite podcast streaming app and join us as we start this series off (let us know if you can't find it on any app and we'll fix that!). You can find Susan on Twitter and Instagram (@lichenlady94). Watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify!

New series: Grad School Life Episode 1 This week we are super excited to have Courtney Applewhite, our new host for Grad School Life, sit down to have a chat for the first episode with our former president Liesl Krause! The episode is now available on the PhD Balance YouTube and on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast & Apple Podcasts (And more!) Just search "Grad School Life" on your favourite podcast streaming app and join us as we start this series off (let us know if you can't find it on any app and we'll fix that!). We are excited to get you stories from behind the scenes of grad school to discover the day-to-day activities of grad students and learn how they give their PhD life balance. Watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify!

It’s National Eating Disorder Awareness (NEDA) week. Eating disorders are defined as dysfunctional relationships with eating/food and sometimes exercise. There are several different types including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and orthorexia nervosa. Eating disorders were already prevalent but they’ve increased during the pandemic. They have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Resources for people with eating disorders include: - National Eating Disorders Association (US) - National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (US) - Intuitive Eating (IE) - Health at Every Size (HAES) Some helpful apps include: - Recovery Record - Rise Up

Did you miss last week's episode? Careers specialist, Dr Holly Prescott joined host Aidan to chat about her experience of of finding a career post PhD and what advice she now gives to others! Who is Dr Holly Prescott? Hi, I’m Holly, and one day in April 2011, I cried into my vodka & soda in a bar in Birmingham (UK), convinced that no one would employ me. I was close to completing a literature PhD and felt rudderless. I had been taking a ‘scattergun’ approach to applying for jobs that I thought sounded interesting, but that I really knew little about. After having been considered a ‘high achiever,’ the idea that I may ultimately not amount to very much was very, very real. From then on, it’s been my goal to help PhDs understand themselves, the job market and make positive steps towards meaningful careers. I’ve now worked with postgrads for 10 years, and my blog PostGradual (phd-careers.co.uk) is my way of sharing what I’ve learned. For PhD Balance, I’ll be discussing making career transitions from PhD to sectors beyond academia. Where can you find her? You can find her on Twitter @holby83 and on her blog PostGradual! Holly’s episode is available on the PhD Balance YouTube (link in our bio) and on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast & Google Podcasts (And more!) Just search "Grad Chat" on your favourite podcast streaming app! Don’t forget to subscribe for notifications about new episodes! Holly's episode is available on the PhD Balance YouTube and on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast & Google Podcasts (And more!) Just search "Grad Chat" on your favourite podcast streaming app! Don’t forget to subscribe for notifications about new episodes!

TW: Mentions of sexual assault Sexual assault is common in academia but it is not talked about. But talking and creating awareness is the only way to do better. If you want to read amazing stories shared and find out more, check out the hashtags #STEMtoo #MeTooPhD.

Graduate school can feel isolating, but we're in this together. Help other graduate students be empowered and share your story today. Your experiences can help others learn and grow, and make sure everyone feels less alone. We invite you to submit your personal experience to the PhD Balance Community related to mental illness, disabilities, or LGBTQ+ in academia! Submit via our google form or email us at email@phdbalance.com!

While women represent a substantial portion of the scientific work force (for example, 41% of total scientists in the European Union), a large number also leave the profession at a higher rate compared to men. One contributing factor to the high turnover rate of women is the sexism they experience throughout their career. Sexism affects the career of women scientists on multiple levels, from career trajectory to overall well-being. To read more on the topic, please head over to the PhD Balance website. Please be advised that there will be discussion about sensitive topics related to the subject at hand. The multi-Grammy awarded singer and songwriter Taylor Swift wrote in her song “The Man”: “I’m so sick of running as fast as I can, wondering if I get there quicker if I was a man and I'm so sick of them coming at me again, because if I was a man, I would be the man”. She was talking about sexism in the music industry. She based this song thinking: if she did all the things in her past as a man, would she still be judged in the same way? But sexism not only happens in the music industry, but unfortunately also in science. Females represent 41% of total scientists in the European Union, but they tend to exit more often when compared with men. This can be explained by many different forms of sexism suffered during their career. Cases can vary between women and their situation (Shipman, 2015). One form of sexism presented to female scientists daily are what are called microaggressions. In Barthelemy (2016), female physics shared their experience with many subtypes of microaggressions such as: sexual objectification (related to be attractive and not intelligent), second-class citizenship (women do not deserve to have the same opportunities or resources), denial of reality of sexism (when there is a report from a student to a supervisor and nothing is done), invisibility (men are not interested to listen to my ideas, but if another men says the same it is well taken), sexist jokes (jokes about domestic violence), sexist language (two types of field: “physics” and “lady physics”), assumption of inferiority (needing to prove themselves all the time) and restrictive gender roles (women should not do science because they should be taking care of babies). Fields such as: physics, engineering, mathematics are already known to be more “masculine designed”, so cases of sexism are quite often. But that does not mean that in other fields this also does not happen. In Serio (2016), a professor of molecular and cellular biology at University of Arizona describes encounters she had with male colleagues and professors as: doubting her math skills (“you don’t belong in a linear-algebra class”), lack of interest on giving her a post-doc position or asking if her expecting her second child “was planned”. Shipman (2015) also shows many sexist related problems within the anthropology field. When in the process of completing the manuscript for her book, one publisher turned it down saying that the project was too controversial. One of the reviewers commented that she could have only received her PhD if she had slept with someone from her defense committee. In her paper, the author states that she was the most underpaid associate professor in her university. This situation was so pronounced that the dean had to raise her salary by 20%, and the reason that she was underpaid is that her husband was already well paid. Also, the paper showed that in 2014, the life sciences salary survey pointed out that in the US, Canada and Oceania there are huge differences in salary between women and men. Lastly, an extreme but not so rare form of sexism is cited at this paper: rape. There is a description of a case where a student was raped by an older male colleague, and also a situation where a supervisor booked a room for him and for his student. For many of these reasons, the author of the paper exited from the academic field. Women also experience trouble receiving research funding and publication citations. In the Swedish MRC peer-review system, it was found out when comparing applicants, females got lower average scores when compared to males, because they apparently have less publications (number of publications and how many of them a person was the first author). The paper points out that women should be 2.5 times more productive to be able to reach the same points as males. With more males publishing than women, this can explain the fact why men often cite other men rather than women. Another variable that was observed is if the applicant has some form of affiliation with a committee member (clearly an ethical dilemma). Those results enhance judgement that women are inadequate when compared with men in science. This paper points out nepotism and sexism pardons on choosing projects (King et al. 2016; Wenneras, 1997). A lot of women felt a decrease of their work performance and self-esteem being in a sexist environment. Because of this, female scientists develop not only psychological effects such as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), depression, anxiety, but also increase of physical disorders such as migraines, PMS (premenstrual syndrome) and others. They will carry this for the rest of their lives and also can lead to the decision of dropping out from graduate programs or faculty positions. Much of this happens partially because women often do not open about abuse. This maintains a whole structure of a vicious-cycle, and keeping is the worst part. But some effort has been made to bring awareness to this issue. Serio (2016) has created a website (www.speakyourstory.net) to share in an anonymous way some of the experiences that women have gone through in these situations. Also, after the case of 2015 Nobel prize winner Tim Hunt’s, who said in a science journalism conference about “trouble with girls in the lab”, a hashtag tool has created used on twitter #DistractinglySexy, #ILookLikeAnengineer, #GirlsWithToys, #ThatShirt, #ThankYouSTEMwomen, #ILookLikeAPhysicist to highlight sexist behavior at science. Sharing experiences between people, anonymously or thought online makes women feel they have a social support community. It is a tendency nowadays that movements ignite from online platforms. Because of this comment, Tim Hunt was resigned from his honorary professor position at the University College London. This was a big step to combat sexism behavior among men (Serio, 2016; Golbeck,2017). But to effectively combat sexism it’s important to deconstruct a whole system that has been built as long as it is known. To do that, men and women must do their parts. Men should respect their female colleagues, in their sayings and actions; women must advise when men are trespassing limits and report when any misbehavior. Also, it is paramount that all leaders, from group leaders to higher positions at the university, do not ignore situations like this. The university board must have proper formalities to report sexism acts and correction protocols to apply to perpetrators (Barthelemy, 2016). It is still a long way to work on it, but it is hoped that someday in the future women will be treated equally as men. References: Barthelemy, R.S; McCormick M.; Henderson C., (2016). Gender discrimination in physics and astronomy: Graduate student experiences of sexism and gender microaggressions. Physical Review Physics Education Research, v.12, p, 020119. Golbeck, J.; Ash, S.; Cabrera, N. (2017). Hashtags as online communities with social support: A study of anti-sexism-in-science hashtag movements. First Monday, v.22, DOI:10.5210/fm.v22i9.7572. King, M.; Bergstrom, C.; Correll, S.; Jacquet, J.; West, J. (2016). Men Set Their Own Cites High: Gender and Self-citation across Fields and over Time. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, v.3, p.10, 1177/2378023117738903. Serio, T. (2016). Speak up about subtle sexism in science. Nature News, v.532, (7600):415. https://doi.org/10.1038/532415a. Shipman, P. (2015). The Long View on Sexism in Science. American Scientist, v.103, p.392. DOI: 10.1511/2015.117.392. Wenneras, C.; Wold, A. (1997). Nepotism and sexism in peer review. Nature, v. 387, p. 341-3. Thank you so much to our editor Tatiana Moro for this piece! If you'd like to submit a story or piece, anonymously or named, fill out our google form or email us at email@phdbalance.com

This week we are super excited to have Courtney Applewhite as a guest on Grad Chat to talk about Going to Grad School After Working! Brand new Grad Chat/Grad School Life host, Courtney joined Linda to talk about her experience going to grad school after working for several years as a death investigator for a coroner. Who is Courtney Applewhite? Courtney Applewhite is a PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara studying death. When she is not volunteering for Grad Chat, you can find her trail running, lifting weights, and spending time with her cats. Where can you find her? You can find Courtney at @capplewhitex on Twitter and Instagram. Courtney's episode is available on the PhD Balance YouTube and on all major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast & Google Podcasts (And more!) Just search "Grad Chat" on your favourite podcast streaming app! Don’t forget to subscribe for notifications about new episodes!

CW: Mentions of weight loss, weight gain, eating disorders “As long as you’re not gaining weight – if you start to gain then we’ll have review” Recently, I heard this of my psychiatrist – an eating disorder specialist, I might add. And I was so pissed off because it’s always the same, and I thought that this one was finally different. I am fat. I have been for many years, was in early childhood and then became again during my “recovery” from anorexia in my early teens. I put recovery in inverted commas as it wasn’t really a recovery: my self-hatred and body image issues still remained, and my disordered eating just morphed to a different form. You see, I have at some point gone through all the different types of eating disorders and disordered eating. All of them. For different periods of time and with the exception of the anorexia, not one has been interested in helping because I’m fat. Every time I reach out to a new eating disorder professional, I tell myself it’ll be different, but it never is. I start telling them my journey with eating disorders starting when I was about 8 up until now, which is 25. And every time they treat me with scepticism, I see in their body language, I hear it when they speak, the questions they ask. "Anorexia? Over-exercise? I don’t think so, they’re fat. They just need to stop eating." I talk about eating disorders and they talk about weight. That’s what happens every time. No one wants to talk about the issues or where they stem from and, if I don’t understand why, I won’t be able to stop doing anything. And it’s after happening again. But the playing field changed a little 2 years ago: I got a gastric band. A poorly advised decision, I might add. I have since replaced the entire team of 5 eating disorder specialists, because they all thought this was a fantastic idea. She’ll lose weight. Job done. What could go wrong? Not like this is actually a psychological issue that needs to be dealt with. I wish I had a happy ending to give this piece, but I don’t. I lost a little weight at the start. Then it stopped because I started bingeing again when grad school got stressful. Not to the same extent though, that would be impossible. But the psychological aspect was still there, the same intent was still there, the volume of food had just reduced, so everyone sees it as a win. “That’s not really a binge”. I’m now being told that I can eat whatever I want as long as I’m not gaining weight. As if eating disorders are just to do with weight and eating. There are no words for how frustrated I am with eating disorder specialists. I talk about eating disorders and they talk about weight. Thank you so much to Linda (@LindaCCor on Instagram & Twitter) for sharing their story. If you'd like to submit a story or piece, anonymously or named, fill out our google form or email us at email@phdbalance.com

*Announcement* We’re starting a new YouTube show and Podcast! Grad School Life will go behind the scenes of grad school to discover the day-to-day activities of grad students and learn how they give their PhD life balance. Short episodes (15-20 minutes) will be posted every 2 weeks starting the 10th of February! Want to be a guest? Email us at email@phdbalance.com or fill out our google form!

Want to be a guest on Grad Chat? Grad Chat is a YouTube and Podcast series that seeks to highlight experiences during graduate school and talk about issues usually avoided. We are looking for guests who want to have a casual conversation that will help other grad students (or prospective grad students) be more prepared! We hope to cover all topics relating to grad school and our life and experiences in grad school! Fill out our google form to be considered!