They won. They were always going to.

It didn’t matter how smart I was, how hard I worked, how good that work was, not even how friendly I was, I never stood a chance. What a brutal lesson to have learned. This little girl may have looked the bulls of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism in academia in the eye, but she would not be able to take them down. I really don’t know where academia is going, I just know I exercised the only ‘choice’ I had left - I bid it farewell.

Just before I left I established a Special Issue on Gender Inequity and Academic Promotion. We extended the date to account for the pandemic’s obvious gendered effect on journal submissions. Women had a more comfortable 12 months than the usual six to submit. But in the month prior to its closing, only one submission had been received. The silence was resounding. What did this mean? I knew that more than 2,000 people had seen the Call to the Special Issue, so why had so few spoken? In fact, the silence is that telling.

Speaking (up) implies that a certain level of fear has been conquered and a certain level of agency attained such that they come together and allow that voice to demand to be heard. The systemic fear and powerlessness among academics are the sector’s lubricants for abuse, exploitation, and coercive control. It needs them to enjoy its benefits. It has no motivation to take a deep moment out from its toxic money-grubby ways and ask itself what the hell its doing and why.

Deep in grief, I asked to close the Issue and said I would not submit an Editorial. Out of nowhere, I then had four inquiries asking for a possible extension. “Of course!”, we said. Women whose voice demanded to be heard at this point in time showed up. I am most grateful for the time they took to pen their experiences. The range of human emotions in response to systemic oppression are on display in this Issue: despondency and exit, self respect and litigation, hope and redemption. It cannot always be the victim who must make peace with injustice. The perpetrator must wake up.

With their mighty pen, brain, and heart, these women try to make sense of what is, simply, wrong. It should not have been their job, but I hope that in reading their stories and knowledge and ideas, the comfort of not being alone is a balm that part heals you.