Awesome women and bad feminists: the role of online social networks and peer support for feminist practice in academia

Introduction

In Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, number 5B on her list of ‘How to be friends with another woman’ reads,

If you and your friend(s) are in the same field and you can collaborate or help each other, do this without shame. It’s not your fault your friends are awesome. Men invented nepotism and practically live by it. It’s okay for women to do it too. ²

This article tells a story inspired by and enacting Gay’s advice (Figure 1). It is the story of a proactive, everyday feminist initiative to survive as women in a precariat fuelled by globalised, neoliberalised higher education and a reflection on what it means to be feminist in that context. This article is a collaboration between five women, ³ dispersed around Europe, who developed an online space to support one another through post-doctoral life. We call ourselves the 5B group. Our online space, a simple message thread, has established an important role in our development as academics and feminists. Here, we reproduce and examine our online conversations, providing further evidence of challenges confronting women in the academic precariat.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

The origins of this paper.

To those who recognise themselves in such interactions: we see you. To those surprised to find this content in a geographic journal we say: consider why people feel a need to find alternative ways of doing academia, and what you can do to make it easier for them. To geographers who have taken similar steps to write in a collective and reflexive manner: ⁴ thanks for the inspiration. These issues should be understood against the backdrop of contemporary neoliberal academia, and a wide body of work examining multiple ways women – especially those of colour – come under pressure. ⁵ Women face particular challenges in pursuing academic careers; doctoral graduates’ precarity has gender dimensions often limiting women’s career progression or pushing them out of academia. ⁶ Sexual harassment and discrimination are rife in Swedish academic institutions, for example. ⁷ Women of colour, non-cisgender and queer women are particularly under-represented in academia where, on top of discrimination and harassment, they bear the burden of diversity work. ⁸ Gender imbalances persist, especially at senior levels in the United Kingdom, ⁹ Sweden ¹⁰ and beyond. Geography is not immune to this, ¹¹ with persistent gender inequalities in appointments, working cultures and environments, ¹² and women over-represented in more precarious positions. ¹³ The members of 5B are situated at the coincidence of these struggles, but as relatively privileged White, first-language English speakers, we have it easier than many. ¹⁴

We build on a long tradition of the feminist care ethic and the everyday as political practice, using digital spaces as a network of support across spatial boundaries. The benefits of 5B are clear to us: a safe space that enables us to seek advice, vent frustrations and share stories without judgement. In a context of hyper-mobility, where network building is challenging, the group facilitates peer mentoring, and simple friendship using online social networks (OSNs). Excerpts from 5B’s chat reflect critically on struggles and solutions we have co-developed to survive in academia. Conversely, as White, PhD-educated, Anglophone, cis-gender women, our exclusionary network does little to disrupt or address deep inequalities in academic geography, or does it offer tangible support or solidarity beyond our group. Embracing this contradiction, this article, written through online collaboration, mirrors and enacts processes fundamental to our network, advancing feminist approaches to cooperative writing and solidarity. We do not offer answers but reflect on the tensions inherent in – following Gay – (bad) feminist practice in academia and the challenges in overcoming them. We both draw on important work that has inspired us, and in turn hope to inspire others to develop strategies to survive and thrive in such contexts.

What is and who are 5B

The 5B group comprises five former PhD colleagues, primarily ‘meeting’ and exchanging through online messaging, initially to replicate the – physical and emotional – support space previously offered by a shared office. We adopted the name 5B to mark our self-recognition as awesome friends supporting each other, as Gay urges. Gaining a name shifted perception of the group and 5B evolved from informal messaging, into a support network and ‘safe space’ to discuss issues in our careers and lives, share jokes or advice. In members’ words,

We did not intend to be a network; it emerged because institutional support for women and early career researchers does not easily meet our needs or interests hence our need for alternatives.

Writing as 5B

The 5B wrote this article together, never all sharing a physical space. We began by reviewing a Facebook message thread stretching back to 2015, noting themes, and key moments of challenge and support. Extracts were supplemented by new chats discussing this article, sharing literature and reflecting on the group’s value. We wrote, re-wrote, commented and edited through online documents. Using extracts from our chats and a conversational structure adds to a growing tradition in which critical writing is undertaken collectively and through dialogue, ¹⁶ broadening the scope of academic writing. ¹⁷ As human geographers, we position this alongside calls to pluralise ‘ways of framing and interfering with the world’. ¹⁸ The collective writing process enacts our view that feminism is work best done collectively, critically and creatively, always a work in progress, lively with contradictions ¹⁹ . Our writing was prompted by a special issue focused on early career women in geography to which we submitted a previous version, judged not sufficiently ‘scientific’ for inclusion. Rejection reinforced our view that geographers like us need spaces to air what is important to us, and pushed us to state why this matters. ²⁰

Rather than removing the ambivalence, tentativeness, anger, joy and laughter, we experience both within 5B conversations and through the process of writing, we respond to calls to include authorial affect within academic writing, rather attempting to excise it. ²¹ As our reviewers noted, it is impossible to represent these online interactions in a article, or to share their spirit beyond the original intended audience. We struggled to balance the will to retain our honesty and humour with the desire to speak to something bigger. No one else will find our words as funny or as powerful as we do, so to compensate here is a picture of a dog (Figure 2). ²²

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

GIFs and images are a cornerstone of the group chat, such as this “DIY” poster.

Bad feminists?

We are inspired by Roxane Gay’s work, including her ‘pro-nepotism’ directive: 5B. Her advice on being friends with other women is refreshing as it acknowledges grey areas and imperfections. Her collection titled Bad Feminist introduces this idea:

I openly embrace the label of bad feminist. I do so because I am flawed and human. I am not terribly well versed in feminist history. I am not as well read in key feminist texts as I would like to be. I have certain . . . interests and personality traits and opinions that may not fall in line with mainstream feminism, but I am still a feminist. I cannot tell you how freeing it has been to accept this about myself. ²³

Gay offers bad feminism as antidote to our perfectionist ideal of feminist practice; this enabled us to understand the power the 5B group has for us. By providing a space to air our views and gain peer support, even though we are often not being ‘perfect feminists’, we have been able to hone and raise our voices in academia. We connect with Gay’s work in three main ways. First is her unashamed use of humour as powerful feminist tool:

The trolls get so incensed by a woman having an opinion or a thought or daring to think she’s funny, which, by the way, I’m very fucking funny, thank you. ²⁴

Second, her inspirational acceptance of imperfections, flaws and contradictions. Reading Gay is to feel that one can be both bad and good feminist, and that one can indeed ‘measure up’ to what a feminist should be. As Baumgardner says,

If this prolific, politically astute, deeply knowledgeable woman was a bad feminist, then there was room for lots of flaws, lots of kinds of people, lots of kinds of feminists. ²⁵

Finally, we embrace Gay’s admission of enjoying, alongside serious theoretical engagement with, cultural forms and outputs typically considered too low-brow for serious academic forums like geography departments, where Foucault, Bourdieu, Marx and a bus-load of other dead White dudes are what ‘should’ be discussed. Serious engagement with potentially trivial subjects is inspiring, because as Wolf expresses,

Bad feminist, for paying such serious attention to such ‘trivial’ subjects. Great feminist writing, as it takes courage to take seriously and seriously analyze themes and texts to which millions of other women also pay close attention and also have strong responses. ²⁶

For Gay, The Hunger Games and Sweet Valley High books are valid cultural reference points. For us it is Parks & Recreation, a US sitcom based in the titular municipal government department. The saying goes, women cannot be what we cannot see, and by struggling to find aspirational academic role models, we look to fictional boss-ladies like those in Parks & Recreation. And yet, . . . the evolution of this article coincided with the #MeToo movement, during which male stars of the show were identified as perpetrators of sexual harassment, forcing us to confront the misogyny deeply embedded in popular culture. As feminists, is it still OK to watch and even cite this show? Again, Gay got to this conundrum before us: in her case, feeling conflicted over a love of music which is ‘degrading to women’. ²⁷

Through 5B, we acknowledge and validate ourselves as ‘awesome women’, ²⁸ and bad feminists. But this does not blind us to wider inequalities. Shared cultural experience and social capital makes it easy to support one another, using familiar references to poke fun at the patriarchy without missing a beat. But, as becomes clearer through sharing these conversations publicly, the particularity of our experience is problematic. By assuming readers recognise Amy Poehler, are we re-enacting the mistakes other geographers make in relation to presumed acquaintance with dead White dudes? Central to bad feminism is the freedom to embody such contradictions without shame, to know it is OK to ‘eff it up on a regular basis’. ²⁹ We expand on what this means in the specific contexts of building feminists’ careers within the academic precariat later.

Why we seek safe online spaces

We know the struggles of surviving and building a career within academia where women often fare particularly badly. Readers who do not recognise this are urged to read the material we cite, or ask colleagues who are not cis straight White men how things are. Our response was to create a safe online space, one with benefits and contradictions which we reflect on here. This safe space fulfils roles lacking in everyday contexts which should facilitate support and discourse: too many academic spaces have become negligent or even toxic. Heightened competition combined with workload intensification and an audit culture place huge pressures on staff, often damaging wellbeing. ³⁰ But the ‘hidden injuries of academia’ are usually borne silently and alone, ³¹ an individualising culture that breeds isolation and compounds threats to wellbeing. ³² Women are particularly harmed by these patterns. First, neoliberal managerialism increases gender inequality by reinforcing masculinist measures of success and characteristics over other ways of being a professional, hampering women’s career progression, ³³ particularly those with caring roles. ³⁴ Second, women are over-represented in precarious temporary, part-time and junior posts, creating additional insecurities. ³⁵ Some women respond with hyper-diligence in the effort to demonstrate that they deserve their place, ³⁶ pushing them to work extra hard, in ways which can harm their wellbeing.

Many attempts to heal academia’s hidden injuries place responsibility on individuals to enact self-care, creating additional burdens. ³⁷ Breaking this cycle requires collective action countering isolation with solidarity, and resisting competitiveness through collaboration to find collective solutions. ³⁸ Instead of each individual caring for their own wellbeing, we might extend care to others so it becomes a political act of resistance. ³⁹ Neoliberal individualisation is being countered by openly sharing common challenges, ⁴⁰ collaboration to shape new academic norms through innovative scholarship and writing, ⁴¹ or unconventional approaches to self-care. ⁴² Such responses, known as ‘slow scholarship’, are deliberate counter-points to pressure to always advance. ⁴³ Wright et al. suggest women develop particular practices to manage masculinist academic environments, including shaping protective feminised enclaves. ⁴⁴ Such support mechanisms need not be founded on physical proximity or limited to geographically local communities. But surprisingly few discussions of academics’ collective support consider virtual communities, or the mechanics of collectivism across distance. The role of information technology in workplace wellbeing is often portrayed negatively, as constant communication pressuring us to be always on duty, or as institutional online spaces exhorting self-care. ⁴⁵ But when digital technology disrupts ‘at work’ spaces, ⁴⁶ the results are not wholly negative. The positive counter-balance is their potential as safe, supportive online gathering spaces.

Women in geography seek such spaces because they often feel isolated and disconnected, especially within their institutions. ⁴⁷ Typical shared academic spaces can feel exclusive or inhibiting, hence the need for feminised domains. ⁴⁸ We argue that the safe feminised spaces some create in classrooms or other physical spaces, and new spaces of collaboration or care fostered by slow scholarship, ⁴⁹ are recreated and extended in OSNs. What on the surface seems mere online gossip becomes a political act when connected to feminist roots in the care ethic and personal as political. As exhorted by O’Dwyer et al., ⁵⁰ and Lorde’s emblematic feminist words, ⁵¹ reflecting on self-care is an act of resistance. Crucially, online networks provide spaces to air problems and develop solutions collectively, not individually. Recognising self-care as a shared responsibility delivered through cooperation, it becomes an act of resistance. ⁵² An academic structure which expects us to compete is resisted by our cooperation. Institutions which harm our health are disrupted when we prioritise each other’s wellbeing.

For 5B, supporting one another online enacts and evolves our feminism just as others have in collaborative scholarship such as feminist writing collectives, ⁵³ and the ‘oral tradition’ of women sharing stories of sexism. ⁵⁴ By sharing our stories privately, we found courage and language to share some publicly. ⁵⁵ We remain painfully aware, however, that such a caring space is inherently exclusive, possibly exclusionary. It is rooted in feminist politics of resistance, and also in bad feminism – an essential compromise between challenging patriarchal injustice, making friends laugh and just making it through another day.

What do early career academic women talk about when no one is listening?

We propose that OSNs like 5B provide crucial safe spaces where academics who too often go unheard voice things important to them, and are heard by supportive, empathetic peers. This section presents some typical 5B content to explore the group chats’ role, before we reflect on its value as peer support space. Extracts from the online chat have been edited for clarity and to make them accessible to an international audience, while seeking to maintain the spirit of our informal communication which includes heavy use of sarcasm, swearing and ironic use of sexist language.

Considering what we have discussed over roughly 4 years, certain themes emerge:

The group has functions relating to work, life and wellbeing particular to us as post-doctoral geographers, in ways which blur a personal – professional divide. ⁵⁶ As is common among academics in precarious positions, we have suffered from wellbeing problems; 5B allows us to discuss these and find support. The group is often first point of call at key career moments, when we need to make a decision or commiserate about rejection and criticism. We want to highlight these support functions as viable solutions for others, while recognising the role of spaces to air bad experiences and feminist rage. We share some of our rants to evidence the persistence of gender inequalities geographers face, in solidarity with the feminist tradition of sharing personal stories. ⁵⁷

Everyday academic sexism – not all academics?

Despite being a critical, left-leaning discipline which has, arguably, been through a feminist turn, cultural and social geography illustrates that no discipline is ‘too critical’ to reproduce sexism and racism. ⁵⁸ Women geographers remain victim to everyday sexism and micro-aggressions, ⁵⁹ which are intensified for women of colour, ⁶⁰ so we share lived experiences to make visible that it is #GeographersToo. The 5B group is somewhere to discuss such everyday sexism, receive sympathy, safely complain and joke about frustrations centred on unfair gendered treatment:

Ethel Beavers:

I’m at a local event for businesses and they have just won the ‘Congratulations you have arranged an All-Male Panel’ award.

~

April Ludgate:

I just sat on an expert panel where I was the only woman. Turns out I’m the only female ⁶¹ speaker all day. Sick of this shit. But at least I only got talked over once. Although that was when it was specifically my turn to answer and some dude talked over me to give the exact same point I was about to make. It was so inevitable.

~

Ron Swanson:

So [well respected white male academic] is in my department today and he was super patronising when I asked him a question. And then answered all the men’s questions super seriously.

Common micro-aggressions include mansplaining and what we call ‘manpropriation’: ⁶²

Ethel Beavers:

I just had my first experience of saying something in a meeting, having it parroted by a man and then everyone referring back to the man when they were saying about how great a point it was. I feel like a real academic now.

Tammy1:

Congrats! Did you have your klaxon? There’s a bloke I work with who is really good at crediting me when someone else manpropriates. It’s ace. Although it would be acer if the guys didn’t steal my ideas in the first place!

In some cases, the group allows us to voice what we should have said to the everyday sexist, like the male academic representing his status as a father in a presentation:

Ron Swanson:

Who is doing all that reproductive and caring labour for you?! The only way this is OK is if his wife is an academic of equal or higher standing than him. I should have publicly asked him how many months of paternity leave he took and how many hours a week he acts as primary carer for his kids.

Privately chatting about sexism does not undermine it, but these exchanges help us survive sexist environments.

For those ‘is it just me?’ moments, 5B helps us process whether experiences are more than personal, for example, reflecting on gendered ageism (Figure 3). ⁶³

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 3.

Identifying “just gender shit” through shared experiences.

By agreeing experiences are Just Gender Shit, the group helps us to overcome self-criticism and recognise the bigger problems we are part of. Many encounters are definitely #JGS:

Ron Swanson:

one of the blokes commandeered the conversation with [esteemed male geographer] like this, literally: ‘We have something in common: we both have [nationality] wives’ and then they chatted for fifteen minutes ignoring me. Shame I couldn’t join the wife chat. Next time I see a senior female academic I’m going to say ‘oh we have something in common – we both have white husbands’!

And if nothing else, sharing #JGS gives us a good laugh (Figure 4).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 4.

Humor as a coping mechanism.

Such situations are frequent, making humour an important survival tactic; among 5B we can laugh without being accused of trivialisation. As Gay herself suggests, venting or requests for reassurance from fellow bad feminists deserve a response, even if only ‘I hear you’. ⁶⁴ It is also where we rehearse the voices we need to call out such treatment in future, helping each other sharpen the tools we need in our feminist toolkit. ⁶⁵

Support, care and safe space

Another feminist tool 5B sharpens is the ability to overcome imposter syndrome. ⁶⁶ We can be reluctant to ask ‘stupid questions’ for fear of revealing the inadequacy we feel, so we need a space where someone tells us we are not stupid. Or to access honest advice founded in friendship, getting answers to what we dare not ask elsewhere:

EB:

Friends, how do you keep the faith that what you are writing is good/worth doing? Every time I sit down to work on my paper, I am convinced I should be writing something else.

RS:

I usually just look at it pragmatically . . . Like if I can get this done and finish it and have some output then that’s good. And once it’s done try and find more time for the inspiring stuff?

T1:

Any paper you’ve written is better than one you haven’t written. Or something.

Combating imposter syndrome also means offering advice, or encouragement (Figure 5).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 5.

Simple encouragement is sometimes enough.

Sometimes supportive words are enough, but there is also practical advice. The 5B’s discussions veer between the mundane and seemingly trivial to the serious and significant:

April Ludgate:

Best viva exam advice ever passed on by me from another awesome lady academic. After an hour or so ask for a wee break. It will give them a chance to talk amongst themselves if they need to ask more questions and they may decide they don’t. Me and my friend did it and got away with an hour long viva! Even if it doesn’t shorten the viva you can sit on the loo and have a five minute chill.

Being in precarious roles can feel like constant career decisions in the seemingly never-ending search for funding or permanent contracts, so we discuss how to develop our careers:

Ron Swanson:

Right proper career dilemma incoming . . . brace yourselves . . . I have seen a position advertised that I fit the requirements for, but it’s a considerable commute and would require staying over a couple of nights a week. But . . . I am worried about leaving [my child] regularly and [my partner] having a lot of parental responsibility when I’m not there. And he’s going to lose his shit with me if I make him move again. WWYD?!? (obviously bearing in mind the impossibility of getting permanent lectureships and I want to stay put for a bit and am genuinely concerned about what I will do if I can’t get funding).

Collective Q&A breaks down intimidating decisions through collaborative appraisal:

April Ludgate:

Question. Do I want to put myself forward for a funded postgraduate course? Uni are funding people to do it, seems like it’s not too much work. Part of me can’t be arsed but part of me thinks career progression opportunities are sensible things.

Ethel Beavers:

Ooh that’s a tricky one. Do they give you time to do it out of your workload? Is it likely to help with a promotion or future job application?

We share expertise on academic literatures, methodologies and writing as well as navigating recruitment and promotion. Crucially, no question or situation is deemed too small to warrant advice, and we know the group will not judge us for asking about what others may perceive as more trivial aspects of academic life.

There are, however, some silences in this article, discussions too personal or painful to share publicly where we describe not coping, feeling shit and freaking out. This redacted discussion indicates that 5B is not silent on profoundly negative feelings and experiences. In contrast to public groups, private online chat is a valuable safe space to share these and find emotional support. Sometimes, the discussion of sexism encountered is more serious than those described humorously above.

These exchanges are likely oblique to those outside 5B; that is the point. Not all discussion in such a network is suitable for public consumption beyond the original audience. We include this partial conversation to highlight this type of communication happens, and the value of being able to receive immediate responses and support from trusted peers when something personally painful happens in a work environment. Sometimes, we need places where nothing is redacted and there is no need to self-censor (Figure 6).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 6.

A private and supportive space to help us deal with the really serious stuff.

These ‘silences’ should also convey the harm women academics experience; we are conscious that others might insert much heavier silences. We are also aware that many women – including geographers – take their own painful experiences public. But this is a fraught step, meaning much – including our redacted examples – remains hidden. ⁶⁷ To speak up requires feminists to hone our voices, sharpening them as a tool with which to confidently speak out. ⁶⁸ The 5B provides space to rehearse complaints, test responses and practice retorts ready for the next offender. These rehearsals have empowered us to take experiences public, ⁶⁹ and to be more confident speaking up as feminists in our workplaces. Yet, to become ‘better feminists’, we all need to learn also to speak up for those silent not by choice but through systemic silencing.

Creating and valuing safe spaces for bad feminism

We are not the only ones to create safe, supportive space for speaking our minds and sharing advice. Mentoring schemes are commonly offered to counter gender inequality in academia, enabling junior academics to receive support from senior colleagues. ⁷⁰ But we value a peer approach:

The Fem-Mentee Collective ⁷¹ argue, ‘self-peer-ceptive feminist mentorship’ facilitates sharing personal experiences of navigating the academy as a means to challenge institutional inequalities. A notable advantage of peer mentoring is the opportunity to air dilemmas without fear of judgement, or of disadvantaging careers by voicing something personally detrimental to someone in a position to support our advancement. The 5B members work in different roles and sectors, but diverse workplace perspectives are valuable:

This situation emerged unintentionally from our beginnings as fellow post-graduates and our subsequent pathways. Such networks are likely and valuable in academia because graduate colleagues develop relationships of trust which provide a necessary foundation for critique. ⁷² We are unashamed about 5B being founded on friendship, and argue for the importance of building academic friendships – not relationships formed in pursuit of self-advancement or excellent research collaborations, but of kindness and joy.

Limits to OSNs, peer support and 5B

There are limits to 5B as a support strategy. We may neglect the root problem by becoming better able to function alongside the patriarchy, rather than undermining dominant systemic injustices. Others share our ambition to support each other by creating safe feminised spaces through writing. ⁸⁰ But, as they acknowledge, this risks prioritising short-term wellbeing over longer-term career:

Birch et al. ⁸¹ similarly acknowledge challenges around early career academics investing time in collaborative writing or support. Perhaps we are deluding ourselves that time spent chatting online is important work rather than procrastination or distraction (Figure 7).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 7.

Sometimes we need to remind each other to “get on with it”.

Using OSNs rather than more public channels, are we bad academics as well as bad feminists? If so, we doubt we are the only ones. We know that others who feel marginalised within academia similarly form online groups through which they find outlets and support. Such mechanisms not only help people to continue working in hostile or unhealthy environments but also allow academia to continue being ‘bad’.

One critical dimension is the emotional labour this peer mentorship requires. ⁸² Our discussion space can push emotional labour onto our peers, so we struggle to balance support and solidarity with burdening already over-burdened emotional labourers. We do not want to enforce a narrative that emotional work is women’s work. The 5B group may also reinforce other gender norms we are trying to fight:

Conversely,

Communicating online is different, and whether or not an OSN can replace face-to-face contact is debatable. ⁸³ But set against academia’s mobility, ⁸⁴ and the varied career paths pursued by people like us, it is an excellent substitute or supplement. It is difficult to judge whether such collaborative endeavours resist the neoliberal academy, or are merely distraction placing our feminist perspective to the side of rather than undermining masculinism. ⁸⁵ But the positive potential energises us:

Further energy has come from working to share such experiences here.

Throughout this process, we have been conscious of what Gay might make of us, a bunch of White feminists, and have faced discomfort using her words to interpret our relatively privileged situation:

Maybe we do more harm than good by occupying space in the name of women without sensitivity to our relative privilege. Gay’s guidance helps us navigate this:

You don’t necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don’t have to apologize for it. You need to understand the extent of your privilege, the consequences of your privilege, and remain aware that people who are different from you move through and experience the world in ways you might never know anything about. You could, however, use that privilege for the greater good – to try to level the playing field for everyone, to work for social justice, to bring attention to how those without certain privileges are disenfranchised. ⁸⁶

First, this prompts reflection on our relative privilege and how to ‘use’ it to improve the situation for those experiencing greater injustices within academia. Second, it urges us to want those most powerful in academia to read and digest her statement, as the basis for shaping better worlds. By illustrating everyday sexism we face, we hope certain members of our geographic communities will see and understand the need for change, to benefit of others.

We see 5B as opening up the proposition of nepotism as a resistance strategy, a way of subverting patriarchal practices to our own ends, flipping the power dynamics. But nepotism is a loaded term; women’s engagement in unjust workplace practices is not justified by the fact that men used them for years. Moreover, even if we wanted to offer advancement to our friends – whatever their identity – we are not in positions to do so. Nepotism, to date, has primarily closed doors to diversity rather than opened them. Perhaps the distant prospect of a more equitable nepotism leads us to not take point 5B too seriously. Our emphasis is Gay’s urging that as women we support and collaborate with each other, make space for women of colour and recognise women’s awesomeness without shame. Put simply, if academia will not look after us then we will look after each other.

Conclusion

In this article, we have explored our use of OSNs to facilitate peer mentoring and collective support in face of neoliberal academic work spaces. Academic cultures which too often harm wellbeing can be redressed, even challenged through caring networks which collaborate not individualise. Sharing the story and functions of 5B demonstrates its value, and the potential of digital technology often cast as part of the problem. We note the irony of re-presenting online chat – originally an antidote to institutional pressures – as an ‘output’ which may help us scramble towards the safety of being suitably ‘published’. But we are not driven by an urge to ‘get ahead’ in academia, rather we resist a toxic culture of self-promotion. Writing together marks a crucial step in 5B’s journey, pushing us from informal chat to formal collaboration and recognition, offering a springboard for further cooperation. Writing as 5B prompted us to look outwardly and reflect inwardly, and to engage more with work by women of colour. Reviewers’ feedback challenged us to define our feminism, and to question the value of sharing it with others. Taking 5B public, we join with others facing these issues, for whom the neoliberal academy offers inadequate support, and who seek a more human face to academic life.

The spirit of this article pays homage to Roxane Gay’s work, where the complexity of navigating everyday life while adhering to feminist principles creates tensions as we both reproduce and resist wider oppression. Gay’s advice – use your networks to your advantage – requires that we acknowledge our own as exclusionary, partial and entangled with raced and classed inequality. As White, middle-class cis-gendered women with relatively well-paid – albeit precarious – roles, our OSN is ultimately exclusionary, and despite our personal motives towards intersectional, queer and de-colonial feminism, it does little to break down power inequalities. We are still bad feminists in several senses. We have not tried to gloss over this anachronism but use it productively to reflect on both potential and pitfalls of a network like 5B. Gay’s own online interactions in a Twitter feed where she relentlessly calls out everyday racist and sexist acts, sometimes in anger, sometimes in humour, is constant reminder of the potential for powerful bad feminists. As bad academics, we bring this ambivalence to our professional sphere, happy to regularly eff it up, satisfied to do so in good company.

Appreciating and attempting to work through these deep flaws in our practice and our work, through 5B we have found space to talk through our challenges and developed the confidence to voice them publicly. Looking forward, we expect to continue supporting each other, perhaps adding to our network through wider collaborations. For the longer-term? We have a plan (Figure 8).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 8.

5B’s plans for the future.