I’m not tired of traditionally masculine spaces at all

So I know as a Senior Fellow I don’t have to do a micropost but this needs to be said.

Let me tell you something about my project and what I do: IT’S HARD.

What I do is hard. I’m going into a field that is already greatly skeptical and highly critical of any new members. I make tons of jokes about it: like if I had a dollar for everytime someone says “that’s not lady-like” I could pay my college tuition.  Funny, right? You know what’s not funny? Literally being laughed out of a military history class in high school because you’re a woman. Dreading the response of someone when they ask, “what do you want to do?”. Being told what you’re doing is worthless and won’t get you into grad school. Maybe you should go into women’s history because you’re a woman and you obviously you can’t do any other history outside your gender.

Throughout being laughed at, ignored, interrupted, disregarded, and criticized I have tried to keep an upper hand and keep my chin up. My life has literally become my cadets because if I were any less passionate or driven I would’ve given up. I would’ve given up the first week of my military history class in high school and sometimes I wish I did, it would’ve been so much easier.

I devote so much time to records because if I say I don’t know something I am automatically brushed off as a silly girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing. Sometimes I talk over people because so many times so often if I don’t talk over people I don’t get heard at all. I take on an enormous workload in short time periods because if I don’t it will be perceived that I’m not dedicated or I don’t have what it takes. And I can’t let anything get to me or else I am perceived as weak and I don’t belong for a reason.

I know I don’t belong already. It’s abundantly clear as I can name less than ten influential women warriors in history and even fewer women military historians. It’s hard to know you’re not accepted in your field and even harder when people don’t realize how hard it will be for me to get into the field much less change it.  My mantra is “You have to work twice as hard to get even half as far as they are”. If you think that’s extreme, I’d love to see you go through half as many records as I have, contact half as many references and have them laugh in your face, or devote half as much time as I do to my site and my cadets. Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do unless you’ve been in my heels for a day.

It is hard. It is overwhelming. It is exhausting. It is what I do every day and I’m expected to suck it up and take it like a man, which is exactly what I’ll do after I vent a bit with this post.

-Julia