I’ve been creating a montage of all the #LeavingAcademia folk on Twitter for a talk.

1) My heart 💔
2) Notice anything?

Dr Elizabeth Gadd @lizziegadd.bsky.social I've been working on this for a decade and I'm not sure what you are referring to re. heartbreak or noticing things but the vast majority of PhD students across all disciplines in places like the US & Canada will not have faculty careers, and that's true for all demographics.

Jennifer Polk, PhD (she, her) Yep. But the #LeavingAcademia hashtag is usually used by those who are leaving for other reasons, such as burnout, bullying, harassment, inability to get a permanent academic position due to competition, job precarity etc.

Jennifer Polk, PhD (she, her) If folks are leaving academia because the environment is intolerable then that is heartbreaking to me? And with regard to noticing things, it struck me, how many of those who are leaving academia (from my admittedly very small sample) were women.

Dr Elizabeth Gadd @lizziegadd.bsky.social Ah sure. Understood. The preponderance of women who are public, online about this is something I've noticed too for a decade. I think it's only partly that academia is sexist; the other part is women are more online, community oriented, open about feelings and talking about them.

Jennifer Polk, PhD (she, her) Dr Elizabeth Gadd @lizziegadd.bsky.social I think about this a lot - there is also a relationship with being 'straight through' where many have done nothing else. My background was Business Schools, and people come in and go out at various points, so they tend to 'get another job' rather than 'leave academia'.

Jennifer Polk, PhD (she, her) Dr Elizabeth Gadd @lizziegadd.bsky.social An entirely alternative take is as Bell Hooks notes in one of her books - western men are trained nobody cares about their feelings and nobody wants to know their pain so they just keep it to themselves.