The primary question on my mind as I sit down to write this article is if I will cash-purchase a small manufactured house in the coming couple of months with my savings to fully concentrate on running my publishing business, so that I don’t need to continue relying on teaching as a secondary source of income (as the rent tends to take up the bulk of my spending). I am compelled to leave academia because every one of my academic positions has necessitated a move across state lines, so that I taught in PA, GA, TX, AZ, OH, and for a semester in China, each time on a year or semester contracts. The bulk of my salaries was swallowed up in the cost of the moves and higher living expenses in the regions around the schools. So, for over eight years now, my real source of income has been publishing. The blame might be with the untenured and otherwise unsecure state of academic employment. But being a woman in academia is especially disabling.
From Texas
The American Elephant:
Women’s Continued Segregation and Underpayment
by Anna Faktorovich, PhD