Killing Success With Kindness: The Professional Woman’s Struggle With Gendered Language In Art & Academia

Killing Success with Kindness is an investigation into the use of gendered language in art and academia, exploring what this language is, where it arises, and how it ultimately perpetuates ingrained inequalities. For my thesis project I conducted field and scholarly research on the ways female faculty and students in academia must restrict and tailor their interactions in order to achieve. Through conversations and a Google form questionnaire, I compiled first hand accounts of gender inequality, discrimination, biased interaction, and biased language to further bolster my understanding of widespread female suffering in scholarly settings. After conducting and linking research, I collaborated with another student, Lauren Cates, to create a zine utilizing this research. The intention behind this zine is to compile enough significant information to start a conversation amongst students, hopefully pushing them to consider their use of language more carefully in the future.