Breaking Dissemblance With Reflexive Journaling: The Femtorship Experiences of a Black Woman PhD Student

• In Event: A Reflexive Plática Honoring the Femtorship of Black and Latina Women in the Ivory Tower

Abstract

Although Black women have enrolled in and completed doctoral programs for nearly a century, literature surrounding their experiences remained sparse until the early 21st century when the advent of scholarly work specifically focused on Black women doctoral students emerged. Femtorship and advisement have been found to have the most impact on doctoral degree completion, how students rate the level of satisfaction with their doctoral experience (Ellis, 2001), and their entry into academia. Regardless of identity, graduate students experience challenges that impact doctoral degree completion (Gardner, 2009; Lovitts, 1996). Doctoral students who hold multiple historically marginalized identities, Black women in particular, are susceptible to additional challenges that extend beyond the doctoral student experience that include overt bias, the “perceived need to constantly prove themselves” (Graham, 2013), feelings of “otherness,” and objectification (Collins, 2009). Scholars who have studied Black women doctoral students note that the following aspects of doctoral student life facilitate degree completion: academic and professional socialization, peer networks, femtorship and advising (Apugo, 2017; Ellis, 2001; Jones, Wilder, & Osborne-Lampkin, 2013; Patton & Harper, 2003). This paper is a component of a larger reflexive journaling study of the author’s experiences as a Black woman Ph.D. student at a predominately white institution, the necessity to center the experiences and ideas of Black women in the academy, and the impact of reflexivity and femstorship on personal and academic success.

Author

• Monica Ugwu Perkins, Claremont Graduate University