#i feel the need to be honest and transparent about my experiences in academia

[classicslesbianopinions]

the thing about being a disabled grad student is that if you want even half a chance you constantly have to not only reveal but interrogate and explain your softest most vulnerable parts. while people around you act like this is just completely normal and actually that is not the softest most vulnerable part of you and actually you are exactly the same as all of them. so you feel like you are in disguise as exactlythesame while also completely exposed. and you just have to live like that. absolutely insane

[jpnesecurrency]

Recap of 2021

As I’ve said to many in these past few weeks as the year was wrapping up: this year felt both so very long, and so very short at the same time. Is that possible?

Ya girl has had a very eventful year that I’ll recap here: January: Consisted of going back to work after maternity leave, choosing to teach half online, half in person. I learned that renewal of my contract was not guaranteed for the following year. I sent my baby to his first daycare, only to have it close within two weeks because of a COVID case. I learned how to have back-up plans. February: I turned one year older, and decided to leave the uncertainty of my job for a different uncertainty, and started reaching out to friends and networks outside of academia, learning how to pitch my experience as skills. I was very uncomfortable. March: The anti-Asian assaults culminating in the events in Georgia were especially taxing for me. I surprised myself by reaching out to friends and family, asking if they needed support, when really it was me who yearned for comfort and connection. My partner & I bought a home in a city that we wanted to live in (regardless of what the job market would bring), sight unseen and without a realtor. My family thought we were crazy. April & May: Wrapped up teaching at my first job out of the PhD, which I loved but also needed room for more growth. I decided to take a postdoc in New York in an entirely different department. We moved into our new home in a new city, and I vowed I would never move again (this is of course not indicative of reality). Summer: No travel abroad, unfortunately. Spent the most amazing time in New England while I channelled all of my creative energy into interior design and writing a short story. This told me that doing creative work is what brings me most joy. I ended the summer with an academic retreat in Seattle for new scholars of Vietnamese studies, which was restorative and wholesome, why isn’t this kind of support and collegiality more common? September: We moved again, though this time not our entire apartment, just a few suitcases to the tristate area so I could commute to the city. I met people from all walks of life at the new institution and felt a renewal of energy toward academia and going on the job market* again. New York gave me life. It was boisterous, enabling. October:  (Selective) job applications. This month was also an important one for figuring out what I needed in my personal life, which rules I wanted to abide by, and which rules I wanted to break. It led to hard, deep, but transparent conversations about what good relationships consist of. These conversations made me realize how porous the boundaries are between past and present, career and personal life. The things I wanted in my career were inextricable from how I was raised as a child of immigrants, the things I wanted in my personal life were not separate from the rules I had once followed at school. November: A blip that I do not remember.  December: A hard month. I received a large batch of rejections – from presses, applications, grants – and felt a deep sense of dread for the year’s end, simply because I wasn’t ready for what is to come. But will we ever? Yet each time I felt dejected, the universe seemed to offer me a bone. I guess it’s not over yet, but as I learned this year, I’m having back-up plans, and I’m wary of precedents and rules. 

*For context, the academic job market for a coveted position in French, let’s say, is extremely competitive. There are maybe 25-30 positions a year, to which I might be able to apply to 5-10 because of my area of specialization/research interests. Many people “go on the market�� 2-3 times before they are able to land a position that puts them on track to be permanent faculty. Some leave altogether. 

I’m gonna be more honest with myself this year, give less f*cks about what people think, wear sneakers with suits, ask for what I want, and feel less guilty about it. 

[browngirlwisdom-blog]

“Hurt People, Hurt People” on Junot Diaz’s piece on Silence & Childhood Trauma by @BrownGirlWisdom__

Cw: sexual violence, mention of suicide

I've had some time to process Junot Diaz’s piece on silence and childhood trauma.  I laid in bed, listened to the audio recording because I really had no energy to visually read it. If you have not read it, find the article here. In the presence of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and the #MeToo movement it is quite the time to really invest, revisit the reality of sexual violence and how it impacts folks of color. Many points resonated with me in his piece. My intent is not to discredit the pain, trauma and courage it took for him to be vulnerable in a patriarchal world that is not kind to vulnerability. I intend to provide my reflections as a survivor, a recovering Catholic, Mexican identified, non-Black, queer girl on masculinity, mental health, sexual violence, the familial structure as potential toxic site and religion as an oppressive institution that were brought up in Junot Diaz’s piece.

Interrogation of Catholicism as an Oppressive Structure and Tool of Conquest

What happens when praying isn't enough?

Religion is not always the cure for mental illness. Junot states, “Of course, I never got any kind of help, any kind of therapy. Like I said, I never told anyone. In a family as big as mine—five kids—it was easy to get lost, even when you were going under. I remember my mother telling me, after one of my depressions, that I should pray. I didn’t even bother to laugh.”  First, families of color just do not have the language to put into words what depression is so they resort to calling us “locas/locos” and tell us to go “pray” which continues to stigmatize mental illness within our community. I often think about how religion is usually the mode of “healing” for many. It is important to interrogate how religion can be an oppressive force. Specifically in the context of Catholicism on the island of the Dominican Republic, Junot Diaz in an interview states that it is important to critique, be more “transparent” about the “syncretic” religion that has a history rooted in the plantations and a dictator as he states in a Youtube interview titled “Junot Díaz talks religion, Dominican identity, and writing.” on his reflections on The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wilde. He advocates for a democratic Dominican Republic and states he is “not here to comfort anyone”. Religion, specifically Catholicism has a history of being used as a tool for manipulation, coercion, displacement, forced assimilation of native folk to whiteness and enslavement of Black people. Religion then becomes a place of isolation, dehumanization, ostracization and massacre. Catholicism has been used as a form of indoctrination of the gender binary and gender roles. Which again, reinforces the dichotomy that men must always be strong and women must be fragile and passive. I feel like many of you who really rely on religion as a form of healing space please take this in slowly. I do not suggest to completely get rid of religion in itself because I used to rely on Catholicism as a form of escape and healing. Now I identify as a “recovering Catholic” for many reasons of my own. I will push us as a community to continue to think about the role of Catholicism as a hegemonic force that continues to uphold much of the systems that hurt us as a community. How can we push the church to recognize its power, misuse of power as an institution, as a socially accepted religion as opposed to practices rooted in the Quran, Santeria, Brujeria, and other spiritual and religious practices? Religion is not always a cure for mental illness within our community, especially given it’s violent history. Connecting this back to sexual violence, what happens when the church demonizes sex, promiscuity without taking into account sexual violence and it’s history of abuse of power? What happens when praying isn't enough?

Addressing Rape Culture

All this to say that sexual violence exists within our communities and we must not remain silent or complacent in rape culture. Here are ten reasons why rape culture is so bad in the Latinx community according to Mala Munoz in “10 Reasons Why Rape Culture is So Bad in the Latinx Community”. These are some of the reasons: the risk of deportation, difficulties seeing sexual assault for what it is, age and generational trauma, lack of family support, family unity takes priority, community supports the perpetrator, lack of consequences and accountability for abusers, negative responses are psychologically damaging, lack of support means high likelihood of revictimization, and survivors forced to create their own support system.

Accountability Now: Men of Color Need to Hold Men of Color

Boys and Men of Color Create Spaces to talk Masculinity!

I also believe that Junot Diaz’s piece is a start to a conversation that men of color should start to invest more time in their feelings, trauma, healing so we can collectively combat systems like the patriarchy, misogyny culture that continues to silence us and enables us from being our authentic selves. Junot Diaz describes his sexual relationships and failed relationships with women which is important to note. We must think about how Junot’s promiscuity and act of using women to move along the world with his trauma was harmful. I think that this is also an opportunity to talk about how men of color need to take accountability of the trauma they cause women of color, while having experienced trauma. Men of color should be having a conversation among themselves about the realities of toxic masculinity and trauma that womxn of color have to experience due to the lack of spaces that allow men of color to work through their trauma. Men of color should hold space for other men of color to be vulnerable. In short, men of color hold other men accountable and make space for each other to process and own their experiences and be honest. And womxn of color should not have to be there to process, but the reality is that many womxn of color do do  that emotional labor to support the men of color in their life. So men of color, if you have womxn of color in your life that love and support you, say your Thank You’s.

Womxn of Color Can We Stop Making Excuses For Men of Color

So I also invite womxn of color to reflect on how we possibly navigate the world internalized and how we can move beyond that to really challenge these larger structures like sexism

We as womxn of color need to also stop apologizing for men of color. Internalized patriarchy and misogyny that convinces us to continue to protect and hold delicately the men of color in our lives. And the reality most of of us are not in a place to do that work due to violence we have felt from men of color and/or we can potentially put ourselves in a violent situation due to retaliation. All these concerns are real. Where do we start? Connecting with each other and building solidarity among one another and not pitting against each other for men of color that treat us like trash and waste basket for their toxic coping mechanisms. So I invite us womxn of color to reflect on how we possibly navigate the world internalized and how we can move beyond that to really challenge these larger structures like sexism, patriarchy, and misogyny. Have a conversation among each other. Check-in with each other at a family event, work space, within academia, in the streets, at a party setting and etc. We also need to address transphobia that is deeply embedded in our culture. I invite us to think critically about the gender binary and not only support our cis-ters but all of our sisters. Just like...”We deserve more complexity in these narratives. As corny and played out as the phrase is, it is true that hurt people hurt people. One can both be a survivor and a perpetuator of harm, especially if their trauma compacts with patriarchy. I would love for more attention, gratitude, credit, agency and space be given to those women who helped or loved or were hurt by those hurt men along their way, especially Black women. We deserve it.” as stated by Briana L. Urena “In the darkness men leave behind the women and emerge in the light clean and free”.

Moving forward:

I appreciate Junot Diaz’s vulnerability and became very emotional closer to the end since again, I resonated with a lot of what he expressed. It became sort of a mirror to feelings I have been carrying within myself. I also imagine how men of color can use this as an opportunity to lean more into their vulnerability. Of course, Junot Diaz is not free from critique but also it is a honest way to reflect on his reality to hopefully begin to own the harm he caused along the way. This becomes a larger conversation around addressing rape culture within our community, cultural stigma and inaccessible mental resources within the Latinx community, the need for informal spaces for men of color to address toxic masculinity, and for women of color to invest in each others wellbeing. How can we move forward with Junot Diaz’s vulnerability to change the culture of silence among the Latinx community? This is a start and I believe a platform to address sexual violence, mental health, and religion is always vital and much needed moving forward.

And I still have questions, so I ask: What is the impact when our Latinx families keep trauma silenced? What does it mean when we are unable to unpack what hurts us and who hurt us? What does it mean when we continue to uphold and reinforce toxic structures that lead many of our community members to call it quits? Where do we start? How do we move forward as a community? Towards a more healing and nurturing place? How do we take into account inequities that our communities face and also hold each other accountable for the damage we may have inflicted? How do we hold space for one another? Who should be holding that space?

Finally, I end with this quote by the one and only Gloria, “Why am I compelled to write?... Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and anger... To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispell the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul. To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit... Finally I write because I'm scared of writing, but I'm more scared of not writing.”

Resources:

http://ocrcc.org/the-intersection-of-sexual-violence-and-disability/

https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/mazeofinjustice.pdf

https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/colonial-history-creates-religious-syncretism-in-the-dominican-republic

https://www.schoolhealthcenters.org/healthlearning/boys-and-young-men-of-color-bmoc/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/03/16/feminism-glossary-lexicon-language/99120600/

https://eji.org/history-racial-injustice-sexual-exploitation-black-women

https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexual-assault-men-and-boys

https://transequality.org/issues/anti-violence

[ultimatestudyabroad]

This Sucks

Note – I wrote this in November and December, when I was at a particularly low point in my job searching despair (there have been several, including now). I didn’t publish it at the time because I felt it wouldn’t be good to have this in the public domain while I was still looking for a job, but since coronavirus has paused all job searches and it seems I will never again have gainful employment, I figure, what the hell? Maybe it will be cathartic to get my frustration out into the universe.

My happiness from a year ago feels like a dream. Facebook reminds me that a year ago I was on a mini-holiday in Port Douglas with friends, marking essays for the class I was teaching in between snorkeling sessions and gin and tonics. My day-to-day life was luxuriously full of reading and writing; my weekends full of concerts and shows, trips to the beach, and dinners with friends. And though my financial subsistence was meagre, I had regular income and I had established a budget that allowed me to live without worrying about money all that often. And above all, I felt like the best, happiest version of myself. This was a life I had intentionally built for myself through meticulous planning and more than a bit of luck. It was everything I had ever hoped it would be.

That luck has run out. From the beginning, I knew that my life in Australia was but temporary and, if you read this blog regularly, you know that I was very concerned with whether, upon return to the U.S., I’d be able to build a better life there than I had had before Australia. Certainly not as happy as I was in Sydney, but hopefully happier than before I left. Instead, I have no life. Four-and-a-half months since I’ve returned to the U.S. (now 11 months) and a full nine months since my first administrative job application was submitted (now 15), I still have no job and no immediate job prospects. Applications are out, sure, but the hiring process in higher ed usually takes months (and now it is non-existent because of coronavirus). The money I so carefully saved throughout my time in Sydney for this period of transition is gone. I’m still relying on the kindness of friends and family to house me and Hibby. I have no job, I have no steady income, I have no home, I have no future, and I have absolutely no idea when (or if) it will ever end.

Now, before people start thinking to themselves, “the academic job market is brutal” or “it took me years to get an academic job,” I want to be clear that I am not searching for an academic job. I made an attempt at the academic job market in the (northern hemisphere) fall of 2018, applying for about 15 postdocs, short-term though multi-year teaching gigs, and tenure-track positions. My expectations were low, so I was not really surprised when absolutely nothing came of these.

So, when February 2019 rolled around and the thesis due date drew near, I turned my attention to what had been my realistic plan all along: re-enter my former career in higher ed administration. Given my decade-plus experience in the field and wealth of contacts, I didn’t think this would be too terribly difficult. I knew that job searches in higher ed take forever and I had saved accordingly. I also knew that mid-level jobs (in between entry-level and assistant vice provost level) are harder to come by, but I was/am willing to be flexible geographically. (For crying out loud, I applied to two jobs at the University of Wisconsin! I would freeze my ass off there!) But, I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would possibly take this long.

It’s not that I’m directionless, a young professional trying to find her niche; I know exactly what my field is. It’s not that I’m being too choosy; I’ve applied for 60 admin jobs. It’s not that I’m choosing inappropriate jobs for my experience; I’ve had phone interviews for over a third of the jobs I’ve applied for. I’ve been a finalist for two jobs (neither one of which I got, obviously). My application materials are good. I’ve been to this rodeo a number of times before; I know how to do this. Still nothing…

I have friends who try to offer explanations and, while I know and appreciate that they’re trying to be supportive, their explanations don’t help because they, much like the process itself, are nonsensical and contradictory. I’ve been told, “it’s all in who you know.” Well, again, I fucking know everyone at Duke and, after nine applications there, I’ve only had two phone interviews! I’ve been told, “you have to leave Duke and come back to work your way up.” Silly me, I thought moving to the other side of the planet for 3.5 years was leaving Duke. I’ve been told that my PhD is holding me back, never mind the fact that many of the jobs I’ve applied for are PhD-preferred or -required. And never mind the fact that a big part of the reason I decided to do the PhD in the first place (even though I had my eyes wide open about the state of the academic job market) was because I was told again and again that I would need a PhD to advance much past my former position. In fact, my former position was PhD-preferred. I was the only one on the team without a PhD and I had to endure all sorts of snide comments about “non-intellectuals” (to be clear, not from my colleagues but from higher administrators and faculty). Since I wanted to do the PhD anyway, just for myself, I decided to go for it. Not having the PhD held me back, but apparently having it also holds me back?

Well, you see, one helpful explanation goes, I chose to do an academic PhD, in a discipline as opposed to an EdD or PhD in higher ed. What the fuck? First, I sat on several hiring committees in my last job in which people with higher ed degrees were sneered at. Secondly, I chose a discipline because that’s the subject that interested me enough to devote three years of my life to it. I love working with undergraduates, but I don’t want to study the little bastards! Oh, but don’t you see, since you have an academic PhD, hiring managers will assume you’re not serious about the role and will leave as soon as you get an academic job. FFFUUUUUUCCKKK MMMMEEEEE! That’s not going to happen! There aren’t any academic jobs!

As much as I want to dismiss this no-win point of view on the PhD, I know that, at least at times, it’s completely true. People in administration seem completely oblivious to the casualization crisis in academia. This blows my mind, since we all work in the same damn industry. Even so, I’m prepared for the “why did you do a PhD” question and have my polished (and completely honest!) answer prepared. And that was the verbal answer I gave to one particularly annoying iteration of that question, but my mental response was quite a bit different. The question was posed along the lines of, “I see you just got a PhD. I want to make sure you understand that this is not a teaching job.” The polished answer came out of my mouth while the snarky, bitchy, fed-up Mel voice in the back of my mind responded, “Yes, I know that. Because 1. I can fucking read. 2. I wrote a whole cover letter which demonstrated I knew exactly what the job is. And 3. There are no teaching jobs!”

I feel frustrated even when talking to people who support me. The frustration brought on by hiring managers is exponentially worse. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve seen a number of frustrated tweets about the lack of follow up after interviews. Of that one-third of the jobs I’ve applied for in which I’ve had phone interviews, only THREE hiring managers have done me the courtesy of emailing me to let me know I was not advancing to an in-person interview. One school didn’t send me my generic rejection email until eight months after my phone interview. Two places I had phone interviews (both in 2019) still haven’t contacted me at all. Now, reader, don’t give me any bullshit about the number of applications received for the average job or how busy everyone is. I’m not complaining about the mass rejection email from HR I get for jobs I don’t get an interview for. I’m talking about a hiring committee doing 6-7 phone interviews and inviting three of those people to campus for an in-person interview while never bothering to send 3-4 emails to the other interviewees! It does not take much time to send 3-4 identical emails that say, “Thank you for speaking with us last week about the position. Unfortunately, you were not selected for an in-person interview, but we wish you the best of luck in your search.” See? I just did it! That took like 30 seconds! By November, I was over this shit. Two weeks after a phone interview, I sent a polite email asking for a status update. Which was completely ignored! On what planet is that acceptable?

Here’s another little lesson in human decency for hiring managers: don’t call people’s references unless you plan to offer them the job. Because when someone’s references are contacted, they assume they’re about to get a job offer. Those two jobs I was a finalist for? They were at the same school and they contacted my references twice. Same people, 1.5 months apart! If you feel so compelled to call references on multiple people, be transparent. Send an email to the candidates saying , “FYI - we’re checking references on both of our finalists.” (And btw, where are you getting all this time to make all these phone calls, anyway? I thought you didn’t have time to send 3-4 emails to the rejected phone interview candidates!)

Piled on top of my frustration, despair, rapidly eroding self-esteem, and bank account anxiety is guilt. Guilt over being annoyed with my friends who are incapable of cheering me up in the face of a hopeless situation. Guilt over assuring undergrads in my temp advising job that they will be able to find jobs after they graduate (I know it’s my job to calm them down, but seriously, how hypocritical can I possibly be?!). Guilt over that panel on non-academic jobs I organized at the 2018 AHA. The one where I told everyone that administration jobs are rewarding and realistic. Ha! If I, with all my experience, can’t find a job, can a newly minted PhD in his/her mid-late 20s who went straight from undergrad to grad school really expect to find one? Without being dismissed as only wanting an academic job? I apologize to all the folks at that panel. Your post-grad rep (unwittingly) lied to you!

I am obviously in a very dark place right now. That’s not to say I regret doing my PhD. Not at all. Not for a moment. This was the best three years of my life. I’m proud of the research I did. I am an infinitely better person than I was four years ago. But someone just needs to give me a fucking job.

[njawaidofficial]

“Billions” Is The Best Show About The Worst Kind Of Masculinity

https://styleveryday.com/2018/04/16/billions-is-the-best-show-about-the-worst-kind-of-masculinity/

“Billions” Is The Best Show About The Worst Kind Of Masculinity

Paul Giamatti as Chuck Rhoades and Jeffrey DeMunn as Charles Rhoades Sr. in the Billions episode “Hell of a Ride.”

Jeff Neumann / Showtime

Dick is a multipurpose metaphor in Billions. Most of the characters in Showtime’s hedge fund drama talk about their work, their success or lack thereof, and their stature as an extension of their virility. They aren’t all men, but they do all circle a luxe locker room of an industry that’s been overwhelmingly defined by men. Any observation you might feel inclined to make about Wall Street being dominated by bros vying to prove who has the biggest balls, Billions makes for you. In its very first episode, without the hint of a wink, a trader describes his issues at work to performance coach Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) by using the language of erectile dysfunction: “I hear it happens to guys my age.”

Exactly a season later, Wendy shakes a bottle of Viagra at an audience of hedge fund types, telling them that while some of them rely on it, none would admit that: “The thought that someone might know you need help is worse than not getting the help you need. Still, when the time comes, when you need to pull the trigger on the buy or sell order, you better be hard as a rock and ready to go” — no Freudian subtext necessary. More recently, to really underscore the erection connection and the fragility that accompanies it, a character insists he would part with a fraction of his — “an inch off my dick” — if it meant he and his failing fund could get back in the game.

When Billions, the creation of Brian Koppelman and David Levien, premiered in 2016, it was a show that — much like its wilder cinematic sibling The Wolf of Wall Street — felt unwilling to commit to being either a critique or a celebration of the excesses and amoral schemes it was putting onscreen. When you wallow in dudes slinging their schlongs around without any apparent subversion, it tends to come across as endorsement, especially when considered through the fumes of the presidential election that followed the first season, in which macho posturing and cartoonish wealth carried the day. In its early episodes, especially, Billions could be taken for another variation on the “flawed but great man” drama, and an addictive but particularly sour one whose standards of greatness were questionable.

Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and Chuck at the end of Season 1.

Jeff Neumann / Showtime

It’s actually about two men — US attorney and rising political star Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti), and hedge fund superstar and billionaire “man of the people” Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) — and the series unfolds in the shadow of their kaiju battle. Chuck, who sets out to take down Axe for insider trading with the obsessiveness of Ahab chasing Moby (sorry) Dick, might nominally be on the side of “good,” or at least the law, but Billions is quick to muddy this divide. With his aims to run for office, Chuck proves himself to be someone willing to cross lines to further his own interests, while Axe is shown to be, while far from innocent, not the worst offender in his ethically flexible industry — just the showiest target.

Three seasons in, Chuck and Axe are still duking it out, and what’s striking is how much smaller their continuing struggle now makes them look — so very human-sized. They’ve lost relationships and fortunes to a conflict that was started, by Axe’s own acknowledgment, for “dick-measuring purposes.” Somewhere along its run, Billions snapped into focus from being a blurry drama about power to being an infinitely sharper one about gender. It’s a snappily paced, light-on-its-feet nightmare about pissing contests, bruised egos, and displays of dominance, and what happens when power and gendered behavior are so intertwined that they get openly treated as if they were one and the same.

Midway through its current season, Billions still couldn’t be described as a critique of the finance world, or the political one that intersects with it — it regards them both with a clinical gaze, as structures that protect and serve themselves, resist consequences, and erode people’s ideals with rewards and compromises. Part of what makes the protagonists’ continuing clash quietly ridiculous is that, however intent they are on obliterating one another, both are wealthy white men cushioned by all the advantages they inherited or accrued for themselves, and they could ever only fall so far.

Chuck, with his pedigree and connections, could roll through the scandal that may or may not erupt around him and into a lucrative private sector gig if he had to; Axe, who in a recent episode had an earnest conversation with his ex-wife Lara about whether they could afford to live on a mere $300 million if they had to, immediately comes up with a workaround after being cornered into giving up his ability to trade. Billions is technically a drama, but it’s more fitting to think of it as a dark, near-subliminal comedy about machismo and avarice, about what a surreal thing it is that so many people in power are really just jostling to throw their junk on the table.

Taylor (Asia Kate Dillon) at the poker table in “Optimal Play.”

Jeff Neumann / Showtime

The best thing Billions has done was to introduce a nonbinary character in its second season. That’s not just because casting the nonbinary actor Asia Kate Dillon as Taylor Mason — a brilliant analyst who strides into Axe’s office, informs him of their preferred pronouns, and proceeds to impress him so much that he coaxes them out of their plans to head to academia with offers of a hefty paycheck and mentorship — is a milestone of representation. It is, as is the conversation that Dillon went on to lead about actor/actress awards categories. But Taylor has also crystallized the themes of gender and power that the show had previously been circling less certainly. The transformation of Taylor from an intriguing side character at the start of Season 2 to a central series regular in Season 3 is the saga of Billions finally clicking together, like a dance troupe finally nailing its choreography.

Billions is not exclusively a show about men, but it is shaped by masculinity to the extent that most of its women — formidable, brainy, tough — are seen through the ways they’ve had to learn how to navigate the expectations and biases of men. They shield themselves when needed, soften their edges when it’s advantageous, and contend with being seen as sexual objects. Characters like Wendy, who can effortlessly hamstring a heckler with a precise observation about the source of his insecurities, or Assistant US Attorney Kate Sacker (Condola Rashād), whose guardedness when talking about the depths of her convictions speaks to an awareness that they could get her labeled as too emotional to get the job done, have had to get used to being one of the few women in the room. Wendy’s storyline has been explicitly about those challenges, about being Chuck’s romantic partner and Axe’s professional one, and contending with how much trouble they have accepting that she can do both.

Taylor’s experience is by no means easier than that of the women on the show (“You skinny fucking freak!” a finance bigshot spits at them at one point), but it’s different, in that so many of their colleagues are confounded about what biases to bring to bear. No one at work has context for Taylor. In their first appearance, Taylor teases another trader about assuming they’re a vegan, letting him sputter before dryly saying, “Of course I’m a vegan.” Taylor, with their shorn head, neutral dress, and intense eye contact, is cerebral and straightforward instead of gut-driven and posturing, concerned about their carbon footprint, and uneasy with conspicuous consumption — all qualities that put them at odds with everyone around them at the office. At first, that made it seem like they were going to get saddled with being Axe Capital’s conscience — that frequent burden of the outsider, to have to serve as a morally pure buzzkill.

Taylor and Mafee (Dan Soder) in “Dead Cat Bounce.”

Jeff Neumann / Showtime

Instead, Taylor becomes the company’s star, then Axe’s unexpected chosen successor, carving out a path for themselves as someone for whom strength is not bound up in performing masculinity or displays of aggression. Taylor was clearly initially introduced to be a foil for Axe, to demonstrate that, despite how chest-thumpy the office culture around him is, Axe himself is capable of seeing talent whether it comes in a form he’s accustomed to or not. But since then, Axe has in many ways been transformed into a foil for Taylor. He is an adviser who keeps trying to pass along his worst qualities as well as his best ones, because he doesn’t see them that way, even as his skirmishes with Chuck end up making him an exile from his own fund.

“You know the rider in the bicycle movie who, just when he has victory in sight, takes his hands off the bars and just holds them out like this, taking in the sun, gliding, letting all the other racers whiz by him just because?” Taylor asks Axe this in the Alex Gibney–directed episode “Optimal Play” in the second season, when Axe approaches them about representing the company in a Wall Street charity poker tournament called, honest to god, the Alpha Cup. “I always want to be that biker,” Taylor says. Despite their disinterest in that sort of competition, Taylor of course gets roped into playing and wins, taking down a taunting opponent whose rage makes him transparent.

It’s an exhilarating moment underscored with unease, as their colleagues slap them on the back and cuff their head affectionately, rewarding them with “one of us” gestures of acceptance they weren’t seeking out. Taylor understands that knowing you can win, and then opting not to bother, is actually a bigger power move than needing to constantly destroy all rivals. They even put it in language the Axe Capital community should understand: “The whole ‘my dick is bigger than yours’ thing, it wasn’t for me.”

Axe in “The Wrong Maria Gonzalez.”

Jeff Neumann / Showtime

The motif of fathers and their (literal or figurative) children has become a throughline in the third season of Billions, and another way for the series to explore gender and power. Taylor, in becoming the heir to Axe’s throne, has had to contend with their mentor’s unwillingness to cede control of his kingdom. Axe turns up at the office, which is full of employees he’s forbidden from interacting with, to show that it’s still his territory, a compulsive flaunting of strength that mostly just undermines Taylor’s still-new leadership role. There’s a sense that he can’t resist wanting to compete with Taylor, even if it means competing with his own company — to prove, even if only to himself, that he’s still the best. As is the case with his war with Chuck, Axe just can’t help himself.

While Taylor and Axe settle on a mutually agreeable detente, a more perverse reconciliation is achieved in the parallel storyline of Chuck and his actual father, Charles (Jeffrey DeMunn), a New York real estate tycoon. Charles’ desire to further a family dynasty wars with his contempt for what he perceives as weakness in his son, and he is a great believer in manly posturing, in ways that his son is at least conflicted about. Billions is, on the sexposition-happy scale of cable dramas, relatively restrained with displays of sex and nudity. So it’s telling that in Sunday’s episode, “A Generation Too Late,” the writers allow DeMunn a moment in the buff when Charles shucks his robe to dismiss a man who tries to corner him outside a steam room for an unwanted conversation — full-frontal as a power move.

In the previous episode, Charles scornfully lectures Chuck about trying to repair their relationship with a sentimental speech, as they stand outside an alumni event on a campus Charles describes as “the site of my greatest conquests.” He points to a dorm and announces, “I fucked three girls in there once in a 24-hour period — one in the can.” Charles is a hidebound, amusingly loathsome creation, and last night’s installment ended with a particularly grim punchline about just what it takes for Chuck to secure affirmation from his father. All Chuck needed to do is to screw his dad over and force his hand. “I’m proud of you, son — you fucked me good,” the older man says, in the first expression of pride toward his son since young Chuck lost his virginity to a sex worker of his dad’s choosing at age 14.

Chuck and Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) at the start of Season 2.

Showtime

Billions can be cartoonish, and if the past year has underscored anything, it’s that the IRL worlds of finance and politics sure can be, too. But the fictionality of Billions provides enough distance that there’s a strange sense of comfort to be had from the series. Watching actual world leaders conduct their own dick-measuring contest on a nuclear scale is terrifying, because we exist at the mercy of their decisions, and we have to live with the consequences. Watching Axe and Chuck sneer at each other in the plush spaces the show rarely strays from, we’re freed up to consider the sad absurdity of these tendencies. These men are so inured to competition and a desire to prove their dominance that they work against their own best interests and those of their successors.

The series doesn’t pander by suggesting that its non-male characters are either better or more compassionate than men — both Taylor and Lara, for instance, advocate for financially gutting a small town whose debt Axe purchases. But the show does end up portraying stereotypical masculinity as a trap that its main characters can’t find their way out of. That masculinity is a vulnerability that they have internalized as strength, even if these same characters still hold most of the power. They may be smart men, but they can be baited into doing some very dumb things for the sake of their pride and the need to demonstrate their prowess. And that’s a hell of a lot more fun to watch unfold on scripted television than it is on cable news. ●