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I'm signing off for the next two weeks for a break. I won't be finishing up a bit of writing, drafting a think piece or catching up on academic reading. If your holiday work helps make academia more open and inclusive, and you feel you are able, then by all means continue.
But if you have a secure job & you're working to benefit your CV, please stop. If you can't do it all in your contracted hours then when are those juggling short contracts, caring, higher expectations placed on the under-represented, those w/ disabilities going to get it done?
When do they get a break? If you have a choice, stop participating in the normalization & glorification of overwork in academia. Every time we work extra hours for that extra publication, we help make it a requirement to work this much. We erase the rest due to our colleagues.
Taking your contractual breaks is literally the least you can do to avoid reinforcing a culture* that excludes the very people whose voices we need to hear. This tweet was inspired by seeing a junior scholar ask if it was ok to put up an out of office email. The answer is yes.
*Obviously it is more complicated than this, but I've heard so many academics in positions of privilege mention catching up on writing over the holidays that I felt it was worth the oversimplification to raise the issue.
