Why I quit academia to become a witch

In honor of Scorpio season I’d like to share a piece I wrote in February 2019, at the moment when I definitively chose to cease my pursuit of a tenure-track (TT) academic job. (It should be noted that despite my best intentions to quit academia, I remain employed by a university — the difference is that my current job is non-tenure track, meaning it is focused entirely on teaching, not research, and therefore deemed second-class within the university.)

Why am I choosing to share this right now? For one thing, we all need a break from the news. For another: as we teeter on the brink of immanent social and environmental collapse, I am reminded of the extraordinary ways that living beings adapt and evolve. I spent years in a state of panic because I felt like my hard-earned career was on the brink of collapse. And then my career did collapse. And it turned out to be one of the most magical things that ever happened to me.

I offer this story as one small testament to what becomes possible if we let go of our attachment to what should be and focus on what is.

Welcome to the season of the witch.

Image: Light Seer’s Tarot by Chris-Anne

I. #BoyBye

So, first off, why quit academia? Just in case you missed the literal hundreds of articles on this topic the cliff’s notes version is: Academia is a soul-sucking monster that chews up and spits out thousands of graduate students without offering them adequate job opportunities, salaries, or labor conditions. The situation is so dire that it has spawned an entire literary genre known as “quit lit” about people’s terrible experiences. As a friend of mine recently put it, "This gig makes me miss working at Olive Garden." All of this has been going on since the rise of neoliberalism  in the 1970s , and it’s gotten worse in recent years, especially in the humanities.

Despite the fact that we know the vast majority of PhDs will never attain a tenure-track position, people keep applying and universities keep accepting them . This makes no sense, you say? Well, here’s a true story. When I applied to graduate school back in the fall of 2008, the economy was collapsing and, despite warnings from former professors, retreating to the safety of the ivory tower for 5-7 years to pursue a PhD seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. Not that I was in the dark about how dire my career prospects were. Throughout my entire graduate career, I was subjected to the gruesome spectacle of job market failure, time and time again, of nearly every candidate who graduated from my department (which was considered to be one of the top five nationally in our field). A few people I knew did eventually manage to land a coveted TT position (nearly always after multiple years of attempts, while bouncing from contingent position to contingent position with zero job security and extreme financial hardship).

Instead of cutting my losses then and there, however, witnessing this carnage just strengthened my resolve that I would be THE ONE to get a job. Armed with the proverbial knapsack of privilege, a goodly amount of Taurean stubbornness, and an acute sense of desperation (because I had no alternative career aspirations and no idea what else I could possibly be qualified to do), I gritted my teeth and set out to land my nearly-impossible dream job.

Fast forward to me, some ten years later, about to trade in my diploma for some crystals. 

What happened, you might ask? Well, there’s a version of this story that ends with: "I failed." That was certainly the version I told myself my first year on the job market, when I only recieved one Skype interview and no job offers. It was the version I told myself again my second year on the market when, despite being a finalist for three tenure-track jobs at elite schools, I did not get an offer from any of them. It was the version I told myself yet again the following year when, despite being a seemingly stronger candidate (I now had a degree in hand, a peer reviewed publication, and stellar teaching evals from an elite liberal arts college) I found myself weeks away from unemployment, saved at the 11th hour when my partner got a job and negotiated a position for me that, despite being titled “postdoctoral fellowship,” was essentially just a shitty part-time teaching job. And it was the version I told myself the year after that, when I feverishly decided I had to change my entire research agenda to be a more desirable candidate and — after rewriting all my application materials — didn’t even get a single interview.

As a famous academic researcher once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results." (Side note: Albert Einstein couldn’t get anyone to hire him for an academic job for 7 years.)

When my fifth year on the job market rolled around, I pledged to myself that it would be my last year. My main reasoning was because I didn’t think my mental health could withstand yet another job search. However, by the time application season rolled around my thinking had evolved (thanks in large part to finding myself a life coach!). Rather than desperately applying to every possible job, I made the decision to apply only to a handful of highly selective jobs in geographic locations where I actually wanted to live. As a result, I was unsurprised when I did not receive a single interview, much less any job offers.

And now, ten and a half years after I initially set out to get a PhD and become a professor, I have officially given up on the idea of getting a tenure track job.

For some of you reading this (especially if you are currently a graduate student and/or on the academic job market), you will certainly believe that my story is a "failure." That I didn’t have what it takes, or that I "gave up" too soon, or that I made the fatal mistake of only applying to jobs in locations I am willing to live in. (Really? What other industry expects people to happily pick up and move to places like Manhattan, Kansas or Richmond, Indiana for the rest of their lives?) I get it. I used to believe all of these things, too. I used to judge people like me for quitting, or secretly suspect that they just weren’t actually that smart, or they couldn’t hack it.

Then again, I also used to find it reasonable that I would have to take a series of undesirable jobs in undesirable locations for an indeterminate number of years before finally (hopefully) landing my dream job at one of the three liberal arts colleges that exist near major cities. So I’m not sure if my judgment can entirely be trusted.

And yes, for my old self, this outcome would be considered an enormous failure, and a crushing disappointment. But luckily, I am not that person anymore. I am no longer the person who measures her worth solely on the number of interviews I get for positions that routinely recieve anywhere from 150-600 applicants. I am no longer the person who believes that attaining a tenure-track academic job is the only life path worth pursuing. I am no longer the person who is willing to trade my own mental health and well-being for a fancy title at a prestigious institution. 

And let’s be honest, that’s really what it comes down to. I recently made a list of all the things that I love about academia. Because of course, there are many things I love about it. (Otherwise, let’s hope I wouldn’t have stuck with it for ten years.) That list included: the friends I have made (top of the list for sure); the freedom to read and write about what I’m interested in; a flexible schedule; teaching what I’m passionate about. As it turns out, though, none of those things are intrinsic to academia and academia alone. I am quite optimistic that I can continue to read, write, and teach. I believe that it will be possible for me to arrange to have a flexible schedule in whatever I end up doing next. And, most importantly, I know that I will be able to maintain the connections with the people I really care about (many of whom actually ended up leaving academia themselves). In fact, the only thing that I won’t be able to hold onto in some form is the prestigious affiliation. Now, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care at all about that. And yes, it’s frustrating to know that I am capable of performing just as well as many of the people who do hold those titles. (Anyone who has ever been on an academic search committee will tell you that getting a job offer has very little to do with actual qualifications. According to UC Berkeley’s Career Center: “Once you have seen in it from the inside, any illusions that the academic job search is a wholly rational process designed to yield the best candidate for the position are burst asunder.”) But at the end of the day, being able to post that Instagram photo of the sign on my office door (yes, this is a real thing that academics do, because their lives are sad) is not worth the ongoing stress and anxiety of continuing to let myself be fucked by the system. Because let’s also be clear: that is exactly what is happening.

I am choosing to let myself be fucked. (And not in a fun way.) Unlike the majority of people who work in terrible labor conditions with little control over their own lives, I actually have the privilege to opt out.

And it’s pretty fucked up that so many smart, well-educated, privileged people are actively choosing to participate in their own oppression and exploitation. Of course, it should be noted that not all PhDs come from privilege. But ironically, it is often those of us with privilege — who grew up being told we would get to "be whatever we want" in the world — who insist on pursuing an academic career over other career options that perhaps have less cache, are less "respectable," or less interesting. And this is one of the secrets of higher education: in order to keep reeling us in, it keeps telling us the lie that it is the only worthwhile show in town; that it is somehow less corrupt than jobs in the private sector (as if universities weren’t intimately linked to corporate interests ); and that it is somehow more "rigorous" than fields like journalism and the public humanities (theory: "rigor" is a word people use when they are worried they are becoming irrelevant ). I bought into that story for a long time. Funny how that happens with gaslighting.

So. Let’s say by now I’ve made a reasonably compelling case that it was a good idea for me to leave my toxic relationship with academia. Still, isn’t quitting an actual profession to become a witch kind of a risky move? On the face of it, yes. Witchcraft is not exactly a stable (or lucrative) occupation. But at this point, the risk of staying actually feels worse. Do I know what’s coming? No. But I do know what my life looks like if I stay. It looks like another indeterminate number of years moving around from state to state and school to school. It looks like the exhaustion of constantly applying for and getting rejected from jobs (let’s not forget that even in the best case scenario, you still get rejected from 99% percent of the jobs you apply to). Of never being able to plan longer than six months ahead. Of still being broke AF in your thirties. Oh, and then there’s being constantly reminded of my second-class citizenship at my workplace because I’m so-called "contingent" faculty. 

Contingent, n.

1. subject to chance.

2. occurring or existing only if (certain circumstances) are the case; dependent on.

That pretty much sums it up. My life is basically just waiting around for someone else to roll the dice. And guess what? I’m over it. 

Look, if my life is going to depend entirely on chance, and if my livelihood is going to be determined by forces entirely beyond my control, then fuck it, imma be a WITCH, bitches.

Think about it. I still get flexible hours. I get to be my own boss (that’s "boss witch" to you). I get to spend my time studying feminism and witchcraft, which are my favorite topics to think about. (Before I decided to GTFO, I was considering starting to work on an academic research project ABOUT feminist witches. How much more awesome would it be to actually just BECOME ONE?) 

II. Be the witch you wish to see in the world

When I was a kid, I never wanted to grow up and become a doctor, or a fire fighter, or any of the (extremely limited, now that I think about it) options we were presented with. Instead, I spent most of my time fantasizing about what life would be like if I suddenly discovered I had magical powers and found an entrance to a secret parallel universe full of witches and dragons. (No, Harry Potter did not yet exist, but my favorite book involved a princess who ran away from her castle to hang out with a female dragon king, a lesbian witch, and her 9 cats. ) Then, like most adolescent girls, I was suddenly hit simultaneously by 1. a whole mess of confusing emotions; and 2. the onslaught of intense messages about how ugly and unlovable I would be if I didn’t spend the next three hours mastering THIS PARTICULAR MAKEUP TRICK. (It’s a killer combination. Nice work, patriarchy.) Before long, I had traded in my dragons for a subscription to Seventeen magazine, which helped me learn how to be the perfect girl: extremely insecure, judgmental, and self-loathing. It would take years of women’s studies classes to even begin to undo that damage, and let’s just say the dragons never made a come-back. 

Until now. (Thank you, Danaerys Targaryan.) No one seems quite sure where the feminist witch renaissance came from, but there is no doubt that it’s here. It’s so here that the witches I follow on Instagram are increasingly able to quit their day jobs to… you guessed it, BE A FULL TIME WITCH. And while I’m not sure I want to go down that particular path, the fact remains: witches exist. They are among us. 

And finally, it occurred to me: why on earth couldn’t I be one?

The thing about being a witch is that "full time" and "part time" actually don’t apply, because it’s not a job. It’s an identity and a practice.

And in that sense, being a witch isn’t so different from being a feminist.

They are both about your beliefs and about how you live your life. Both are actually rather disreputable occupations, reviled and feared by mainstream society. And both are interested in channeling your power to attack the powers at be. It is no surprise that feminism and witchcraft have a longstanding relationship , one that is being actively rekindled today. 

As an academic, I have been trained to distance myself from my objects of study (even though, let’s be honest, we all know that at some level, we are all studying ourselves). As a feminist, however, I have often been frustrated by the academic world’s privileging of theory over practice. It’s one of those talk/walk situations. Even though I believe that teaching is a form of social justice work (and, like many others, that’s really what has kept me here all this time), I don’t believe that it’s the only OR the most effective form of social justice work. The problem is, of course, that the most effective kind of social justice work is the kind that capitalism doesn’t want to pay you for. This is the kind of dilemma that academics have been studying basically since the invention of capitalism, and guess what? No one has figured out a solution. So, maybe it’s time to try something different. 

Like being a witch.

But like, are you REALLY a witch?

This is a legit question. While I’ve considered myself a feminist for some time, to be quite honest, I’m not entirely comfortable calling myself a witch. Do I regularly consult the moon and stars for advice? Yes. Do I channel my spirit guides when reading tarot? Yes. Do I have two cats with whom I communicate regularly? Absolutely. Ok… so I’m not not a witch. But what does it actually mean to be a feminist witch in the 21st century?

For me, being a feminist witch means channeling your own inner magic in order to trample the ableist heteronormative white supremacist patriarchy. It entails aligning yourself with like-minded individuals to collectively manifest new forms of belonging and new ways of being in the world. It involves gathering spiritual and material resources to support struggles for social justice. Above all, it means having faith in your power to make change on an individual and collective level.

This all sounds great in theory, you say, but are you sure you should abandon your entire career in order to do it? Do you really have to choose? In fact, I do know several people who are BOTH academics and feminist witches, some of whom I’ve met at academic conferences, and some of whom I’ve met at queer astrology conferences. I salute them. But despite conservative hand-wringing about how universities have become bastions of radical feminist witchcraft (I wish!), in fact it remains difficult to pursue both vocations at once. After all, witchcraft is not actually respected in institutions that are based on a secular humanist approach to "rational" thinking and "scientific" methods. I mean, even in women's studies departments (esepcially in women's studies departments!) we force graduate students to suffer through "methods" courses in which they learn that in order to be legible to academia as a whole they cannot, in fact, base their entire dissertation on their own intuitive tarot readings.

And then there’s the issue that life as an academic is actually pretty antithetical to the practice of feminist witchcraft. My kind of feminist witchcraft requires that you 1. believe in your own power; 2. trust yourself; and 3. actively channel your energy into social transformation. Based on 10+ years of experience, I can attest that academia is much more likely to 1. make you feel disempowered (hello imposter syndrome); 2. make you constantly second-guess yourself (let’s count the number of times I changed my research topic because I was concerned that it needed to be not only serious and original but also on-trend to whatever random shit academics were into at the time); and 3. force you to channel all of your energy into a bunch of annoying and useless crap, e.g. writing things no one will ever read, being on committees that do nothing, and, oh yes, endlessly applying to jobs that you will not get. 

Here’s the thing: if I’m going to be broke AF writing shit no one will ever read, I might as well be doing it at home with my cats, living where I want to live, while casting spells to hex the patriarchy.

And on the upside, by choosing literally the LEAST respectable career path possible, I don’t have to deal with not living up to anyone else’s social expectations. (Can’t wait to drop the "I’m a feminist witch" bomb the next time someone asks me what I do.) 

So, that’s pretty much where I’m at. If you were looking for a more practical how-to guide, you’ll have to stay tuned. This is about WHY I decided to quit my job to become a feminist witch — figuring out out exactly HOW to be one is still a work in progress.

One thing is for sure, though: there is no going back. No going back to the time when I diminished my own power because I believed academic success was the only goal worth striving toward. No going back to the near-constant self-doubt, self-loathing, and fear of failure. No going back to actively participating in my own exploitation by an unjust and absurd labor market.

The only person I want to go back to is that little girl who didn’t just believe in magic — she knew how to create it herself.