I came here late, I totally missed this post! Just want to say I can relate with this woman not in our shared gender experience, but our shared disillusion with academics. By the time I was exiting college, identity politics had narrowed enough to exclude women as an oppressed group. I was told by an academic advisor that it would be difficult for me to get grants or scholarships because I'm white and relatively rich. I quickly abandoned my plans to pursue the one skill I have. . . still working that out lol and here I am on SN!