I spend a huge amount of time explaining what I do and why I do it. Strangers who ask about my work often have strong reactions to the idea that being a women’s studies  professor is a legitimate job. “Why don’t we have men’s studies?” And so on. But my actual loved ones aren’t much better. Why am I not tenured? If I’m so smart, why aren’t I rich?  That sort of thing.

The fact is, I entered academic life at the critical moment [early 1990s] when many universities began switching to part-time or untenured faculty appointments, saving themselves big institutional money by avoiding benefits and promotions for those of us doing the bulk of teaching. Most nontenured faculty teach at more than one school, cobbling together a middle-class income by accepting extra course loads. I’m lucky that I had a dynamic program chair who made sure I won medical coverage; but teaching four classes on two campuses, I’m still on overload.

And yet I love my work. I get to do what I dig.  Frankly, I have everything I’ve ever wanted in life except a fancy treehouse, and even that will be attainable if I ever get a back yard with a tree in it. [Psst: the way to avoid building permit complications or actually harming a tree, especially if you rent, is to assemble a cheap bunkbed kit and just lean it up against your tree. Add décor, and presto!—a writing nook in the branches for under $200.]

I reflected on my work life again yesterday, while meeting a friend for coffee. My friend is a filmmaker who, like me, does not yet own a house or make big bucks from her creative projects, but has never looked happier. At the next table was a well-known gay poet I admire, in hushed discussion with yet another underpaid artist as they planned a forthcoming writers’ conference. The more I looked around the café, the more I realized that almost everyone slurping a mocha was some sort of local creative activist with more ability, energy and output than money in the bank. We simply aren’t well-compensated for what we’re good at—a sad comment on how America devalues poets and feminist professors, compared to, say, the giant salaries of football players or hateful radio hosts.

But to do what one loves, to be engaged in what Jewish tradition calls tikkun olam (repairing the world), is genuinely satisfying—no matter how often I have to reassure my relatives that I’m “doing okay.” (And isn’t that how most Olivia artists started out? Turning artistic passion and vision into a viable living?) The café hummed with energy. Outside, just up the avenue, slumped Washington bureaucrats hurried by, burdened with wondering whether they’re making a difference here on planet Earth. I felt great pride in being a difference-maker.

The interesting thing is that as final exams approach, my students become obsessed themselves with the bottom line. What’s my grade? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the ride’s been great, they learned a lot, women’s studies is groovy, but what did they earn? What’s  the reward for reading all that heavy feminist history? Why work hard if there’s no reward? –and believe me, their definition of “reward” is limited to A+, A, or that insulting slam on their efforts, the lowly A- , which they’ll contest huffily during my office hours (occasions when I’ll once again mumble to myself, I love my job, but a  bit less enthusiastically.)

Can we transmit, to younger women and to one another, the thrill of being engaged with feminism whether or not you get the A, the promotion, the payoff? How come it still feels, to me, like an honor to teach lesbian history? But there’s the difference: every day I feel that preserving and passing on women’s history is some sort of sacred calling. I sometimes wish I had mysterious robes right out of Harry Potter to wrap over my shoulders before opening a page of Sappho. Conjuring up the foremothers is magic ***. I don’t exactly express it that way in class, but that’s the reward I feel, the burbling cauldron’s warmth.