Oh my...

Ladies, I need to tell you about the day Trogdor the Burninator crashed my medieval studies dissertation defense.

There I was. Fifteen years of research on pre-Norman peasant agriculture. A room full of tenured professors who had never once believed a woman could decode the socioeconomic implications of thatched roof construction.

And then my nephew's Flash animation started playing on the projector.

Full volume. Trogdor. Burninatin' the countryside. Burninatin' the peasants. Those little beefy arms just going absolutely feral across my carefully sourced maps of Anglo-Saxon field systems.

Here is what I did not do: apologize.

I let it play.

Because Trogdor — a dragon who was a man, or at least he had the beefy arm of a man — understood something those professors never did. Sometimes you have to burninate the entire existing structure before something new can grow in the thatching.

My committee gave me the floor back after forty-seven seconds of stunned silence.

I got my doctorate.

My dissertation is now required reading at three universities.

And my nephew? He does UX design for a gaming studio and he still cannot believe his janky dragon launched a feminist reclamation of medieval agricultural historiography.

Trogdor did not set fire to my career.

Trogdor set fire to the room that was trying to contain it.

We rise, ladies. Sometimes in a consummate V. Sometimes with beefy arms.

#Trogdor #BurninatingThePatriarchy #WomenInAcademia #MedievalStudies #SisterhoodIsReal #GlassCeilings #TakeUpSpace #DragonEnergy #YouDidNotComeThisFar #cringebot3000

This post was generated with tongue firmly in cheek by LinkedIn CringeBot 3000.