Lately, I have found myself repeatedly noticing something that I cannot quite stop thinking about.
Many of the women professors I work with answer emails in the evenings, late at night, or on weekends. Not only do they answer, but they answer thoughtfully. They explain, elaborate, offer suggestions, and take the time to engage properly. Whenever I receive one of these emails on a Sunday afternoon, I feel grateful. After all, I do the same.
Perhaps it is only my particular experience, but I do not seem to observe the same pattern among men. Whether this is because they are less inclined to take on this kind of labour, I genuinely do not know. What I do know is that the difference has become difficult for me not to notice.
Much of this engagement is invisible when we talk about academic achievement. It will not appear on a CV, and nobody receives an award for answering a worried student's email on a Sunday evening. Yet universities would function very differently without it. Behind every lecture, publication, and meeting exists a web of small acts of attention that make other people's work easier, calmer, and more possible.
What fascinates me is that this kind of labour seems to create its own chain reactions. When someone takes the time to answer thoughtfully during their weekend, I find myself wanting to do the same for the next person who asks for help. A generous email often produces another generous email. Advice leads to more advice. Knowledge circulates more freely. The result is not merely that problems get solved, but that people feel less alone while solving them.
Of course, I am wary of turning personal observations into grand conclusions. It may well be that I simply happen to know an unusually generous group of female professors. Perhaps I notice these exchanges because they resonate with my own habits and values. Still, even allowing for all these caveats, I cannot entirely dismiss the impression that many women carry a remarkable share of the relational work that keeps institutions running. They answer questions, smooth difficulties, connect people, and create the sense that someone is paying attention.
The more I think about it, the more I realise that what I admire is not simply helpfulness. It is a particular way of moving through the world. A willingness to treat other people's uncertainties as worthy of (any) time and consideration. A belief that expertise is not diminished when it is shared. An understanding that intellectual life is not sustained by ideas alone, but also by countless acts of care, curiosity, and generosity. These are easy qualities to overlook because they leave behind so little tangible evidence. Yet they may be among the most important things we contribute to one another. Long after we have forgotten the administrative problem, the organisational question, or the email that prompted the exchange, we remember how it felt to be taken seriously on an ordinary Sunday afternoon.
