Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            No, thank you. I love my job (and possums) too much for this.

            I created @WhatWouldMarieDo during my first semester of grad school. I was teaching a neuroanatomy class, and decided to give my students an anonymous mid-semester survey to ask for honest feedback on how to improve the course. What I got was . . . not that. I was told that my lectures would be more interesting if I delivered them naked. That I should gain some weight, get a boob job, stop dying my hair “unnatural colors,” get rid of my piercings. I was even given a phone number to call if I was “ever in the mood for a ten-inch dick.” (Yeah, right.)

            The messages were pretty appalling, but what sent me sobbing in a bathroom stall was the reactions of the other students in my cohort—Tim included. They laughed the comments off as harmless pranks and dissuaded me from reporting them to the department chair, telling me that I’d be making a stink about nothing.

            They were, of course, all men.

            (Seriously: why are men?)

            That night I fell asleep crying. The following day I got up, wondered how many other women in STEM felt as alone as I did, and impulsively downloaded Twitter and made @WhatWouldMarieDo. I slapped on a poorly photoshopped pic of Dr. Curie wearing sunglasses and a one-line bio: Making the periodic table girlier since 1889 (she/her). I just wanted to scream into the void. I honestly didn’t think that anyone would even see my first tweet. But I was wrong.


@WhatWouldMarieDo What would Dr. Curie, first female professor at La Sorbonne, do if one of her students asked her to deliver her lectures naked?


@198888 She would shorten his half-life.


@annahhhh RAT HIM OUT TO PIERRE!!!


@emily89 Put some polonium in his pants and watch his dick shrivel.


@bioworm55 Nuke him NUKE HIM


@lucyinthesea Has this happened to you? God I’m so sorry. Once a student said something about my ass and it was so gross and no one believed me.



            Over half a decade later, after a handful of Chronicle of Higher Education nods, a New York Times article, and about a million followers, WWMD is my happy place. What’s best is, I think the same is true for many others. The account has evolved into a therapeutic community of sorts, used by women in STEM to tell their stories, exchange advice, and . . . bitch.

            Oh, we bitch. We bitch a lot, and it’s glorious.


@BiologySarah Hey, @WhatWouldMarieDo if she weren’t given authorship on a project that was originally her idea and that she worked on for over one year? All other authors are men, because *of course* they are.



            “Yikes.” I scrunch my face and quote-tweet Sarah.


Marie would slip some radium in their coffee. Also, she would consider reporting this to her institution’s Office of Research Integrity, making sure to document every step of the process



            I hit send, drum my fingers on the armrest, and wait. My answers are not the main attraction of the account, not in the least. The real reason people reach out to WWMD is . . .

            Yep. This. I feel my grin widen as the replies start coming in.


@DrAllixx This happened to me, too. I was the only woman and only POC in the author lineup and my name suddenly disappeared during revisions. DM if u want to chat, Sarah.


@AmyBernard I am a member of the Women in Science association, and we have advice for situations like this on our website (they’re sadly common)!


@TheGeologician Going through the same situation rn @BiologySarah. I did report it to ORI and it’s still unfolding but I’m happy to talk if you need to vent.


@SteveHarrison Dude, breaking news: you’re lying to yourself. Your contributions aren’t VALUABLE enough to warrant authorship. Your team did you a favor letting you tag along for a while but if you’re not smart enough, you’re OUT. Not everything is about being a woman, sometimes you’re just A LOSER



            It is a truth universally acknowledged that a community of women trying to mind their own business must be in want of a random man’s opinion.

            I’ve long learned that engaging with basement-dwelling stemlords who come online looking for a fight is never a good idea—the last thing I want is to provide free entertainment for their fragile egos. If they want to blow off some steam, they can buy a gym membership or play third-person-shooter video games. Like normal people.

            I make to hide @SteveHarrison’s delightful contribution, but notice that someone has replied to him.


@Shmacademics Yeah, Marie, sometimes you’re just a loser. Steve would know.



            I chuckle.


@WhatWouldMarieDo Aw, Steve. Don’t be too hard on yourself.


@Shmacademics He is just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to do twice as much work as he ever did in order to prove that she’s worthy of becoming a scientist.