I’m a professor with a working-class accent – get over it

As a professor from a working class background with a Welsh accent (it's not particularly that strong either) I quite enjoy the look on people's faces when I say I'm a professor with a Valley's lilt. Good on you for highlighting this in your article!!!

I am a visiting professor with a slight Welsh accent, it having been progressively anglicised through many years of living in London and southern England. However, to most English people, I still sound Welsh. No-one ever thinks it incongruous that I have an accent and am an academic, but my problem is that I don't look like a professor. I am a small female who likes make-up, high heels, pretty clothes, and well-cut hair. My husband is also a professor but he has a bald head, glasses, and a beard. He looks professorial, and lay people will defer to him on subjects that he knows nothing about, even though I am the expert in the field under discussion. It is very wearing but it is merely because we are victims of stereotype. In the long run, these matters are not important, but they are exceedingly irritating.