She Would Not Wish This On Her Nieces

From e-mail from a reader (text modified to remove possibly-identifying details):

I had traveled to a conference with some colleagues, including my husband. 

The first person who greeted us was a conference organizer. We introduced ourselves by our full names. It was a small conference and we assumed that, as an organizer, he would have looked at the list of attendees. I was greeted with a broad smile and "Oh, so you're just along for the 'ride'."

Over the next two days, my colleagues, husband, and I lost count of the number of intended and unintended gender-targeted put downs and innuendos.

My career in [this field] spans 25 years and I am often asked to become involved with groups encouraging young women in Science and Engineering. As I would not wish this environment for my own nieces, I am unable to promote STEM as a good choice for females.

Over the years, as I have attended some of the same conferences as my scientist-husband, the assumption that he is attending the conference and that I am his guest ('along for the ride') has occurred a few times, but not recently. This e-mail was a sad reminder that this still occurs. How is it that some people -- and most specifically conference organizers -- have not yet gotten the memo about how The Wife might be a scientist or engineer or mathematician?

Here is a short version of the memo, for handy reference: Don't assume.

Life Is Just Unfair To Men

Below is an e-mail message. It seems to refer to a comment (or two) that I did not see, perhaps because they got sent to the spam-box, which I never check. I approve all comments that I see and that are not ads, mysterious links, or obscenity-laden threats. That does not mean that I approve of all comments, just that I don't mind posting things like this. I think they make a dramatic point, though perhaps not the one the author intends.

Dear Female Science Professor:

I notice you haven't published my latest comment.  Some months ago you failed to publish another of my comments which I also thought brought the issues into sharp relief by reversing the roles.

My apologies, the first sentence in paragraph five should read:
"By that same logic, the majority of top scientists, especially in the mathematical sciences have been and should continue to be men."

Do you deny that, with few exceptions (ultra-long-distance swimming being one), the top men are better than the top women at sports?  How can you when the score-sheet says otherwise?  By the same token, how can you deny that the most intelligent men are generally smarter than the most intelligent women, especially when it comes to the maths?

I remember when I was younger watching sports on TV and thinking how unfair it was for the women.  As I grew older, I realized that life was just as unfair to men, only in different ways.  This is why I suggest you read Norah Vincent's book "Self Made Man."  Here is someone who has seen it from both sides and firmly decides that she prefers to be a woman, a conclusion that does not surprise me in the slightest.

As I have been burned by what I now realize is a strong sexual double standard in academia (and not in favour of men) I am not the person to argue these things objectively.  I am still quite filled with rage.  There is, however, a woman on Youtube who argues many of the points I would like to touch on in a way that is very rational and objective.  Her channel is "girlwriteswhat":
https://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat?feature=g-high-rec

I would suggest you check it out as well as Norah Vincent's book.

Kind regards,

Peter

Pronoun Fail

In my seemingly never-ending quest to find the best, most user-friendly, flexible, non-annoying, and free collaborative workspace in which to share ideas and data with a particular large research team, I recently set up some trial workspaces using various platforms. I didn't want to send out invitations to the entire group until I decided which, if any, we would be using, so I only added one guinea-pig colleague, just to test things out.

He was surprised when one of these sites sent him an automated e-mail with a link for joining and with some text that said (in slightly modified form):

FSP has created his own project so that he can communicate with his colleagues and friends.

I looked in the profile options to see if I could select a gender, but this is not an option. Apparently we are all, by default, men.

Yes, I wrote to the company.

Worst Case Scenario

In my November contribution to the "Catalyst" section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, I wrote about how I typically deal with some rather minor instances of being insulted -- specifically as a woman -- in a professional context. I have written about this topic here in the blog as well, so I was not surprised by the various responses.

In the essay, I did not discuss major harassment or discrimination -- just the routine type of gender-specific insults. Even so, there was the usual comment saying that readers should not assume that it is common for women to experience this type of thing. For example, Woman X is Y years old with Z years of experience and has never ever been insulted or experienced any type of disparagement related to gender etc. etc. and therefore wants younger women to know that my experiences are unusual.

OK, that's great that some women never experience anything even remotely resembling sexism or obnoxious behavior related to gender, and it is worth noting this. Even so, all of us (me included) need to be careful about not extrapolating from our own experiences to the rest of the universe.

I am sometimes reminded of this -- in the opposite direction on the harassment spectrum -- by some of the e-mail that readers send to me, relating horrific tales of long-term, systemic discrimination, harassment, and abuse that is ignored and even encouraged at an institutional level. This is occurring today, in the US and elsewhere.

The problems described by these women are far beyond my experience, and they are far beyond any simple fix. They are at the level of class action suits or other courses of legal action; they are at the level of alerting the media and trying to get someone to expose the abuse.

The data are there -- there are documents detailing the abuse, there are numbers showing the career trajectories of women at these places, there are records showing the non-response or ineffectual response of upper administration to repeated examples of severe problems.

This is not the experience of all of us, but it should not be the experience of any of us.

As the recent example of Penn State has shown us, even crimes against children may not move the upper administration of some institutions to take action if apparently sacrosanct segments of an institution are involved. So what then can be done about situations that are not as shocking but that nevertheless should not be allowed, such as a pervasive culture of mistreatment and harassment of women and the perpetuation of a hostile work environment?

A question I have asked before but need to ask again:

• What can a woman, or group of women, do in these extreme situations, other than quit/leave? 

What if you don't have the energy, resources, or time for a lawsuit, but nothing else has worked? -- that is, when no amount of presentation to upper administration of documented evidence has brought anything resembling a constructive response.

These incidents are not confined to any particular kind of institution (public/private, large/small), but it does seem that women at certain types of private institutions have fewer options for pursuing their complaints. (Discuss..)

There should be a mechanism for investigating these situations and finding a reasonable remedy, and if there is no institutional will to do so, there should be outside pressure, from the legal system, the media, donors, and/or the public. And in an ideal world, those who bring such suits or actions would not have their careers destroyed in the process.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to do this without causing harm to the people -- in this case, a group of women -- who are already being harmed.

What to do?

Nature Error

OK, OK, yes I saw the stupid "Futures" story(?) titled Womanspace in Nature in late September, I read the comments (many of which are great), and I agree that Nature should not have published this thing, not just because it is offensive, but because it is bad -- bad writing, bad story, bad way to crank up traffic on the site -- and should not be in a journal, not even in an obscure corner of a journal website. The editor showed appalling judgement.

Many of the ensuing comments are great, and I don't have much to add, except that some of the comments struck me as outstanding examples of classic responses flung out whenever there is a suggestion that something just might possibly be sexist or at the very least offensive to many people. In the case in question, that something was written (and published in Nature) explicitly for male readers with female significant others, portraying women in general as having certain shopping tendencies, and including generalizations that would be unthinkable to write about people of, say, a particular religion or ethnicity (but are apparently OK if you are writing about women as a group).

One of the classic responses is along the lines of: "I was just joking. If you weren't so humorless you would see how funny I am." I have written about these "jokes" before. They have no place in a professional venue.

The other insidious classic response is the "My wife wasn't offended by what I wrote and she is a woman and not only that but she is also really smart and I sometimes do the cooking at home and therefore my participation in what is traditionally a very female household job makes me by definition a non-sexist, hear me roar."

Or something like that. Variations on this are "I am that man's wife and I thought what he wrote was very funny" (so he is not sexist; see the comments in Nature, including the one from the author's wife) and/or "I am a woman and I wasn't offended".. ergo, the author is not a sexist.

I am not sure I am following the reasoning here. Is it that men are only sexist if they say they are, but they never are if someone else says they are? And any woman can speak for all other women (just as we apparently all shop the same way) and therefore if only one woman is not offended, sexism doesn't exist, even if many women (and men) were offended? That is, sexism can never exist, it can only not exist?

I think I am beginning to develop a hypothesis. Maybe Nature will publish it?

No Thanks

A problem and a question from a reader:

This month we organized an international research conference at our University, with the organization committee consisting of three male professors, a female professor and me. The composition of the committee has been very clear on all conference-related documents. Also, the conference ended by the whole committee thanking everyone for making the event successful in front of the whole audience.

Five of the invited lecturers have written and thanked us for organizing the conference. What disturbs me is that the last two (male) professors only thanked the male professors for organizing the meeting, while cc:ing me and the female professor + the other lecturers on these e-mails.

I feel annoyed for both myself and the female professor, as we both put in lots of work in the organization, but I do not know if I should comment (and if so, how) on these acknowledgments.

********

So, FSP readers, what would you do?:

(a) Nothing. Just let it go. There is no good, productive way to tell these men that they should have thanked all organizers equally. They will not change their behavior, and they might think less of anyone who tells them (or implies) that their selective thanking was sexist.

(b) Someone should politely inform these two professors that confining their primary thanks to the male organizers caused offense to the female organizers. That someone should be: (1) The male organizers; (2) The female organizers; (3) All the organizers together as a group; or (4) Someone else.

(c) Someone should ignite the verbal flame throwers and forcefully and not-necessarily-politely tell these two professors that they are sexist and that they should apologize to the women.

(d) Other.

I don't know the dynamics of this group, but my preference would be to start with one of the (b) options, and see what kind of reaction, if any, this gets from the two professors in question. I think they should be called out on their actions somehow, and in such a way that would increase the chances that they would thereafter not repeat them.

It is possible that they are reasonable individuals. Writing the thank-you note in the first place shows a degree of politeness, even if there was a problem associated with their selective thanking.

Your opinions and advice?

Nothing to Prove: The Poll

Yesterday's post in Scientopia resulted in a wide range of responses in answer to the question of whether a female professor should agree to be on the committee of a doctoral student who had openly stated that women should not be scientists (or that women in general are not good scientists).

I want to try to get a bit more data on this question with a poll. Also, it's just a blog-poll kind of week.

I realize that the response of some would be a qualified "agree" or "refuse", depending on certain circumstances, but just go with your gut feeling of what you would do in this situation.

If asked to be on the committee in question, would you:
	Agree to be on the committee
	Refuse to be on the committee
pollcode.com free polls

Walk on Eggshells, Please

Whenever I write about a topic that involves the possibility of sexism -- or even an unambiguous example such as the one I described in a Scientopia post a few weeks ago -- there is almost always at least one comment from a man who is worried about having to "walk on eggshells" all the time to avoid sexist speech or actions, or from someone who wonders whether some women are maybe just a little bit (over)sensitive and therefore too quick to (over)interpret a benign comment as sexist when no offense was intended.

Pretty much any statement can be interpreted in a benign way. Even a seemingly blunt statement like "Women are not as smart as men" could be ironic! Or maybe it is even backed up by data if you define smart in a certain way that can be measured by a certain test on a certain group of people and ignore all other data to the contrary. And then poof! No more sexism. So easy.

I have been thinking about this "walking on eggshells" speech issue lately, and last week I decided to keep my eye out for an example of a statement by someone who apparently did not intend to make a comment that was sexist, homophobic, racist etc., but that nevertheless was (in my opinion). It turned out to be extremely easy. This will not surprise some people.

In a recent post by Scientopian The Meandering Scholar, in an anecdote about evolution, genetics, primate behavior, and the passive-aggressive behavior of men in bars, TMS wrote (on a napkin to be passed to a guy who had been rude about TMS' geeky T-shirt):

..and like your mom they even practice lesbianism

That little phrase took me aback, and I quickly scrolled to the comments and was relieved to find, after a series of "You are so awesome!!!" comments, some criticism of the mom-lesbian quip by ecologist and Zuska, who noted that this statement (and a related one about incest and the rude guy's sister) were inappropriate as insults.

TMS replied "That is neither what I said, what I implied or what I belive" [sic], a statement that seems to involve disputing the specific assertion that he equated incest with lesbianism.

OK, but it is unambiguous that adding the phrase "like your mom" to a statement meant to educate someone about the similarities between humans and primates was gratuitous and a very poor choice of words (even given the context). The phrase "like your mom" was meant to be offensive.

If that is the kind of thing someone is liable to say (or even write on a napkin in a bar), then I have no problem saying: "I think you should walk on eggshells" if that would help you avoid making statements like this.

Is anyone freaking out yet about this extreme opinion of mine? Gosh, I hope not. So let's try to explain it away so that we can all believe that, in fact, the mom-lesbian statement was not offensive to anyone. Perhaps it was even meant as a compliment!

A quick internet search confirms that certain primates, such as the bonobos, are known for their bisexual behavior, particularly the females. Surely this is why TMS made the statement, and perhaps even why he selected the lesbian mom wording instead of saying "and like your dad they even practice homosexuality" or something like that. Therefore, if we wanted to, we could assume that TMS was making a fact-based, educational statement rather than trying for the extra rhetorical punch of mentioning lesbian mom instead of gay dad.

And in fact that may well be the case, and this is another reason why this is such a great example. The statement was made to offend a guy in a bar (and his mom), not a general group of people. And yet.. it managed to do both.

So who cares if a bunch of guys scribble immature notes to each other in a bar? This is trivial. And that's exactly why I picked it as an example to discuss the question: Should people censor their informal speech to the extent of avoiding phrases like this one if at all possible? And my answer is: yes, please do.

Throw Them Out?

A recent post about a colleague's postdoc who is disrespectful (in more than a casual way) to female postdocs, but not to female professors or students, attracted many comments, including some from those who felt that the postdoc should be immediately fired.

I am curious about the demographics of those in the 'fire him immediately' camp vs. those in the 'give him a chance to change' camp.

My hypothesis, which we may or may not be able to test, is that the different responses relate more to academic position than to gender. That is, I think that those who have experience advising postdocs and graduate students might be the ones who are more interested in finding a way to change his behavior and attitude, while at the same time protecting his female peers.

In contrast, those with less advising experience might focus more on the fact that, in some fields, there is an oversupply of talented postdocs, so why waste time on one who has behaved reprehensibly? That is, if this postdoc cannot behave in a professional way towards all colleagues, he should be fired without being given a chance to change, and immediately replaced with someone without these problems.

This hypothesis may well be wrong, of course, but if amount of advising experience relates to the various responses to the 'peer sexism' anecdote, this is interesting because it conflicts with the view of many of my early-career readers who feel that professors aren't as humane as they could be in their dealings with postdocs and students. That is, professors should be more aware that graduate students and postdocs don't arrive fully trained and perfect, and should be less inclined to fire and fail those who don't meet our high standards (yet). We professors should work harder on the training and mentoring aspects of our jobs.

Holding that belief and the "fire him immediately" point of view requires making a distinction between the "how to do research" aspects of training and "how to get along with others" aspects. It requires being more patient with those who struggle with the first aspect, and less (or not at all) with the second. I see them both as elements of my job as an adviser, although I think many of us are very challenged by the second aspect of the advising job.

It is important to note that the specific case described in my earlier post does not involve violence, intimidation, physical contact, or any other serious situations in which immediate firing would obviously be well justified. The unprofessional behavior of this postdoc is unacceptable and should not continue, but, in my opinion, does not rise to the level of immediate firing without first giving the postdoc a change to change his behavior.

Although my influence on the employment status of a postdoc supervised by another professor at another university in another country on research in which I have no involvement is quite low, I have talked about the situation with the postdoc's supervisor, and know that he is taking it seriously. It would be unacceptable if no action were taken and if there were no negative consequences for the postdoc if he does not change. I do not believe that will be the case. The postdoc has recently been alerted to the fact that his behavior is unacceptable, not only to the female postdocs, but to his supervisor, and he has been given the opportunity to change; on what time scale and by what means of evaluation of progress, I do not know.

The question I asked earlier was whether readers believed the postdoc could change. Today the question is: Why do some people think the postdoc should be fired without any effort to find a way to change his attitude and behavior? If there is much evidence that this postdoc is a thoughtful, sincere, and nice person in other aspects of his professional life, why not try to build on that? Wouldn't we all benefit if this postdoc can change? Isn't it the responsibility of his supervisor to try to effect such a change? The supervisor is also responsible for some of the female postdocs involved in this situation, but if he believes he can protect them and mentor the problem postdoc, shouldn't he try?

Although I feel optimistic about this particular case, overall the situation is depressing. I am very weary of the apparently limitless supply of sexists of all ages, although I know from long experience advising that few of us are perfect in our interpersonal relations, and some people can change (for the better).

If, after efforts to fix the problem, this postdoc continued to show no signs of being able to work with female peers, his contract should be terminated, no matter how talented he is at research and no matter how respectful he is to women who are not his peers. Such termination is the right thing to do for many reasons, including the very practical reason that his inability to work with everyone on his research team (and creation of a hostile work environment for some) harms the research.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but the situation nevertheless make me wonder: Is a desire for the elimination of sexism (and similar problems) in academia incompatible with a wish to educate and reform the perpetrators? I don't think it is.

Peer Sexism

A colleague at another institution has a postdoc with whom I have interacted from time to time. My colleague's research interests are very broad, and this particular postdoc's research field is quite different from mine. Nevertheless, when I work with this colleague or when we attend the same conference, I also interact with the postdoc. As part of a research group of 4-6 people, we talk about Science, have dinner in conference cities etc.

I have always found this young man to be extremely nice, friendly, respectful, funny, and interesting. He works hard, cares a lot about his research, and is curious about research topics beyond his own specific field. In short, I like him personally and have been very impressed with his work.

Recently, however, I found out that this young man systematically offends, alienates, and/or harasses the female postdocs in his research group and in associated research groups. One by one, these women have complained to my colleague as each one has encountered the postdoc. This was not some organized effort to complain; in fact, some of these women are at different institutions, working on different projects, and have never met each other. This postdoc seems to have a perfect record of offensive behavior towards his peers who are female.

This shocked me. My assumption, which was clearly flawed, was that I would be able to detect such traits in a person, even if they were respectful to me because I am older and a professor. I assumed that anyone who was so dysfunctional in their professional relationships with women would not distinguish based on age and position but would have a more systematic problem with women.

It's possible that I could be oblivious to some clues, but I have thought a lot about this, and have spent some time with this young man after learning about his disturbing behavior. I see absolutely no sign that he is being insincere in his respect for me. All my other colleagues involved in the research project that tangentially relates to this postdoc's research are male, and I see no difference in how he interacts with them vs. me. When it comes to interacting with his peers, however, he clearly has a major problem, although I have never seen him in action, perhaps owing to the all-male (but me) nature of the research group subset in which I interact with him (and because, according to my colleague, he reserves his most offensive behavior for times when senior professors are not around).

His supervisor has thus far dealt with the problem by keeping this postdoc away from projects involving other women scientists. Fortunately and unfortunately, this has not been difficult to arrange.

I told my colleague, however, that I hoped that this is only a short-term solution. His postdoc has to learn how to behave in a professional way towards women of all ages and academic job classifications. My colleague agrees, but is not sure how to accomplish this. My colleague also thinks the problem will be somewhat resolved by the fact that the postdoc's girlfriend, who was living in another country, is now living with him. I personally find it disturbing if this is viewed as a solution to the problem.

A complicating factor is that the half dozen people thus far most involved in this situation and in these discussions come from almost as many different countries, and although we all work together well (with the glaring exception of the problem described here), most of us have limited understanding of how to deal with such problems in the context of each other's different institutions and cultures.

For example, at my institution, I could send this postdoc to a sort of 'sensitivity training' workshop, and my department chair could make the continuation of his position contingent on his not harassing women. This young man has a major problem that he is clearly not solving on his own, so he needs his supervisor (mentor) or institution to step in if at all possible. If there is no structure to do that, however, (as seems to be the case here) then the adviser has to figure something out, although most of us are not well equipped to deal with this type of situation.

Another colleague who is also part of this extended research group thinks that the postdoc's selective sexism makes the situation more insidious than if he were pan-sexist. There is an insidious aspect to it because the selective nature of the postdoc's problem made it difficult to detect, and might lead some people to underestimate or dismiss the problem.

Nevertheless, I remain optimistic that the problem can be solved if it is dealt with aggressively but constructively. I do not believe that this young man is a hard-core sexist who will never change, but his supervisor and all of us who care about the situation have to make it clear that to the postdoc his future career as an academic depends on his changing his behavior towards women.

Question: Can peer sexists be reformed? That is, without knowing more details of the people or the situation, do you share my optimism or do you think that sexists, even of the selective sort, have a deep problem that probably can't be fixed?

Affirmative Action for Dead People

Someone wrote a letter of complaint to The New York Times, noting that there were typically about 8 times as many obituaries for men as for women.

The Times' obituaries editor responded that the newspaper only publishes obituaries for people whose former existence was of national or international interest. Most obituaries today are for people born in the 1920's and 1930's, when most important jobs were done by men. Ergo, most of the noteworthy people dying are men. The Times cannot right this historic wrong by publishing more obituaries for women and non-white men because there are fewer recently deceased women and minorities who did things of national or international interest. The number of obituaries for women is about 10-20%.

Apparently, there aren't enough qualified women dying.

The "public editor" (ombudsman) for The New York Times added his own comment, saying that he thought the Times could do a better job of finding information about remarkable women and non-white men; the Times researchers should try to find "a greater variety of subjects".

Is this situation analogous to arguments about the relative numbers of Great (white) Men vs. Women in literature, history, art etc., such as arguments related to why reading lists for classes on the Great Works of Literature are dominated by white male authors? That is, white men wrote the Great Works; that's just the way it is.

Some universities have addressed this issue by doing something similar to what the Times' public editor suggests: if you broaden your search, open up your definition of what is interesting and worthy of attention, you will find greatness.

Looking beyond the traditional definition of noteworthy for selecting candidates for obituaries in the Times is not affirmative action for dead people.

You can't right a historic wrong, but you can stop participating in the perpetuation of bias by focusing attention only only those who have succeeded in traditional ways in business, academia, government, journalism etc. Don't wait for the day when women and minorities succeed like white men in positions that were formerly the exclusive province of white men. Death to inequality!

Man Boy(cott)?

At various times in this blog, I have described professional events such as conference sessions, workshops, and speaker series in which there are no invited women speakers. The audience might consist of 30-50% women, especially if students and postdocs are in attendance, but every invited speaker is male. It is easier to explain the occurrence of such situations if there are a limited number of invited speaker slots in a field with few women researchers; it becomes more difficult when there are a dozen or more invited speaker slots and more than a few women researchers in that field.

There are a number of possible explanations for the absence of women as invited speakers at these events: e.g., deliberate exclusion because the organizers don't respect women researchers, accidental/unthinking exclusion because the organizers just didn't think of any 'qualified' women, or despite-best-efforts exclusion when all invited women decline an invitation. In today's post, I don't want to discuss which of these explanations is most likely, as the answer to that will vary from event to event and from field to field. I would, however, like to discuss the question:

Does an all-men speaker slate influence your decision about whether to attend these events?

Let's assume that there are women doing interesting research in the fields relevant to these events and "there are no women" is not a valid reason for the absence of invited speakers who are women. So: If you saw that there was, say, a small conference or workshop on a topic of interest to you and/or others in your research group, but every organizer and every invited speaker was male, is the absence of women:

(1) a total non-issue? The only thing that matters is whether the topic is relevant and interesting, and whether you and/or your advisees will benefit from attending or otherwise participating in the event.

(2) disappointing, but what can you do? You can't avoid all such events or you would severely limit your professional interactions, and you don't really know why there are no women speakers. You therefore attend anyway, despite feeling uncomfortable about being at yet another event in which a group of men expound on their research to an audience consisting of women who supposedly will one day start populating the higher faculty ranks of academia, even though it is taking an extremely long time for this to happen.

(3) a reason for boycotting the event? What kind of message does it send to your advisees if they go to an event on Interesting Topic X and get the impression that no women are doing interesting research on this topic, even though it's not difficult for you to think of some? If you make a decision to avoid such an event, would you tell the organizers why you decided not to attend?

The gender of invited speakers should not matter. It does not matter to the research, and it does not matter to the quality of an invited talk. It does matter, however, when there is a systematic imbalance that doesn't have a good explanation.

If men-only speaker slates bother you, what can you do about this other than boycott such workshops and sessions?

You can organize workshops and sessions and think broadly about who would give an interesting talk, focusing not just on your impression of how famous someone is, but on what their research contributions are.

I believe that if decisions about invited speakers are made based on a person's research contributions and ideas and not on perception of prestige, then there will naturally be women included in any group in most fields. There would be no need to go out and find a token women just to have one in the list of speakers for the sake of diversity. Women speakers would be invited because they have interesting things to say.

That doesn't seem like such a radical goal, but, based on the last few session/workshop advertisements I have read, it seems to be a very difficult thing to achieve.

Personal Growth Experience for Sexist Jerks, reprise

A few years ago, I posed the question:

What do you do if someone you know to be a long-time sexist jerk is selected for a position of responsibility in a professional organization that directly impacts the lives of women academics, their funding, and therefore their chances of career advancement?

The context: I was upset to learn that a certain person had been given just such a job, but I felt that there was nothing I could reasonably do about it except feel anxious. The man had already been hired into his new position, and I did not feel that a "Oh by the way, he has a problem treating women (and some men) in a respectful way" note from me to the institution that hired him would do anything but show that I was an oversensitive and possibly vindictive person.

The optimists among us hoped that this position of responsibility would be a 'personal growth' experience for him, and that he would become a more mature and respectful person, as required by his new position. I had known him for >20 years and was skeptical that such a growth/maturity episode was going to occur anytime soon.

That was a few years ago, and now we know how the story turned out. This man did not experience any personal growth, and may even have gotten worse once in a position of power. He was quickly removed from all official roles that involved making decisions about research involving female investigators. His behavior towards women in his new job was apparently deemed unacceptable by the people who worked with him, and they took action to limit the damage. I was very impressed that they did this.

I would have been more impressed if he had not been hired in the first place. This man was hired based on his research record, which was very good, but his appointment to this job had shocked quite a number of people -- women and men -- who had seen him in action over the years at meetings, as a reviewer, as a colleague. It really would not have taken too much effort for his potential employers to find out more about his attitudes and methods of working with other people, an important component of his new job. His behavior in his new job was totally consistent with his mode of operation in the decades before.

And now he's moved on, I know not where.

At some point during this man's time in that particular job, he told a mutual colleague that I had always been very competitive with him, even when we were undergraduates. My apparently long-term competitiveness with him was news to me. When we first met, I didn't even know if I wanted to go to graduate school, and, if I did go to graduate school, I didn't know if I wanted to get a PhD, and even if I did get a PhD, it didn't occur to me to imagine myself at a big university (at the time, I was interested only in possibly teaching at a small liberal arts college). Competitive Sexist Jerk Guy, however, had known he wanted to be a professor at a big university since he was 2 years old. Perhaps he was projecting his own competitiveness and/or his disappointment (bitterness?) at never having the sort of career he wanted, whereas I ended up with that sort of career.

I think he's a sad person with lots of emotional problems that may be far beyond his control, but it's a lot easier for me to feel sorry for him now that he has moved on.

Large Lens/Little Lady

A female friend who spent the first ~40 years of her life as a man has long been involved in photography, first as a hobby and later as a professional pursuit. She has lots of specialized photographic equipment that she uses to take photos that appear in books and magazines.

Something that happens to her as a woman but that never happened to her as a man is that people will see her out taking photographs with her professional photographic gear and will comment that she has impressive photographic equipment "for a lady" (or "woman" or "gal").

I have often been accused of seeing things through "a gender lens", but can we also apply this phrase to the people (all men so far, according to my friend) who make "that's a big lens for a little lady" type comments?

These men don't see a person who is a highly capable professional photographer, they see a female using specialized photographic equipment, and that somehow looks odd to them. But what is so incongruous about a woman with a telephoto lens and a tripod?

Somehow they also overlook the fact that she is 6' tall and therefore not a "little" lady, except perhaps to men who want to see all females as small, weak, and incapable.

CERCular Reasoning & Excellent Men

The purpose of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs program is "to attract Canadian and international leading scientists" in critical areas of research: "environmental sciences and technologies; natural resources and energy; health and related life sciences and technologies; and information and communications technologies."

Recently, nineteen CERCs were chosen after ".. a rigorous peer review and selection board process". This process involves a first stage, in which Canadian universities vied for the opportunity to get one of these Chairs, and a second stage, in which the selected universities "nominate leading researchers.. The final selection of chairholders is made by a selection board and based on the highest standards of research excellence."

In an article on May 18 in The Globe & Mail, the results of the program are described, including the fact that Canada was able to "poach" leading researchers from other countries and lure them to Canada with the millions of research $$ associated with these Chairs. The article effuses about the aggressive program of luring top researchers:

For Ottawa, it was one of the biggest bets on scientific research in a generation. But for the man at the centre of Canada’s worldwide drive to recruit top scientists, it was a “ballsy” play that at times resembled a bidding war for NHL free agents.

These CERC chairs are referred to by the following terms: star researchers, renowned scientists, foreign researchers, and, more generically, as "individuals", or simply "these people".

Two days later, The Globe & Mail realizes that it might want to mention that "these people" are all men. In fact, there were no women on the short list of 36. (see also another article on this topic)

That there were no women on the short list might have been the first clue that there weren't going to be any women in the final list.

Government officials noted that there was no "deliberate attempt" to exclude women. It just happened that way.

Well, that's fine then! As long as no one said "Let's not nominate any women for these lucrative and prestigious positions", then everything must be fine.

There are lots of comments on The Globe & Mail article, including the usual lame ones stating that the lack of women is not a problem because there are no qualified women in these fields, women are whiners to complain about being excluded etc. etc. Can we assume that these particular commenters are qualified to make this statement about the lack of qualified women?

I am having trouble believing that there are no qualified women among all the scientists in the entire world in the above listed fields. Was is really not possible to come up with a global short list of ~40 scientists that included at least a few women based on their accomplishments as researchers in the fields relevant to the CERC program?

Let's assume, just for fun, that there are qualified women. Why didn't any women make it through the rigorous selection process, not even making it as far as the short-list, not to mention the 19 finalists? Some possibilities listed in the article are:

..the tight deadlines for the competition, the areas picked for research and a competition where candidates on the short list had only a 50 per cent chance of winning probably all worked against female candidates.

I must say that none of those reasons are very convincing to me. Can someone explain the "tight deadline" reason to me with respect to why that would work against the inclusion of (qualified) women on the short list? And the areas picked for research? Are there really no female "star researchers" in "health and related life sciences and technologies"? Are the CERC men really so awesome that there are no women of that caliber anywhere in these fields of research? Even in "health and related life sciences and technologies"?

I also read that there are so few women in these fields that naturally the chances were lower for a woman to be selected. But give women 10 more years, and watch out! We'll be well represented then. The funny thing is, I've been hearing that since I was in grad school, more than 20 years ago. And I still don't believe that a short list of 36 "top researchers" in the world contained no women because there are so few women in these fields.

And then there's the women aren't flexible enough in their personal and professional lives to make a big move such as required by the CERC program explanation. Evidence: The University of Manitoba approached one woman researcher but she withdrew herself from consideration because of "personal reasons".

Alas, women had one shot at a CERC, and that opportunity was blown. Women have such complicated personal lives; there's probably no point in even nominating any women. [<-- sarcasm, in case you aren't sure]

I would be curious to know more about the personal situations of the 19 excellent CERC men. Do any have wives with academic positions or other difficult-to-move careers, and, if so, what happened to them?

And whatever happened to the stereotype of the single woman researcher monomaniacally dedicated to her research at the expense of everything else. Couldn't the CERC panel dig up some of those?

And can someone explain the 50% reason mentioned above? The short list consisted entirely of men, resulting in a 100% chance that the final list would be 100% men, so presumably the 50% reference is to some pre-short list stage of the selection process. Women only apply for prestigious big-money positions if there is a >50% chance of success? That will be news to many women researchers worldwide who routinely submit proposals to funding agencies with success rates of <<50%.

Anyway, lest anyone think I am bashing Canada, let me briefly note that I have longstanding personal and professional connections with Canada. Part of my family is Canadian. One of my relatives is the answer to a Canadian Trivial Pursuits question. I have lived in Canada. Some of my best friends are Canadian. I have been to all but some of the more remote provinces. I enjoyed a trip to Saskatoon not long ago. In February. I like Canada and Canadians.

But, like the US and other parts of the world, academia in Canada seems to be at a stage where, as long as no one is saying out loud "Hey, let's not hire any women" or "Let's deliberately exclude women from this lucrative and prestigious program", many will say there is no problem or, least, not a big problem.

I find it as disturbing as ever, however, that anyone with any real knowledge of the science and technology fields could sincerely say about the lack of women in a program like CERC: "It just happened that way", or "This type of program had various aspects that did not appeal to women researchers" or even "There are no qualified women anywhere in the world in these fields" (as is clearly proven by the lack of any women among the 19 selected CERCs).

That type of reasoning is rather CERCular.

This I Do Not Believe

The following are things that I believe to be generally untrue:

• If an individual has never directly experienced or perpetrated sexism/discrimination/harassment, these things don't exist.
• Women who experience sexism/discrimination/harassment see sexism everywhere.
• Women who are angry about sexism/discrimination/harassment hate men.
• Angry women further promote sexist behavior by being angry.
• Men who make remarks about the lack of intelligence or competence of women are typically joking.
• Women who don't think such remarks are funny have no sense of humor.
• Women who describe sexist experiences in another country are culturally insensitive and xenophobic.
  

He Must Be Joking

Whenever I describe an anecdote -- whether from direct experience or not -- involving a possibly sexist remark by a man, the inevitable comment is made by someone that "He was joking". I have no trouble believing that in some cases "he" (perhaps even JFK!) was joking and I missed the humor, but I do not believe that men in general consistently make non-serious, *apparently* sexist remarks in jest and are, sadly, consistently misunderstood by women (or, at least, by me).

There have surely been times when I failed to find humor in remarks or situations that were intended as jokes, but in this post I will pluck an old war story from my archive and describe one of my experiences that helps explain my skepticism of the "He was joking" hypothesis. I think I have told various parts of the story of my postdoctoral adventures before; my apologies to long-time readers for any repetition.

Years ago, when I arrived at my postdoctoral institution, my supervisor told me to (a) go talk to Joe, a technician, about using certain equipment, and (b) go talk to Bob, another technician, about using certain other equipment. In both cases I had years of experience using equipment similar or identical to these.

Joe's office was filled with large posters of bikini-clad women draping themselves over red sporty cars. Joe expressed concern that I might break the equipment and said that I could only use the equipment if directly monitored by him. When my supervisor asked me if I'd worked things out with Joe, I explained about my apparent need for monitoring. My supervisor said "That's strange, all of the other postdocs use the equipment by themselves. Joe must have been joking." He told me to get a key to the room anyway.

So I went to the administrator-of-the-keys, who snarled "I don't work for you" when I asked to check out a key. I explained that my supervisor told me to get a key. No luck. So I told my supervisor that I couldn't get a key until he asked the key-person to give me a key. He sighed, saying that I must have misunderstood. None of the other postdocs had problems like this; they asked for keys and got keys.

Did I mention that I was the only female postdoc?

I also talked to Bob about using the equipment he oversaw, and he said that I could use some of it, but not all of what I needed to use. I knew that the other postdocs (and some grad students) used all of this equipment, so I explained my background and expertise and the fact that I needed complete access for my research.

Bob said that I could use Equipment A, but not Equipment B, although A was a much more complex piece of equipment than B. However, use of B was required before use of Equipment A, so being prohibited from B shut me out of using A.

But: Bob said he would run Equipment B for me. But: There was a catch. He said he would run B "If you beg me to do it." I said, "No, seriously, I need this by next week, so either I should use B, which I know well how to use, or you need to do this for me soon." He said "Only if you beg me." After failing to get a straight answer from Bob, I left, saying I'd be back to check on things in a day or two. I hoped that he was just joking or being weird.

When I went back to talk to him again, Bob said "I've changed my mind. You don't have to beg me to do this for you. You have to get down on your knees and beg me to do this for you." I explained that I needed to make progress with this aspect of my research and I either needed to do it myself or get his help. He just laughed, pointed to the floor, and said "On your knees."

My supervisor kept asking me when I was going to have some results and I said that I was having trouble getting Bob to let me use the equipment. My supervisor said yet again "None of the other postdocs have this trouble." I explained about the begging thing and my supervisor said "Bob is just joking around. Of course he doesn't mean it. Go talk to him again."

So I did, but nothing changed. Bob just grinned and pointed to the floor whenever he saw me. My supervisor asked Bob why I wasn't getting the work done and Bob said he didn't know why.

So I went to another university to use the equipment there.

Bob never let me use B, but, based on my trips to another university, I could use A. I tried to schedule time when Bob was not around because he liked to sneak up on me and scare me. And a favorite activity of his was pouring liquid nitrogen on my head. Ha ha! Such fun we had joking around in an environment of anxiety and pain.

My supervisor found my aversion to Bob irrational. Whenever he said "Why don't you go ask Bob this" or "Maybe Bob will help you with that", I found excuses not to go see Bob. My supervisor kept telling me that I was not appreciating Bob's sense of humor. He repeatedly said "None of the others have a problem with Bob."

Throughout all of that (and more), the unwavering opinion of my supervisor was that Bob and the others, including a senior professor with wandering hands and a grad student who liked to talk about punching his girlfriend, were always just joking around and I was not appreciating their humor. That may well be, but their so-called humor was in some cases too subtle for me and in others it was an obstacle to my research.

I got along fine with quite a few people in the department, but not with these joking guys.

My supervisor, who had never worked with a female postdoc before, was himself a very nice and decent person, but he could not believe that the problem was with these men; he had worked with them for years and knew them to be good guys. It made more sense to him that these guys were joking than that they were being (at best) patronizing obstacles or (at worst) insidious sexists who liked to humiliate women. Therefore, I must be the problem.

This postdoctoral episode could have had a major negative effect on my career but I circumvented the problem by publishing more than any of the other postdocs, something that was only made possible by my visits to another university. My supervisor may have found me difficult and humorless, but I got results and published them, and he appreciated that.

Back then, in that place and time, there was no one who could help me with this problem. I could have been more vocal about how I was (mis)treated, but there was no university office overseeing the working environments of departments or research groups, there were no other women to consult, and my supervisor was the department chair.

So is there any point in bringing up this ancient history? Other than explaining my skepticism about the "he was joking" hypothesis for certain behavior or remarks, does it prove only that I have lost all objectivity in the matter or is it a compelling example of how even well-meaning people can fail to see sexism that is happening in their midst?

Telling these old war stories makes me weary, but it also makes me aware that there has been a lot of progress in the working environment for women in science in the past 10-15 years. It is important to acknowledge that, while still continuing to work for even more improvement.

Going To Those Lengths

So far I am only about 70 pages into the book by Gail Collins, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present, but I've already decided to get another copy of it for my mother for Christmas.

Although I am not accustomed to comparing some of my male colleagues to John F. Kennedy, this passage felt very familiar (and made me laugh out loud):

.. the publisher Katharine Graham recounted how the president had once demanded to know why Adlai Stevenson, the balding, chubby United Nations ambassador, was regarded as so attractive by his many female friends. Told that it was because Stevenson actually listened with interest to what women had to say, the president responded, according to Graham, "Well, I don't say you're wrong, but I'm not sure I can go to those lengths."

Feeling Harassed

My daughter has been coming home from middle school with tales of being the target of unpleasant attention by a particular boy who boasts about hurting people, threatens to hurt her, makes comments about her physical appearance, and pushes her. Is he just a socially awkward kid who only needs a stern talking-to or is he a pre-teen creep heading towards a lifetime of harassment of women?

When my daughter first told us about the situation, she said that she wanted to try to deal with the problem herself first. She spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to calmly tell him what the major problems were and how things needed to change. She talked to him but the problems continued.

The next step was for my daughter to apprise the teacher of the problem. The class in which the problems were occurring involved some unsupervised time during which my daughter was sent off with her 'team' (the problem boy, who is actually 2 grades ahead of her, and another kid, who is frequently absent owing to illness) on various excursions around the school. There were many opportunities for the boy to display a wide array of unpleasant behavior out of range of the teacher. The teacher therefore had no idea what was going on.

So she told the teacher, but she didn't want to make a big deal out of it and she only mentioned vaguely that she was having a problem with one of her teammates, and the teacher said something vague in reply and took no action. In the next class, my daughter was again sent off alone with this boy on various excursions around the school. The problems recurred.

She wanted to try again to talk to the teacher, being more specific this time, but at this point my husband and I decided it was time for parental intervention. The types of things this boy was saying and doing had us worried, as was the relentless nature of his unpleasant behavior. We were unable to arrange a meeting with the relevant teacher, but we talked to two other teachers.

They were great. They leaped into (administrative) action and told her that they respected her for speaking up. They told her that the school has zero tolerance for this type of behavior, which they consider sexual harassment because some of the incidents were specifically related to gender. They told her she was brave and mature for how she had handled the situation.

I know that the school will also try to help the boy, rather than just punish him.

This situation has apparently been resolved, but the fact that it happened at all is sad.

Something that is interesting about this, though, is that my daughter's primary reaction has been anger. She has been to dozens of "bully awareness" workshops over the years, and apparently these focus on kids who blame themselves for being bullied and who feel anxious about complaining. These kids may become withdrawn and fearful. My daughter says that this didn't describe at all how she felt; she felt extremely angry and she didn't know how to deal with this anger.

One possibility is that her anger stemmed from her feeling powerless to stop the harassment on her own. She appreciates that the teachers supported her and took actions that solved the major problem, but she hated not being able to deal with the situation herself. She likes to talk and debate and argue about things, and it was frustrating for her that she could not convince this boy to treat her with respect.

One of the great things that the teachers did, once apprised of the problem, is to make her feel that she solved the problem by speaking out. I think that was very important and gave my daughter a good perspective on how a supportive community can try to solve problems like this.

Bias Bingo!

This is so cool.

Instead of playing Gender Bias Bingo alone on my computer, however, it would be much more fun to have a bingo card and bingo chips to bring with me to faculty and committee meetings, or to carry around with me in the halls to use as the need arises. There are even occasions when it would be useful to have in my office, on airplanes, at conferences, and during visits with my family.

One of the goals of Gender Bias Bingo is to teach women and men how to recognize bias in their own experiences, but a portable GBB might also help bias perpetrators be more self-aware. Perhaps some people need help learning that they shouldn't criticize women for being assertive and admire men for being aggressive, question whether a woman's idea is her own, ask a father who takes care of his kids when his wife is traveling etc. etc. etc. If someone yells BINGO! after an incident, and clicks down a bingo chip onto a portable GBB board, this might inspire a conversation, or even some quiet reflection.

Portable GBB bingo is not my idea. It is something that my friends and I (and, I think, some commenters to this blog) have occasionally expressed a wish to have during particularly fraught meetings or conversations. It would certainly make a useful gift for that special academic in your life, and would be equally appropriate, though perhaps not equally appreciated, by that not-so-special academic in your life.