Thank you very much for this post. I’m sending it off to my daughter and my son. You have given me a challenge concerning my responsibility to call people on their conversation and action when it puts others down.

–Michael

Furthermore, at a university level I don’t see why professors should mediate between students. If it happens in your class, you have the right to chuck them out. Come on, students are adults and they should be able to handle themselves against their peers. If it escalates to actual bullying or sexual harrassment (stalking etc) then yes, we need to be able to provide guidance about how to handle that. I don’t know about the US, but all universities I know in Europe have ombudsman office for this kind of thing – it shouldn’t even be handled inside a department.

And, interestingly enough, the discrimination *does* go both ways. But, another very strange phenomenon is that a huge number of *women* discriminate against other *women*. They perpetuate the stereotypes and they use insulting language to describe strong, independent, non-conformist women and do what my sweetie Tacit calls “slut-shaming”, which is to use sexually-laden terms in a derogatory manner aimed specifically at women and female sexuality.

It’s one of the main sources of my online (and in-person) ranting, but I never did learn the whole must-be-nice-to-save-my-skin lesson, so I have absolutely no problem speaking out. I’m also a sex-positive activist and online blogger (in addition to being a skeptical activist), so I speak out online as well as in person.

One of my most favorite retorts was actually told to me by a male co-worker. Women in my business are often offered “help” by men for things that require physical strength, like lifting or pushing things. Whether it’s needed or not and oftentimes the assistance is given whether we acquiesce or not.

My co-worker overheard another female who was in this situation once. She was pushing a box and 2 guys came over and shouldered her out of the way to push it for her. She said “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right, I better not touch this. I might get estrogen all over it”. The guys became a laughing stock for the rest of the crew and, after hearing the tale, I have adopted that retort myself.

Another time, a girl helped to unscrew a bolt that was particularly tight, and the male supervisor said “wow, you’re almost as strong as a lesbian!” Just by coincidence, the entire crew happened to be female that day (all the supervisors were male, but the laborers were female). From that day forward, he was never able to order, instruct, or even request the assistance of another female on the crew without her responding “I’m sorry, I’m straight. I don’t think I’m strong enough to give you a hand”. Every woman actually refused to assist without an apology and every other guy there was shown that this behaviour was not acceptable.

So, for my part, I use ridicule combined with a generous sprinkling of actual facts and statistics to contradict their point in as public a manner as possible. And, I might add, I am *not* kind in my ridicule, but it *is* often funny to everyone else who hears. Like the time a guy who was giving me a hard time earlier in the day was having trouble with a sticky bolt, and I yelled out “c’mon! Hit it with your purse!” from across the room. It was particularly amusing when it was a girl who managed to solve the problem after he lost his temper and gave up.

I do, however, have to admit to quite a high sexual overtone to the workplace in my industry, but most of us actively enjoy a work environment with flirting and sexual innuendo. I am very careful to make sure that people who are genuinely uncomfortable get taken care of, but, generally, it’s considered a feature, not a bug. However, it’s not gender specific – everyone flirts with everyone regardless of gender or actual orientation.

But it’s a tough environment to work in, and I do what I can.

In the defense of the male grad students, that situation potentially touching on a whole mess of issues for the men. By that age we men are pretty used to women assuming that an invitation for lunch/drinks/whatever is a romantic advance rather than a friendly gesture, and tend to not bother. Especially those who aren’t incredibly socially gifted.

Dang…something _else_ I need to watch out for!

// first year teachers have one helluva learning curve…

More seriously, though, thanks for the post. I already try to run a pretty tight ship in my class, but your post reminds me of other things that I need to be aware of.

In fact, about 6 months ago, I created an almost identical curriculum for use with college aged students.

I begin by listing on the board all of the ways women can “protect” themselves from rape. I let the students make the list, i.e. clothes, behavior, etc. Then I go through each item on the list, and make the students turn it around where the action is performed by men, not women. Then the list morphs into the same list as Rebecca’s tweet.

It really opens their eyes to the fact that rapists are the only ones who ever truly stop rape.

This really does have to stop. As a father of a girl who is considering engineering or science as a career, I think of this often. Women scientists I know tend to be outspoken, willing to set the record straight. That’s a good thing. But not all women, or men for that matter, are willing to confront. Both men and women need to take the initiative and be on the lookout for behavior that crosses the line; even behavior that approaches the line. When it comes to protecting professors in tenure, I say bull. That’s a huge foul. If a tenured professor crosses that line, I say all bets are off, they should be called on it and there should be penalties. Like you said though, it’s a small population in which you need to be diplomatic.

This is similar to a physics professor I had in college. I was a journalism student and worked for the college paper. His name came up in the police blotter one day for a public and sexually-related offense. I made sure it was the right guy. And I debated over whether to take the issue to the editor. There was only one right decision but the backlash from the faculty was intense.

If you have the power to do the right thing and do it, you have to be willing to face anything that happens. I imagine that’s one of the issues that enters into the decision to confront. But we all KNOW what the right choice is in this matter. We should always take it.

FWIW, I’m a man and this type of behaviour infuriates me too. Keep fighting the good fight.

I was told to take the blog post down the next day; the faculty meeting was about one of those things that you don’t talk about outside of the faculty meeting, and indeed that’s what triggered my sense that I had to say something about all of this to the faculty, to try to let them know what I’d come to see talking to lots of grad students. I carefully did not reveal what the faculty meeting was really discussing, but I was still told I had to remove the blog post… so I did.

Junior faculty members of both genders have to weigh speaking out. Do they have a responsibility to speak out? Perhaps. But if they’re going to put their own future at hazard by doing so, they may have in the long run done more good by being more circumspect, and thus kept a person sympathetic for change in the inside, rather than by speaking out and blowing all their political capital.

It’ s horrifying that in 2009 we’re still dealing with this, but we are.

That’s the system, though… we’ve built it in. The last time my NSF grant was turned down, the program officer talked to me for a little while. He stated directly that at a small astronomy program, I was at a disadvantage applying for grants compared to people who were at institutions that owned their own private large telescopes.

(I realize this isn’t the main point of your post, and I’m very sympathetic to it, but I thought I’d mention this.)

So here’s my invitation. If you think I personally can help, please let me know. I will confidentially do my best to do something directly, indirectly, or through those in actual power to resolve the situation.

And that includes just talking about it.

I can’t imagine how difficult it was for you not to be able to help that student in the Trigger 1 part.

Posts like this help, I think.Every word that is written or spoken on this topic has the potential to raise the consciousness of anyone who reads it. Your eloquence here may have caused just one person to view situations like this from a different perspective and that is progress.