• Review of the research on the extent to which women in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine are victimized by sexual harassment on college and university campuses, in research labs and field sites; at hospitals/medical centers; and in other academic environments
• Examination of existing information on the extent to which sexual harassment in academia negatively impacts the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women pursuing scientific, engineering, technical, and medical careers, with comparative evidence drawn from other sectors, such as the military, government, and the private sector
• Identification and analysis of policies, strategies and practices that have been the most successful in preventing and addressing sexual harassment in these settings.
The first meeting in February focused on reviewing the goals and establishing the scope the project will cover, while the second and third meetings consisted of presentations and panels on various topics. The fourth meeting, to take place in October, does not have a stated agenda yet.
I watched through the four sessions of the second meeting and all but the last session of the third meeting. I took extensive notes on what was discussed, and have condensed the 9-ish hours of talks down to what you see here.
This topic is very near and dear to my heart, and I greatly appreciate Mitch for giving me the opportunity to spend my day learning so much about this important topic.
Videos from the second meeting can be viewed here.
Videos from the third meeting can be viewed here.
The discussion of sexual harassment in academia is a topic that only recently gained attention in national news, thanks to several events that came to light in 2015.
Three space scientists—astronomer Timothy Frederick Slater of the University of Wyoming, astronomer Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, and astrophysicist Christian Ott of the California Institute of Technology—gained national attention when news broke of their sexual harassment of graduate students. In June, Science posted an advice column suggesting a female postdoc "put up with" her adviser's attempts to look down her shirt (a column that was quickly rescinded).
These incidents set the science world on fire. Attention was drawn to a 2014 study of field scientists that reported 71% of the women surveyed were sexually harassed while conducting fieldwork and 25% were sexually assaulted. In January 2016 House Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) delivered a speech on the House floor about sexual harassment and assault in U.S. science and engineering, and in September announced the introduction of legislation to address the issue.* The astronomy community set about creating support groups for sexual assault victims, like Astronomy Allies. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine responded quickly as well.
The National Academies are private, non-profit institutions that provide advice to government agencies on a variety of science, engineering, and medicine topics that commonly take the form of recommendation reports. The National Academies Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine (CWSEM) was tasked to undertake a study of "the influence of sexual harassment in academia on the career advancement of women in the scientific, technical, and medical workforce." The third meeting of the committee took place on June 20, 2017 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, California.
*The legislation introduced by Speier was not passed by the 114th U.S. Congress; Speier has not yet reintroduced the legislation to the current Congress and is seeking suggestions for improvement to the legislation before she does.
Harassment at meetings and the workplace
Sexual harassment takes place in every academic forum: laboratories, field stations, society meetings. But there is a significant distinction between harassment in the workplace and the harassment that takes place at scientific meetings, as discussed by Sherry Marts, President and CEO of Smarts Consulting, in her presentation.
While women by and large experience sexual harassment on a larger scale than men, this is especially true at scientific meetings. The reason for this is because harassment at meetings rests more on physical domination whereas workplace harassment rests more on power domination. What does this mean? In a workplace setting, there are clear hierarchical structures in place, sectioning student from junior researcher from senior researcher. In this setting, those in a senior researcher position hold conferred power that rests on their title, not their physical strength. As such, there is a higher chance for women to exert this kind of power than if the power simply rested on physical strength. However, at scientific meetings, there are usually a hundred times more people than in a confined lab setting, so domination does not depend as much on conferred status as physical strength, determined upon a first meeting with someone new. Thus, Marts explained scientific meetings are more like street harassment situations than workplace harassment situations.
(based on a survey of ~250 respondents)
Comment on appearance 84% Leering or staring 79% |
Called an endearment 83% Biased/bigoted remark 79% |
Sexual harassment in the workplace can be even more threatening. Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academies of Sciences, likened the graduate student experience to "indentured servitude." She explained the student-supervisor relationship in science is very different from other vocations since many students get degrees in very specialized fields that require them to work with their adviser well past graduation. Additionally, many students also depend on their adviser for funding, recommendation letters, and the eventual bestowal of their degree. While one way to mitigate this reliance on advisers is for graduate students to secure fellowships—i.e., funding given directly to the student to pursue whatever research they want instead of the money being tied to a specific professor—the National Science Foundation is proposing to cut their fellowships from 2,000 to 1,000 in the fiscal year 2018 budget. Thus, this excessive reliance on their advisers to assure a successful future career puts graduate students in a position that does not encourage the reporting of harassment.
Justine Tinkler, associate professor of sociology at the University of Georgia, provided a look into just how much damage a badly done sexual harassment can cause. She showed men and women a short sexual assault training video, and compared beliefs of the participants before and after the training. Specifically, she took a measurement of how "traditional" (e.g., believes in chivalry, men should pay for the date, etc.) or "egalitarian" (e.g., whoever is closest to the door should open it) a person felt themselves to be, and saw how the sexual harassment training affected both groups. (Graphs courtesy Justine Tinkler)
While the need for more research is necessary before the committee releases its report next June, several practices have been identified that aid in combating sexual harassment.
While short sexual harassment training videos and seminars appear to exacerbate unconscious gender bias and unlikability of women, longer sessions and follow-up surveys appear to help. Eden King, associate professor of psychology at George Mason University, listed four requirements a sexual harassment training session should meet to promote positive outcomes:
• Last more than four hours
• Be conducted face-to-face
• Involve active participation with the other trainees
• Be conducted by a external supervisor expert
Unlike Sepler—who advocated avoiding the term "sexual harassment" and instead focusing on "respect" training—the panelists from the first session during the second meeting roundly agreed that it is necessary for sexual harassment to be called out clearly for what it is and not be hidden away on page 56 of a general "code of conduct" packet.
Sharon Masling and Jim Paretti, employees at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), advocated a mixture of both training approaches. In a special task force report released last year, the EEOC found situating sexual harassment training within a broader framework of a holistic harassment prevention and compliance effort resulted in an atmosphere more receptive to harassment reports and less overall harassment cases. Additionally, the report corroborated the presentation given by Sharyn Potter, associate professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, about teaching bystanders how to effectively recognize the warning signs of harassment and intervene.
Presenters also discussed several ways to encourage reporting of harassment and assault at meetings and the workplace. Chris McEntee, executive director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union, said they now have specific volunteers at AGU meetings who wear buttons indicating they will handle reports of sexual harassment and assault. (Image courtesy AGU).
Other possible informal reporting services mentioned were online services like Callisto, or confidential resource centers established by the college itself, like the Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education (SHARE) office at Princeton University.
While Jennifer Freyd, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, did not have answers for combating perpetrators, she did provide a framework by which to identity perpetrators: DARVO. The acronym stands for "Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender" and represents a strategy that some perpetrators use when called out for their behavior. Recognizing the DARVO strategy provides a first step toward approaching and handling a perpetrator, Freyd said.
However, McNutt emphasized these meetings are not about people like her, who succeeded in the STEM field: it's about the people who didn't, who left before they could achieve their goals.
I think that's almost the story that we want to tell.