I’ve never been a fan of Top Gear, hearing only at second hand how awful Jeremy Clarkson was, but I am now appalled at both his opinions and the fact that Sunday Times gives him space to spew. I’ve quoted excerpts below the fold — you might want to skip them if a ranting ignorant transphobe would ruin your breakfast.
The stories about prominent harassers in the field of astronomy have been coming out a lot lately, and kudos to the field for taking steps to end a severe and chronic problem that impairs the advancement of half the members of the human race. But of course you knew the counter-reaction was coming. It’s inevitable. Pointing out that prominent men have been doing bad things always leads to defensive shrieks of witch hunt!
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So here it comes: a “group” called Underground Astronomy is very concerned about the well-being of harassing astronomers. The women they’ve chased out of the discipline, not so much.
Anita Sarkeesian’s latest:
I haven’t played enough of those kinds of games to be able to judge personally, but she makes a good case, and it’s just plain weird — gamers are focused on women’s hind ends, and are averse to viewing men’s equivalent? There’s got to be a psychological study in this.
I noticed something odd for the first time recently: women’s clothing buttons differently than men’s. I’d been previously oblivious, but just noticed because I put on this nice roomy button-down Christmas sweater my wife got, and realized that all the buttons are backwards from what I’m used to. How strange. I asked her if this was normal, and she told me that yes, this was the convention. Which made me wonder…why? It’s not as if women and men differ in handedness, or are consistently asymmetric in different ways. My first thought was that it was another arbitrary signifier of sex, like the absence of pockets in women’s clothing, only more random and less malicious.
And then Mary sent me a link to this article which assigns purposes to the different arrangement of buttons, and I simply found it galling. Their explanations don’t make sense.
At a time when news of sexual harassment in science has come to the fore again, here are some reminders about what’s really important.
It’s the victim, stupid.
First it was Geoffrey Marcy, the astronomer who was sexually harassing students for at least a decade. Next it was Christian Ott, an astrophysicist at Caltech who was up to some publicly unspecified shenanigans. He’s been suspended.
For what is believed to be the first time in its history, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena has suspended a faculty member for gender-based harassment. The researcher has been stripped of his university salary and barred from campus for 1 year, is undergoing personalized coaching to become a better mentor, and will need to prove that he has been rehabilitated before he can resume advising students without supervision. Caltech has not curtailed his research activities.
Again, we don’t know what he had done specifically, but we can assume it was serious if they actually suspended a tenured professor with two NSF grants and a CAREER award.
And then there’s a third case. It’s an old case, a sexual harassment situation that was quietly resolved a decade ago, and the professor involved, Timothy Slater, says he is a changed man, that he had the sexual harassment sensitivity training and is thoroughly reformed, and now has a decade of problem-free research activity at the University of Wyoming.
Unfortunately, what prompted the initial accusations were pretty ugly.
Officials interviewed at least 10 witnesses who worked with Slater and told investigators that he routinely made lewd jokes and behaved inappropriately. Investigators described a work environment where sexual innuendo was frequent and tolerated and boundaries were often blurred. Slater and another senior member of his lab often invited graduate students to lunch and lap dances at strip clubs and and even gave students sex toys — such as chocolate handcuffs and the cucumber-shaped vibrator — as gifts.
One woman who worked for Slater told investigators that he regularly told her that “she would teach better if she did not wear underwear.” Once, she said, “he grabbed her underwear through her dress, stretched it and snapped it, and said ‘You’d look a whole lot better without these on.’”
The woman also told investigators that she once complained to Slater that the room they were working in was too cold. Slater, the woman said, responded by looking “at her breasts and comment[ing] that he thought ‘they’ were supposed to get hard and stand out when they were cold, and that it must not be too cold.”
On other occasions, she said, Slater told her: “I want to get you naked” and “Stand up, turn around — half the boys in your class are going home to masturbate after watching you teach.”
This occurred years ago, and he’s got a clean record now, so barring recent evidence, we should consider him reformed. But it leaves open a major question:
How the hell, in a fiercely competitive academic job market, could this guy have gotten a second chance?
I’m sorry, but this is a cutthroat business where we’ll roundfile an applicant for a job who only got two papers out of a post-doc, but apparently we’ll give a pass to someone who takes students out to strip clubs and is censured for sexual harassment by his university — and in this case, the university thought it appropriate to make their condemnation confidential. No wonder this situation persists when offenders get a slap on the wrist and the protection of a wall of silence.
One congressperson is trying to change the secrecy of the Old Boy’s Network.
Speier announced that she would introduce legislation aimed at requiring universities to inform other universities of the outcome of a disciplinary proceeding. “It’s time to stop pretending sexual harassment in science happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” she said.
This state of affairs was made public by Pamela Gay, who received the confidential file from an informant and passed it on more widely. I approve. We can’t get change from within if the within is hiding its sins.
“I did this when I realized that astronomy is currently not able to protect its community members from abuse, and that real change would only be possible with public and political pressure acting from the outside,” Gay said in an email.
Now as I said, Slater got a second chance he probably shouldn’t have, but if he’s been a good citizen since I can’t see punishing him again. But my sympathy kind of vanished with this comment.
“My wife, Stephanie, and I are admittedly very, very successful in our field, which causes more than a small amount of jealousy,” Slater wrote. “Dr. Gay and her comrades are our direct competitors, and have unfortunately engaged in this kind of gossip against us for years.”
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The Slaters have since threatened to sue Gay. On Wednesday, Timothy Slater filed a version of his letter as a sexual harassment complaint with Gay’s university, accusing her of violating its sexual harassment policy by making “frivolous and malicious sexual harassment charges” against him.
Wait. The guy who was found guilty of rather blatant sexual harassment is now planning to sue the person who revealed his crimes…for sexual harassment? Maybe he hasn’t reformed as much as he claims. Suing whistleblowers for exposing bad behavior is a great way to shelter that bad behavior and allow it to continue on.
If Pamela Gay needs help fighting off this threat, I’ll let you all know.
One other thing: the American astronomical community is beginning to look like a terrible hotbed of abusive sexual predators, but what we should keep in mind is that the reason for that is that lately they’ve been exposing these problems to the light, and acting strongly to slap them down. That is a good thing. Maybe, instead of giving American astronomers suspicious looks, we should wonder why the European astronomers, or the biologists, or the chemists, are all sitting there so quietly. It’s almost as if they don’t want us to notice them.
I know that most of my colleagues and advisors were respectful and supportive of women, but I also heard second hand rumors of several who were not. I can’t name names, because these were second-hand…but if someone were to plop a file or a first-person account on me, I’d definitely make it public, as Gay did (note: that is not an invitation! I also know from experience how vicious the backlash gets. But I would not shy away from the responsibility, if forced on me). I would hope (and prefer!) others would, too. I know there are bad actors in every discipline, and so I’m less troubled by the vigorous and open reactions of astronomers than I am by the curtain of silence discreetly drawn over the affairs of other academics.
Here are Congressperson Speier’s remarks on the issue:
Oh, jebus. The full report (pdf) is available. Those select quotes weren’t the worst stories in there.
I completely missed this when it was said back in October:
Dr. Monica Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, one of the main organizers of this weekend’s protest rallies at Planned Parenthood clinics, said on Tuesday that even if Planned Parenthood were to stop performing abortions, she would still want to strip it of federal funding because it promotes a
corrupt view of human sexualityincludingsex for recreation, sex for mere pleasure.
Planned Parenthood from the top to the bottom is a corrupt organization,Miller told Ave Maria Radio’s Teresa Tomeo,corrupt in its view of the sanctity of human life and corrupt in its view of human sexuality. And I say even if Planned Parenthood didn’t perform one single abortion, just the mere fact that its sexual ethic is corrupted means right there, should be the reason right there, that they should not receive any federal money. The kind of sexual ethic that Planned Parenthood promotes is sex for recreation, sex for mere pleasure.
Wow. At least she openly admits that having sex for pleasure is bad.
I guess I’ll have to stop. Oh, my–I was supposed to stop about 25 years ago.
I think I know who is corrupt, twisted, and in opposition to reality, and it sure isn’t Planned Parenthood.
These guys ignored the events happening beneath their feet.
How strange. I was accused of neglecting an event important to feminists, the sexual assaults in Köln on New Year’s Eve. It was a peculiar concern to make, because I’m not CNN or Fox News (thank dog), I’m one guy, and I can’t write about everything. And in particular, one good outcome of these disgraceful and horrid attacks is that they have been received with universal condemnation, from the German chancellor on down — for a change, no one is saying “boys will be boys” or suggesting that the attacks weren’t actually driven by contempt for women, or arguing that all the assaillants were mentally ill loners. And I’ve actually seen quite a few feminist responses to the crimes, like this one.
The latest bit of casual Star Wars stupidity is the dearth of merchandise featuring the central woman character Rey — in particular, that she’s left out of Hasbro’s Star Wars Monopoly game. I agree that it’s indicative of this damned dumb unthinking sexism, and it’s dismaying every time it happens, but…there are collisions of multiple problems here.
It’s merchandising. Somebody slaps the word “Star Wars” on something, and people rush to buy it? Why? It’s the same terrible game as the version with Atlantic City properties on it, putting a different cosmetic face on it doesn’t make it better.
Two graduate students at Caltech complained that they were being sexually harassed by their advisor…and the administration took them seriously!
The Institute followed its formal procedures for evaluating the allegations and per policy the allegations were communicated to the chair of the division. This resulted in a comprehensive investigation of the situation by a faculty committee that reported to the provost. The faculty committee concluded, and the provost concurred, that there was unambiguous gender-based harassment of both graduate students by the faculty member. The faculty member was placed on unpaid leave for a full academic year, and he is restricted from coming on campus. Importantly, in order to make sure that the two students involved and other students are protected against continuation or new instances of such behavior – while also endeavoring to ensure that their academic progress is not adversely affected – communications between the faculty member and members of his group are being carefully monitored. In addition to these professional and financial sanctions, the suspended faculty member must undergo professional coaching and training in how to mentor students before returning to campus. A demonstrable change in behavior and mentoring approach will be required before unmonitored interactions with students can resume. Structural changes in the division’s advising approach are being put in place to ensure that students are properly and effectively mentored. The faculty member appealed these imposed disciplinary actions, but the appeal was denied.
Ouch. First thing I noticed was the penalty: no pay for a year, and booted off campus. If the faculty member was sufficiently prestigious, they may have multiple appointments at other campus so it isn’t the total kiss of death, but still, that’s harsh. Which is good.
The other thing, though, is that it’s not just about slapping down Dr. Handsy — it’s also about making institutional changes that help these students and others. Read the rest of the memo, especially the part about instituting changes in the divisions of the college. That’s how you do it.
