Women in the Sciences : Still Fighting to Join in
This week I read the article Congress Takes On Sexual Harassment in the Sciences by Eric Niiler (https://www.wired.com/story/congress-addresses-harassment-in-the-sciences/). This article discusses how the government, more specifically the senate, universities, and national labs, has recently reacted to the sexual harassment of women in academia and the sciences in the wake of recent Hollywood sexual abuse scandals and the #MeToo twitter phenomenon. The scandals in Hollywood led to women across all disciplines to come forward about sexual harassment and abuse, and the areas of technology and sciences where no exception to this. Recently, Virginia Republican representative Barbara Comstock spoke to the House subcommittee on research and technology about how women are pushed out of jobs in technology and the sciences, and that this problem has a significant effect on America’s competitiveness in these areas. Comstock also describes how the STEM fields loose talented women because of this reality, as many women don’t return to these fields after they are harassed and pushed out. Furthermore, NASA, NFA, and NOAA are all currently being investigated in relation to this secual harrasment and mistreatment of women found in the sciences. Kathryn Clancy, associate prof. of Anthropology at University of Illinois, describes some of what women in the sciences may experience: ““I have stories of sabotaged lab equipment, rumor-mongering, sexual assault, and rape…” (https://www.wired.com/story/congress-addresses-harassment-in-the-sciences/). Lastly, this article discusses how new guidelines are being established by the NSF to make the science a better place for women to work. These new guidelines prohibit sexual harassment, and establishes that the NSF will replace principle investigators who break this code. This is a significant step in improving workplace treatment, as the NSF provides funding for many experiments, and violating this code of conduct, and therefore losing funding, would have a huge negative impact on a researcher who is guilty of harassment, and will hopefully act as a preventive measure.
This article touches on many of the same topics as the article we read for class titled Double jeopardy in astronomy and planetary science: Women of color face greater risks of gendered and racial harassment by Kathryn B. H. Clancy, Katharine M. N. Lee, Erica M. Rodgers, and Christina Richey. Both these articles discuss the experiences of women in the sciences, and how harassment and assault is commonplace for them in the fields. Double jeopardy in astronomy provides a statistical analysis, based on surveys of women in the astronomy and planetary sciences, and acts to provide a quantitative perspective and viewpoint on what is described in the article Congress Takes On Sexual Harassment in the Sciences. I think many of the statistical facts discussed can be really eye opening to the true extent of this problem as described in both articles, with perhaps the most striking facts being that 88% of survey respondents reported experiencing negative language from their peers, and 27% of respondents reported feeling unsafe in their current position. Personally, these numbers seem very high, and really show the extent to which women are mistreated in the scientific and technology sectors.
