Harassment in Astronomy and Planetary Science
New survey highlights gender, racial harassment in astronomy and planetary science, AGU
“In a survey of workplace experiences among astronomy and planetary science professionals, about 40 percent of women of color reported feeling unsafe in their workplace because of their gender, while 28 percent feel unsafe due to their race. About 13 percent of the survey’s female respondents reported skipping at least one class, meeting, fieldwork opportunity or other professional event for this reason. Some men of color also skipped events as a result of hearing racist comments at school or work, according to a new study detailing the survey’s results in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.”
Survey reveals widespread bias in astronomy and planetary science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“In an online survey about their workplace experiences, 88 percent of academics, students, postdoctoral researchers and administrators in astronomy and planetary science reported hearing, experiencing or witnessing negative language or harassment relating to race, gender or other physical characteristics at work within the last five years. Of the 423 respondents, 39 percent reported having been verbally harassed and 9 percent said they had suffered physical harassment at work.”
– Harassment in Space Science and Astronomy (Update), earlier post
– Under-representation at Astronomy Conferences, earlier post
– Inclusive Astronomy, earlier post
It’s interesting that the paper was published in JGR Planets. I understand why; it’s about the audience they want to reach. But it could weaken the paper’s impact. Peer review means review by people doing similar work. It isn’t clear that a journal about planetary geophysics can do a good peer review of a paper on sociology (or criminology.) That could make it easier for people who want to ignore it to justify doing so.
Lynn and fcrary have both made good points. Here are my thoughts.
I do not understand racial or gender bias or harassment. I don’t think that it should exist. Any member of any subculture that claims enlightenment should extract such unenlightened tendencies from their soul.
I have noticed that competition within any professional effort can be fierce, with folks debasing themselves to latch onto anything they can to drag another down in order to rise themselves. Often, I’ve noticed that various forms of bias and bigotry get blamed for what is really base ambition descended into cruelty. That doesn’t excuse the suppressive behavior, but I’ve been focusing lately on treating root causes instead of symptoms, so the thought occurred to me here.
Unfortunately, studies have shown that “extracting such unenlightened tendencies” is almost impossible, and most people are biased even if they don’t think they are. If you think you are an exception, it would make you highly unusual. There is a deep, inbred (possibly literally, as in genetically) tendency to be more sympathetic to people who are “like you” and more hostile to people who are not. The bias may be unconscious and subtle, but things like double-blind studies have shown it is extremely common.
You point about a highly competitive profession, and people tending to put each other down, is interesting. Looking at the AGU press release, it says, “88 percent — reported having heard remarks within the last five years that they interpreted as racist or sexist or that disparaged someone’s femininity, masculinity, or physical or mental abilities.” Now that I think about it, I’m surprised that isn’t 100%. Hearing remarks which “disparage someone’s mental abilities” is pretty common.
Some people in the field are very blunt, aggressive and confrontational, and think this is a sign of professionalism (this should be about the facts, no pulling punches or sugar-coating things, etc.) But there is a fine line between being blunt and honest and being abusive or a bully. Add a little unconscious gender or racial bias, and the result can easily be a very hostile and discriminatory environment.
I think there’s a couple of ways to look at it. Having my foot in multiple environments, I don’t think this is unique to the planetary community. Hence, it confirms that those of us working this area appear to be no better than the larger workforce. That in itself can be a healthy jolt of reality. Second, this provides an opportunity to think globally but act locally. Obviously, we can’t solve all fields to make them better, but we can address how it affects this community. I will say that in the AGU press release, the recommendations seem rather generic, but hopefully in enacting the concepts, they address specifically how those in the planetary science world are being undermined by the actions of others.
What puzzles me is that Universities and other institutions that receive federal funding conduct annual, or at worst, bi-annual training on harassment in which HR basically begs folks to report, in complete confidently after the training, any examples they may be victims of or are aware of. Why are these folks not reporting it?
The experience of private industry shows that the situation will only improve when these acts are reported to someone who is able to investigate them and administer corrective behavior to those committing the acts. I wonder if the survey collected any information on if these acts were reported and if not, why not?
For the 9% who said they “suffered physical harassment at work,” I certainly hope they reported it. For course, some well-intended policies can backfire. Many institutions have rules about how complaints are handled which mandate action even if the victim doesn’t want it or thinks the action is excessive. Those rules were put in place to avoid victims who “didn’t want to cause trouble” or “didn’t think it was that big a deal.” But I’ve always worried that, by taking the scope of the “corrective behavior” completely out of the victims’ hands, this policy might actually discourage reporting.
But for the larger numbers in that study, there may be nothing to report. 40%, for example, did not say they were unsafe in their workplace. That said “feeling unsafe in their workplace.” That’s a hostile work environment (to put it mildly), and I’m not saying this isn’t a problem. No one should have to work in such an environment.
But that environment isn’t (necessarily) a result of specific, overt actions. So there often isn’t anything to actually report. Sometimes, the people creating that environment don’t even realize they are doing anything wrong. That makes the problem much harder to solve than things involving specific events and individuals.