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Sexual Harassment Is Common In Scientific Fieldwork
sciencehabit writes: Universities and other workplaces have codes of conduct guarding against sexual harassment. But what about the more casual venue of scientific fieldwork—which is also a workplace? A new survey finds that sexual harassment and assaults occur frequently in the field, with little consequence for the perpetrators or explicit prohibitions against such conduct. The study reveals that the primary targets were young women who were harassed, assaulted, and even raped by men who were usually senior to them in rank, although men also reported harassment.
"jokes about physical beauty and cognitive sex differences"
It's so hard to take these reports seriously when they include the most trifling transgressions along with the truly egregious ones.
http://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/zines/spacemoose/polisci.gif
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Clever troll against men and bonus points for using the meaningless letter soup "irregardless".
A new survey finds that sexual harassment and assaults occur frequently in the field, with little consequence for the perpetrators or explicit prohibitions against such conduct.
Do we really need explicit prohibitions against sexual harassment and sexual assaults for field work? What about murder or violent assaults? Do we need to explicitly prohibit those as well? Or are those implicitly permitted because they're not mentioned somewhere in a field manual?
I suppose you might. Because I don't see how, if something is already illegal, it also needs to be against "policy". Do all company/university policies have to comb through the entire legal code and duplicate it in policy?
Fuck you, mate. I've worked with women (and in some cases under female bosses) for my entire working life. I've always been able to restrain myself from sexual humor, from making advances or indeed, from any kind of sexual behavior. I was raised to be a gentleman, and more to the point, I believed from the beginning of my working life that "coming on" to coworkers is a recipe for workplace malfunction.
Or, perhaps, because you don't have the wits to overcome your hormones, I could simply say "Grow the fuck up and quit believing permanent adolescent behavior is natural."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The policy manual where I work spells out all kinds of things; like not doing illegal things on company computers, not stealing, not sexually harassing or bullying people. What the hell is your problem with that? The whole point of policies, whether they cover unwanted illegal activities or unwanted and yet legal activities, is to make clear the organization's priorities and desires for the workplace.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Scientist A: Show me pictures of your boobies!
Scientist B: They're really big
My hobby: Making clean jokes.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
It's just stupid to blame a lack of policy for somebody doing something illegal. The absence of a policy in no way means the entity endorses an activity.
And very unfortunately, such jerks are more likely to be able to grub funding for their research labs from government offices.
May the Maths Be with you!
from the link you provided:
" Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead."
Sexual harassment occurs whenever men and women are together.
It doesn't even need to have both genders present. We all know that there are men hitting on younger men or boys and women sometimes abuse a position of authority to get a man (or boy) into the sack. For that matter, I'm sure that there are at least occasional cases where a lesbian tries to seduce another woman that isn't interested in experimenting, although these almost never get into the news.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
The policy manual where I work spells out all kinds of things; like not doing illegal things on company computers, not stealing, not sexually harassing or bullying people. What the hell is your problem with that?
What's my problem with your policy manual? Well, for YOUR manual, nothing, because I don't care about how they treat you. If it were a policy manual I was subject to, I'd have a problem with a manual that includes so much stuff that it doesn't need to that it hides the stuff it does need to include.
For example: not stealing. Do'h. By putting that stuff into a company policy manual, they're treating you like a child. The closest any policy manual I've seen comes is when it tells people that certain things that would be legal using a regular company's resources is illegal because this is a state university and then leaves it to the intelligence of the user to know that they aren't supposed to do those things BECAUSE THEY ARE ILLEGAL.
Any policy manual that hides actual company policies between such obvious things as "don't steal", "play well with others", "don't rape your co-workers", etc, is just a waste of time.
The whole point of policies, whether they cover unwanted illegal activities or unwanted and yet legal activities, is to make clear the organization's priorities and desires for the workplace.
I don't know that I'd want to work at a company that has to say explicitly that it desires that I not do illegal things on company time, and that it has a priority that I stick to legal stuff.
For that matter, I'm sure that there are at least occasional cases where a lesbian tries to seduce another woman that isn't interested in experimenting, although these almost never get into the news.
What are you talking about? I have watch multiple documentaries about that on the internet.
It's halfwit for "irrespective."
I didn't quite not fail to understand what you weren't not saying there.
It's seems like the problem here wasn't the BS "his wall calender offend me" kind, but the genuine rapey kind - quite illegal. Well, in this country. Maybe the field work was in a country where the victim is presumed guilty unless she has the testimony of 4 men not related to her?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It's also stupid for people to not understand what is and isn't illegal, but here we are. Sexual harassment is one of those things that is *still* being taught in the workplace with special seminars and courses to teach people about it because such a very small percentage of the populace actually even understands what is and isn't harassment and who to report the harassment to, particularly when it's their boss or someone even higher in the organization being harassing.
A lot of sexual harassment is downplayed as men being men, jokes that aren't hurting anyone, that the harasser and the harassed are the same gender, or that the person reporting the harassment shouldn't be reporting it because the victim isn't going to report it. And yet it's still harassment. Anyone can agree that telling a woman at work to go to the kitchen and make you a sandwich is harassment. What's more ambiguous is when a whole group is laughing it off because the person that made the comment calls it a joke and the rest suddenly see the comment as a joke as well (by the way, if you didn't get it this is still harassment).
However, all the teaching in the world won't stop a criminal from committing/trying to commit a crime. Groping and rape should be reported to police immediately even before talking to your HR department, but unless there are signs that it's going to happen (maybe all the sexual harassment that wasn't being reported before) there isn't going to be much ability to prevent the crime, only to report it afterward.
And all to shield the company from liability.
It must be understood that these "policies" prohibiting already illegal activity are not for the benefit of the employees, but for the benefit of shareholders and management. If they thought it would boost he bottom line to have rampant sexual harassment, they'd be spiking the water cooler with viagra and giving roofies to the receptionist.
You are welcome on my lawn.
what she did was go after the guy full bore, no holds barred, and not one thing made not perfectly clear.. Reported it to the employer, letting him know that he (the employer)had a choice. Do something about it before the day was over, or face the legal consequences of both himself and the asswipe being served the next morning. She outlined exactly what she was going to do. Which included sexual assault charges, and charges against the employer for having such a person in their employ., with a whole lot of publicity.
Her harasser got to not only go through a long list of reparations and counseling, he ended up being her employee.
This was in the home construction industry which if no one has noticed, is a whole lot less amenable to sexual equality that a university environment.
Which is all to say that if there is harassment, if there is assault. Then fucking do something about it. Otherwise, it's just an anecdote. This crap of just saying men are pigs, look what they do - is grade A bullshit. Press charges, dammit!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
SKINNER: Six hours, nineteen minutes, right ascension, fourteen degrees, twenty-two minutes declination... no sighting.
BART: Mm-hm.
SKINNER: Six hours, nineteen minutes, right ascension, fourteen degrees, twenty-three minutes declination... no sighting.
BART: Mm-hm.
SKINNER: (excitedly) Six hours, nineteen minutes, right ascension, fourteen degrees, fifty-eight minutes declination! ...no sighting. Did you get that one Bart?
BART: Hell no.
I can't imagine why scientific fieldwork in particular could provide an environment that promotes inappropriate behavior.
I saw this happen in the late 80's, when the heavy handed sexual harassment efforts first started.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Maybe they almost never get into the news, but there is a fairly high profile one going on right now: http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/1...
Agreed. When people say things that I don't like, it's disrespectful to others. Why can't people only say things that I like, and stop saying certain words which I'm irrationally offended by? These strings of letters are an eyesore!
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Most "sexual harassment" today results from a person saying that someone looks nice, not the other way around. This mentality has been pushed past the point of insanity.
When a guy walks up to a woman and says "Hello" and she claims to a Radio Host "A guy comes up and rapes me today." you begin to understand the depth of the problem. I can't find the quote, but this was on Talk 910AM in SF a few months ago. Perhaps you will have better luck looking for transcripts of the Gill Gross show than I did.
Yes, there are surely sexual harassment issues just like there are surely racist issues. Is everything being counted as "sexual harassment" really that? Hell no, just like much of the racist reports are not racism.
Comments like yours and what studies like this report exacerbate problems. It becomes impossible to find the real problems in the massive piles of false claims, so people stop taking any claim seriously.
As a guess, you realize this and simply wish to propagate the nonsense to ensure that nothing can be done to fix the real problems. That guess is based on your post as an AC instead of a real person wishing to hold any type of real dialogue.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Look, I hate to be the asshole who says this, but
Saying 'hello' to a woman is not harassment.
Touching a woman's hand once accidentally in the breakroom as you both reach for the same item simultaneously is not assault.
Women withdrawing consent hours or days after sexual activity is not rape.
Go calculate the numbers after you remove such incidents and then tell me what the actual occurence of male-on-female misbehavior is.
Not all "sexual harassment" is even sexual harassment. The original article referenced several "statistics" where several things were lumped together and they weren't really comparable at all. It was a clear attempt to create bogus inflated numbers.
The entire effort seemed like mindless yellow journalism intended to generate hysteria.
So I am inclined to think the article and the study is bullshit and weak ass science that should embarass any scientist.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Because I don't see how, if something is already illegal, it also needs to be against "policy". Do all company/university policies have to comb through the entire legal code and duplicate it in policy?
I can think of four reasons:
1. The organization's management is usually the first responder for harassment issues. They're responsible for bringing the people together, they have the authority to set limits on their behavior, they have the ability to monitor and follow up, and they probably know the situation better than law enforcement does. If the harasser needs to be separated from their victim, the easiest way to do that is to fire/expel or relocate them.
2. Not every illegal act can affect your job (or university enrollment). You wouldn't expect to get fired or expelled for speeding, would you? Having a harassment policy makes it clear that harassing your fellow employees/students can get you disciplined or fired.
3. Harassment policies don't just forbid harassment, they also provides rules and procedures for responding to harassment. Illegal or not, wrong or not, the most common response to harassment complaints is to sweep them under the rug to avoid disturbing the status quo. Even well-intentioned managers don't necessarily know how to handle a complaint without training.
4. Having a strong and effective harassment policy with backing from management affects workplace culture. The default attitude in a lot of places is that making other people uncomfortable for fun is no big deal, even if they repeatedly ask you to stop. A harassment policy says otherwise, encouraging victims to report instead of keeping quiet or leaving.
Visit the
It's not a troll. It's just a fact of life. Men are expected to be sexual predators and mating and courtship has to happen some time. If the girl doesn't like the guy, it will be characterized as "harassment" possibly as "assault".
Serious offenses and abuses of power should be focused on and eliminated. The "innapropriate comments" stuff needs to not contaminate the real issue.
Sexual harrassment started out as being defined as a genuine abuse of authority and has quickly mutated into "anything I don't personally like".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Presumably having a continuous good time is against policy.
Not all Sexual harassment isn't illegal.
I'm not sure if what you hadn't stated isn't what you didn't think you couldn't have meant.
Where I live, most harassment is not illegal, but allowing harassment to go unchecked is (for the company).
It's no different from any other issue which might make a workplace unsafe or hostile. Consider health and safety, for example. Making a mistake is usually not illegal, but it is illegal for a company not to take appropriate steps when someone raises a safety issue.
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Unless there is some evidence that it is specifically more prevalent during scientific field work, just reporting that "it occurs" is meaningless.
So you do see the point, you just didn't RTFA.
TFA claims (based on the research) that it is indeed far more prevalent in fieldwork than in the office.
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The lesson I learn from this is that men should file sexual harassment claims against women who dress less than professionally as a preemptive strike.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Behind many rules that should be too obvious to print there is often a story about someone gaming the system and pretending ignorance.
Also there's things like the military approach, where if you break the law AND the military rule telling you not to break that law you find the rule was added deliberately to double the punishment.
Here's what problem I have with this, as someone who has written and implemented policies: The longer it is, and the more content that the reader thinks of as boring and "why the fuck do they even mention this?", the higher the chance it won't get read.
If you want your employees to actually read and know your policy, it must be short, to the point, and use redundancy very sparsely and intentionally.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Ever had your butt groped in a pub? I have. That's sexual assault, but it's unlikely it'll get reported (or rather, accepted in a report) and included in statistics in sufficient numbers to show that women commit sexual assault.
Ever been chased around a pub by some girl who badly wants to sleep with you, but you aren't interested? I have, a number of times. First time she approaches you is fine, but after being told no it becomes harassment. It also is extremely unlikely to be reported and used in statistics.
Get it through your head:
sexual harassment and sexual assault are not predominantly the responsibility of the male. Both genders engage in it, but much like rape and domestic violence/psychological abuse, it is heavily reported for one sex and for the other it is basically ignored.
I lived through it with an abusive ex-girlfriend who repeatedly raped me. I lived through it with a psychologically and physically abusive mother. (I'm nearly 40 and I'm only just coming to terms with some of the scars.)
She set fire to my bedroom when I was 10, and tried to frame someone else for it (fortunately there was insufficient evidence for a conviction for him).
She tried to stab me with a knife, after throwing crockery at me, because I didn't want to eat some processed meat that had gone bad ("That meat's gone bad, I'll just get something after you've eaten." Plate thrown at me, 12" carving knife pointed at me, screaming for my stepfather to call the police because I was threatening her while slashing at me with a knife and throwing more crockery at me.)
This fiction that men are the only aggressive and violent rapists simply helps a mixture of sexist or psychologically unwell women, and it sells a lot of TV ads and books.
Exactly my point. Normally, company policies try to "fix" harassment by forbidding relationships with co-workers. That would be counterproductive. I rather would like to propose a way to improve the ability for harassed people to press charges and compulsory shrink visits for both including mediation, which should be also used for minor incidents (including misunderstandings) to solve issues instead of just hanging the man/woman for severe misconduct.
Marion Zimmer Bradley comes to mind.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
When it comes to rape, confidential studies usually reveal the most disturbing information
Believe it or not, most people aren't comfortable talking bout rape and sexual harassment with authority figures. Neither A) talking about sex with an authority figure you hardly know in a society where that's the most private matter of all, nor B) talking about something that traumatized you at all (let alone talking with someone you hardly know about it), are easy matters. The combination of the two is far worse. And the fact that as a general rule nothing good will come of it, and to the contrary a lot of bad will come back to you if you speak up, is just even more encouragement to keep your mouth shut. As a consequence, most rapes remain personal affairs with no consequences to the perpetrator. Disturbingly common personal affairs.
Fox: "I think we should call it... your grave!" Cast: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
Flirting with people you have employment power over IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. It's kind of the definition.