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Science Has a Sexual Assault Problem
cold fjord writes: Phys.org reports, "The life sciences have come under fire recently with a study published in PLOS ONE that investigated the level of sexual harassment and sexual assault of trainees in academic fieldwork environments. The study found 71% of women and 41% of men respondents experienced sexual harassment, while 26% of women and 6% of men reported experiencing sexual assault. The research team also found that within the hierarchy of academic field sites surveyed, the majority of incidents were perpetrated by peers and supervisors. The New York Times notes, "Most of these women encountered this abuse very early in their careers, as trainees. The travel inherent to scientific fieldwork increases vulnerability as one struggles to work within unfamiliar and unpredictable conditions."
I can't think of a single profession which doesn't seem to have a "problem." Makes one wonder.
Makes you wonder what, exactly? That this is not a "problem", because "everybody's doing it?" WTF? Look pal, the "problem" is narrow-minded, clueless misogynist views like that.
Wow! Just wow! I was thinking the same thing myself, except I put "this is a societal problem, not one just in the academic community," after 'Makes one wonder'. Way to go in projecting your fears and negativity on others.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
You're not comparing like against like. This study only looks at sexual assault in one particular environment (which, obviously, is part of someone's lifetime). The NIJ report looks at both physical and sexual assault, over an entire lifetime.
So that comparison does nothing to show whether sexual assault happens more or less often "in science" than "in general" or compared to any other workplace environment.
Oh, crap, I said "broad". Now I'm guilty too!
you joke but you are probably correct here. The issue is not that 71% of all women are being sexually assaulted. Its that 71% of all women "feel assaulted" Somehow in the past 40 years what someones feelings are trump what the actual actions are.
Saying something sexual, is NOT sexual assault.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The article looks at field work, not science as a whole. The results are self-reported, not verified or verifiable. And "harassment" and "assault" are defined so broadly that many normal day-to-day interactions can fall under them. In short, there is no evidence that "science has a sexual assault problem" in any standard meaning of those words.
Much as feminists and other progressives like to establish such a principle, in reality, just because you feel uncomfortable or believe that something was inappropriate doesn't mean anybody has actually done anything wrong.
Well yes, you are, guilty of deflecting criticism by claiming the definitions are too broad.
That's a common defensive reaction.
Problems should be well-defined. Someone can take that position whether they're doing it defensively or not and still be making a legitimate point. Calling it defensive, notably on a topic where there is moral stigma associated with being defensive about it, is just an ad hominem attack.
There are plenty of legitimate critiques of Parent's message--he appears to be dismissing out-of-hand an issue that affects hundreds of millions of people a year. He also failed to state what definitions he thinks are too broad to be useful. Responding with a question about one or more of those that might make people think about the issue is the difference between trolling and dialogue.
Actually Slashdot is like that about everything. What really gets to some on Slashdot is how people like you act all sanctimonious and incredulous when people disagree about something, and only when it comes to feminism.
Same goes for women.
Why is it always the men that get singled out here? That 6% figure for men ought to be far more eye opening than the figure for women. Basically 1, it's definitely underrported and 2, the focus is still on the women. The focus is always on the women.
Few men bother to report sexual assault or rape because there's little point in doing so. Most people are under the belief that women don't do that and even if they were to try, it's not technically possible. But, it does happen, even if most cases get swept under the rug.
As far as the figures for women go, most of the time it's 3rd parties defining it as sexual assault even in cases where the "victim" wouldn't consider it to be sexual assault.
Also, whether a woman finds an advance to be "harassment" or not depends on whether or not she's interested in the man.
So let that be a lesson to you. If you want to avoid harassment:
1) Be handsome
2) Be attractive
3) Don't be unattractive
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
No, what they're talking about is, according to the article:
“Have you ever personally experienced inappropriate or sexual remarks, comments about physical beauty, cognitive sex differences, or other jokes, at a field site? (If you have had more than one experience, the most notable to you).”
That's not sexual assault. I'm not even sure it rises to the level of sexual harassment.
Flirtation isn't sexual harassment. I'm sure every woman in the country must have been the subject of welcome and unwelcome flirtations.
At a recent professional meeting, a woman made suggestive sexual remarks to me about a computer program. If I had said the same thing to another woman, the second woman could have interpreted it as harassment under that definition.
There's a lot of grey areas and political correctness. If you want to look at it with publications in the scientific literature, fine. Let's use rigorous scientific methods to find out what the magnitude of sexual assault is. The first step is get your definitions right.
If you don't want to look like a creep - ask the girl to your room around witnesses (they don't have to hear, just as long as you make it feel safe for her to refuse). Waiting until your alone in a confined space, if not harassing, is very bad manners to the point of being ungentlemanly. Don't do that, guys.
Dawkins has realized that he was using a logical fallacy and has since apologized for that tweet so everyone in this thread that is trying to defend him looks pretty silly.
She never accused the guy of harassment or assault. She was just pointing out behavior that she found to be creepy and used it as an example of what not to do. The whole video in question had to do with things that make women feel uncomfortable and thus not attend certain conferences. Yes, people have to deal with that from time to time in the larger society but if a specific group of people want to be more inclusive than they certainly shouldn't issue death threats just because someone had the nerve to point out some of those "awkward and uncomfortable" things.