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What Spotlighting Harassment In Astronomy Means
StartsWithABang writes: Geoff Marcy. Tim Slater. Christian Ott. And a great many more who are just waiting to be publicly exposed for what they've done (and in many cases, are still doing). Does it mean that astronomy has a harassment problem? Of course it does, but that's not the real story. The real story is that, for the first time, an entire academic field is recognizing a widespread problem, taking steps to change its policies, and is beginning to support the victims, rather than the senior, more famous, more prestigious perpetrators. Astronomy is the just start; hopefully physics, computer science, engineering, philosophy and economics are next.
Who are these people? Why did you separate a list of names with periods?
What did they (allegedly) do? How do you know there are "a great many more" who have done, and are still doing, the same?
For bonus points:
When were these things done?
Where were they done?
Why? How?
FUCK!
"hopefully physics, computer science, engineering, philosophy and economics are next."
Don't you really mean, "hopefully this is only a problem with astronomy and no matter how deep we dig we will not find this issue in any other field"? Do you really hope this issue is widespread?
Well, you know what to do next time someone tells you to check your privilege -- by which they mean "shut up, independent white male". That kind of aggression is primarily based on race, sex, and ability.
So, how does this whole SJW thing work ... the world is divided into raging fanatics who want a nicer world, and assholes who want to preserve their right to act like assholes?
I'm a little unclear on the concept.
Mostly it seems to be a bunch of guys whining they can't act like ignorant douchebags without consequences.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
So, the last link is for the Starts With A Bang blog, which is on forbes.com. They have their silly "turn off adblock" policy, so I don't get to read it because I use Ghostery. Not reading this particular blog is not a huge loss for me, after all it's a speck of dust in an infinite internet universe of interesting stuff. When enough feel like I do, it'll be a much bigger loss for the blog, and indeed for Forbes.
It's kind of sad when smart people implement dumb solutions.
Yes, for the the snowflakes who consider the sentence "I disagree with you" to be hate speech, I must be a monster.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Does harassment exist? Sure they do. So do sociopaths, thieves and other lowlife scum. However, I remain unconvinced that this is any sort of widespread problem. More than thirty years in tech, and I have yet to see first-hand, or hear second-hand, of one, single harassment case. I read about incidents in the news, but like weird accidents, they seem to make the news precisely because they are unusual.
The people pushing this stuff claim to be helping women. In actual fact, they couldn't hurt women more if they tried. In a professional context, men actively avoid meeting one-on-one with women. Two people need to talk about a project? If it's a man and a woman, the man (if he has a brain) will refuse to meet anywhere but a public space. No man will mentor a women, for fear of being accused of ulterior motives. Male-dominated teams actively avoid hiring women, because doing so risks unfounded harassment complaints, gender discrimination lawsuits, etc..
Mostly it seems to be a bunch of guys whining they can't act like ignorant douchebags without consequences.
Funny, you don't seem unclear about it at all.
What harassment? Sexual? Physical? Racial?
You can't just go on about something you haven't even told us about yet.
It's gender discrimination the editor was talking about by the way. You have to be clear in these situations because every special snowflake is being "discriminated against" in some way either because the way someone fucking sits or because someone doesn't automatically know they are a genderfluid, cross horse/dragonkin from Planet Zarblox X and are only attracted to slightly rounded triangles.
It's a good thing that problems like this are being tackled, but nowadays I'm always skeptic when people start trying to make a deal of it because most of the time it's someone being over sensitive because they wore cat ears and a tail to a job interview and yell "DISCRIMINATION" or "CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE" when they don't get the job.
That's what SJW's have done to actual battles for equality: they've bastardized it and made it less than it actually is by yelling louder than the people who experience the ass slaps or slurs or unprofessional jokes.
Everyone's so eager to be offended.
Too bad it's on Forbes and there is no way I will turn off my adblockers to view the page.
Well, you see, son, there's this group that raised a bunch of strawmen, and a group that didn't like being picked on by that one group created strawmen of their own, and every so often one side puts their strawman up in a field and demands highway travelers just passing through to help burn down their strawman, to show those guys over there how awful they are, and they should repent.
And then the other side sees this, flags down the traveler, and says "yeah, their strawman sucks, but here, burn down ours; it'll make you feel better about that strawman since that other strawman there was a commentary about YOU, friendly and possibly disenfranchised traveler."
Said traveler raises brows, alarmed, mutters, "Not my circus, not my monkeys" and promptly floors the pedal.
Both sides are filled with first-world-problem-ridden douchebags that want to act like ignorant assholes without being called on it. Both sides think they're doing the right thing.
Everyone else ain't got time for this shit, until it invades their space.
Oh, look, it's time to gather straw. Anyone got a few extra flannel shirts lying around?
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Really? Because the majority of people who are accused of being horrible evil SJW scum are people who see someone else acting like a shit, and saying "hey, that's kinda bad, maybe you shouldn't do that?" and then getting wrapped up in a generalization by angry Mens Rights Assholes (and the dupes that follow them) and are promptly accused of every possible crime ever committed by any person that the MRAs don't like, while those same MRAs also rant about how we shouldn't accuse them of being complicit in the crimes committed by other people who are part of their "movement" in the name of said movement, because hey, everyone's an individual deserving of being judged only on the things you can positively prove they themselves did (unless they're a dirty filthy SJW, in which case burn their house down, they deserve it because someone else you don't like did something else you also didn't like).
Perhaps you are not clear about what harassment is?
If you take a little bit of Google for a moment, you learn that harassment is "aggressive pressure or intimidation".
Your definition is too broad. Perhaps some people like it that way, but not me. I like words to mean specific and precise things so that when I bring my case to the law, they know exactly how actionable it is, and so that justice is appropriately served, and so that nobody can misuse the law against me with too broad a definition.
I might "disregard" your feelings and call you an ignorant jerk. But that isn't harassment. At least I hope so. I don't know anymore.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Bullshit. We're all allowed emotions. Harassment is when you let your emotions affect your actions and disregard the feelings of others.
Your feelings are no one's problem but your own. Any time you find yourself about to say "you made me feel", stop, and shut up before you proclaim your immaturity to the world.
If you think there's something wrong with a professor realizing he's on dangerous ground, and has either lost objectivity about, or might begin actually sexually harassing a student, and stepping out of the adviser role, WTF? It's exactly the right behavior - better to not fall for the wrong person, but humanity has never found a solution to that problem.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Let me help!
So, we probably agree that sexism, racism, and sexual harassment are still big problems in 2016. We can observe that the listed professions are predominantly male.
Two options immediately come to me. I'm sure there are more.
#1: Reach out to members of those professions and ask them why they went into it and what they think might interest more women to choose those professions. Work with high schools and middle schools to interest teenage girls in those professions. Work with elementary schools to deal with the complex problem internalized misogyny presents and try to prevent teachers at that stage from subconsciously turning girls off to maths and science. I'm sure there's a lot more work that needs to be done in addition, but I am confident that within two generations, this will be a solved problem.
Silly me. There I am thinking rationally.
(Note: Please do not get your knee jerking. I'm sure there are people engaged in #1. I'm one of them. I'm about to explain the mindset behind several times I've been on the receiving end of sexism and racism from both men and women.)
#2: Sexism, racism, and sexual harassment are bad things. People who have white skin tend to be racist. People who were assigned the male gender at birth engage in sexual harassment. Therefore, all whites assigned the male gender at birth are guilty of sexism, racism, and sexual harassment. Oh, and remember that "two wrongs make a right" is an axiom in this approach.
This is the important part of #2 and how it's guaranteed to solve the problem posthaste! Keep your eyes out! See somebody who's programming? Send over somebody who will be completely hopeless at learning it and have her go "I wanna be a programmer." Then when he fails, call him sexist to his face. Make sure he understand that software wouldn't have bug if filthy men like him weren't keeping women out of the field.
That's one technique. There are many more. Let's explore microaggressions: if somebody is doing something that is making me sufficiently uncomfortable, I might ask them to stop. It's a bit awkward, but usually they do and we move on. What we see here in this article, however, is the internet lynch mob approach. If somebody does something that makes you feel uncomfortable, send an internet lynch mob after them!
Hope that helped. Some people who are sexist merely use "fighting sexism" as an excuse to display their sexism.
Harassment is everything said, done after you have been told No or stop.
"I'm sorry , you haven't done any of the work, I have to fail you for this class."
No. Stop.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
First of all, we should stop the harassment of astronomers and astrophysicists just because they wore tacky shirts in a press conference. Once we're satisfied that's been settled (say, 5 years with no incidents), we can start working on the rest.
Disclaimer: I also restrain from giving female co-workers compliments for the same reason. I previously had great respect for one of the women who's called me sexist to my face and thought she was an intelligent, rational, worldly person. They're out there. It's a minefield. I'm hoping after I complete gender transition I will be able to compliment other women on their hair or dress (hint: a good way to do this is to ask where she bought a certain item).
Also, feminism at present seems to have declared war on me. Keep that in mind the next time you think feminism is on the side of trans folks. AmiMoJo will tell you differently, but it's definitely different where s/he is than it is here. I live within a day's drive of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.
Anyway! On to the point.
Sometimes, bald-faced gender discrimination does happen. Guess where it comes from? Gaslighting asshole managers. Companies who employ and are directed by those gaslighting asshole managers need to be held accountable so they're less inclined to hire gaslighting asshole sexists.
Long story short, best hacker I knew got "outed" (she wasn't deep stealth and was open about it, just a certain gaslighting asshole manager hadn't heard about it yet) and then promptly fired. I'll bet the gaslighting asshole thought "What! A liberal SJW feminist tranny? In my business? He's really a man anyway, so no discrimination here. B&!" (She's also anything but SJW.)
Heh, I'll bet he crapped his pants when the letter from the lawyer noted that not only is being a woman a protected class, but in the jurisdiction there, gender identity is also protected.
Let me cast "Circle of Protection: MRAs, feminists, SJWs, and anti-SJWs" on my friend. It was my idea to start the lawsuit, and another one of her friends and I talked her into it.
So, in summary, the true tragedy of all this SJW Gish galloping is that cases of real, provable, illegal discrimination do happen but get lost in the noise and then swept up in a stereotype that these lawsuits are people just looking for an easy payday. Also, real, disgusting, creepy as fuck sexual harassment does happen, but it gets lost in the noise of microaggressions. The only way to deal with this is to find cases where it's actually happening, prosecute, and be prepared to blame the real culprits instead of nerds and geeks: gaslighting asshole managers.
That's the kind of mentality that leads to witchhunts and dark ages. Stable societies depend on free flow of the truth, regardless of how upsetting it might be to some.
Which story was this? I skimmed the articles, but didn't see this story described (and am far too lazy to actually read the articles in full).
Also, I don't know about whether punishment is fair, but it's certainly not fair to the student to ask them to find another advisor. An academic advisor isn't something you can change like a pair of shoes, and requiring a change can have an impact on your academic career.
If the man had serious problems with the idea of continuing working with her, that sounds like a mental problem on his part. Maybe the solution is to find the student another advisor, but to simply say "you're too sexy, out of luck" is the wrong way to frame it, even if it leads to the same outcome.
Last post!
Perhaps you are not clear about what harassment is?
If you take a little bit of Google for a moment, you learn that harassment is "aggressive pressure or intimidation".
....chomp....
Of interest to bystanders is that this is a spectrum issue.
For some "aggressive pressure or intimidation" is "good morning you
are looking good today".
i.e. what was a compliment is now an acknowledgement of other topics not related
to the work at hand.
Other bystanders ponder the astounding permutations of the modern world of LGBT+
where inclusion and exclusion are difficult to quantify for a laundry list of reasons the
least of which is Sex on employment records is binary M/F. It does not even address
the obvious question of Yes vs. No or NO vs. NFW.
Simply discussing the topic is harassing and intimidating to some.
Saying "no" is astoundingly difficult for some and saying no is a
cultural impossibility. In a class room it is no longer effective to ask
if anyone does not understand. "Does every one understand the last
chapter.... " Asking will not discover comprehension. Testing is the
only cultural option for some groups. Testing for sex related topics crosses
the line for some and is harassing for others.
Then there are other agenda... there are many that still go to school for their "Mrs".
Not all but a lot. Success in the Mrs. program often reaches into the rich pool
of proven smart graduate assistants. This is a mind set that even when not
considered in school becomes a biologic clock issue for some again org charts
separate the good, better, best candidates.
Visual clues are cultural.
Growing up "red" shoes" advertised a profession.
Around the world advertising of availability can be subtle and opaque
to those that do not know.. now what does a single ear ring in that
ear tell me? Visible ankle, calf, thigh, tramp stamp, long, short no sleeves.
Head covering is in the news but is unclear....
Yoga pants...
In my personal experience the most troubling abuses of power were
made by the wives of managers. No one pays attention to the power
struggle at home and the collateral damage in the work place.
BONUS: what is the most common matriarchal group in the US?
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Sorry, but when it comes to truth, no one should expect exemption from it at others' expense. The more we enable these hugboxes, the less society is capable of dealing with reality.
More than thirty years in tech, and I have yet to see first-hand, or hear second-hand, of one, single harassment case.
There is safety in posting as an anonymous coward. ---
But, to my ears, you describe a male-dominated workforce that has circled the wagons and s profoundly hostile and suspicious of women:
men actively avoid meeting one-on-one with women. Two people need to talk about a project? If it's a man and a woman, the man (if he has a brain) will refuse to meet anywhere but a public space. No man will mentor a women, for fear of being accused of ulterior motives. Male-dominated teams actively avoid hiring women, because doing so risks unfounded harassment complaints, gender discrimination lawsuits, etc..
Meaning that it must be ok to speak regardless of hurt feelings so that truth can be heard and false statements called out. I never said that no means yes. Of course, you're equating the former with people who think the latter, which is an ad hominem fallacy.
Please don't muddy a good rant about how men are so put upon with actual facts.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Have you ever been given unwanted romantic / sexual attention? Or seen it happening? Isn't it uncomfortable? And shouldn't people be able to work without it?
I'm a heterosexual man, and I've got a male coworker who is bisexual, who once when (in a group of coworkers) discussing a particularly smart outfit I was wearing, said "You're making me hot just looking at you." He genuinely meant it as a compliment, but given that we had never had more than a professional relationship, it was inappropriate.
Now he hasn't really made any further comments, so it hasn't been much of an issue (although I am much more circumspect about how I interact with him now). But suppose he said something like that once a month. Or that he kept asking me over to his place or to go see movies 1-1. That would make me pretty uncomfortable -- and I shouldn't have to put up with that at work.
That's not to say you can never ask anyone out at work. It's to say that you should be aware that the other person is unusually constrained. It's not like a party where they can just mingle somewhere else: they're stuck working with you unless one of you finds a new job. You should always be reasonably sure that the question itself will not be unwelcome, even in a merely social situation; at work, the level of "how sure should I be" is higher -- not because of the risk of being fired, but because of how much more constrained the other person is in how they can respond if they're not interested.
Doesn't that make sense? This seems like basic human consideration to me.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.