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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.
I'm an astrologer and I frequently encounter harassment from mainstream astronomers and academics, so it swings both ways.
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!
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, 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..
Remember: StartsWithABang submits articles for the sole purpose of driving traffic to his own articles on FORBES. Forbes is unworthy both for supporting content like this, and for their aggressive pro-malware stance for adblock suppression.
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.
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.
You mean the comment to your coworker that "The view of Uranus is lovely tonight!" is no longer considered appropriate? Kill joys!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
AThere is a huge difference between low paid work (like an internship) which is part of the learning process, and being sexually taken advantage of. Making the two the same is stupid.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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.
Did anyone read this article?. "Geoff Marcy, a leader in the field of exoplanet research, has resigned from his position as a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, following an investigation that found he violated the school's sexual harassment policies."
Or how about this one? "Results from a recent AAS survey were reported at the last week's plenary session on harassment, defined as unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. Some 82% of astronomers have heard sexist remarks from their peers; 44% heard sexist remarks from supervisors; 9% experienced physical harassment from peers or supervisors."
Those articles do not read like SJWs and the do seem to indicate some sort of a problem.
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.
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.
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..
One of the astronomers in that list was punished for realizing he had emotional feelings about a student and telling her to go seek another adviser.
You're leaving out the part where he also harassed a second student. She provided the school with chat logs and other correspondence where he said things like âoeDo you think I am a shady person because I let myself be emotionally involved with my student?â and âoeI think I may actually be prone to this sort of thing.â The guy knew he was in the wrong, but instead of correcting his own behavior, he just moved on to the next student he could harass the same way.
The university barred him from contact with students and forced him undergo rehabilitative training not to punish him, but because he was a lawsuit waiting to happen when he finally went too far.
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.