Sexual harassment in science redux: now with paleoanthropology!
February 10, 2016 9:33 AM Subscribe
Loudly, and apparently without caring who heard her, a research assistant at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City charged that her boss—noted paleoanthropologist Brian Richmond, the museum’s curator of human origins—had “sexually assaulted” her in his hotel room after a meeting the previous September in Florence, Italy. At the meeting, one person who heard the allegations was Bernard Wood, 70, a senior paleoanthropologist originally from the United Kingdom. In St. Louis, Wood canvassed younger researchers about their experiences with Richmond. He asked everyone the same question: “Does this alleged behavior come as any surprise to you?” He didn’t get the “yes” he was expecting.
So this language "a zero tolerance warning was issued" makes me think that the phrase 'zero tolerance' has absolutely zero meaning.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:50 AM on February 10, 2016 [22 favorites]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:50 AM on February 10, 2016 [22 favorites]
To be honest, I thought you and barchan might have been much closer to it than I am since it's paleoanthropology, so I kind of figured that if we were discussing it here it might have to be me who brought it. I'm... not surprised you're close to it, and I can only imagine how emotional and angry and relieved I would be if this was a case surrounding around any of the people that I have heard varying degrees of scary things about in my own field.
posted by sciatrix at 9:50 AM on February 10, 2016
posted by sciatrix at 9:50 AM on February 10, 2016
Academic fiefdoms need to die. So much of the illness at the heart of academia today can be traced back to how many petty tyrants there are.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:52 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:52 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
Good on Bernard Wood for following up on this and, perhaps more importantly, believing what he was told. Cases like this, in any field, can easily hit a brick wall if senior staff turn a blind eye or dismiss the experiences of their vulnerable junior colleagues.
posted by Panjandrum at 9:54 AM on February 10, 2016 [33 favorites]
posted by Panjandrum at 9:54 AM on February 10, 2016 [33 favorites]
Why does reading about the power dynamics in academia make me think about masters and slaves or parents and children?
posted by clawsoon at 9:58 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
“With undergraduates especially, there can be no consensual acts on the part of the women, who have no power.”Maybe there's something wrong with that power dynamic itself, not just with the people who take advantage of it?
posted by clawsoon at 9:58 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
One of my former students was involved in that SAFE study (not as co-author) 1and I am both proud of her and yet appalled at the numbers she helped bring out for sexual harassment in archaeological fieldwork. It has certainly made me much more aware of the need for "boundary maintenance".
And yeah, kudos to the female RA who spoke out and wouldn't stop, and to Wood for believing the stories he was told, and shame on the AMNH for their willful blindness. The more light shed on the cockroachy corners of Academic labs, the better.
posted by Rumple at 10:03 AM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
And yeah, kudos to the female RA who spoke out and wouldn't stop, and to Wood for believing the stories he was told, and shame on the AMNH for their willful blindness. The more light shed on the cockroachy corners of Academic labs, the better.
posted by Rumple at 10:03 AM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
“Title IX makes it very clear that a beautiful 19-year-old female wearing a halter top and a miniskirt can go check on her fruit flies at night without being touched or made uncomfortable by her professor,” Harvard’s Johnson says.
I'll take "tone-deaf shows of support" for $500, Alex.
posted by Panjandrum at 10:04 AM on February 10, 2016 [56 favorites]
I'll take "tone-deaf shows of support" for $500, Alex.
posted by Panjandrum at 10:04 AM on February 10, 2016 [56 favorites]
Academic power corrupts.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 10:09 AM on February 10, 2016
posted by LastOfHisKind at 10:09 AM on February 10, 2016
Absolutely.
posted by Sophie1 at 10:14 AM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Sophie1 at 10:14 AM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
Senior women report years of unwanted sexual attention in the field, at meetings, and on campus.
I'm not in paleoanthropology, but I did a lot of fieldwork for my degree. There was a ton of bad behavior from professors on campus, but fieldwork was probably the worst. On one occasion one of the men on a trip would literally crouch outside of my tent at night until I fell asleep. This was on top of creepy comments about how I reminded him of some model and intently watching me eat dinner. When we got back to civilization for a break before heading back into the field I voiced these concerns (which couldn't be anonymous-I was the only woman out of a four person group).
The solution they came to was to send another, younger man--from my age group--out in the field with all of us.
Worked out about as well as you'd expect really.
posted by suddenly, and without warning, at 10:31 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm not in paleoanthropology, but I did a lot of fieldwork for my degree. There was a ton of bad behavior from professors on campus, but fieldwork was probably the worst. On one occasion one of the men on a trip would literally crouch outside of my tent at night until I fell asleep. This was on top of creepy comments about how I reminded him of some model and intently watching me eat dinner. When we got back to civilization for a break before heading back into the field I voiced these concerns (which couldn't be anonymous-I was the only woman out of a four person group).
The solution they came to was to send another, younger man--from my age group--out in the field with all of us.
Worked out about as well as you'd expect really.
posted by suddenly, and without warning, at 10:31 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Abolish tenure, require more teaching, pay adjuncts equitably. Get rid of the privileged class in academia.
posted by fraxil at 10:39 AM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by fraxil at 10:39 AM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
Abolish tenure, require more teaching, pay adjuncts equitably. Get rid of the privileged class in academia.
Yes, this. We need to get past this concept of academic nobility.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 10:42 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Yes, this. We need to get past this concept of academic nobility.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 10:42 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
A growing number of university campuses in the United States now acknowledge that the power imbalance between professors and students makes sexual relationships problematic.
Ya think? I guess I shouldn't be shocked that they are just now figuring this out, but it is hardly a new insight.
On reflection, this does explain some of the shenanigans I saw take place when I worked for a university, for which there were slight or no consequences. It's part of the reason I don't want to work for a university again.
posted by emjaybee at 10:44 AM on February 10, 2016
Ya think? I guess I shouldn't be shocked that they are just now figuring this out, but it is hardly a new insight.
On reflection, this does explain some of the shenanigans I saw take place when I worked for a university, for which there were slight or no consequences. It's part of the reason I don't want to work for a university again.
posted by emjaybee at 10:44 AM on February 10, 2016
Abolish tenure,
Academic tenure exists for good reasons, and it is not what is protecting these guys. Tenure is not not the blank check people think it is. You still have to actually do your job and follow the rules. Tenure just protects your right to decide how best to do your job within the confines of the rules.
These guys broke the rules. Tenure does not protect them. Really what's protecting these guys is money and the prestige that brings in money. Football players don't get tenure, but they're protected from the consequences of their crimes in the same way for the same reasons.
require more teaching, pay adjuncts equitably. Get rid of the privileged class in academia.
This I can totally get behind. Sign me up.
posted by yeolcoatl at 10:50 AM on February 10, 2016 [60 favorites]
Academic tenure exists for good reasons, and it is not what is protecting these guys. Tenure is not not the blank check people think it is. You still have to actually do your job and follow the rules. Tenure just protects your right to decide how best to do your job within the confines of the rules.
These guys broke the rules. Tenure does not protect them. Really what's protecting these guys is money and the prestige that brings in money. Football players don't get tenure, but they're protected from the consequences of their crimes in the same way for the same reasons.
require more teaching, pay adjuncts equitably. Get rid of the privileged class in academia.
This I can totally get behind. Sign me up.
posted by yeolcoatl at 10:50 AM on February 10, 2016 [60 favorites]
From the article, it sounds like what has mostly caused a) these guys to think they have a green light for every grope and rape and b) protected them from consequences is the fact that a) the women are too scared to say no in the first place and b) too scared to report afterwards, in both instances because of the massive power these individual men hold over the futures of these individual students.
Is that an accurate assessment?
posted by clawsoon at 10:54 AM on February 10, 2016
Is that an accurate assessment?
posted by clawsoon at 10:54 AM on February 10, 2016
Why when it comes to academia are so many on metafilter anti-worker? Some want to reduce job security and increase workloads. WTF?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:55 AM on February 10, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:55 AM on February 10, 2016 [10 favorites]
> Some want to reduce job security and increase workloads. WTF?
I think people want to prevent sexual predators from taking advantage of their academic positions.
But of course this stems from the desperation that is endemic to the academic world, and the hierarchical and partly arbitrary nature of reward and punishment there.
There are always many almost equally talented individuals for every academic job, and so the gatekeepers to those jobs wield disproportionate power and are corrupted.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:04 AM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
I think people want to prevent sexual predators from taking advantage of their academic positions.
But of course this stems from the desperation that is endemic to the academic world, and the hierarchical and partly arbitrary nature of reward and punishment there.
There are always many almost equally talented individuals for every academic job, and so the gatekeepers to those jobs wield disproportionate power and are corrupted.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 11:04 AM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
It's interesting to me that every time we discuss a case of a male professor sexually harassing/assaulting a female student, we act as if the academic world is not part of the rest of the world. We ask why these assaults happen and we blame it on tenure or the power dynamic in labs or academic fundraising. Sure, those things impact the specific of the assaults but I think they obscure the larger picture: as a society we think that men are more important than women. A man wants to touch a woman? Go ahead. Doesn't matter what she wants. The academy is firmly placed in the rape culture we all live in. The details may change, the larger picture doesn't.
posted by mcduff at 11:10 AM on February 10, 2016 [37 favorites]
posted by mcduff at 11:10 AM on February 10, 2016 [37 favorites]
Why when it comes to academia are so many on metafilter anti-worker?
Standard American practice. X is getting that and I'm not? TAKE THAT AWAY FROM X.
There's plenty of ways to fire tenured professors. Tenure prevents you from getting fired because you teach something that an administrator dislikes, because your research disproves your chair's claims, things like that. Tenured professors are dismissed, but there has to be a reason, and in the US, there are some due process requirements, like a hearing in person. (Tenure is considered by SCOTUS to have a property interest, so those laws apply)
The problem here isn't that these tenured professors weren't investigated and fired because they were tenured. The problem is the university that hired them and gave them tenure never did the investigation that would have shown just cause, and then did not fire them for just cause.
Professors are dismissed all the time for just cause, but if the school that hired them simply discredits the accusations and doesn't investigate, then finding just cause doesn't happen, and the professor stays on. Without tenure, if the school doesn't do the investigation, the professor stays on anyway. Tenure makes exactly zero difference here. If the university is flat out ignoring the very existance of the problem, I don't care *what* system you use, the offending professor will not be fired for it. They could be TEACHR contractors, and they still won't be dismissed if the people with the power to dismiss them don't care.
There are problem with the tenure system, but this is not one of them. This problem exists on the level of the people who hire/fire tenured professors, not tenure itself. If they don't care, it literally doesn't matter what system the professors are working under.
That's who's trying to sweep this under the rug. Obviously, the tenured shithead like that it's being swept under the rug, but they're not the ones doing the sweeping. It's the department chairs and the university administration that have the broom in hand. Unless you fix that, professors could literally be day hires and they'd still be able to abuse people.
posted by eriko at 11:15 AM on February 10, 2016 [30 favorites]
Standard American practice. X is getting that and I'm not? TAKE THAT AWAY FROM X.
There's plenty of ways to fire tenured professors. Tenure prevents you from getting fired because you teach something that an administrator dislikes, because your research disproves your chair's claims, things like that. Tenured professors are dismissed, but there has to be a reason, and in the US, there are some due process requirements, like a hearing in person. (Tenure is considered by SCOTUS to have a property interest, so those laws apply)
The problem here isn't that these tenured professors weren't investigated and fired because they were tenured. The problem is the university that hired them and gave them tenure never did the investigation that would have shown just cause, and then did not fire them for just cause.
Professors are dismissed all the time for just cause, but if the school that hired them simply discredits the accusations and doesn't investigate, then finding just cause doesn't happen, and the professor stays on. Without tenure, if the school doesn't do the investigation, the professor stays on anyway. Tenure makes exactly zero difference here. If the university is flat out ignoring the very existance of the problem, I don't care *what* system you use, the offending professor will not be fired for it. They could be TEACHR contractors, and they still won't be dismissed if the people with the power to dismiss them don't care.
There are problem with the tenure system, but this is not one of them. This problem exists on the level of the people who hire/fire tenured professors, not tenure itself. If they don't care, it literally doesn't matter what system the professors are working under.
That's who's trying to sweep this under the rug. Obviously, the tenured shithead like that it's being swept under the rug, but they're not the ones doing the sweeping. It's the department chairs and the university administration that have the broom in hand. Unless you fix that, professors could literally be day hires and they'd still be able to abuse people.
posted by eriko at 11:15 AM on February 10, 2016 [30 favorites]
A man wants to touch a woman? Go ahead. Doesn't matter what she wants.
I don't want to downplay this aspect of the problem, but I think part of the reason academia gets highlighted in stories like this is that, like the tech world, academia is actually pretty far behind in addressing this, compared to, say, the Fortune 1000 where awareness training is commonplace and the general tide of "what's ok" has turned somewhat. And academia is behind, in part, because its power structures are positively sclerotic in comparison. I think the larger picture has, in fact, changed, and academia needs to catch up.
posted by fatbird at 11:16 AM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
I don't want to downplay this aspect of the problem, but I think part of the reason academia gets highlighted in stories like this is that, like the tech world, academia is actually pretty far behind in addressing this, compared to, say, the Fortune 1000 where awareness training is commonplace and the general tide of "what's ok" has turned somewhat. And academia is behind, in part, because its power structures are positively sclerotic in comparison. I think the larger picture has, in fact, changed, and academia needs to catch up.
posted by fatbird at 11:16 AM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
Well, yes, the academy is part of the world, and rape culture affects it as well. But we treat it as separate as well because the academy does hold itself as separate. And that's been a part of the problem, because the academy does push back on fixing things based on that separation.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:17 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:17 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think the larger picture has, in fact, changed, and academia needs to catch up.
They're starting. Lord, there's a long way to go, but the University of California shows us that some progress is made.
Early in 2015, U-C Berkeley professor Geoff Marky was not fired after allegations of inappropriate behavior. Instead, he was suspended and required to sign a contract waiver that would allow the University to dismiss him without due process if he was found to have committed sexual harassment again. The response to this was...not positive is a nice way to put it.
More recently, though, U-C Riverside professor Rob Lantham was dismissed for violations of various and sundry university policy, including sexual harassment. Naturally, there is still some inanity going around, including a lawsuit, but unlike the last time, the University of California administration didn't ignore the problem and didn't protect the professor.
So, a little positive change. It's one university, albeit a very large one -- but this was a university that used to protect professors accused of harassment, and they, at least in this one case. As far as I can tell, there haven't been any others that have reached the stage where action would be taken, so we don't know if this is an outlier or a datapoint on a new trend.
posted by eriko at 11:30 AM on February 10, 2016
They're starting. Lord, there's a long way to go, but the University of California shows us that some progress is made.
Early in 2015, U-C Berkeley professor Geoff Marky was not fired after allegations of inappropriate behavior. Instead, he was suspended and required to sign a contract waiver that would allow the University to dismiss him without due process if he was found to have committed sexual harassment again. The response to this was...not positive is a nice way to put it.
More recently, though, U-C Riverside professor Rob Lantham was dismissed for violations of various and sundry university policy, including sexual harassment. Naturally, there is still some inanity going around, including a lawsuit, but unlike the last time, the University of California administration didn't ignore the problem and didn't protect the professor.
So, a little positive change. It's one university, albeit a very large one -- but this was a university that used to protect professors accused of harassment, and they, at least in this one case. As far as I can tell, there haven't been any others that have reached the stage where action would be taken, so we don't know if this is an outlier or a datapoint on a new trend.
posted by eriko at 11:30 AM on February 10, 2016
Is that an accurate assessment?
Yes, pretty much. Which is what makes Richmond's statements about how there was "consent" so terrible.
Although I'm nowhere near as close to the situation as ChuraChura I've been hearing a lot about this particular situation from my friends and colleagues in academia; during at least one of our big conferences this year there's going to be a panel as an indirect result of it. But for the most part, while Wood's letter last year sparked some conversation in my corner of the world, it's this that has really blown up my chats and emails. So while I have numerous thoughts on the whole, what I want to share is some observations about these conversations:
a) The not-surprised, yet surprised. Nobody is surprised, and frankly, there's been some names bandied about for who in our fields might be next up, so to speak, for scandal. The surprise is that anybody would think it can't happen in their area -it's almost laughable that anybody would think this isn't a situation in every single STEM (and academic) field, particularly fieldwork oriented ones. Naturally there's also been ongoing talk, for awhile now, about our own roles when this happens, but this has really revved up the, What are we going do as women, both individually and as a group, when this happens to our discipline? as a fairly hot ongoing topic. Which IMHO is important to help us not only be united but to provide a plan of action to steady some of us as individuals to remain united: inevitably the scandal will hit someone we know, or is important to our careers - something that might shake us.
b) However, most of the discussion has been circling about what we feel is an important, but missing, part of the public conversation: to also discuss publicly and make visible institutions that have dealt with these situations in the right way.
Because as much awfulness with the do nothingness alongside as my colleagues and I have seen, among us at least we've all also seen the rare case of institutions - colleges and professional orgs - doing it right. (Though one thing that stands out to us cynically is the position of these researchers and professors haven't always been as high visibility, which means the schools haven't had as much to lose.) It does happen. These are role model institutions and hence are an important part of the conversation.
Which is in itself a sticky pickle, because naturally one wants to protect the victims. So how does one advertise beyond rumor and gossip that Professor X got fired because he sexually harassed students and that institution A did the right thing? How do you hold up people and institutions as role models when it's usually not a situation as loud and out there as these recent ones have been and how do you do it without affecting those already victimized? None of us (in my little group, at least) are really sure how you do that in an effective, ethical, and legal way, including making it a constant part of the conversation that goes beyond high profile news like Science articles.
posted by barchan at 11:32 AM on February 10, 2016 [10 favorites]
Yes, pretty much. Which is what makes Richmond's statements about how there was "consent" so terrible.
Although I'm nowhere near as close to the situation as ChuraChura I've been hearing a lot about this particular situation from my friends and colleagues in academia; during at least one of our big conferences this year there's going to be a panel as an indirect result of it. But for the most part, while Wood's letter last year sparked some conversation in my corner of the world, it's this that has really blown up my chats and emails. So while I have numerous thoughts on the whole, what I want to share is some observations about these conversations:
a) The not-surprised, yet surprised. Nobody is surprised, and frankly, there's been some names bandied about for who in our fields might be next up, so to speak, for scandal. The surprise is that anybody would think it can't happen in their area -it's almost laughable that anybody would think this isn't a situation in every single STEM (and academic) field, particularly fieldwork oriented ones. Naturally there's also been ongoing talk, for awhile now, about our own roles when this happens, but this has really revved up the, What are we going do as women, both individually and as a group, when this happens to our discipline? as a fairly hot ongoing topic. Which IMHO is important to help us not only be united but to provide a plan of action to steady some of us as individuals to remain united: inevitably the scandal will hit someone we know, or is important to our careers - something that might shake us.
b) However, most of the discussion has been circling about what we feel is an important, but missing, part of the public conversation: to also discuss publicly and make visible institutions that have dealt with these situations in the right way.
Because as much awfulness with the do nothingness alongside as my colleagues and I have seen, among us at least we've all also seen the rare case of institutions - colleges and professional orgs - doing it right. (Though one thing that stands out to us cynically is the position of these researchers and professors haven't always been as high visibility, which means the schools haven't had as much to lose.) It does happen. These are role model institutions and hence are an important part of the conversation.
Which is in itself a sticky pickle, because naturally one wants to protect the victims. So how does one advertise beyond rumor and gossip that Professor X got fired because he sexually harassed students and that institution A did the right thing? How do you hold up people and institutions as role models when it's usually not a situation as loud and out there as these recent ones have been and how do you do it without affecting those already victimized? None of us (in my little group, at least) are really sure how you do that in an effective, ethical, and legal way, including making it a constant part of the conversation that goes beyond high profile news like Science articles.
posted by barchan at 11:32 AM on February 10, 2016 [10 favorites]
Man, I almost cried when I read about Wood’s response:
Also, resigning as the chair of a session right before Richmond spoke in it was like, JAW DROP. I can’t even imagine the shockwaves of someone doing something that huge, in public, surrounded by luminaries in the field.
(Also, when people say "the problem is tenure!!!" they are missing the fact that Wood's ability to rout out a predator was enabled by his position and his reputation and, yes, his tenure. The fact that some bad actors use institutional power for evil doesn't mean having institutional power is inherently wrong, as Wood has shown.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 11:38 AM on February 10, 2016 [61 favorites]
"Wood also signaled his growing vigilance about harassment in other ways. He called for zero tolerance for sexual misconduct in two blog posts on the CASHP website, on 21 April 2015 and 9 September 2015, and in a Science editorial in October 2015. He timed his 9 September blog, posted the day before the 2015 ESHE meeting opened in London, to head off Richmond’s candidacy for a seat on the organization’s governing council. (Richmond did not receive enough votes to be elected.) At the meeting, Wood also resigned as chair of a session just before Richmond spoke in it."He didn’t just make one token gesture. He didn’t tell a few people and let them take care of it. He investigated. He found evidence. He wrote papers about his findings. He acted like, you know, a scientist. He fought to keep a predator from gaining further positions of power. He used his own power to help protect the powerless. He aligned himself, in public, multiple times, with a cause that so many of his colleagues were eager to ignore or dismiss.
Also, resigning as the chair of a session right before Richmond spoke in it was like, JAW DROP. I can’t even imagine the shockwaves of someone doing something that huge, in public, surrounded by luminaries in the field.
(Also, when people say "the problem is tenure!!!" they are missing the fact that Wood's ability to rout out a predator was enabled by his position and his reputation and, yes, his tenure. The fact that some bad actors use institutional power for evil doesn't mean having institutional power is inherently wrong, as Wood has shown.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 11:38 AM on February 10, 2016 [61 favorites]
Tenure prevents you from getting fired because you teach something that an administrator dislikes, because your research disproves your chair's claims, things like that.
These days, as historically, the real threats come from without. Big oil, big tobacco, big money, big pharma, big defense, or big politics would love to get rid of that meddlesome professor whose facts keep contradicting the $2B advertising campaign we've launched to get that deregulation/exemption/reimbursement/subsidy passed through Congress and no upstart academic is going to stand in the way.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:38 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
These days, as historically, the real threats come from without. Big oil, big tobacco, big money, big pharma, big defense, or big politics would love to get rid of that meddlesome professor whose facts keep contradicting the $2B advertising campaign we've launched to get that deregulation/exemption/reimbursement/subsidy passed through Congress and no upstart academic is going to stand in the way.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:38 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
Which is why it's absolutely critical that academia clean house. And eriko, the problem with saying "they've made a little progress" is that for a lot of people, there is no longer any patience. The academy knows what needs to be done. The time for small steps has passed.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:42 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:42 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
What. The. Hell.
Yes, there are beautiful creatures with beautiful minds in undergraduate and graduate school, and professors are not machines and can feel the power of lust just like anyone else. But, for fuck's sake, we've undertaken a sacred and ancient duty to educate others so that the process we are charged with can continue, and that charge comes with sacred and inviolable requirements to perform our mission dutifully. There are no other institutions for which the sole mission is to discover new knowledge and it is an amazing privilege to be at the center of such a mission, protected by tenure and usually very well paid to boot. If we can't keep our fucking hands off the fucking students, then we ought to be put out of academe, permanently and swiftly, because there are many others who are equally capable (ouch, that hurts my ego, but it's true) and eager to step into the void we leave.
tl;dr: grow the fuck up, professors.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:45 AM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
Yes, there are beautiful creatures with beautiful minds in undergraduate and graduate school, and professors are not machines and can feel the power of lust just like anyone else. But, for fuck's sake, we've undertaken a sacred and ancient duty to educate others so that the process we are charged with can continue, and that charge comes with sacred and inviolable requirements to perform our mission dutifully. There are no other institutions for which the sole mission is to discover new knowledge and it is an amazing privilege to be at the center of such a mission, protected by tenure and usually very well paid to boot. If we can't keep our fucking hands off the fucking students, then we ought to be put out of academe, permanently and swiftly, because there are many others who are equally capable (ouch, that hurts my ego, but it's true) and eager to step into the void we leave.
tl;dr: grow the fuck up, professors.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:45 AM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
re: Mental Wimp's comment about what tenure is actually supposed to protect against-- the Koch Brothers and Papa John recently endowed the University of Kentucky with a bajillion dollars to ensure that teachers toe the "Capitalism is God" line:
posted by a fiendish thingy at 11:45 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
"Roughly $10 million will be used to create the John H. Schnatter Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise at Gatton. In addition, $2 million will give Schnatter naming rights for the central atrium in the Gatton building, which is undergoing a $65 million renovation.But, as NoxAeternum points out, using tenure to shield serial predators is NOT what tenure is for, and schools using it that way are poisoning the well.
“The free-enterprise system is the greatest mechanism mankind has ever created to eliminate poverty, enhance prosperity and enable the pursuit of happiness,” he said. “Entrepreneurship is critical to unlocking the power of the free market system. We’re proud to support this effort to educate the next generation about free market principles and equip aspiring entrepreneurs with the know-how to launch successful businesses.”
Previous Koch Foundation gifts to higher education — which often focus on the benefits of capitalism — have ignited controversy because of concerns over academic autonomy. For example, the contract for a similar gift at Florida State University had to be rewritten after faculty and students expressed outrage that the foundation could influence hiring and programming."
posted by a fiendish thingy at 11:45 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
academia is actually pretty far behind in addressing this, compared to, say, the Fortune 1000 where awareness training is commonplace and the general tide of "what's ok" has turned somewhat.
I would be incredibly shocked if the Fortune 1000 actually had less sexual harassment than academia. Both statements about awareness training and "general tide" also apply to academia. Neither are on their own sufficient.
posted by kiltedtaco at 11:47 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
I would be incredibly shocked if the Fortune 1000 actually had less sexual harassment than academia. Both statements about awareness training and "general tide" also apply to academia. Neither are on their own sufficient.
posted by kiltedtaco at 11:47 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
I would be incredibly shocked if the Fortune 1000 actually had less sexual harassment than academia.
As one of the few people to have extensive careers in both, I can attest that industry has 2-3 times as much harassment, waste, and stupidity as does academe, regardless of what industry propaganda or ideological assumptions may have convinced you.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:50 AM on February 10, 2016 [12 favorites]
As one of the few people to have extensive careers in both, I can attest that industry has 2-3 times as much harassment, waste, and stupidity as does academe, regardless of what industry propaganda or ideological assumptions may have convinced you.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:50 AM on February 10, 2016 [12 favorites]
we've undertaken a sacred and ancient duty
Yeah, that approach didn't really work to suppress sexual abuse in the church, either.
posted by clawsoon at 11:52 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yeah, that approach didn't really work to suppress sexual abuse in the church, either.
posted by clawsoon at 11:52 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
And thank-you Sciatrix for posting this, very much. It's been quite on my mind and getting to hear some other perspective is almost a relief.
posted by barchan at 11:59 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by barchan at 11:59 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've been seeing it all over my twitter feeds, but haven't seen it discussed formally in my discipline's circles. I haven't been to conferences for a couple of years, though. I'm on my way to a few bigger meetings this summer, one of which should incorporate a fair bit of field biology, and we'll see what kinds of panel discussions are had there. One of my labmates tweeted about it in a way I found rather dismissive this morning, but that's as close as I've gotten in my own professional network outside of twitter. (Of course, that network is mostly composed of other graduate students like me, so that's.... a factor. I suspect most of us are chary of potential damage to our careers; no one wants their career to be stillborn at this stage.)
That said, my specialty is not very far from, say, Katie Hinde's work, and you could easily argue she's in my discipline (behavioral ecology) as much as she is biological anthropology. (I actually encountered her work in a professional context before I ever ran into her work on a social context and was utterly delighted because nutrition and social behavior are pet projects of mine. I don't, however, know her personally beyond reading her work, which is why I decided I had little enough conflict of interest to bring this discussion here.) And she's been a huge mover and a shaker in social media about pushing this conversation forward.
I don't personally do fieldwork, but a lot of people in my department and my discipline do, and I was warned personally about a couple of names in my field when I was interviewing as a graduate student. I know at least one abusive PI in my department and I know that a student brought multiple formal complaints against them and that another student in that lab went directly to the dean and laid out their concerns, arguing fervently that this PI should not be allowed to accept students ever again since the last five had all mastered out or fled to other labs.
I also know that nothing formal or public came of it, that the student who brought the formal complaint is intensely bitter about the way they were treated, and that the student who brought the informal complaint directly to the dean worries that the sanctions are informal and believes that they only got as far as they did for reasons of departmental "fit" in research. (The PI is now referred to as "Voldemort" when their name comes up in discussions, because of course you can't say any of this openly outside the whisper network.)
And of course this isn't only a problem that field-oriented students have to deal with. I know another student in another department with another PI, who isn't field oriented, who was targeted by their PI and dismissed on extremely sketchy grounds. That student does not have the emotional, energetic or financial resources and stability to push a complaint and believes strongly that doing so wouldn't do any good for their damaged career anyway, and after what I saw with the situation in my department, I don't have the heart to argue.
I have been watching the astronomy community's sexual harassment with great interest. I'd like the whisper network to be more public because whisper networks never protect all the students who are in danger, and they leave the most isolated students--the ones who most need protection--most vulnerable to predators. The thing that makes me the most hopeful about these stories is exactly what barchan describes: the fact that women are talking to each other publicly about it and thinking "how best can I prepare for the time when this breaks in my own academic home?" For me, twitter is how I access those communities of women, at least the ones outside my own department; twitter and to a limited extent MeFi.
And I'm optimistic because this wave of public outcries is spreading. It's not just staying in astronomy anymore. It's not just one high profile case; it's another, and another, and another. It's something that people are beginning to talk to each other about. I really, really hope that these little pebbles break the dam of silence and pierce the abscess of this kind of abuse, because academia definitely has a problem with it. "How to avoid winding up with an abusive PI" shouldn't have to be as central a part of a budding grad student's education as it is.
posted by sciatrix at 12:49 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
That said, my specialty is not very far from, say, Katie Hinde's work, and you could easily argue she's in my discipline (behavioral ecology) as much as she is biological anthropology. (I actually encountered her work in a professional context before I ever ran into her work on a social context and was utterly delighted because nutrition and social behavior are pet projects of mine. I don't, however, know her personally beyond reading her work, which is why I decided I had little enough conflict of interest to bring this discussion here.) And she's been a huge mover and a shaker in social media about pushing this conversation forward.
I don't personally do fieldwork, but a lot of people in my department and my discipline do, and I was warned personally about a couple of names in my field when I was interviewing as a graduate student. I know at least one abusive PI in my department and I know that a student brought multiple formal complaints against them and that another student in that lab went directly to the dean and laid out their concerns, arguing fervently that this PI should not be allowed to accept students ever again since the last five had all mastered out or fled to other labs.
I also know that nothing formal or public came of it, that the student who brought the formal complaint is intensely bitter about the way they were treated, and that the student who brought the informal complaint directly to the dean worries that the sanctions are informal and believes that they only got as far as they did for reasons of departmental "fit" in research. (The PI is now referred to as "Voldemort" when their name comes up in discussions, because of course you can't say any of this openly outside the whisper network.)
And of course this isn't only a problem that field-oriented students have to deal with. I know another student in another department with another PI, who isn't field oriented, who was targeted by their PI and dismissed on extremely sketchy grounds. That student does not have the emotional, energetic or financial resources and stability to push a complaint and believes strongly that doing so wouldn't do any good for their damaged career anyway, and after what I saw with the situation in my department, I don't have the heart to argue.
I have been watching the astronomy community's sexual harassment with great interest. I'd like the whisper network to be more public because whisper networks never protect all the students who are in danger, and they leave the most isolated students--the ones who most need protection--most vulnerable to predators. The thing that makes me the most hopeful about these stories is exactly what barchan describes: the fact that women are talking to each other publicly about it and thinking "how best can I prepare for the time when this breaks in my own academic home?" For me, twitter is how I access those communities of women, at least the ones outside my own department; twitter and to a limited extent MeFi.
And I'm optimistic because this wave of public outcries is spreading. It's not just staying in astronomy anymore. It's not just one high profile case; it's another, and another, and another. It's something that people are beginning to talk to each other about. I really, really hope that these little pebbles break the dam of silence and pierce the abscess of this kind of abuse, because academia definitely has a problem with it. "How to avoid winding up with an abusive PI" shouldn't have to be as central a part of a budding grad student's education as it is.
posted by sciatrix at 12:49 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
OK, so here's a jumbled set of long thoughts, which is sort of just a litany of Things That Have Happened, or Almost Happened. My apologies for not having something more succint or coherent.
I had a really wonderful experience as a research assistant for my wonderful undergraduate advisor on his paleontology project in Kenya. On that trip, I was the only student, the youngest, and the only woman (other than a brief visit from my advisor's wife, who is awesome!! but who was a grad student in my advisor's department whom he married after divorcing his first wife). There were a few other faculty on the trip, too, all with their particular areas of expertise. My advisor was great and I learned a huge amount, and had an amazing time. One of the other faculty, in particular, became very focused on me and what I was doing with my body. Was I wearing enough sun screen? Why wasn't I wearing a hat? Why was I wearing those clothes (knee-length cargo shorts, tank top, with men's shirt on top)? Wasn't I concerned that I was going to be distracting to the Kenyan field assistants?
On the request of my advisor, a female friend and I shared a hotel room with a male PhD student. The male PhD student asked why I wouldn't share the bed with him; "he wouldn't be like a snake in the night."
I was applying to graduate schools in anthropology, and my advisor warned me against applying to a particular program to work with a particular faculty member (tenured, very important, still very active in the field, still accepting students and, I believe, running a field site) because he has a reputation for sleeping with his graduate students.
I am doing fieldwork. On my first trip, there's a problem with the salaries for our field assistants, and we're trying to negotiate with our field assistants to have them continue working. They're speaking a language I don't understand, so I zone out until the situation is rectified. A few years later, my main research assistant laughs and tells me, "Oh yeah, I said that I'd keep working without a salary as long as I could sleep with you every day we don't get paid."
While doing fieldwork, I have a conflict with another woman researcher over data being collected and the schedule of a particular set of data on a particular group of primates. It escalates and she gets in touch with the project director to have him help us figure out a solution. He apparently makes a comment to another research, who - I found out later - told a number of other researchers that we were fighting because we were sleeping with the same field assistant (this was not the case).
I'm preparing for an interview, and am told "They're trying to catch you out - just think of it like Miss Universe!"
A male graduate student in the field asks me if I was wearing a different bra than usual, because my breasts look different. The same graduate student plays "Bad Touch" every time he drives the project vehicle even though I asked him not to because it made me uncomfortable.
I'm out at a conference drinking with some faculty and a male grad student in my lab (I'm the only woman). Someone asks my friend about his research in detail, and complements me One faculty member follows me around with lots of lingering glances, goes out of his way to sit next to me, and calls me "a very admirable woman." I don't bring it up to anyone because that same evening, we're talking about tattoos and one of the other men (tenured faculty!) tells me not to get a "titty tattoo." Nobody else bats an eyelash.
But listing all this out makes me angry, and ashamed of myself for not doing anything about it. Part of why I didn't do anything about it at the time is that, if other people saw it and nobody seemed concerned, I felt like maybe I was overreacting. With a few exceptions that I don't want to go into here, there is no incident that is SO BAD that I want to stir the pot, or draw attention to my situation, or get people in trouble, or cause controversy, or have my behavior be the focus of a little of attention. And, as other people have pointed out, academia is part of the external culture, and if we have a sexual assault problem IRL then why should I pout over an offhand comment? On the other hand, one offhand comment after another (and this is only over the past 7 years) and suddenly one starts to wonder if one really belongs in a given environment.
I encouraged one of my undergraduate mentees to go to Koobi Fora Field School a few years back (one of the places Brian Richmond supervised), because it's so prestigious and awesome, even having specifically heard stories. We're all culpable in this. I'm organizing a conversation about fieldwork and field climates and how to properly arm yourself in my department, because nobody else seems to want to do this. The Physical Anthropology meetings this year have specifically scheduled a 2 hour long panel discussion on harassment in the field; I would like to think this will yield something useful. I'm just glad these conversations are starting to occur out loud, in the open, and in the light of day. No more whispered warnings.
At the end of it, I'm proud of the way the field is responding, and heartened by the fact that Bernard Wood and other senior men are as outraged and upset as us junior women, and are willing to thow their weight and privilege around to support the conversation and spotlight the problem and point to women like the authors of the #SAFE13 study. But yes, I'm angry that we're just another field with a stupid sexual harassment problem.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:06 PM on February 10, 2016 [42 favorites]
I had a really wonderful experience as a research assistant for my wonderful undergraduate advisor on his paleontology project in Kenya. On that trip, I was the only student, the youngest, and the only woman (other than a brief visit from my advisor's wife, who is awesome!! but who was a grad student in my advisor's department whom he married after divorcing his first wife). There were a few other faculty on the trip, too, all with their particular areas of expertise. My advisor was great and I learned a huge amount, and had an amazing time. One of the other faculty, in particular, became very focused on me and what I was doing with my body. Was I wearing enough sun screen? Why wasn't I wearing a hat? Why was I wearing those clothes (knee-length cargo shorts, tank top, with men's shirt on top)? Wasn't I concerned that I was going to be distracting to the Kenyan field assistants?
On the request of my advisor, a female friend and I shared a hotel room with a male PhD student. The male PhD student asked why I wouldn't share the bed with him; "he wouldn't be like a snake in the night."
I was applying to graduate schools in anthropology, and my advisor warned me against applying to a particular program to work with a particular faculty member (tenured, very important, still very active in the field, still accepting students and, I believe, running a field site) because he has a reputation for sleeping with his graduate students.
I am doing fieldwork. On my first trip, there's a problem with the salaries for our field assistants, and we're trying to negotiate with our field assistants to have them continue working. They're speaking a language I don't understand, so I zone out until the situation is rectified. A few years later, my main research assistant laughs and tells me, "Oh yeah, I said that I'd keep working without a salary as long as I could sleep with you every day we don't get paid."
While doing fieldwork, I have a conflict with another woman researcher over data being collected and the schedule of a particular set of data on a particular group of primates. It escalates and she gets in touch with the project director to have him help us figure out a solution. He apparently makes a comment to another research, who - I found out later - told a number of other researchers that we were fighting because we were sleeping with the same field assistant (this was not the case).
I'm preparing for an interview, and am told "They're trying to catch you out - just think of it like Miss Universe!"
A male graduate student in the field asks me if I was wearing a different bra than usual, because my breasts look different. The same graduate student plays "Bad Touch" every time he drives the project vehicle even though I asked him not to because it made me uncomfortable.
I'm out at a conference drinking with some faculty and a male grad student in my lab (I'm the only woman). Someone asks my friend about his research in detail, and complements me One faculty member follows me around with lots of lingering glances, goes out of his way to sit next to me, and calls me "a very admirable woman." I don't bring it up to anyone because that same evening, we're talking about tattoos and one of the other men (tenured faculty!) tells me not to get a "titty tattoo." Nobody else bats an eyelash.
But listing all this out makes me angry, and ashamed of myself for not doing anything about it. Part of why I didn't do anything about it at the time is that, if other people saw it and nobody seemed concerned, I felt like maybe I was overreacting. With a few exceptions that I don't want to go into here, there is no incident that is SO BAD that I want to stir the pot, or draw attention to my situation, or get people in trouble, or cause controversy, or have my behavior be the focus of a little of attention. And, as other people have pointed out, academia is part of the external culture, and if we have a sexual assault problem IRL then why should I pout over an offhand comment? On the other hand, one offhand comment after another (and this is only over the past 7 years) and suddenly one starts to wonder if one really belongs in a given environment.
I encouraged one of my undergraduate mentees to go to Koobi Fora Field School a few years back (one of the places Brian Richmond supervised), because it's so prestigious and awesome, even having specifically heard stories. We're all culpable in this. I'm organizing a conversation about fieldwork and field climates and how to properly arm yourself in my department, because nobody else seems to want to do this. The Physical Anthropology meetings this year have specifically scheduled a 2 hour long panel discussion on harassment in the field; I would like to think this will yield something useful. I'm just glad these conversations are starting to occur out loud, in the open, and in the light of day. No more whispered warnings.
At the end of it, I'm proud of the way the field is responding, and heartened by the fact that Bernard Wood and other senior men are as outraged and upset as us junior women, and are willing to thow their weight and privilege around to support the conversation and spotlight the problem and point to women like the authors of the #SAFE13 study. But yes, I'm angry that we're just another field with a stupid sexual harassment problem.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:06 PM on February 10, 2016 [42 favorites]
"I have been watching the astronomy community's sexual harassment with great interest. I'd like the whisper network to be more public because whisper networks never protect all the students who are in danger, and they leave the most isolated students--the ones who most need protection--most vulnerable to predators. "
This is interesting, sciatrix. A close relative was raped in boarding school by a fellow student who is now a professor and chair of an Atmospheric Sciences department in Florida. (She wasn't believed by her peers and so didn't report). So uh yeah, these are the kinds of people who are serving as gate keepers in a lot of these departments.
posted by stagewhisper at 1:18 PM on February 10, 2016
This is interesting, sciatrix. A close relative was raped in boarding school by a fellow student who is now a professor and chair of an Atmospheric Sciences department in Florida. (She wasn't believed by her peers and so didn't report). So uh yeah, these are the kinds of people who are serving as gate keepers in a lot of these departments.
posted by stagewhisper at 1:18 PM on February 10, 2016
Thank you for sharing your experiences, ChuraChura.
I found that in academia, there are these dual pathways of “everyone knows”— where people who are unaware of how rampant these behaviors are assume that they would know if there were any problems (Wood’s perspective before he began asking people), people who believe "everyone knows we don't have that problem here", and then the ghost network of people who know all the small ugly incidents that are incidental enough that no one wants to report them, but that women warn each other about, who believe "everyone knows the problem is endemic to this department". And those dual pathways exist within the same department, most of the time.
So the faculty are often out of the loop (or are perpetrators), but the female grad students make sure that their colleagues make informed decisions.
Female Grad student 1: I’m thinking about co-teaching with [male grad student x].
Female Grad student 2: Oh, hmm. You should talk to [Female Grad student 3].
Female Grad student 1: I’m thinking about co-teaching with [male grad student x].
Female Grad student 3: Okay, but be careful. You should know about [incident 1, three years ago], and [incident 2, 1.5 years ago]. I have also heard about [incident 3, a few months ago]. It could be a good experience to work with him, but you should know who you’re dealing with before agreeing to anything.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 1:29 PM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
I found that in academia, there are these dual pathways of “everyone knows”— where people who are unaware of how rampant these behaviors are assume that they would know if there were any problems (Wood’s perspective before he began asking people), people who believe "everyone knows we don't have that problem here", and then the ghost network of people who know all the small ugly incidents that are incidental enough that no one wants to report them, but that women warn each other about, who believe "everyone knows the problem is endemic to this department". And those dual pathways exist within the same department, most of the time.
So the faculty are often out of the loop (or are perpetrators), but the female grad students make sure that their colleagues make informed decisions.
Female Grad student 1: I’m thinking about co-teaching with [male grad student x].
Female Grad student 2: Oh, hmm. You should talk to [Female Grad student 3].
Female Grad student 1: I’m thinking about co-teaching with [male grad student x].
Female Grad student 3: Okay, but be careful. You should know about [incident 1, three years ago], and [incident 2, 1.5 years ago]. I have also heard about [incident 3, a few months ago]. It could be a good experience to work with him, but you should know who you’re dealing with before agreeing to anything.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 1:29 PM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
Back when I was an undergrad in Anthropology, a very sweet job came up at a state archaeological park very close to my university. It was understood by everyone involved that if the head anthro/archeaology prof from my university suggested you for a job at any of the relevant state parks, you'd get it. Since I was weeks away from graduation, I asked my adviser about the job.
He was very hesitant. He hemmed and hawed about the idea, and finally, after a good 20 minutes of "I don't know, is that the direction you want to go?" type murmurs. I finally said, "Look, I want that gig. If you don't think I can do it, let me know because I need to fix whatever's wrong so I can get a job."
He then proceeded to tell me about the last three students he suggested for employment at that park. Two quit within weeks of starting, and the third just quit because he got a better offer from another park in the state. "This job," he said, "Is a path to something better. If you're the right fit." He pointed out that the two that quit were pretty girls. The one that stayed was a dude. He told me that the park ranger was a notorious perv and both the girls couldn't take the constant stream of harassment. When he complained to someone in the park service who might have had the ear of someone more powerful, he was told, "Only suggest boys for the job. We all know it's an issue. But the ranger's well thought of in town."
I pushed him to suggest me for the job. I told him I was tough and I wouldn't let something like an old perv keep me from such an awesome job. Finally, I won him over.
The day I started the job, the secretary at the park looked me over and smiled sadly, the groundskeeper told me to "keep an eye out.", and the second park ranger let me know he went to college with my dad, just in case I needed anything.
When the head park ranger met me and started to show me around the park, he insisted I walk ahead of him, even though I'd never been on the trails before. He commented on how I was dressed (a t-shirt and shorts with hiking boots) and let me know on the days that I wasn't scheduled for tours I could "doll up" if liked. He obviously suffered from a lack of depth perception because every time he reached out to steady my shoulder going over rugged terrain, he missed my shoulder and his hand landed elsewhere. There were lingering glances, inappropriate comments, and not subtle hints that I could stay at the park ranger's house any time if I stayed at the park too late. And that was the first day.
I was there 9 months. I dodged a few grabs, made a point to never be in his office alone, and even went back to wearing a bra because the extra layer of fabric felt like protection. The other ranger, my professor, the secretary, and all the other folks who worked at the park looked out for me, running interference with the ranger so I didn't get into a situation I couldn't easily get out of. I left because I got a better job, and because the ranger was pushing me to work later and later and was starting to demand that I go to off-site demos with him. I knew things would be very bad, very fast in a car with him, so I kept declining. I knew my job wouldn't be around much longer if I wouldn't do this sort of stuff so I got out. Aside from that, I loved that job. It was amazing to be there at such a site and get to work the public and everything. It was exactly what I wanted to do with my career and I tossed it aside like it was a hat with lice to get out of there.
It's been almost a decade and he's still the park ranger of that park. My old professor stopped recommending students to work for him the year after I worked there, after another female student left after two days. There've been some scandals that made local papers and according to the rumor mill, he's still up to his old ways.
It's not just academics with tenure. When every person you work with warns you to not be in a room alone with the boss, it's not limited to the ivory tower. In my case, it was the tenured professor who warned me and didn't want to put his students in that position. Apparently he tried to take the complaints further up the ladder while I was there, as did the other park ranger who knew my dad.
I know other people have complained. I know other women have fled that job and that park because of him. And I know that none of it ever did any good because "he's done a lot for the park and the community."
posted by teleri025 at 1:42 PM on February 10, 2016 [30 favorites]
He was very hesitant. He hemmed and hawed about the idea, and finally, after a good 20 minutes of "I don't know, is that the direction you want to go?" type murmurs. I finally said, "Look, I want that gig. If you don't think I can do it, let me know because I need to fix whatever's wrong so I can get a job."
He then proceeded to tell me about the last three students he suggested for employment at that park. Two quit within weeks of starting, and the third just quit because he got a better offer from another park in the state. "This job," he said, "Is a path to something better. If you're the right fit." He pointed out that the two that quit were pretty girls. The one that stayed was a dude. He told me that the park ranger was a notorious perv and both the girls couldn't take the constant stream of harassment. When he complained to someone in the park service who might have had the ear of someone more powerful, he was told, "Only suggest boys for the job. We all know it's an issue. But the ranger's well thought of in town."
I pushed him to suggest me for the job. I told him I was tough and I wouldn't let something like an old perv keep me from such an awesome job. Finally, I won him over.
The day I started the job, the secretary at the park looked me over and smiled sadly, the groundskeeper told me to "keep an eye out.", and the second park ranger let me know he went to college with my dad, just in case I needed anything.
When the head park ranger met me and started to show me around the park, he insisted I walk ahead of him, even though I'd never been on the trails before. He commented on how I was dressed (a t-shirt and shorts with hiking boots) and let me know on the days that I wasn't scheduled for tours I could "doll up" if liked. He obviously suffered from a lack of depth perception because every time he reached out to steady my shoulder going over rugged terrain, he missed my shoulder and his hand landed elsewhere. There were lingering glances, inappropriate comments, and not subtle hints that I could stay at the park ranger's house any time if I stayed at the park too late. And that was the first day.
I was there 9 months. I dodged a few grabs, made a point to never be in his office alone, and even went back to wearing a bra because the extra layer of fabric felt like protection. The other ranger, my professor, the secretary, and all the other folks who worked at the park looked out for me, running interference with the ranger so I didn't get into a situation I couldn't easily get out of. I left because I got a better job, and because the ranger was pushing me to work later and later and was starting to demand that I go to off-site demos with him. I knew things would be very bad, very fast in a car with him, so I kept declining. I knew my job wouldn't be around much longer if I wouldn't do this sort of stuff so I got out. Aside from that, I loved that job. It was amazing to be there at such a site and get to work the public and everything. It was exactly what I wanted to do with my career and I tossed it aside like it was a hat with lice to get out of there.
It's been almost a decade and he's still the park ranger of that park. My old professor stopped recommending students to work for him the year after I worked there, after another female student left after two days. There've been some scandals that made local papers and according to the rumor mill, he's still up to his old ways.
It's not just academics with tenure. When every person you work with warns you to not be in a room alone with the boss, it's not limited to the ivory tower. In my case, it was the tenured professor who warned me and didn't want to put his students in that position. Apparently he tried to take the complaints further up the ladder while I was there, as did the other park ranger who knew my dad.
I know other people have complained. I know other women have fled that job and that park because of him. And I know that none of it ever did any good because "he's done a lot for the park and the community."
posted by teleri025 at 1:42 PM on February 10, 2016 [30 favorites]
A less charitable view is that Wood's investigation was intended to cover his ass as the chair of the department of which Richmond was a member during the sexual harassment of students. It is unclear whether the old guard turned a blind eye to such actions when Richmond left GW and was hired at the AMNH, but niche areas of academia are small worlds and this kind of thing gets around. A comment on the Science article suggests as much and points out that "the interrogation of female students by Dr. Wood as part of his own independent investigation was inappropriate and unethical, and should not be applauded. These actions may now seem benevolent, but may have served to ensure that Dr. Wood et al. at CASHP [at GWU] were not culpable in any way."
posted by dsfl340 at 1:51 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by dsfl340 at 1:51 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Tenured faculty are only workers in the sense that executives are. They do not own the means of production but they reap disproportionate benefits from a huge sector of the economy where a majority of workers are struggling. Supporters of tenure have pulled up the ladder after them. They are also shielded from their own misconduct through their institutions. They have elite status. Talk of protecting free inquiry is a smoke screen.
posted by fraxil at 1:52 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by fraxil at 1:52 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
If anything, students in field work-heavy disciplines are at an even greater risk for harassment and assault than lab- or office-based discplines. The combination of being physically outside of institutional settings and often sharing meals, drinks, lodging - basically both work and non-work time - has the effect of increasing informality, which can be easily exploited by someone who chooses not to respect boundaries that would be more obvious in a lab (eg, it might be weird to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with your PI 5 days a week if you're at a university lab - not so much when there are you, your PI, and 3 other researchers sharing the same house and also putting in 8+ hours of field work together in rural Uganda.)
That is to say, the sheer number of harassment and assault cases emerging from labs, classrooms, and offices has increased my estimate of how prevalent harassment and assault are in field work settings.
posted by palindromic at 1:58 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
That is to say, the sheer number of harassment and assault cases emerging from labs, classrooms, and offices has increased my estimate of how prevalent harassment and assault are in field work settings.
posted by palindromic at 1:58 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Can I give Bernard Wood a cookie? I know he wasn't expecting any for doing this work of uncovering poor behavior by a man he had invested so much time and energy in through so many years.
Seriously. I think we should send him boxes and boxes of Girl Scout cookies in praise and thanks. I say Girl Scout cookies because they are sealed (so he wouldn't be fearful of retributive action from people with ill intentions) and they are in season. And because at least nominally, the Girl Scouts are pro-woman AND support intersectional thinking.
posted by bilabial at 1:59 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Seriously. I think we should send him boxes and boxes of Girl Scout cookies in praise and thanks. I say Girl Scout cookies because they are sealed (so he wouldn't be fearful of retributive action from people with ill intentions) and they are in season. And because at least nominally, the Girl Scouts are pro-woman AND support intersectional thinking.
posted by bilabial at 1:59 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
from the article:
“There was an atmosphere of tolerance or at least a ‘what happens in the field stays in the field’ mentality.”
And this. THIS played a huge role in my leaving academia.
posted by bilabial at 2:00 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
“There was an atmosphere of tolerance or at least a ‘what happens in the field stays in the field’ mentality.”
And this. THIS played a huge role in my leaving academia.
posted by bilabial at 2:00 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
(Also, I wanted to say that this is why stuff like the all-women Homo naledi project was so awesome, especially from a paleoanth perspective!)
posted by ChuraChura at 2:08 PM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 2:08 PM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
Correction to my previous post...it's been almost two decades. 1997 is twenty years ago. Age and math were never my strong suits.
posted by teleri025 at 2:22 PM on February 10, 2016
posted by teleri025 at 2:22 PM on February 10, 2016
ChuraChura said: "And, as other people have pointed out, academia is part of the external culture, and if we have a sexual assault problem IRL then why should I pout over an offhand comment?"
Oh goodness, I hope my comment about academia being a part of the external culture didn't make you feel like you are overreacting or that the experiences you described are anything but horrible. That was not my intent at all.
The point I attempted to make above was that, while there is something to be gained by looking at specific environments where sexual assault/harrassment happens (it's the fault of tenure in academia! it's because of bro-culture in tech! it's all due to strict hierarchy in the military!), that approach does tend to miss the big picture of the commonalities. Why does this happen? Because our society doesn't value women.
At the heart of it, in a world in which we believe that women are, you know, people, the tenure system wouldn't magically cause men to become wild groping animals while those around them turned a blind eye.
posted by mcduff at 2:27 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh goodness, I hope my comment about academia being a part of the external culture didn't make you feel like you are overreacting or that the experiences you described are anything but horrible. That was not my intent at all.
The point I attempted to make above was that, while there is something to be gained by looking at specific environments where sexual assault/harrassment happens (it's the fault of tenure in academia! it's because of bro-culture in tech! it's all due to strict hierarchy in the military!), that approach does tend to miss the big picture of the commonalities. Why does this happen? Because our society doesn't value women.
At the heart of it, in a world in which we believe that women are, you know, people, the tenure system wouldn't magically cause men to become wild groping animals while those around them turned a blind eye.
posted by mcduff at 2:27 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
The combination of being physically outside of institutional settings and often sharing meals, drinks, lodging - basically both work and non-work time - has the effect of increasing informality
Plus field work often correlates with a lot of alcohol use and drinking. When I was in the field for my one field season, we drank pretty heavily when we weren't working, and that squares with the experiences of a lot of my colleagues. Especially in mixed-sex groups, actually; I think now that our field expeditions are mostly or all female there's a bit less drinking.
I was alone with my male PI for three or four weeks on that season, actually; we lived together, ate together, and worked together pretty much nonstop for that time, and as I think I mentioned we also drank quite a bit. (By my standards, anyway--there was a lot of rum and whiskey, which I a) enjoy enough to drink instead of politely ignoring (as opposed to beer) and b) have minimal tolerance for.) I also speak pretty minimal Spanish, which is the dominant language on our field site, and my adviser is fluent in the language, so that was an additional potential power differential. And... I felt completely safe on that expedition. Completely. Which is because my PI is, you know, a decent human being who does not see his students as potential hookups.
That should not be uncommon. That it is is a failure in the way we socialize professors and advisers about basic respect of their trainees. The level of assaults and harassment aren't necessarily the fault of the alcohol that often accompany fieldwork, but they do often provide a shitty camouflage for harassers to hide behind and something which is more likely to call the accounts of harassed students into question.
posted by sciatrix at 2:30 PM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
Plus field work often correlates with a lot of alcohol use and drinking. When I was in the field for my one field season, we drank pretty heavily when we weren't working, and that squares with the experiences of a lot of my colleagues. Especially in mixed-sex groups, actually; I think now that our field expeditions are mostly or all female there's a bit less drinking.
I was alone with my male PI for three or four weeks on that season, actually; we lived together, ate together, and worked together pretty much nonstop for that time, and as I think I mentioned we also drank quite a bit. (By my standards, anyway--there was a lot of rum and whiskey, which I a) enjoy enough to drink instead of politely ignoring (as opposed to beer) and b) have minimal tolerance for.) I also speak pretty minimal Spanish, which is the dominant language on our field site, and my adviser is fluent in the language, so that was an additional potential power differential. And... I felt completely safe on that expedition. Completely. Which is because my PI is, you know, a decent human being who does not see his students as potential hookups.
That should not be uncommon. That it is is a failure in the way we socialize professors and advisers about basic respect of their trainees. The level of assaults and harassment aren't necessarily the fault of the alcohol that often accompany fieldwork, but they do often provide a shitty camouflage for harassers to hide behind and something which is more likely to call the accounts of harassed students into question.
posted by sciatrix at 2:30 PM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]
I like what Eriko said (above ) about tenure. I don't want to minimize the issue, but this sexual harassment thing seems to take place in just about all activities where there are women and men thrown together professionally, and often, usually, it is the male with a superior position using his status to push his sexual advances on a woman in a lesser position. In academia, it is not just sexual misdeeds that often are ignored by the school administrators but other misdeeds, often done by students themselves, and the reason seems to be that schools police themselves and they do not want undue publicity.
posted by Postroad at 2:33 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Postroad at 2:33 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
The combination of being physically outside of institutional settings and often sharing meals, drinks, lodging - basically both work and non-work time - has the effect of increasing informality
And here's the rub: that kind of informality and being outside is what attracts so many of us in the first place. I love being a geologist, and fieldwork is what I love most about it. I LIKE the dirt and working hard for hours under the sun. I like sleeping in a tent for weeks. And sharing that with a colleague is just an incredible experience. There's nothing quite like being asked if you know someone, and replying, yes, you've worked with them in the field - the other instantly recognizes the intimacy and knowledge you have of your colleague. The best times I've had doing what I love is fieldwork with others, especially a team of equals. And it can be awesome too when you're not equals - how many people can say they've pissed beside their PI, showered together, heard them snoring, saw them sweaty and tired? Smoked a joint with them or got drunk sitting around a campfire? It's not for everyone, sure, but doing that together creates an intimate bond that can last a lifetime. (Uh, I'm not going to state generally that people attracted to field work type professions tend to be more. . .well, relaxed and fun loving than other disciplines, but maybe it's fair to say that those sciences get more than their fair share?)
But my worst times have been in the field, too. I've talked about it before; ChuraChura did an excellent rundown of examples right here in this thread. And beyond the horror of what can happen, beyond the stress, there's something that realllllly angers me about those incidents: they drive women away.
So imagine getting a taste of the fun of fieldwork, being attracted to it - and it's so not for anyone, so it's awesome when women want to do that - and then being stressed all the time. Of not being able to relax. Of worry. It's really easy to drive women away. Momentous thing about those intimate bonds: that's networking on a serious level. So driving women away from the field and into the lab actually just creates a bigger problem when it comes to breaking down the good ol' boy network, including a vicious feedback loop. Women lose. Science loses. GAH it just makes me so furious.
posted by barchan at 2:40 PM on February 10, 2016 [27 favorites]
And here's the rub: that kind of informality and being outside is what attracts so many of us in the first place. I love being a geologist, and fieldwork is what I love most about it. I LIKE the dirt and working hard for hours under the sun. I like sleeping in a tent for weeks. And sharing that with a colleague is just an incredible experience. There's nothing quite like being asked if you know someone, and replying, yes, you've worked with them in the field - the other instantly recognizes the intimacy and knowledge you have of your colleague. The best times I've had doing what I love is fieldwork with others, especially a team of equals. And it can be awesome too when you're not equals - how many people can say they've pissed beside their PI, showered together, heard them snoring, saw them sweaty and tired? Smoked a joint with them or got drunk sitting around a campfire? It's not for everyone, sure, but doing that together creates an intimate bond that can last a lifetime. (Uh, I'm not going to state generally that people attracted to field work type professions tend to be more. . .well, relaxed and fun loving than other disciplines, but maybe it's fair to say that those sciences get more than their fair share?)
But my worst times have been in the field, too. I've talked about it before; ChuraChura did an excellent rundown of examples right here in this thread. And beyond the horror of what can happen, beyond the stress, there's something that realllllly angers me about those incidents: they drive women away.
So imagine getting a taste of the fun of fieldwork, being attracted to it - and it's so not for anyone, so it's awesome when women want to do that - and then being stressed all the time. Of not being able to relax. Of worry. It's really easy to drive women away. Momentous thing about those intimate bonds: that's networking on a serious level. So driving women away from the field and into the lab actually just creates a bigger problem when it comes to breaking down the good ol' boy network, including a vicious feedback loop. Women lose. Science loses. GAH it just makes me so furious.
posted by barchan at 2:40 PM on February 10, 2016 [27 favorites]
Surely women too can dismiss male aggression
Wasn't that point addressed a couple of times in the article? That's exactly what they feel they can't do.
posted by clawsoon at 2:50 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wasn't that point addressed a couple of times in the article? That's exactly what they feel they can't do.
posted by clawsoon at 2:50 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
Tenured faculty are only workers in the sense that executives are. They do not own the means of production but they reap disproportionate benefits from a huge sector of the economy where a majority of workers are struggling.
Some of them even make six figures!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:57 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Some of them even make six figures!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:57 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I actually really loved the forced intimacy aspect of fieldwork when I did it, both with my PI and with the other student I shared housing with for another four weeks after my PI left. I just fucking hate physical labor and cold showers and not being able to breathe. There are aspects of it which are really amazing and it would be great if women who enjoy it had as much access to that without also having to be aware of assault and harassment as men do.
posted by sciatrix at 3:04 PM on February 10, 2016
posted by sciatrix at 3:04 PM on February 10, 2016
I actually really loved the forced intimacy aspect of fieldwork
That's an... odd way to put it? :-) ...given the topic?
posted by clawsoon at 3:11 PM on February 10, 2016
That's an... odd way to put it? :-) ...given the topic?
posted by clawsoon at 3:11 PM on February 10, 2016
I mean, sure, but it's not that inaccurate either? Like, how else do you describe living cheek by jowl with someone you wouldn't necessarily think to do otherwise? It's a kind of intimacy that's necessary for the job you're trying to do.
posted by sciatrix at 3:18 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by sciatrix at 3:18 PM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
One of the things I've been working to get started in my department is sort of an introduction to fieldwork and laying out what sort of things to expect and what is and isn't OK, and exactly to whom you should report things that go awry - because so much of fieldwork feels very autonomous and isolated and it's hard to know who to talk to, and sometimes the people in charge are the ones who are problematic. I don't like that we send people off into potentially dangerous or uncomfortable territory and often don't give them the tools to deal with it, or a way to begin that conversation. It can be hard to switch from an academic advising mode to "So this terrible thing happened to me" mode, and I would be really happy if that was a thing I could make easier for future graduate students.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:19 PM on February 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 3:19 PM on February 10, 2016 [7 favorites]
I think forced intimacy is pretty accurate myself. I don't know how else to describe, say, learning that raisins in trail mix give your colleague wicked shits.
That's great, ChuraChura! One of the most eye opening things that happened to me when I was first starting out was when a fellow student and I were separating for the day out in the field.
He mentioned something about how he was worried about being alone and getting bit by a rattler. I came to a dead stop as I realized that when it came to fieldwork, he was worried about snakes and I was worried about being raped. And I had a better idea about what to do about being snake bit procedure wise (say, who to call in the department, health care coverage, all of that) than I did about being sexually assaulted.
posted by barchan at 3:29 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
That's great, ChuraChura! One of the most eye opening things that happened to me when I was first starting out was when a fellow student and I were separating for the day out in the field.
He mentioned something about how he was worried about being alone and getting bit by a rattler. I came to a dead stop as I realized that when it came to fieldwork, he was worried about snakes and I was worried about being raped. And I had a better idea about what to do about being snake bit procedure wise (say, who to call in the department, health care coverage, all of that) than I did about being sexually assaulted.
posted by barchan at 3:29 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
Half-baked idea: Does the old evo-psych claim that "women are attracted to powerful men, and are also programmed to be coy" appeal to powerful male academic minds, convincing them that the polite responses they get are actually enthusiastic-if-coy consent?
posted by clawsoon at 3:31 PM on February 10, 2016
posted by clawsoon at 3:31 PM on February 10, 2016
Are you not familiar with those evo-psych ideas, or not seeing how they might connect?
posted by clawsoon at 3:38 PM on February 10, 2016
posted by clawsoon at 3:38 PM on February 10, 2016
No. I'm pretty sure that that is not what is going on.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:40 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 3:40 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'd say it's more that there's still a prevalent cultural idea that access to a younger woman is part of the trappings of power. Like a nice watch. It's an idea which is repeated over and over and over again in culture and media and from which all women suffer. I'd argue they suffer more in smaller fields where they have the feeling they had better play along or be ostracised. Academia comes into the news a lot because we probably expect more from academic men and because it has more of these little niche empires than the world outside.
posted by frumiousb at 3:51 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by frumiousb at 3:51 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
If the men doing the harassing are doing it because they enjoy forcing other people to do things against their will, then my half-baked idea has nothing to do with the subject.
If, on the other hand, men doing this are convincing themselves that they're good people because their rose-coloured glasses turn polite lack of consent into consent, then it might be useful to disabuse them of their ideas about how consent is communicated. If they're convincing themselves that their power gives them attractiveness and that's why women aren't saying no - they're convincing themselves that they're receiving consent for good reason, i.e. legitimate attraction - it might be useful to disabuse them of that notion, too.
Again, I'll emphasize that this is merely a half-baked notion that just popped into my head. :-)
posted by clawsoon at 3:52 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
If, on the other hand, men doing this are convincing themselves that they're good people because their rose-coloured glasses turn polite lack of consent into consent, then it might be useful to disabuse them of their ideas about how consent is communicated. If they're convincing themselves that their power gives them attractiveness and that's why women aren't saying no - they're convincing themselves that they're receiving consent for good reason, i.e. legitimate attraction - it might be useful to disabuse them of that notion, too.
Again, I'll emphasize that this is merely a half-baked notion that just popped into my head. :-)
posted by clawsoon at 3:52 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
(I don't mean to say that women are like a watch, naturally, but that some men view a younger woman as an entitlement if they have reached a certain level of achievement.)
posted by frumiousb at 3:52 PM on February 10, 2016
posted by frumiousb at 3:52 PM on February 10, 2016
The ideas are on my mind because I'm in the middle of Evolution's Rainbow, in which the author does a great job of deconstructing the implications of dominance hierarchies. I realize I may be a little late to the party.
I recognize that if what I'm suggesting is actually happening, it would only be a academic-specific self-justification for behaviour which is widespread and self-justified in many different ways in many different groups.
posted by clawsoon at 3:58 PM on February 10, 2016
I recognize that if what I'm suggesting is actually happening, it would only be a academic-specific self-justification for behaviour which is widespread and self-justified in many different ways in many different groups.
posted by clawsoon at 3:58 PM on February 10, 2016
Does the old evo-psych claim that "women are attracted to powerful men, and are also programmed to be coy" appeal to powerful male academic minds, convincing them that the polite responses they get are actually enthusiastic-if-coy consent?
Not in the way you mean, I don't think, because you've got the cart before the horse, here. It's not an "old evo-psych claim" so much as it's how patriarchal societies operate (and have for a very long time), and evo-psych is a relatively recent attempt at providing some supposedly scientific justification for that.
Or to put it another way, evo-psych ideas have far less to do with this than the simple fact that these men grew up in a society (ours) where it was generally assumed that a woman's primary route to power and respect and authority (or at least as much as she was going to get) was largely through marrying the right man (presented as "women are attracted to powerful men"), and where overt expression of female sexuality and desire is mostly subject to strong cultural disapproval (thus women are "coy" regardless of whether they desire a particular man or not.) Their self-justification derives from having grown up in the 20th century - no evo-psych necessary. (And they likely would have had the same self-justification if they'd grown up in the 19th century, and for all the progress we as a culture may have made you can bet your ass that there are plenty of people born after 2000 who will have the same attitudes towards women.)
(Also I suspect you may be underestimating the extent to which academics can be very narrowly focused. While our cultural picture of "professor" is sort of a genial polymath who happens to maybe specialize a little bit, I wouldn't be surprised if many/most academics outside the fields where evo-psych is (possibly) applicable really would have nothing but the vaguest idea what evo-psych even is, and have never read any of the papers or books outlining evo-psych ideas.)
posted by soundguy99 at 4:29 PM on February 10, 2016 [9 favorites]
Not in the way you mean, I don't think, because you've got the cart before the horse, here. It's not an "old evo-psych claim" so much as it's how patriarchal societies operate (and have for a very long time), and evo-psych is a relatively recent attempt at providing some supposedly scientific justification for that.
Or to put it another way, evo-psych ideas have far less to do with this than the simple fact that these men grew up in a society (ours) where it was generally assumed that a woman's primary route to power and respect and authority (or at least as much as she was going to get) was largely through marrying the right man (presented as "women are attracted to powerful men"), and where overt expression of female sexuality and desire is mostly subject to strong cultural disapproval (thus women are "coy" regardless of whether they desire a particular man or not.) Their self-justification derives from having grown up in the 20th century - no evo-psych necessary. (And they likely would have had the same self-justification if they'd grown up in the 19th century, and for all the progress we as a culture may have made you can bet your ass that there are plenty of people born after 2000 who will have the same attitudes towards women.)
(Also I suspect you may be underestimating the extent to which academics can be very narrowly focused. While our cultural picture of "professor" is sort of a genial polymath who happens to maybe specialize a little bit, I wouldn't be surprised if many/most academics outside the fields where evo-psych is (possibly) applicable really would have nothing but the vaguest idea what evo-psych even is, and have never read any of the papers or books outlining evo-psych ideas.)
posted by soundguy99 at 4:29 PM on February 10, 2016 [9 favorites]
Here are some thoughts about sex crimes and how sex offenders come to be. Disclaimer, I am not a criminologist, but the following ideas are based on my lay understanding of the academic literature on the subject. We're also talking about the motives of sex offenders, so it's obviously going to be unpleasent.
clawsoon isn't totally off the mark. There's lots of literature trying to classify sexual offenders, and there's no real consensus about how to break down the wide range of different kinds of offenders and offenses. There is, however, a lot of data to say that rapists whose primary aim is sadistic or retaliatory are in a pretty small minority (although these people, especially the sexual sadists, are the most dangerous category in terms of their use of violence and likelihood to murder their victims). At any rate, when we're talking about senior academics abusing their junior colleagues, I think that it's not likely they fall into either of those categories.
The majority of rapists commit rape for motives other than simply wanting to hurt their victims. For example, the criminologist A.N. Groth wrote about 'power-reassurance' and 'power-assertive' rapists, whose motives are about proving themselves powerful/desirable/strong in their own eyes. Offenders who fall into categories like this often justify their crimes (to themselves) by engaging in a kind of 'magical thinking', basically telling themselves stories about how what they're doing isn't wrong. For example, a rapist might decide that his victim secretly wants to have sex with him, but just isn't telling him. They might think that the victim doesn't want to have sex but, if he overpowers her, that will cause her to change her mind. Others might delude themselves into thinking that while the victim doesn't consent, she somehow 'deserves' to be raped or simply does not have the legitimate standing not to consent. These Stephen Hudson and Tony Ward call these 'irrational cognitions' 'offense-supportive beliefs'. They are apparently present in most men who commit rape.
clawsoon is speculating about a possible offense-supportive belief. It seems, to me, to be a plausible speculation. I, certainly, have encountered those attitudes many times, both in personal conversations and in literature. I can totally see how they might be taken up to form the offense-supportive delusion of a sexual offender who is in a position of power over women he might be inclined to target.
Note: I understand that discussions of the motives of rapists upset some people, because when we do so it kind of sounds like we're justifying the crime ('oh, he didn't mean to be bad!'). While I share this distaste, I think it's really important to think about motive because a) yeah, it turns out the motives are still bad anyway, and b) by understanding motive we might be able to stop some people from committing sex crimes in the first place. If you want to read more about how criminologists classify sex offenders, there's a really useful web page at the US Department of Justice called Sex Offender Typologies.
posted by Dreadnought at 4:30 PM on February 10, 2016 [9 favorites]
clawsoon isn't totally off the mark. There's lots of literature trying to classify sexual offenders, and there's no real consensus about how to break down the wide range of different kinds of offenders and offenses. There is, however, a lot of data to say that rapists whose primary aim is sadistic or retaliatory are in a pretty small minority (although these people, especially the sexual sadists, are the most dangerous category in terms of their use of violence and likelihood to murder their victims). At any rate, when we're talking about senior academics abusing their junior colleagues, I think that it's not likely they fall into either of those categories.
The majority of rapists commit rape for motives other than simply wanting to hurt their victims. For example, the criminologist A.N. Groth wrote about 'power-reassurance' and 'power-assertive' rapists, whose motives are about proving themselves powerful/desirable/strong in their own eyes. Offenders who fall into categories like this often justify their crimes (to themselves) by engaging in a kind of 'magical thinking', basically telling themselves stories about how what they're doing isn't wrong. For example, a rapist might decide that his victim secretly wants to have sex with him, but just isn't telling him. They might think that the victim doesn't want to have sex but, if he overpowers her, that will cause her to change her mind. Others might delude themselves into thinking that while the victim doesn't consent, she somehow 'deserves' to be raped or simply does not have the legitimate standing not to consent. These Stephen Hudson and Tony Ward call these 'irrational cognitions' 'offense-supportive beliefs'. They are apparently present in most men who commit rape.
clawsoon is speculating about a possible offense-supportive belief. It seems, to me, to be a plausible speculation. I, certainly, have encountered those attitudes many times, both in personal conversations and in literature. I can totally see how they might be taken up to form the offense-supportive delusion of a sexual offender who is in a position of power over women he might be inclined to target.
Note: I understand that discussions of the motives of rapists upset some people, because when we do so it kind of sounds like we're justifying the crime ('oh, he didn't mean to be bad!'). While I share this distaste, I think it's really important to think about motive because a) yeah, it turns out the motives are still bad anyway, and b) by understanding motive we might be able to stop some people from committing sex crimes in the first place. If you want to read more about how criminologists classify sex offenders, there's a really useful web page at the US Department of Justice called Sex Offender Typologies.
posted by Dreadnought at 4:30 PM on February 10, 2016 [9 favorites]
I'm a tenured male professor in math. I've been reading these stories coming out of department after department and wondering: is my own field full of creeps? Because I don't feel like it is. I don't know about famous PIs who sexually harass, let alone sexually assault their students. I don't have people in mind I warn my female students away from. But of course, as a fiendish thingy points out, there's an "everyone knows" problem -- there are things "everyone knows" which senior male professors don't know. So I've been asking women about it -- senior and junior colleagues and grad students. And here's the thing -- what they tell me is that it is better in math than it is in biology, or astronomy, or bio anthro. Math is a predominantly male field, and there is sexism, lots of sexism. There are harassers. But I truly don't believe there is widespread longterm sexual harassment winked at by the powers that be. I don't believe that our students see sexual assault as the price of being in math. If that's so, why is it so, and how might it help other fields right the ship?
1. In math, your Ph.D. advisor doesn't have tyrannical power over you. You're paid by your department, not by your advisor's grant. You are expected to get academic advice and have academic contact with lots of professors, not just your advisor.
2. We don't have a lab system. I get the sense that in the Slater case at Arizona, the toxic lab was in its own space -- the rest of the department was able to not see what was going on there. That would be a lot harder in math.
3. Less money. There's no such thing as a math professor whose departure would mean the loss of a $10m grant to the university.
Other science departments probably don't want to move towards 3 but they might consider moving towards 1 and 2.
posted by escabeche at 4:32 PM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
1. In math, your Ph.D. advisor doesn't have tyrannical power over you. You're paid by your department, not by your advisor's grant. You are expected to get academic advice and have academic contact with lots of professors, not just your advisor.
2. We don't have a lab system. I get the sense that in the Slater case at Arizona, the toxic lab was in its own space -- the rest of the department was able to not see what was going on there. That would be a lot harder in math.
3. Less money. There's no such thing as a math professor whose departure would mean the loss of a $10m grant to the university.
Other science departments probably don't want to move towards 3 but they might consider moving towards 1 and 2.
posted by escabeche at 4:32 PM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
....Ah. Actually, that explains a lot. I'm really familiar with Evolution's Rainbow; it was pretty formative to my politics as a queer academic studying sexual and social behavior and influenced a lot about how I think about the diversity of sexual strategies. (I still like to think of Uta side-blotched lizards as having something like two sexes and five genders, for one thing.) That said, while I respect Dr. Roughgarden and the work she's done as a publicly queer and trans biologist a lot--especially with regard to the way evolution as a field can be weirdly normative about diversity--I find her arguments about competition vs. cooperation sort of suspect and I think that book has some fairly critical flaws. I would not take it as a word-of-truth explanation about how things are "really" evolving.
I also think the evo psych thing is something of a derail, in part because I don't think this is about biology. I think it's about these men assuming this is "really" okay and that everyone thinks like they do. I don't think you have to invoke evolutionary biology to explain it.
posted by sciatrix at 4:39 PM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
I also think the evo psych thing is something of a derail, in part because I don't think this is about biology. I think it's about these men assuming this is "really" okay and that everyone thinks like they do. I don't think you have to invoke evolutionary biology to explain it.
posted by sciatrix at 4:39 PM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
My story (the only one I would like to admit semi-publicly) is being warned of a prof in my undergrad, that I was going to be his favourite because he liked pretty girls, but that I shouldn't be alone with him, do field work with him, or involve him with my honours work. Which was too bad because he was the top guy in the field. The good news is, he did end up getting fired. Last year. Fifteen years after I graduated.
escabeche, I'm surprised at your comment because I would not expect math to be better. But reading it more carefully, I see a problem... "Math is a predominantly male field, and there is sexism, lots of sexism. There are harassers. But I truly don't believe there is widespread longterm sexual harassment winked at by the powers that be." Don't those seem contradictory? Are people getting removed from positions of power (or fired entirely) for harassment or sexism? No? Then there is winking going on.
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:41 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
escabeche, I'm surprised at your comment because I would not expect math to be better. But reading it more carefully, I see a problem... "Math is a predominantly male field, and there is sexism, lots of sexism. There are harassers. But I truly don't believe there is widespread longterm sexual harassment winked at by the powers that be." Don't those seem contradictory? Are people getting removed from positions of power (or fired entirely) for harassment or sexism? No? Then there is winking going on.
posted by hydrobatidae at 4:41 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
I'm a tenured male professor in math. I've been reading these stories coming out of department after department and wondering: is my own field full of creeps? Because I don't feel like it is. I don't know about famous PIs who sexually harass, let alone sexually assault their students.
Just out of curiosity, how many of the men in your field are married to former grad students? For how many of them is it their second wife?
I ask because it's a continuum of behaviour, and a pattern I've widely seen in academia. I remember when I was in academia, discussing with my female friends how many of their male advisors/faculty were married to former grad students (or worse-- undergrad). Between the 5 of us, we came up with a number north of 50%. For female advisors/faculty that number was zero. I realise this is anecdata, but I would argue that when this is the case, even in a department without overt sexual harassment, you have a ripe breeding ground for a problem. I *hope* academia has changed since I left, but when I was there relationships between (male) faculty and female students was so normal as to not even be noteworthy. Where's the line?
posted by frumiousb at 4:43 PM on February 10, 2016 [15 favorites]
Just out of curiosity, how many of the men in your field are married to former grad students? For how many of them is it their second wife?
I ask because it's a continuum of behaviour, and a pattern I've widely seen in academia. I remember when I was in academia, discussing with my female friends how many of their male advisors/faculty were married to former grad students (or worse-- undergrad). Between the 5 of us, we came up with a number north of 50%. For female advisors/faculty that number was zero. I realise this is anecdata, but I would argue that when this is the case, even in a department without overt sexual harassment, you have a ripe breeding ground for a problem. I *hope* academia has changed since I left, but when I was there relationships between (male) faculty and female students was so normal as to not even be noteworthy. Where's the line?
posted by frumiousb at 4:43 PM on February 10, 2016 [15 favorites]
(I left academia 20 years ago, so I do sincerely hope it has changed for the better.)
posted by frumiousb at 4:45 PM on February 10, 2016
posted by frumiousb at 4:45 PM on February 10, 2016
Just out of curiosity, how many of the men in your field are married to former grad students? For how many of them is it their second wife?
Their former grad students? I can't think of any. People who were grad students in the department where they were a professor or postdoc? I can think of a couple. In both cases, first and so far only spouse. Undergrads, none. I mean, I'm thinking here of people my general age. People who are 65 and who have been married much longer than I've known them, I can't speak to the circumstances under which they met their spouse.
posted by escabeche at 4:48 PM on February 10, 2016
Their former grad students? I can't think of any. People who were grad students in the department where they were a professor or postdoc? I can think of a couple. In both cases, first and so far only spouse. Undergrads, none. I mean, I'm thinking here of people my general age. People who are 65 and who have been married much longer than I've known them, I can't speak to the circumstances under which they met their spouse.
posted by escabeche at 4:48 PM on February 10, 2016
people attracted to field work type professions tend to be more. . .well, relaxed and fun loving than other disciplines
I sm in a related, let us say colluvial, field discipline and geologists really stand out as party animals.
posted by clew at 5:31 PM on February 10, 2016
I sm in a related, let us say colluvial, field discipline and geologists really stand out as party animals.
posted by clew at 5:31 PM on February 10, 2016
Math is a predominantly male field, and there is sexism, lots of sexism. There are harassers. But I truly don't believe there is widespread longterm sexual harassment winked at by the powers that be. I don't believe that our students see sexual assault as the price of being in math.
If there is sexism and a lot of harassers in math, than chances are most or all of the women who remain students see sexual assault as a possible consequence of being in math, and a number of the women who left did so due to sexual assault or a close call that was simply too close.
posted by Deoridhe at 5:55 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
If there is sexism and a lot of harassers in math, than chances are most or all of the women who remain students see sexual assault as a possible consequence of being in math, and a number of the women who left did so due to sexual assault or a close call that was simply too close.
posted by Deoridhe at 5:55 PM on February 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
These are role model institutions and hence are an important part of the conversation.
I agree. It is critically important how the prestigious, front-line institutions like universities respond and what policies they set. For one, basically everyone who works in these disciplines spends time in universities, at least as an undergrad and often as a graduate student, and they will take that culture with them through their working lives. But more than that, the majority of people doing field work are not at universities -- they are in industry, at a non-profit, in a public agency, or at a consulting company. Many of those (with some very notably exceptions) don't have much in the way of institutional protections for the risks of women in field work, so having high-profile academics set the tone on this helps everyone.
Female Grad student 1: I’m thinking about co-teaching with [male grad student x].
Female Grad student 3: Okay, but be careful. You should know about [incident 1, three years ago], and [incident 2, 1.5 years ago]. I have also heard about [incident 3, a few months ago]. It could be a good experience to work with him, but you should know who you’re dealing with before agreeing to anything.
I wasn't directly a part of most of those conversations, but the ones I knew about (often via my partner) tended to go more like "You agreed to teach with X? Didn't you know he is a creep?" If you were in the loop you had the knowledge and were warned, but every year there is a new crop of students, and many of them have less than perfect English and might not pick up on coded messages, which is how this stuff has to be communicated when it can't be brought out in the open. Whispered warnings are a lot better than nothing, but they aren't nearly enough.
And if the choice is teach with the creep, or not teach and get no stipend, that's not much of a choice.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:04 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
I agree. It is critically important how the prestigious, front-line institutions like universities respond and what policies they set. For one, basically everyone who works in these disciplines spends time in universities, at least as an undergrad and often as a graduate student, and they will take that culture with them through their working lives. But more than that, the majority of people doing field work are not at universities -- they are in industry, at a non-profit, in a public agency, or at a consulting company. Many of those (with some very notably exceptions) don't have much in the way of institutional protections for the risks of women in field work, so having high-profile academics set the tone on this helps everyone.
Female Grad student 1: I’m thinking about co-teaching with [male grad student x].
Female Grad student 3: Okay, but be careful. You should know about [incident 1, three years ago], and [incident 2, 1.5 years ago]. I have also heard about [incident 3, a few months ago]. It could be a good experience to work with him, but you should know who you’re dealing with before agreeing to anything.
I wasn't directly a part of most of those conversations, but the ones I knew about (often via my partner) tended to go more like "You agreed to teach with X? Didn't you know he is a creep?" If you were in the loop you had the knowledge and were warned, but every year there is a new crop of students, and many of them have less than perfect English and might not pick up on coded messages, which is how this stuff has to be communicated when it can't be brought out in the open. Whispered warnings are a lot better than nothing, but they aren't nearly enough.
And if the choice is teach with the creep, or not teach and get no stipend, that's not much of a choice.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:04 PM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
When I hear about academics that are notorious for harassing their grad students I wonder: are they harassers whose position gave them (what they perceive to be) free rein over their students, or did they gravitate to a position in which they would have that power? Because with some other forms of sexual harassment, it's notoriously the latter. E.g., paedophiles may become youth workers because of the power dynamics and opportunities.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:22 AM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:22 AM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
So I've been asking women about it -- senior and junior colleagues and grad students. And here's the thing -- what they tell me is that it is better in math than it is in biology, or astronomy, or bio anthro.
I don't want to speak for the women who you've been talking with, obviously, but I have to say that if a senior male faculty member of my department had ever asked me about this question, I would have given a similar answer. And maybe it wouldn't be a lie, exactly, but it would have been a sanitized, bendy version of the truth.
Because for many of us, the answers aren't as clear cut as full-on predators like Richmond. It's an adjunct who is a really nice guy until he has five beers at an office event, and he offers to "walk you home" and then he'll try to kiss you and call you a slut when you object. It's a faculty member who is so frightened of being accused of sexual harassment that he sometimes refuses to have meetings with female grad students, which means that they aren't getting the same mentoring opportunities that their male classmates are. It's the male grad student who tries to get fellow grad students into "intellectual" conversations about monogamy that eventually turn into discussions about how he and his long-distance girlfriend have "an understanding". It's the senior, untouchable, endowed chair male faculty member who found out a female graduate from our department had a second child (while working at a tenure-track job) and said it was sad that she was wasting all her potential to spend her time breeding. (He said it "ironically", except no he didn't.)
How would I tell a senior faculty member about any of those things? I wouldn't. I would have no idea how to even start. I would say "it isn't really a big issue in this department, as far as I know", and I wouldn't even be lying, because the offenses in other disciplines and departments are so much more egregious and criminal.
I'm in the humanities, so fieldwork and labs aren't things, and trust me, no one in my department is so valuable that it might be an issue of grant money, given that the newly corporate university model considers humanities departments to be a waste of office space. But saying "it is better here than elsewhere" doesn't mean much, and it doesn't mean things are great.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 5:51 AM on February 11, 2016 [16 favorites]
I don't want to speak for the women who you've been talking with, obviously, but I have to say that if a senior male faculty member of my department had ever asked me about this question, I would have given a similar answer. And maybe it wouldn't be a lie, exactly, but it would have been a sanitized, bendy version of the truth.
Because for many of us, the answers aren't as clear cut as full-on predators like Richmond. It's an adjunct who is a really nice guy until he has five beers at an office event, and he offers to "walk you home" and then he'll try to kiss you and call you a slut when you object. It's a faculty member who is so frightened of being accused of sexual harassment that he sometimes refuses to have meetings with female grad students, which means that they aren't getting the same mentoring opportunities that their male classmates are. It's the male grad student who tries to get fellow grad students into "intellectual" conversations about monogamy that eventually turn into discussions about how he and his long-distance girlfriend have "an understanding". It's the senior, untouchable, endowed chair male faculty member who found out a female graduate from our department had a second child (while working at a tenure-track job) and said it was sad that she was wasting all her potential to spend her time breeding. (He said it "ironically", except no he didn't.)
How would I tell a senior faculty member about any of those things? I wouldn't. I would have no idea how to even start. I would say "it isn't really a big issue in this department, as far as I know", and I wouldn't even be lying, because the offenses in other disciplines and departments are so much more egregious and criminal.
I'm in the humanities, so fieldwork and labs aren't things, and trust me, no one in my department is so valuable that it might be an issue of grant money, given that the newly corporate university model considers humanities departments to be a waste of office space. But saying "it is better here than elsewhere" doesn't mean much, and it doesn't mean things are great.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 5:51 AM on February 11, 2016 [16 favorites]
It's the guy who thinks he is the nice guy who supports women professionally who also constantly tells the majority-female graduate student populace that they will all get fat in grad school and how slim they are when they start out as students, and then they just pork out while they're here. It's the guy you can't go out for after-work drinks/socializing with if you are a woman unless you want to hear about the caloric content of every. thing. you. order. and what those calories will do to your currently slender nubile figure.
It's the....FLAMES...FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE.
posted by Naamah at 6:42 AM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's the....FLAMES...FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE.
posted by Naamah at 6:42 AM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's also the guy who led a graduate study abroad trip and took everyone to the porn store.
posted by Naamah at 6:44 AM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Naamah at 6:44 AM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
sciatrix: I also think the evo psych thing is something of a derail, in part because I don't think this is about biology. I think it's about these men assuming this is "really" okay and that everyone thinks like they do. I don't think you have to invoke evolutionary biology to explain it.
Quite possibly. On the other hand, I keep returning in my mind to the Waking Life guys, who came out of an all-sex-is-bad background that required them to create intellectual justifications for all their sexual behaviour, both harmless and horrid. I don't know if that kind of background is common in academia, or if the offenders in academic cases come from "of course men harass women, it's perfect natural" backgrounds that don't require tortured intellectual justification. So... yeah... my ignorance on the topic is large.
Dreadnought expressed what I was blindly feeling my way toward in a much more informed and complete way.
To complete the derail: Evolution's Rainbow: Some problematic arguments, yes; but still a lot of value in how it blows apart much, much more problematic arguments. But maybe I'll save that discussion for the next "Richard Dawkins Says Something Stupid" thread.
posted by clawsoon at 7:52 AM on February 11, 2016
Quite possibly. On the other hand, I keep returning in my mind to the Waking Life guys, who came out of an all-sex-is-bad background that required them to create intellectual justifications for all their sexual behaviour, both harmless and horrid. I don't know if that kind of background is common in academia, or if the offenders in academic cases come from "of course men harass women, it's perfect natural" backgrounds that don't require tortured intellectual justification. So... yeah... my ignorance on the topic is large.
Dreadnought expressed what I was blindly feeling my way toward in a much more informed and complete way.
To complete the derail: Evolution's Rainbow: Some problematic arguments, yes; but still a lot of value in how it blows apart much, much more problematic arguments. But maybe I'll save that discussion for the next "Richard Dawkins Says Something Stupid" thread.
posted by clawsoon at 7:52 AM on February 11, 2016
There is an online statement against harassment which is being "signed" by a number of anthropologists and other academics. Looking through the list of signatures, it is heartwarming in a very literal sense to see people I know staing publicly that they're fed up with sexual harassment and that enough is enough!
posted by ChuraChura at 9:18 AM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 9:18 AM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]
There is an online statement against harassment which is being "signed" by a number of anthropologists and other academics.
I see it's specific to "the undersigned bioanthropologists and bioarchaeologists," or I, a biostatistician, would sign it, too.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:28 AM on February 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
I see it's specific to "the undersigned bioanthropologists and bioarchaeologists," or I, a biostatistician, would sign it, too.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:28 AM on February 11, 2016 [3 favorites]
Academia, in my experience, is absolutely one of the worst perpetrators of the Missing Stair scenario. I don't know if it's because we like to close ranks to prevent our last scraps of funding being yanked, or because we all like to buy into this myth of academics as quirky and special and informal, but my God, we have so many missing stairs, and we just let women stumble on them.
posted by WidgetAlley at 11:20 AM on February 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by WidgetAlley at 11:20 AM on February 11, 2016 [8 favorites]
Huh. My dept just got an email about our zero tolerance sexual harassment policy from our dean of students, referencing these events very heavily for those who weren't paying attention. I... will be interested to see how this filters through the whisper network I can think of, let me put it that way.
posted by sciatrix at 1:18 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by sciatrix at 1:18 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]
escabeche, it might be worth asking yourself, how clear do you think it would be to the female students you know that you would believe what they could tell you? That you would be a safe person to share what they know and have experienced with? That you would have the spine to even do small helpful things related to it? or that you would even care about it? For better or worse as a tenured male professor you are exactly who should be making sure you help in shouldering the burden of ensuring that your field is policed for harassment, but you'll never be able to even begin to help if you don't even know about it and there are all sorts of good reasons for students to not be totally candid with tenured male professors.
I don't know your field, but of course there is shit in it, of course there is, there always is. I know a lot of dude's in my field who would say exactly the same thing you have but I have yet to encounter any graduate level women in any scientific field who could. The moment I stopped being able to shut up about the shit that I did know about, I started learning a hell of a lot more.
posted by Blasdelb at 2:46 PM on February 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't know your field, but of course there is shit in it, of course there is, there always is. I know a lot of dude's in my field who would say exactly the same thing you have but I have yet to encounter any graduate level women in any scientific field who could. The moment I stopped being able to shut up about the shit that I did know about, I started learning a hell of a lot more.
posted by Blasdelb at 2:46 PM on February 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by ChuraChura at 9:48 AM on February 10, 2016 [58 favorites]