Still fightin' the fight

I'm glad all of these famous predatory men are being called out by "me-too'ing" women. It's long overdue, and I find it especially heartening that a few of them are expressing genuine remorse. The people that say, "why didn't the women complain earlier?" do NOT understand how often people minimize and ignore women, even "privileged" women with engineering degrees. When a man speaks up, people listen. If they don't hear him the first time, he repeats himself louder, and that's all it takes to get an audience. When a woman speaks up once, no one hears her, and she repeats herself, people call her "pushy", "rude", "shrill", and "demanding". In a thousand little ways, girls are taught from birth to be sweet and nice and not make waves. The silencing, ignoring, and talking-over of women is more insidious than the obvious harassment. Folks will gloss over your frustration by genuinely thinking "he didn't mean any harm..." Denying someone else's very voice is most definitely a harm.

I am not one of those people who reminisces over my youth or wishes to relive it. I came into my own when I was past 30, and now that I am well into the census-defined "middle age", I am loving my life. But the one thing I wish I could do over would be that I wish I had spoken up for myself when occasion called for it. Why was I so worried about offending people who deserved to be offended? Why did I want so badly to be "liked" by people who, by their very disrespect of me, proved themselves not worthy of being liked?

I spent much of last night fuming over some terrible treatment I observed being handed to a young lady who deserves a million times more respect than she had the courage to demand for herself. This was not even a sexual issue; it was about unsafe working conditions. She told me, "I didn't want to complain because I didn't want to be a princess." That just galled me. A woman asking for marginally decent, safe treatment is in danger of being perceived as a princess! I told her I'd call EH&S myself and tell them to make sure she is safe. I told her to demand better treatment for herself, and her life is worth it and she is worth it and dammit! Sigh.

How many years of terrible messaging does it take to make even the brightest, most competent women feel that their very lives are not worth someone else's trouble? And if not even they feel their worth, why are we not surprised when marginalized women--housekeepers, low-level "help", striving artists--don't report being harmed?

So, I'm now on the University Committee on the Status of Women. One of the projects we have right now is background research of gender bias in academia. As I comb through the literature, I can't help but glance at the articles that aren't just about academia, but about the workforce in general, especially in the sciences. The state of things is... not good. Implicit bias exists--in both women and men. A resumé with a male name will be viewed as belonging to a more competent individual than the same one with a female name. A grad student application with a male name will be viewed as more desirable than one with a female name. Competent men are complimented on their work. Competent women are complimented on their appearance and their friendliness.

Check this out.

:(

Update, so as not to end on a totally depressing note: I am actually acquainted with the person in charge of industrial safety at UAF. She (is a she! wowee!) was extremely helpful, judicious, knowledgeable, and reasonable when helping me set up my lab to do snow science when I was a grad student. I did not work with anything chemically or mechanically hazardous, but I did work with chilling systems to test snow, and the chillers use CO2, which has potential to be a dangerous asphyxiant since it can displace oxygen. Anyway, she responded almost immediately to my email, and came to meet me at the site the next day. She agreed that it was unacceptable and agreed to help me find a new suitable space for our grad student. So yay!