Crosspost: Bullying and harassment are rife in astronomy, poll suggests

Written By: Phillip Ball for Nature

Bar chart displaying the results of a survey on experiences of bullying and harassment in the Royal Astronomical Society community. Credit: Royal Astronomical Society

Bullying and harassment are rife in astronomy and geophysics in Britain and perhaps other regions, according to the results of a survey conducted last year by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in London. Among 661 researchers polled, more than half of whom were in the United Kingdom, 44% said they had experienced issues in the previous two years.

“The results from the survey are very concerning indeed, and we must act to change this unacceptable situation,” says RAS president Emma Bunce, an astrophysicist at the University of Leicester, UK.

RAS diversity officer Aine O’Brien, who conducted the survey with RAS education, outreach and diversity officer Sheila Kanani, says, “We knew from anecdotal data and other evidence that there was likely to be a sector-wide problem, and I wasn’t super shocked by the trends of the findings — but I was certainly shocked by the extent.”

Read the rest of the article here at: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02024-5.

For more references on discrimination in STEM, check out these two, great papers:
Race and Racism in the Geosciences and Double jeopardy in astronomy and planetary science: Women of color face greater risks of gendered and racial harassment

AASWomen Newsletter for July 23, 2021

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of July 23, 2021
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Alessandra Aloisi, and Jeremy Bailin

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]

Parenting penalties graphic, from item 9
Credit: Veronica Cerri

This week's issues:

1. Crosspost: How Dragonfly will explore Saturn's 'bizarro Earth' moon, Titan

2. Announcement of Opportunity: AAS-EPD Mini-Grant Program

3. Call for NASA Keck Key Strategic Mission Support Proposals for 2022A

4. NASA investigates renaming James Webb telescope after anti-LGBT+ claims

5. Survey finds bullying and harassment systemic in astronomy and geophysics

6. Amid turmoil, Afghan female students win award at International Astronomy Competition

7. Fixing A Physics Culture Problem

8. Why science needs a new reward and recognition system

9. The parenting penalties faced by scientist mothers

10. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

12. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

AASWOMEN Newsletter for August 24, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of August 24, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

This week's issues:

1. Career Profile: Associate Teaching Professor

2. Our Science Heroes

3. NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing

4. AAAS Leshner Fellows Letter on AAAS Harassment Policy

5. YouTube’s Women of STEM Make Learning About Science Fun

6. Girls Deterred from Science at a Young Age But Green Girls Can Fix That

7. Science’s Bullying Problem

8. NASA Intern Loses Gig After Profanity-Laden Twitter Spat with Space Council’s Homer Hickam

9. Job Opportunities

10. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

12. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

ADVICE: Workplace Bullying in Astronomy III

This is the final post in a series on workplace bullying. It is about the delicious fantasies of revenge. Remember the old adage, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” This tells us that the best payback is the one that comes with planning. Revenge can be sweet (and tempting!), but be careful. If you are in a position to plan revenge, make sure that your scheme will not backfire and put you in an even worse situation. Here are a few sweet revenge stories from a great reference on workplace bullying entitled, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't by Robert I. Sutton.

ADVICE: Responding to workplace (and other) bullies

As previous blog entries have discussed, bullying behavior is a vexing problem in academic communities as it is in other environments.  Often bullying is an abuse of power, and the most vulnerable are those with the least power.  Conversely, when the bully is a powerful faculty member, even supervisors are frustrated in their efforts to change or block the behavior.  Ignoring a problem may have the effect of rewarding the bully, so intervention is highly desirable.  Changing behavior is very difficult, and academics are generally untrained in these matters.  Here are a couple of strategies I've been trying lately.

1. Call out the bullying behavior - directly when possible, through allies when practical, and always through intervention by institutional leadership including the bully's department chair, dean or other supervisor.  Major employers and universities generally have anti-harassment policies which empower such intervention.  I'm not talking about a formal complaint process, although that is always an option; however, in most cases the required time and effort create a disincentive to filing a formal complaint.  Instead, a quick verbal response, perhaps along the lines described in Speak Up, lets the bully know that infringement of others' rights is inappropriate behavior.  It's very important that allies speak up for those harmed by bullying behavior.  Become an active bystander.

2. Support the bullied.  Listen, show empathy, and provide micro-affirmations to counter micro-aggressions (or macro-, as the case may be).  How much better would our days be if we showed kindness daily?  Doing so is as helpful to the giver as to the receiver.

Those with privilege - institutional leaders - have the greatest responsibilities in these matters, and should understand the power they wield to shape workplace culture.  But the burden for responding to bullies and supporting the bullied must not rest on their shoulders alone.

Further suggestions on response to bullying are welcome.  Meanwhile, please tell me what you think of the Speak Up booklet.

ADVICE: Workplace Bullying in Astronomy II

                               

In last month’s ADVICE post on Workplace Bullying, I mentioned that there are many ways for a bully to bully. Here is an incomplete list of bullying tactics adapted from Wikipedia and modified for the astronomical community. Your bully may employ one of more of these tactics or he/she may have invented others. Unfortunately, there is no check list for workplace bullying in astronomy. You cannot study this list, check 5 or 10 items, and then link to recipe XYZ to solve the problem. Advice really does need to be tailored to the details of a specific situation.

ADVICE: Workplace Bullying in Astronomy I

Photo: Louie Douvis

Unprofessional behavior is not limited to gender discrimination and sexual harassment. There are cases when “something is just not right” in the workplace, which may involve no sexual overtones whatsoever. One such example is Workplace Bullying, which can have some characteristics in common with childhood bullying. It is not limited to women. It can involve teasing or taunting. It can be overt or covert. It can be physically or psychologically threatening. It can come from a supervisor or a collaborator. It can involve spreading rumors about your qualifications or abilities as a scientist. The stress associated with a bullying situation can affect your work and your health. You may even feel that your future career is in jeopardy.

Here is a bullying variation on an astronomical theme that I have heard more than once. Someone (probably more senior than you, but probably not your advisor) inflicts him/herself into your science. He/she could be stealing your ideas, giving the impression to others that you could not succeed without mentorship from him/her, or undermining you with your advisor or collaborators. 

Bullying: How It Affects You

Today’s guest post is from an anonymous contributor.


Joan Schmelz gave a wonderful talk at the Summer AAS in Anchorage, and I was so glad that a topic that certainly has impacted many people was on such prominent display. In fact, I almost wanted to email Joan and ask if she had heard about my experiences in particular, because it so well matched something I personally had gone through with a bully.

I am not sure if I am unique (I hope I am, but doubt it) in that I have had a chain of at least three bullies strung together in my young astronomy life. From a young hotshot professor who expected their new grad students to perform like postdocs, to a senior person in the field who took it as a personal affront (and went on a personal attack) when a student had a scientific disagreement with him/her, to a person going to my advisor and claiming that I was incompetent to do my own work without his/her having direct control over the science I was outputting. These incidents were daisy chained together: it seemed as if once I'd escaped one bully, another was waiting in the wings to take over. It got me asking many things, but firstly, was there something about me that attracted them to me as a target?