Fed Up With Sexual Harassment: Defining the Problem

One of the most damaging, yet all too common practices that hurts women's careers in astronomy is sexual harassment. Title IX of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 (as amended in 1972) defines sexual harassment as

[U]nwanted or unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature that interferes unreasonably with a student’s ability to learn, study, work, achieve, or participate in school activities. Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination, and schools are legally responsible for preventing it. Schools must also prevent harassment based on your sex, even if it is not sexual in nature. 

Sexual harassment need not occur on school property—it can happen off school grounds in any school-related program or activity. 

Unlike flirting or good-natured joking, which are mutual interactions between two people, sexual harassment is unwelcomed and unwanted behavior which may cause the target to feel threatened, afraid, humiliated, angry, or trapped.

Note how intent is not included in any aspect of the definition. All that matters is the action and the result.

Before delving into this subject further I think it's very important to point out one important aspect of sexual harassment in comparison to the other factors that impede equal access in astronomy, such as the two-body problem, implicit (unconscious) bias, stereotype threat, lack of family leave policies at our institutions, etc. Of all of these various factors, sexual harassment is specifically prohibited by federal law. If we can't solve an illegal barrier for women in astronomy, how can we tackle the other issues that prevent equal opportunities for employment in our field?

AASWOMEN Newsletter for May 9, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of May 9, 2014
eds. Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, & Nicolle Zellner

This week's issues:

1. Ain't I a woman? At the intersection of gender, race and sexuality

2. June AAS Town Hall: Addressing Sexual Violence on College Campuses

3. Gender & Race Differences in NonAcademic Careers for STEM Ph.D.s

4. Career Profiles: Astronomer to Soft Money Researcher

5. New Resource Guide for Women in Astronomy

6. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

8. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Career Profiles: Astronomer to Soft Money Researcher

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with an astronomer turned soft money researcher. S/he is the PI for a major instrument on a 10-m class telescope. S/he is also in a dual astronomy career couple. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. We plan to post a new career profile to this blog every Thursday.

Gender & Race Differences in NonAcademic Careers for STEM Ph.D.s

Nonacademic career trajectories are an important and often overlooked piece of the conversation about recruitment and retention of women and minorities in STEM. 

A new analysis by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) shows 61% of STEM Ph.D.s have careers outside of academia. This should come as no real surprise. What is of interest here is that there are statistically significant differences by race and gender. For example, Black, Hispanic, and White women with STEM Ph.D.s who went on to nonacademic careers are more likely to leave STEM compared with other groups in nonacademic careers. About 28% of these women work in non-STEM fields, compared with Asian men (16%), Asian women (18%), Hispanic men (18%), black men (21%) and white men (21%).

Furthermore, more than 57% of all male STEM Ph.D.s work in research and development, compared with 43% of all white female STEM Ph.D.s and 37% of black female STEM Ph.D.s. 

Ain't I a woman? At the intersection of gender, race and sexuality

Today's guest post is by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a Martin Luther King, Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Department of Physics. She specializes in theoretical cosmology and has an interest in formal issues in field theory and relativity. She also serves as an informal academic advisor for most of the very few underrepresented minority women physics majors at M.I.T.

In 1851, former slave Sojourner Truth asked white feminists, "Ain't I a woman?" when they refused to let her speak at a women's conference because she was Black. One might hope that in 158 years, that speech wouldn't seem so essential and relevant. But at the 2009 Women in Astronomy conference, my first foray into non-race oriented equal opportunity efforts, we were told the news was good: women had made significant gains and equality was on its way. There was no substantive mention of race beyond Peggy McIntosh's talk. But I knew the truth. I have been looking at the NSF and AIP statistics myself for years, and I knew that the news was not good for Black, Latina, and Native American women. Those numbers hadn't changed too significantly in three decades. How could they possibly be telling us that the news was good?

As a queer Black (cis)woman, I live at the intersection of multiple minority statuses. More of my time than I would like has been sucked up in trying to fend off the marginalization that society's structures foist upon anyone who has even one of these identities. More of my time than I would like has been spent thinking about a way out of those structures and trying to convince others to help.

And here's one thing I want out of: the phrase "women and minorities," a phrase I used to use a lot myself. As part of the effort to push for equal opportunities in STEM, I  used it repeatedly for over a decade, thinking that I was advocating not just for strangers but also for myself. At some point however, hearing other people use it began to grate on me. A lot.

AASWOMEN Newsletter for May 2, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of May 2, 2014
eds. Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, & Nicolle Zellner

This week's issues:

1. Report: Gender in AAS Talks

2. Promoting Diversity - UK's Athena SWAN Program

3. Wyoming Women

4. Career Profiles: Astronomer to Faculty and Entrepreneur

5. Cosmos Episode 8 Preview: Female Astronomers

6. 2014 Gerald A. Soffen Travel Grant for Students

7. Women More likely to Burnout

8. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Career Profiles: Astronomer to Faculty and Entrepreneur

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with Douglas Arion, an astronomer turned faculty and entrepreneur. He has worked both in academia and business and has been very satisfied with his work and work-life balance. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. We plan to post a new career profile to this blog every Thursday.