Resource Guide for Websites for Women in STEM (with an emphasis on Astronomy)

As someone who has spoken up for women within our field, people tend to come to me for advice from time to time.  One question that I have repeatedly received is “do you know of one great STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) resource for women in our field or young women looking to enter this profession?”  And every time I say "no, I know of way more than one, " then Google every website I can think of that I have found useful previously.  The person usually leaves with their head swimming full of websites, and likely forgets most of what I said within minutes (but now knows I have a strange relationship with my iPhone and Google).  So I’m going to use my blog time this month to include the many sites that I have found useful, add some others that have been suggested to me along the way, and hopefully readers will take the opportunity to chime in on the comments section of this blog to add their own useful sites.  I’ll focus on websites targeting issues for women already in the STEM field, but will highlight one site that points out several resources for younger women/girls looking to enter in to the field. So the next time someone asks this question, this blog can be easily pointed to as a starting point.

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: Strategies for Addressing and Overcoming Harassment

Reproduced from the July Issue of STATUS: A report on Women in Astronomy.  By Sheryl Bruff, Branch Chief of Human Resources, Space Telescope Science Institute and Bernice Durand, Emerita Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate at the University of Wisconsin.

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has an anti-harassment policy [1], and has stated its commitment to leadership in developing “people” skills and its desire to identify and disseminate best practices and tools. This talk was proposed and developed to further the AAS membership’s knowledge of what constitutes harassment and how individuals and institutions should respond to it. It was presented at the Seattle Annual Meeting of the American Astronomical Society January 10, 2011.

Why should we care?
Great science and discovery are enabled by an open climate where individuals are free to share knowledge, opinions, beliefs and ideas. This cannot and will not happen if a segment(s) of the practitioners are disenfranchised and disrespected. We see ongoing efforts to broaden participation in astronomy, particularly for women and under-represented minorities. In astronomy, there is an established, though fragile, trend in these directions. Full engagement of these constituencies hinges on creating a climate of inclusion, respect and openness.

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: The SAFE study w/ Dr. Kate Clancy

Image: Dr. Kate Clancy (UIUC)

The "Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): Trainees Report Harassment and Assault" study that was published in PLOS ONE on July 16, 2014 by the team of biological anthropologists Kate Clancy (UIUC), Robin Nelson (Skidmore), Julienne Rutherford (UIC), and Katie Hinde (Harvard)  revealed several issues relating to harassment and assault within the field of anthropology. 

Some of the issues highlighted:

• A lack of awareness on codes of conduct and sexual harassment policies.
• 2/3 of the 666 respondents reported some form of harassment (71% of women respondents and 41% of men respondents) or assault (26% of women respondents).
• 90% of women and 70% of men were trainees or employees when harassed or assaulted.
• Perpetrators of harassment and assault differed between men and women,  with women typically being targeted by people senior to them and men by peers.

Dr. Kate Clancy was kind enough to be interviewed for lessons learned from the study, how this results may impact other scientific fields (like astronomy), and next steps for solving the issues at hand.

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: The Astronomy Allies Program

Today’s guest blogger is Katey Alatalo. Katey is a postdoc at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Her research interests include using CARMA and ALMA to map cold molecular gas in candidates from AGN feedback and using Herschel to map the conditions in shocked molecular gas in interacting groups of galaxies.

Suppose you are standing at your AAS poster, and someone is monopolizing your time and standing way too close.  Suppose you meet a senior scientist at the AAS meeting, and s/he asks you to dinner under the pretext of discussing your work, but the conversation gets way too personal.  Suppose you drink a bit too much or stay out a bit too late at the AAS party, and you need a safe way to get back to your hotel.  What do you do? Contact Astronomy Allies.

The Astronomy Allies Program consists of volunteers who act to form a “safe-zone” at AAS meetings. An Astronomy Ally can act as a buffer, bystander, or advocate. As a meeting participant, you can contact an Ally if you need help. Allies can provide confidential advice, support, information, and resources. They can serve as a liaison between you and the AAS administration. They can help create an environment where the perpetrators of harassment feel they “can’t get away” with their unprofessional and disturbing behavior. As knowledge of the Allies Program grows, their very existence may help prevent future problems before they start.
 

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: Information Escrows

Today’s guest blogger is Mordecai-Mark Mac Low. Mordecai is a curator in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, where he leads a research group studying the formation of planets and stars and the structure of the interstellar gas, and has curated the Space Shows "Journey to the Stars" (w/Rebecca Oppenheimer) and "Dark Universe."

After Eliot Rodger's rampage, the hashtags #notallmen and #yesallwomen swept Twitter, expressing the reality that although most men do not engage in sexual assaults or harassment, the ones that do tend to be serial offenders (e.g., sec 5.6 in this federal report from 1981, "Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace: Is It a Problem?", or Lucero et al. 2003, "An Empirical Investigation of Sexual Harassers: Toward a Perpetrator Typology" Hum. Rel., 56, 1461), ensuring that almost all women have had to deal with such problems at some level. (Although male victims may be slightly less common, and female perpetrators more so, both appear to suffer from even more overwhelming underreporting than the usual narrative.) 

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: The Solutions Series

The Fed Up with Sexual Harassment series included some of the most viewed posts in the history of the Women in Astronomy blog. In the wake of this series, those involved in its production wanted to follow up with a second series focused on solutions.
 
Since blogging about my own sexual harassment experience and talking with many of you about yours, I have been amazed to learn how common harassment remains in the astronomy community. Of course there can be a whole range of sexual harassment experiences – from a one-time creepy encounter, to surviving in a toxic environment, to career threatening repercussions. I personally came all too close to having my career destroyed because of sexual harassment.

Two questions always seem to drive the discussion following one of these posts. The first is why victims don’t just file a formal complaint and let the system handle it. The second is why we don’t name the harassers. One commenter sums it up: “This is criminal behavior no less serious than abuse or assault. We don't slink around giving perpetrators of assault a pass, so why do it for serial harassers? Why protect them at the expense of their prey? If someone assaults someone else on the street and the assaulter is called to account for his/her actions, their name is given. Same here.”

In an ideal world where the complaint process was well laid out and the system actually worked, I would agree. But the world is imperfect, the process is murky, and the system is broken. In a sexual assault case, there is indeed a he said/she said, but there is often forensic evidence as well. This helps tips the scales of justice. Assault can also be student on student, so the victim and assailant have relatively equal status in the community. Victims of sexual harassment often have no forensic evidence, no witnesses, and the harasser has much more power. When it comes right down to he said/she said, the burden of proof is on the victim. If that burden can’t be met, victims often remain silent. If they choose to tell these horror stories to people they trust, it is still their story to tell. It is their option to name the harasser, but given the burden of proof and the retaliation experienced by those courageous enough to come forward, this is often a difficult decision to make.