Planet of Harassment

What to do if your supervisor, all of himself a wonderful and exemplary scientist with a good laboratory and interesting projects, constantly glances at your chest?

In early summer, this question was anonymously asked in a column of career councils on the website of Science magazine. In response, politely and even with understanding advised literally “tolerate” - and it is easier to relate to the behavior of the boss until it crosses more serious boundaries. The column ended like this: "His attention to your chest can be undesirable, but you need his attention to your scientific work and help."

A few hours later, the column was deleted : Science apologized to his audience for the fact that from his site, students, graduate students and career scientists actually offered to reconcile with unpleasant behavior that frankly disturb them (the anonymous question was signed - Bothereed , “concerned”), if they do not want to lose their work that they like. The most sad thing in this story is that many young women who, in theory, were intended for this advice, know: in fact, this was not only an offensive hint, but also a sad truth. The truth, to which many of them come to work and study every morning.

At the end of last week, Buzzfeed (for some time, which has been engaged not only in the gifs of cats, but also very serious stories ) published a lot of material that Jeffrey Marsi is a superpopular explorer of the exoplanet, who has been forgiven for the Nobel Prize for several years-he repeatedly violated the internal rules of the California University in Berkeley, giving up students .

So that you understand: Mars and its scientific groups owns a record for the number of open planets outside the solar system. He began his research in the 1980s, when not everyone agreed that the planets were somewhere else in our galaxy, and opened 70 out of the 100th 100 exoplanets. His surname is easy to find in the list of authors of the triumphal July article on the discovery of the “second Earth”, the Kepler-452B exoplanets. The same summer, he, along with Frank Drake, Stephen Hawking and other colleagues, presented a 100 millionth grant in search of extraterrestrial civilizations , Which was highlighted by Yuri Milner.

Judging by the results of a six -month university investigation that Buzzfeed refers to, “repeatedly” covers the period from 2001 to 2010: four persons involved in the proceedings claim that, for example, kisses, the massages of the back, which no one asked for it, and what is probably translated as “Bowing” (Groping ” (Groping) .

For Marsii, the university trial was not so severely ended as, for example, for Walter Lewin in MIT : the university, in fact, simply warned the astronomer that if he did not stop violating the rules, he was threatened with certain sanctions up to temporary detachment or dismissal. The astronomer and popular blogger Katie Mack formulated the essence of this decision as follows: “For ten years you are harassed by women? Try not to do this anymore, otherwise we will consider ... well, some measures. "

Marsy himself, when this story began to pop up, made an apology addressed to the professional community. The scientist writes that it is difficult for him to express how it hurts [to him] to understand that [he] became a source of suffering for fellow women, no matter how unintentional it was, ”now, 13 years after the start of the period covered by the trial.

Martsy did not agree with all the complaints about him (the most serious - that he climbed a woman under his skirt - completely denies), but it is still interesting that in those ten years - kisses, massage or frivolous touches to outsiders - it seems to him unintentional. In fact, strictly speaking, these complaints by nature-physical interaction with those who did not give consent-are already pulling themselves not to harassment, but on Assault , violence.

He began his research in the 1980s, when not everyone agreed that the planets were somewhere else in our galaxy, and opened 70 out of the 100th 100 exoplanets.

The word "harassment" forces other Russian -speaking readers to rush to retell the horror stories about the fact that it is worth the American man to give an American woman a coat or open the door - so the woman immediately runs through the same door to sue for harassment. Unfortunate men, whose purely good intentions are forever not so understood, suffer from the arbitrariness of feminism.

The alternative version of the horror story says that an insidious woman can falsely blame a man of a harassment-out of resentment or jealousy, for revenge, extortion or, presumably, simply because of a bad mood. And so, by clicking on female fingers, the careers and the life of unfortunate men who fell under the distribution of the same feminism collapse.

Such horror stories suggest that for a woman to publicly declare that she was harassed - this is how to go to the store. That the need to retell the humiliating details of what you want to forget, close attention to your virtue that will be studied under a microscope, and life under the slogan “Sam, a fool, is to blame” is fun and interesting. That the risk of destroying your professional reputation and losing your favorite work is forever - these are candles that are such a game.

It is also assumed that after such a statement, everyone and always automatically ends up the side of the woman, taking her unconditionally, and this funny thesis, frankly, is somehow strange to seriously refute. Even Buzzfeed , who excavated this topic, after the publication suddenly decided to change the headline with the “investigation showed that there was a harassment” to “these women say that there was a harassment” - without thinking that such a turn distorts the essence of the story (and the readers still thought, and as a result, Buzzfeed returned everything as it was).

In the best case, women simply remain invisible, especially if the one they accuse of harassment is very famous. The acting head of the department, where Marsi works, sent a letter to the department in which he had never even mentioned the victims - but he wrote that "the hardest thing is now Jeff."

And the horror stories suggest that a woman goes through life, staring at every word and the action of men around - whether it is a harassment, and at the slightest hint of an affirmative answer, a lawyer calls. In fact, as women themselves are well known, most often the behavior that falls under the harassment, especially all these “friendly” touches and “innocent” replicas, really causes annoying thoughts, but somewhat different. Well, how is it, we are colleagues at work, he clearly did not mean it, it was me, a fool, he misunderstood him. He is a decent adult, it cannot be that he really harassed me, well, stroked her lower back, nonsense, do not raped, think, why is it shaking me?

In English there is such an expression: Power Dynamic -the alignment of forces in the relationship of some subjects. The teacher and student, teacher and student, supervisor and graduate student, boss and subordinate, this very alignment of forces is well understandable: the status and position of one of the parties are much higher, and a lot in the fate of the other side directly depends on this side - on the assessment of the course to work, increase or premium.

In such a situation, a vulnerable side can not always protect their interests - for example, to demand from a brilliant scientist, probably known in her common field, so that he stops doing what he does. And the obvious inequality of the parties opens up a wide scope for manipulation, abuse, conflicts of interests and coercion. Therefore, to any connections that go beyond professional, there will always be a very difficult attitude here - too unequal participants.

The word "harassment" forces other Russian -speaking readers to rush to retell the horror stories about the fact that it is worth the American man to give an American woman a coat or open the door - so the woman immediately runs through the same door to sue for harassment.

Women in science have additional aggravating circumstances : they are still in the minority, and the times when the girls said that they cannot engage in science, “because their brains cannot overpower it,” not that they remained in the distant past. It is not surprising that women-scientists are much more likely to male colleagues suffer from an impostor syndrome : a destructive and unreasonable conviction that you actually received everything undeservedly, “for beautiful eyes”, successfully pretending to be smart and talented, and literally over your angle an error will expect from which everything will be revealed.

President of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Meg Urry in a note science He says that one of the saddest moments that she happened to observe is when a young woman understands that the attention paid to her by the senior colleague of the astronomer has nothing to do with her scientific results. This, of course, also does not help from the impostor syndrome and is often felt as a big and bitter betrayal: a person who should help you become better and achieve success in science, this refuge for idealists is actually guided by obviously unscientific motifs.

In the story with Jeff Mars there are three conclusions: “good”, bad, evil. The “good”, it is the shortest, is that the reaction of the professional community, to which Marsi addressed his apologies, is still unambiguous. His colleagues, 22 teachers of astronomy of the same university, in an open letter they directly wrote: we believe that Martsy can no longer fulfill the duties of a teacher. The scientist left the organizing committee of a large industry conference and will not participate in it. And 260 astronomers and physicists from around the world wrote a rather harsh answer to the New York Times , where the article frankly sympathetic, the editors recalled that it was not about the “hysterical” public persecution of the great scientist, but about the results of the official trial, which could actually remain no one, if not for journalists. Many students, graduate students and employees of the department did not know anything about him: they admit that together with everyone they read about what was happening under their side on the Internet.

In August 1977, the New York Times wrote about the first -a -kind collective lawsuit against the university related to sexual harassment: five students of Yale University and one professor (a man who supported the claims of young women) stated that the behavior of a number of teachers was offensive, and the university did not take any measures.

One of the truths told the journalist Nyt that her music teacher, at first, was just a friendly and pleasant person, gradually became too friendly - the student firmly repelled him, but was afraid to go to an open confrontation, because her assessments depended on her academic and professional future. As a result, the teacher, according to the girl, raped her.

Why they decided to sue Yel, you can also guess the material. The article quotes an anonymous source in the university administration, which says literally the following: “There is a convincing argument here: if the students are not smart enough to outwit some unpleasant and annoying professor, they should not be here at all.” The elegant, of course, is a way to say “themselves, fools, to blame”, this is not taken away from the anonymous.

The student did not win the trial, but they achieved their own. Yely created a mechanism for considering complaints of incorrect behavior, and the court - and this is most important, because it is a precedent - admitted that sexual harassment is essentially a form of discrimination on the basis of gender, which means that they violate the law adopted five years before, now widely known as Title IX.

A bad conclusion is that in 38 years this WHO, apparently, has not advanced very far.

And the evil conclusion is that, it turns out, the behavior of Jeff Marsi was a complete surprise for those who read enthusiastic articles in newspapers about him, but never studied at Berkeley and was not at astronomical conferences. From the comments-non-anonymous-other astronomers, which are now enough in articles and blogs, I want to escape to some exoplanet: “Everyone who is engaged in research in this area knows that Jeff behaves like that”, “Finally this is revealed,” “graduate students warn the new ones that you should not go to work.”

You can somehow imagine these ten years. And in another way you read a review about Marsi on the site where students give assessments to teachers: "Girls love more than boys."