harrassment

New Approaches to Ending Harassment in Economics and Science

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Exciting breakthroughs are happening in both policy initiatives and research findings that may lead to real changes in access to opportunity for women and minorities in the fields of economics and science. Starting with the field of economics, Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley of the New York Times report that Ben Bernanke, the current president of the American Economic Association (AEA), has acknowledged that “unfortunately, [the field of economics has] a reputation for hostility toward women and minorities.” This acknowledgment is a big deal because leaders at the highest levels will have to be the ones to make and implement real change. Janet Yellen, next year’s president of the AEA, agrees that change is needed. Casselman and Tankersley note that economics has had a diversity problem for a long time:

  • Only about a third of economics doctorates went to women, and the gender gap is wider at senior levels.
  • Racial and ethnic minorities are also underrepresented.
  • Barely 10 percent of tenured finance professors and 16 percent of tenure-track faculty are women in an AEA branch in Atlanta.

Casselman and Tankersley note in another article that a recent survey jolted Bernanke and the AEA into taking action. The authors report that a far-reaching survey conducted by the AEA involving 9,000 current and past members, both women and men, found an alarming rate of discrimination and harassment:

  • Half of the women reported being treated unfairly because of their sex compared to 3 percent of men.
  • Half of the women avoided speaking at a conference to guard against harassment or “disrespectful treatment.”
  • Hundreds of female economists say they have been stalked, touched inappropriately, or sexually assaulted. Overall, one in five reported being subjected to unwanted sexual advances.

As a result of this survey, the AEA has appointed an ombudsman empowered to investigate and establish professional consequences for those found to violate a new antiharassment code. This structural change is significant because until now, women and men in economics experiencing harassment and discrimination had nowhere to go to report it except to their own institutions, which have a vested interest in protecting those in powerful positions. Professional sanctions, including the loss of prestigious awards, will be made public if misbehavior is established—an important step in holding powerful people accountable.

The AEA survey also found high levels of alienation among black economists who have long felt their ideas are dismissed. Gay and lesbian economists were also far more likely to report discrimination and disrespect than their straight colleagues.

Other recent research by Alice Wu and, separately, Heather Sarsons found that women in economics face a toxic culture of discrimination in hiring, publications, and promotion. Sarsons’s research specifically found that women get less credit for work they do with male colleagues.

Switching now to the field of science, Amy Harmon writes that in 2018, the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), France Córdova, decided that “enough is enough” after she kept learning of yet another male scientist whose work she supported with public funds had sexually harassed a student, staff member, or colleague. Córdova, a woman who controls a $5 billion research budget, put in place a new sexual harassment policy that makes structural changes that could increase the number of female scientists in senior faculty positions. Specifically, institutions that accept an NSF grant must now go through this process:

  • They must notify the NSF of any finding related to harassment by the leading scientist working on the grant.
  • In case they do not report it, individuals may now report harassment directly to the NSF, which may conduct its own investigation; this is crucial if real accountability is to occur.

Both individuals and institutions face the possibility of losing coveted funds if sexual harassment is not reported, responded to with appropriate consequences, or stopped.

The fact that Córdova’s new policy was put in place by a woman in this #MeToo moment is not an accident. Córdova, 71, reports being sexually harassed herself as a graduate student by a professor. As Córdova and a few other senior female scientists have listened to stories from younger scientists in the context of the #MeToo movement and reviewed recent research on gender discrimination in science, they came to realize that the problem they thought would be a thing of the past is still widespread. Recent studies document that gender bias in science favors male scientists in hiring, salary, start-up funds for laboratories, credit for authorships, letters of recommendation, and invitations to speak at universities and on conference panels (a.k.a. “manels”).

Harmon says that a major report on harassment in science, published in 2018, offers a new term, “gender harassment,” defined as “verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, objectification, exclusion, or second-class status.” Carol Greider, a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins, notes that gender harassment may explain as much or more than sexual harassment when it comes to what drives women out of the field. She states, “We’ve been talking about the ‘leaky pipeline’ for years, and this may turn out to be the big gushing hole” that drains women and minorities from the field.

In summary, new sexual harassment policies in economics and science that include multiple reporting channels, professional consequences, and transparency for bad behavior may finally result in change. New research and the #MeToo movement is increasing awareness and motivation to bring about change.

 

Photo courtesy of Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash.

Why Are There So Few Female Architects?

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In past articles, I have written about gender discrimination against women in the law, economics, and medicine and physics. New research reveals similar patterns that discourage women from staying in the field of architecture. As in many other professions, such as those mentioned above, women account for half of all graduates from architecture schools but represent only 20 percent of licensed architects and 17 percent of partners or principles in firms. Allison Arieff, writing for the New York Times, reports on a recent survey of 14,360 respondents conducted by Equity by Design, an initiative of the American Institute of Architects. The survey included architects in every state and across six continents, and it found the following:

  • Female and minority architects and designers earn lower salaries than their white male peers and are less likely to hold positions of leadership.
  • Mothers in particular lose out on career and salary advancements.
  • Firms have been slow to follow best practices regarding equity and worker well-being.
  • Assumptions are prevalent that women will quit to marry.
  • Women’s competency and qualifications are often questioned, and they are unable to command authority on job sites.
  • Female role models and mentors are scarce.
  • Male colleagues complain that they do not want to take orders from a woman.
What needs to change? Arieff points out that the culture of male dominance runs deep in the architecture profession. In fact, she explains, “Until 1972 and the advent of Title IX, which forbade gender discrimination in federally funded education programs, most American architecture schools refused to admit women.” Arieff cites Ila Berman, dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, who said that the challenge is to “change a culture that will only be changed through representation, when 50 percent of the people in the room are women.” Caroline James, founder of the Design for Equity advocacy group, suggests that women need the following:
  • Tools for dealing with sexism
  • Mentorship
  • Access to salary information
  • Equal pay
  • New definitions of success as an architect
Last but not least, the #MeToo movement made a contribution to shifting the toxic culture of the industry when several male architects were accused of harassment in an online list. Arieff reports that one prominent architect, Richard Meier, was forced to step down from a leadership role in his firm after allegations from five women. A manifesto titled “Voices of Women” calling for an end to “pervasive prejudices and disrespectful behavior” was also introduced by a group of female architects in 2018. Change is coming.   Photo courtesy of Shawn Carpenter (CC BY-SA 2.0)]]>

Who Becomes a Sexual Harasser?

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There is something in the news almost every day about sexual harassment and sexual assault. These subjects have also come up in every social gathering I’ve been part of in recent weeks, whether the groups are all women or mixed gender groups of friends and colleagues. It is easy to grasp how powerful men like Bill O’Reilly of Fox News; Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer; and Bill Cosby, the entertainer, could get away with harassing and assaulting young women for decades by paying them millions of dollars to keep silent when they complained. It is also easy to understand the power that these men wielded over the careers of young women, power that may have fed a narcissistic predatory tendency (remember the Access Hollywood tape?). What is not as easy to understand is how some people can become sexual harassers or abusers when they are not rich and famous. How does this behavior begin and develop? First, let’s review the statistics reflecting how widespread this problem is. It is not just a few high-profile people (mostly men, but a few women) who are sexually harassing and assaulting others. Charles Blow of the New York Times recently reported these current statistics from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center:

  • One in five women will be raped at some point in their lives.
  • One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college.
  • Ninety-one percent of the victims of rape and sexual assault in the United States are female.
  • Eight percent of rapes occur while the victim is at work.
  • Rape is the most underreported crime; 63 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.
  • More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault.
  • The prevalence of false reporting is between 2 percent and 10 percent.
Blow also stated that a 2015 Cosmopolitan magazine survey of more than 2,234 female employees between eighteen and thirty-four found that roughly one in three said they had been sexually harassed at work. Seventy-one percent never reported the harassment, and of the 29 percent who did report it, only 15 percent felt the report was handled fairly. Who becomes a sexual harasser or predator? David Brooks of the New York Times offers a helpful framework, using the metaphor of “rooms,” for explaining how this evolution can occur.
  • Room #1: The room of love. Brooks explains that most men, when they are children, are raised to think about sex as “something special you do with the person you love.”
  • Room #2: The room of the prospector. Brooks explains that in adolescence “a strange thing happens,” and the room of love “drops from common culture” in societal messages about how boys should behave. Boys learn that “sex is a gold nugget” and that they should prospect for gold. If you are a straight man, then you’ll be on the prowl for women who can give you what you want—sex for pleasure. Hunting for sex at college parties or clubs becomes a transaction for which you can rack up conquests and victories. Too often, part of the hunt involves getting a young woman to drink a lot of alcohol to make her easier prey for sexual conquest and to be able to blame her later for being drunk. The sense of entitlement to sexual pleasure that young men learn in this process can stay with them after college when they move on to the workplace.
  • Room #3: The room of the predator. Brooks notes that a small percentage of men cross over from the prospector to the predator room and mix the pleasures of sex with the pleasures of power. Brooks goes on to state that the most extreme form of sexual harassment is “not just sex and it’s not just power; it’s a wicked mixture of the two. Harassers possess what psychologists call hostile masculinity; they apparently get pleasure from punishing the women who arouse them.” They take pleasure in frightening, intimidating, and overpowering women with their sexual behavior.
Brooks notes that predators do seem to start young, “often beginning their predatory behavior in college.” For this reason, the recent rollback of Obama-era guidelines by Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, for how colleges should be survivor-centered and hold predators accountable is a step backward. Campus sexual violence researchers Nicole Bedera and Miriam Gleckman-Krut in the New York Times report that the changes by DeVos will discourage survivors from coming forward and will ensure that more prospectors evolve into predators. The impact of sexual harassment and assault can be severe, including depression, PTSD, and suicidal thoughts. At the very least, it is a civil rights violation. Our institutions must stop enabling and protecting prospectors and perpetrators. We need to embrace and teach a definition of masculinity that includes accountability for respectful behavior toward girls and women.   Photo by J Stimp, CC BY 2.0.  ]]>