So you want to “do something about/for diversity”

Tags

diversity, LGBTQ, Women in Science

In the last several months/years, I’ve seen an increasing number of “diversity initiatives”, and attention paid to issues of diversity in STEM fields. Which is, on the whole, good. But as a member of a minority community, these can often come across as botched jobs. Scientists are good at science, but not necessarily (or one might say not at all good) at sociology and psychology.

And it’s become tiring.

Here, dear reader, is a handy, easily digested checklist (because who in science doesn’t like checklists) for how not to completely miss the mark with whatever “diversity initiative” you might want to do. As you’ll see, these are all inter-related, and some/many of them aren’t easy or to be taken lightly.

1. What? What do you want to get out of this exercise, tangibly? Cut the vagueness. Make your objectives SMART. If you can’t articulate your goals in these terms, you’ll never achieve them (or be able to demonstrate beyond vague hand-waving that “things are better”). Are you trying to have better representation at conferences or on editorial boards? Or perhaps increased membership in your society by under-represented groups? The processes for achieving these will differ. See also: where?
2. Who? “Diversity” as usually applied in STEM fields typically covers sex and ethnicity. There are many facets of diversity, some of which can’t be perceived without interaction. Gender, orientation, and ableness are just three others that quickly come to mind. Each brings a different viewpoint. Or rather, the same multitude of viewpoints found in any grouping of people. And each of these is just a conglomeration of different groups. Gay men aren’t representative of transfolk, who aren’t representative of bisexuals. Which of these groups do you want to reach? See also: why? Also see also: what?
3. Where? The US isn’t the only place with issues around the over-representation of straight white cismen in STEM, and there are local (and regional) areas for improvement, laws, traditions, and solutions to the problems. Even though the pattern may be widespread, what works in one place may (or may not) work in another. Don’t parachute in. Work with someone on the ground (see also: who (part 2)).
4. Who? (part 2). Nothing dooms these kinds of initiatives like the lack of involvement of the groups you’re trying to reach. They will know the language and issues better, and excluding them is patronizing, like saying “we know diversity is an issue, so we’ll fix it for you!” Without this involvement your initiative is almost certainly doomed to failure.
5. Who? (part 3). If I had a dollar for every time I was asked to talk about “Diversity 101” I would have >$1. In this scenario, I should be broke. Do your research. Google is your friend. We’re (often) too busy trying to keep up with a systematically damaging professional culture to “point you in the right direction”. If you actually care about it, read about it or contact organizations who are explicitly designed to help, and then engage on specifics. See also: who (part 2). You might be getting the idea that people are rather important here. Good.
6. What (next)? Don’t just gather information, or email blitz a vague surveymonkey link to your members. What will you do once you’ve identified the problem/need? If you don’t do anything, or don’t follow through (see also: what), think of the potentially hours of collectively wasted time. I’ve filled in enough “it will only take 20-30 minutes of your time” surveys to know this is often true. And it makes me less likely to help you out in the future. Failure to do anything is paying mere lip-service to the careers and lives of honest to goodness people.
7. Danger, Will Robinson! Whatever you decide to do, think (and have others think) about how it will be perceived, especially by those in the group you’re trying to reach. Academic conferences get this one wrong rather often (I’m looking at you, ESA “Ally” ribbons!). Don’t roll something this important out without a thorough look-over. See also: who (part 2). Also see also: when?
8. When? Don’t rush this. It’s important. If you can’t get something together for this year’s meeting, wait for next year. Something good, but delivered later is better than a hatchet-job thrown together to meet an arbitrary deadline. I mean, you should’ve been thinking about and actually DOING something about this ages ago anyway.
9. Expect pushback. In all likelihood, if you get things (mostly) right, you will get pushback from the straight white cismen already entrenched in whatever group you’re trying to diversify. If you don’t, you might get pushback from the groups you’re trying to include. Listen to the second. See also: what (next).

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The locations of scientific meetings matter

Tags

conferences, diversity, LGBTQ

I think it’s fair to say that in the last week, there’s been quite a shift in the scientific community, or at least certain parts thereof, particularly in the United States. Yesterday’s Executive Orders restricting immigration, though temporarily stayed as of this writing, have rightly caused consternation among many. In research circles, this has meant difficulties for students, faculty, and staff who were travelling overseas, and restrictions on nationals of seven countries from entering the US. The growing anger within the US at this action has resulted in several scientists, many of whom I respect greatly, suggesting that professional scientific societies move their conferences and meetings to venues outside the US, or for non-US researchers to boycott meetings in the US. While these suggestions come from good intentions, it’s rather flawed and, if I might say, a tad hypocritical.

Regardless of where a meeting is held, there will be scientists who cannot or will not, for immigration reasons or reasons of conscience, attend. Hold meetings outside the US could mean some US-based researchers who are not US citizens might not feel safe or comfortable going, for fear of being denied re-entry upon their return. Hold it in the US, and scientists from those seven nations could be unable to attend. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But this is hardly something new.

I have a list of just under 80 countries where I will not travel, for work or pleasure. Places where being LGBTQ is illegal. Unlike nationality, though, an immigration officer can’t look at me or my paperwork and decide whether I’m queer or not. But the fact remains that, regardless of whether its enforced or not, it’s illegal for me to be me in a sizeable chunk of the world. So if your conference is in Indonesia, Kenya, or Barbados, it’s a non-starter: I’m not going.

Last summer, I wrote about how the Animal Behaviour Society passed a resolution to not hold meetings in North Carolina in response to that state’s anti-trans “bathroom bill”, but at the same time the world’s biggest marine science conference, the IMCC, announced that it’s 2018 meeting would be in Malaysia *, which is on that list of 80 or so countries. Yet where was the concern? The showing of solidarity with scientists who would be affected by holding a scientific conference in such a location?

Some have argued that since these laws aren’t (apparently) enforced, or often aren’t (apparently) applied to foreigners that it would be ok for queer folk to go to conferences in some of these places. F&$# off. Unless you’ve ever had to hide who you were for fear of detention or physical & mental harm – often for years or decades – you have no idea how idiotic that sounds, and how unhealthy it is. Everyone makes their own decisions affecting their personal safety and based on their personal values, and I’ve made mine.

Rather than relocate meetings, societies need to ensure that all of their members can participate. Why, for example, is it still so difficult to allow members to participate by video-conference? It’s 2017 for goodness sake.

No matter where scientific societies hold their meetings, there will be scientists who will not or cannot attend. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can work towards a more equitable culture, in science and beyond.

— —

*The folks at IMCC have engaged on this issue, indeed far more than any other conference I’ve heard from, but the fact remains: being gay is illegal in Malaysia.

Scientific meetings and diversity

Tags

conferences, LGBTQ

At the end of the day, science is people and their interactions, whether that’s face-to-face, through a journal submission system, or by email. And having a diverse array of people present a diverse array of views and doing science in a diverse set of ways is a Good Thing. And as the scientific community gradually comes to the realization that the diverse scientists in its midst put up with a heck of a lot of diverse crap in their day-to-day lives, especially those from minority groups, women, and the financially insecure, for example, there’s been what one might call an evolution towards considering people when thinking about science.

One of the major ways scientists interact is at conferences or meetings, united by a common research area or theme, and it’s at these meetings where some not-that-good stuff can happen, which has prompted many organizations (though still a small minority) to establish codes of conduct for attendees. Huzzah progress! There are also things you can do to be an ally at conferences.

It was with this floating around in my noggin that I was very interested to see the tweet below from the 2016 Animal Behavior Society:

Passed unanimously. Sends a strong message to students about ABS values. #2016ABS pic.twitter.com/vTSyD4l9id

— Courtney Fitzpatrick (@clynfitzpatrick) August 1, 2016

HB2, or the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act is a large piece of rubbish that discriminates again transfolk by preventing them from using the toilet of their gender. Like I said, utter rubbish. So it was rather heartening to see a scientific society taking a stand on a social and legal issue that affects some of its members.

So it was with some sadness that, 2 days later, the 5th International Marine Conservation Congress announced its location:

… Aaaaand #IMCC5 will be in ….. Malaysia (Sarawak, Borneo) #IMCC4

— Craken MacCraic (@Craken_MacCraic) August 3, 2016

 

Malaysia is rather unfriendly to LGBTQ folk (to put it mildly), and even depictions of them in film must show “good triumphing over evil.” Good grief. So needless to say, I won’t be attending. Which is sad personally, and professionally. And while I do understand the international nature of science, and the need to engage with a diverse range of scientists from across the world, I wonder if the topic of LGBTQ attendees even came up.

Is it the job or the purview of professional scientific societies to consider all these various factors when choosing their meeting location? Or should their goal be to be as international as possible regardless of the social or legal conditions of some of their members? Societies are of course welcome to have their meetings wherever they wish, but I think they should also think about what message that sends (be it positive or negative) to the full diversity of its membership.

 

Why the #LGBTSTEMinar succeeded & was needed

Tags

conferences, LGBTQ

I’ve just returned from a conference, but it was unlike any other conference I’ve attended. The attendees weren’t drawn together because we share similar research interests, or work in similar places, or are from similar institutions. We had physical chemists, medical physicists, medical geneticists, engineers, mathematicians, and conservation biologists from academia, industry, and NGOs. What drew us together was that we were all (or >90% of us were) LGBT* scientists attending the LGBT STEMinar

I’ve written before about the need for LGBT scientists to make links, the challenges we share, regardless of discipline, and how conferences can help that. Which is why, when Beth Montague-Hellen raised the idea of a conference targeted specifically at LGBT scientists, I was quite keen to see how it would turn out.

The actual event in Sheffield on Friday blew me away.

There were more than 80 LGBT scientists attending from all over the UK (and one from Sweden!), plus a few expats living in the UK, such as myself. In addition to amazing high-quality science, it was a chance for us to, frankly, be ourselves. Never have I been to a conference with such a wonderful sense of humour, camaraderie, and palpable excitement among those attending. We didn’t have to worry about awkward coffee break small talk about partners, reactions of colleagues, or be guarded about which pronouns to use. All of these coping mechanisms that hide our true selves are exhausting, and the sense of liberation around the room was infectious.

We opened with Dave Smith’s talk ’No Sexuality Please, We’re Scientists’, based on some of the research he did (and that I highlighted) a few years ago, on the lack of visible LGBT science role models. It was an excellent primer for the day to come, and a video will be up on Youtube in the near future is on Youtube.

What followed were around 15 oral presentations from other scientists, ample time to socialize during long coffee breaks / lunch, and an opportunity to view about a dozen posters.

The day wrapped with an inspiring talk by Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, who highlighted the challenges many LGBT folk in STEM still face – the feeling that by being ’out’, it might impede career progression. But the message that I took away was much bigger. A number of surveys have revealed that even though departments of workplaces may be accepting, though not overtly so, LGBT staff and students still feel a lack of support. It’s not good enough to be accepting, we have to be encouraging.

I’m of the belief that by being an out visible LGBT scientist, it will, in however small a way, be useful for others to see. Not everyone is necessarily comfortable with this role, but I’ve chosen to own in a bit. And since I started blogging about being an out gay academic back in 2013 (though I’ve been out in my personal and professional life for more than a decade), several other LGBT scientists have gotten in touch to discuss the challenges we face as a group, or their own personal journey. I don’t necessarily have all the answers, but the starting point for the conversation is further ahead than many, or all of their straight mentors.

So bringing together all these LGBT scientists who would otherwise not encounter each other (or at least not in nearly so large a number) is a Good Thing.

One of the other most amazing things about this conference is how Twitter-driven it was. Many of us knew each other via Twitter, though had never met in real life. Before Friday, I had only met 3 or 4 other out LGBT scientists. I can now add so many more. More than a few people commented at the end of the day how many new Twitter followers they’d received simply though other attendees. I’ve added as many as I could recall to the QueerSTEM Twitter list, so follow along if you’re interested (or let me know if you’d like to be added!). The conference hashtag apparent trended during the day, and there were more than 500 tweets (which will eventually be organized into a Storify).

There were also many other LGBT scientists (both in the UK and elsewhere) following along on Twitter, and many expressed a wish to attend such a conference. My advice is to just do it. It’s a non-trivial amount of work to pull off, and is likely more challenging in Canada or the US owing to distances between universities, but it is so, so worthwhile. And Beth (and her wife Kate, and all other other helpers from Sheffield) pulled off an amazing day.

Following the official wrap-up function, several of us headed out for a drink and bite to eat. Now, everyone has their own journey when dealing with their sexuality, and had the conference happened during my MSc 10 years ago, I likely wouldn’t have been too $%!&-scared to attend. And many folks live or go to university or work in places where there aren’t that many other queer folk around so the idea of or ability to go out socially with other out LGBT people isn’t possible. So this was clearly a case where the non-science part of a conference could be equally important, and highlights, at least in my mind, the importance of being out and visible.

Lack of diversity in science is a hugely important issue, and our conference was by no means an exception. The vast majority of attendees were white, most were male. I have no idea how this reflects the population of LGBT scientists in the UK, or UK scientists in general, but as we move forward to discussing both visible and invisible diversity, it’s something that we need to keep in mind.

It looks like this might become an annual-ish thing, so I hope to see more of you at the 2017 LGBT STEMinar.

 

*A shorthand, I admit, for any non-straight person

Being out or an ally at scientific conferences – UPDATED

Tags

conferences, LGBTQ

The Ecological Society of America is holding its 100th annual meeting this week in Baltimore (congratulations!), and they’ve added something that I think is fairly unique (at least I’ve not seen it before) – ribbons to append to your name tag that identify you as a council member, session chair, or, interestingly, a rainbow ribbon with “ally” written on it.

 

I have name tag envy #ESA100#BronESApic.twitter.com/dYekVk2jX9

— Joshua Drew (@Drew_Lab) August 9, 2015

 

This got me thinking a bit about LGBT participation at scientific conferences. Some organizations/conferences have an LGBT section (mostly informal), and occasionally I’ve seen notes pinned to the conference notice board for “OutGroup” off-site get-togethers (OutGroup being a rather tongue-and-cheek pun for out LGBT attendees).

I should say that I’ve never been at a conference with any sort of official (or unofficial… at least that was broadcast to attendees) LGBT event. So when I saw Josh Drew’s ally ribbon, I thought that could be an interesting idea, especially at a conference like ESA, where there are 8000 attendees or so.

Back in 2005/6, I ran a campus “Safe Space” program, running workshops and distributing safe space stickers for students to put on their dorm doors, and less frequently for faculty/grad students to put on their office doors. Our biggest concern was that the program be genuine, and participants be somehow vetted. We accomplished this with an hour-long workshop and some take-away literature.  The ESA ribbons can be obtained at the registration desk, and I suspect that given their public display (alongside attendees’ names) that the lack of vetting won’t be a problem.

Conferences and scientific societies are increasingly becoming aware of the social issues around their meetings, and many now put in place codes of practice (you can see the ESA’s here, which includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender, but not gender expression, which needs to get fixed).  I couldn’t easily find the equivalent document for the British Ecological Society.

Most of the conference I go to are much smaller – a couple hundred people at most. Consequently, they don’t have codes of conduct, or rainbow ribbons, or an OutGroup get-together. That makes me sad.

So, here are a few rambling thoughts on what scientific organizations (and their conferences) can do to support their LGBT members:

Have an LGBT section

Putting LGBT scientists in touch with each other is huge. I didn’t (and still don’t really) have any LGBT scientific mentors that I can look to for professional advice or mentoring.  I think having LGBT mentors is incredibly important, and there are some organizations that are going down this road – the National Organization of Gay & Lesbian Scientific Professionals (NOGLSTP), for instance, but their representation in ecology & evolution and outside the United States is small/non-existent.

Even if this is something unofficial to start, societies encouraging their LGBT members to get together will make those members feel welcome, and hopefully more likely to be more active in other aspects of the organization.

 

Have an LGBT event

This is, of course, much easier if there are already active LGBT members who can aid in organizing it. Networking is a major aspect of scientific conferences, and people I’ve met at conferences have become friends, collaborators, and close colleagues. Most, if not all, of these relationships have been forged at lunch/dinner/the pub/wandering around the poster session and not sitting in a lecture theatre listening to a talk.

Some conferences have informal groups (I think the Evolution conference had an “Out Group”, but can’t find the link) where folks met for drinks one evening.

If the society has other “interest groups” for subsections of the discipline, or other groups, follow the lead of what they do. If not, start something!

 

Be mindful of LGBT members when planning meeting locations

This is particularly important for international meetings. There are 75 countries where homosexuality is illegal, mostly in Africa, the Middle East, and South/Southeast Asia. Everyone decides for themselves what their comfort level is, and for me, these 75 are right out.

 

The ally ribbon

The experiment at ESA is intriguing, and I’ve asked folks to let me/teh internetz know what sort of reaction/interaction it elicited, if any.  I’m genuinely curious. I see this as being a potentially useful thing at larger conferences, like ESA, where there are many more nameless faces.  Even if no one comes up to say anything, having them visible can be incredibly valuable. Like the Safe Space program I coordinated, just having the stickers on the doors can send an important message, and is very important even if no one explicitly comes in looking for a safe space.

 

In a perfect world, though, we wouldn’t need any of these things. But we’re not there yet. And like I said, these are just my thoughts.  Things that I think would be useful to my professional career, and that I’d like to offer other early-career scientists. Not everyone would find these useful/relevant, and that’s ok. We’re all products, at least partially, of our time and culture, particularly when it comes to LGBT issues, and have different needs/wants/challenges/solutions. But let’s start somewhere.

Have you been to a conference with any LGBT events/groups? What else would you like to see at both big and small scientific meetings?

 

Update – 12 Aug

This tweet from Ms. Dr. Joseph Simonis indicates that she was mis-gendered when introduced for her talk by someone wearing an ally ribbon. Not cool. The ribbons were freely available at the registration desk, apparently, so there appears to have been no vetting/training/standard-setting for those sporting them. Also not cool. When tags like “ally” are given away with no level of quality control, they are self-ascribing someone’s status. Being an “ally” means different things to different people, and it’s clear from the case above that the expectations from the LGBT* community differ from what some self-described allies think. This is a dangerous mix, and throws the utility of the ally ribbon right out the window.

When I ran the safe space project, we made sure those sporting the sticker on their doors met some minimum level of competence and shared values. This is immensely important, or else the trust just isn’t there and it’s a make-the-ally-ribbon-wearing-folk-feel-good exercise more than anything else. And that’s dangerous and unproductive.

It would be great to get some LGBT* folk involved with the ESA to run/help run a workshop pre-meeting if these ally ribbons are going to make a repeat appearance. I, for one, am free for early August 2016 in Fort Lauderdale. Let’s chat, ESA.

The whirlwind of returning – recommended reads

Tags

LGBTQ, links, natural history, publishing, sexual assault

I’ve just returned from about 4 months away doing field work on Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island in the world.  I had an absolutely fantastic time, and will reflect on my experiences a bit over the winter.  One of the things I look forward to on returning from the field (where there is little or no internet connectivity, poor email and phones, and a myriad of amazing experiences in nature and natural history) is catching up on all the amazing blogging and writing from my time away.  Below I’d like to highlight a few that caught my attention or various reasons, and add some thoughts of my own.  These are certainly not the only amazing stories from the last few months, and there are others that gave me much more to think about that I’ll write about later.  So without further ado, here we go:

 

#IAmANaturalist reclaim the name campaign celebrates natural history research

It’s no secret that I believe natural history is important and has a place in the modern scientific curriculum, so I was thrilled to see this initiative from the Ecological Society of America’s Natural History section.  The photos and stories on Twitter embody the innate curiousity about the natural world, and the importance of observing the world around us.

 

Ninety Minutes

Kate Clancy recounts three experiences that each took place in an hour and a half.  In particular, her musing that keeping the grass watered and green is a metaphor for the struggles and uncertainty of working to improve the learning and research environment while others seek to overhaul/decimate/table-flip it is worth thinking about.

 

Science’s sexual assault problem

I’m obviously late to the much-lauded New York Times op-ed by Hope Jahren but it’s too important to not include here.  Personally, I really identified with her sadness (and perhaps frustration) at not being able to travel to countries where she felt unsafe, even though this changed her research path, and obviously influenced the questions she pursued.  I’ve mentioned this in passing in the context of LGBT field scientists, too. We still have work to do.

 

Deconstructing creationist “scientists”

This piece from The EEB and Flow makes some excellent points in the context of how non-scientists use credentials to pass themselves off as scientists.  But what struck me and made me twinge a bit was the table that highlighted the four things needed in order to be a scientist.  It included:

• publishing peer-reviewed papers
• being asked to review papers
• securing research funding
• training students

What I take exception to is that the list seems to be very/entirely academia-centric.  As a scientist working for an NGO, supervising students isn’t part of my job description.  And I doubt it is for many in government (though many do).  Similarly, I would argue that many field staff that I’ve worked with are indeed scientists even though they have not published papers, secured funding, reviewed papers, or trained students.  I’ll be writing more on non-academic science in the future, so stay tuned.

 

Making science more welcoming for women and minorities: a workshop

Along the same lines, Ambika Kamath led a workshop on how to make women and minorities more welcome in science, and posted her thoughts and recommendations for others wanting to tackle topics of bias in a workshop environment.  Props for including orientation and gender!

 

Busy is no myth

In which Tim Poisot casts the “I’m always busy!” trope as an example of the Red Queen.  Teach those time management skills early!

 

Conservation Basic Training

Dez Huber tackles a comment by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enrick Sala and makes the case that teaching is the “basic training” or boot camp for the next generation of conservation scientists. Couldn’t agree more.

 

Homage to the squished mosquito

A student in Chris Buddle‘s field biology class had a squished mosquito in their field book, and wrote a poem about it. Natural history can be an inspiration for the arts as much as for science.

 

No you’re not paranoid – there is a bias against publishing marine conservation papers

Chris Parsons has an interesting analysis over at Southern Fried Science of the number of marine conservation papers in various journals, and finds them less likely to be published in general conservation journals.

 

Two interesting papers

I don’t often highlight specific papers, but there are two that have come across that are worth looking at.  AS Glen writes in the Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America on the “golden rule” of reviewing – review for others as you would have others review for you.  And over at PLoS Computational Biology, Rougier et al. gives some advice for improving figures.  I’ll also plug what I see as a “classic” paper by Don Kroodsma on figure legends.

 

Systematic gender bias in editorial boards in ecology

Again from Tim Poisot, an analysis of the gender disparity in various ecological journals.  Spoiler: it’s not great.

 

The Campus Alcohol Problem That Nobody Talks About

Rebecca Schuman nails it once again in this must-read on the prevalence of alcoholism among faculty, and the consequences for those who don’t partake (or even with less frequency).

 

A handy guide to UK-US feedback

How to tell what your UK or US prof/colleague means in handy tabular format.

 

Finally, but certainly not least, I’d like to highlight a new initiative to profile LGBT scientists that Beth Hellen started recently called LGBT STEM.  I highly recommend you check it out, and if you’re an out worker/student in STEM, submit your own story.  Jeremy Yoder highlighted (again) the perceived lack of queer STEM mentors for young scientists, as was described in Jack Andraka’s op-ed in The Advocate.

We have work to do

Tags

LGBTQ, sexism, sexual assault, Women in Science

I’m not a linguist, but I think the theory that swearing and other “taboo” words came about to express extreme emotion.  Regular readers of The Lab & Field will know that I rarely (never?) use such words.  Similarly, in scientific writing, we couch emotion in verbose syntactical constructions, often devoid of feeling.

Such will not be the case with this post because today I had to, quite literally and without hyperbole, suppress the urge to wretch, and I feel my writing on this topic should reflect that reaction.

Buckle up, because we have work to do.

No, really. I’m assigning homework.  Or more accurately, work-work, because today we (as individuals, and as “the scientific community”) need to stop what we’re doing, and think about what we’ve done.  I’m not fucking kidding, either.

 

1. Read Clancy KBH, Nelson RG, Rutherford JN, Hinde K (2014) Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): Trainees Report Harassment and Assault. PLoS ONE 9(7): e102172. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0102172

Not just the abstract, and not a news outlet’s coverage.  The actual article.  It contains things like: “A majority (64%, N = 423/658) of all survey respondents, stated that they had personally experienced sexual harassment”.  That’s two out of three.

“Over 20% of respondents reported that they had personally experienced sexual assault”.  That’s 1 in 5.  ONE IN FIVE!

“women respondents [were] 3.5 times more likely to report having experienced sexual harassment than men (70% of women (N = 361/512) and 40% of men (N = 56/138)”

“Women were significantly more likely to have experienced sexual assault: 26% of women (N = 131/504) vs. 6% of men (N = 8/133)”

Again, that’s a quarter of women who engage in field work reported being sexually assaulted.  By whom? I’m glad you asked: “Harassment aimed at men primarily originated from peers at the field site (horizontal dynamics) whereas they originated from superiors when directed toward women (vertical dynamics)”

This is not OK. It’s so far away from OK that it’s enraging.

 

2. Find your organizations sexual harassment & assault policy

Go ahead. I’ll wait. Mine was section 4.12 of my employee handbook issued in March 2011.

 

 

 

Got it? Good. Now read it.

 

 

 

Now make sure the people you supervise, mentor, and train read it, and know what to do when they are harassed.

 

3. Stop objectifying women, and using transfolk as jokes

The cover story of Science this week was about HIV/AIDS, and featured the mid-torso and below of three women sex workers. Again, let that sink in.  One of the leading scientific publications in the world used a graphic of women’s bodies to depict HIV/AIDS.  That’s pretty awful.

Cue the editor of Science Careers, Jim Austin, to chime in via Twitter:

@JacquelynGill@LSU_FISH@AAASmember You realize they are transgender? Does it matter? That at least colors things, no?

— Jim Austin (@SciCareerEditor) July 16, 2014

Ah yes, because that makes it so much better.  I mean, transwomen sex workers make it so much better! </sarcasm>  Now, as for why such a publication though it befitting to use headless transwomen sex workers for a cover story about HIV/AIDS (read that again for full effect: SCIENCE THOUGHT USING HEADLESS TRANWSOMEN SEX WORKERS AS THEIR COVER FOR A STORY ABOUT HIV/AIDS WAS OK) , Austin had this to say (WARNING: this is what caused me to wretch):

@JacquelynGill@LSU_FISH@AAASmember Interesting to consider how those gazey males will feel when they find out.

— Jim Austin (@SciCareerEditor) July 16, 2014

In case Austin later deletes the tweet, here it is again: “Interesting to consider how those gazey males will feel when they find out.”

For fuck’s sake. Trolling straight cismen?  Jesus fucking christ.

 

There’s been lots of other reaction to the paper by Clancy et al, and the Science cover around the interwebs, and I won’t try to pull them all together here.  But we each have to look at how what we do (again as individuals and as a scientific community), and how we treat women, people of colour, queer & transfolk, because it ain’t pretty, and it ain’t right.  Here’s a wee reminder:

The Journal of Proteomics sexism case

Dynamic Ecology’s Women in Science series

The Queer in STEM study

Female Conference Speaker Bingo

Being gay in academia (and here)

Coming out as a trans scientist

 

And in my post on the lack of women awardees of major Canadian science prizes, let’s not forget this paragraph:

Women are also underrepresented at conferences, on editorial boards, face biases when submitting to journals (PDF) and receive smaller grants.  In terms of “big awards”, one hurdle is that fewer women tend to be nominated (PDF – $$).

 

If you want to play along at home, you can also calculate #MyGenderGap

 

The current state of affairs is fucking embarrassing, and it’s time to change.

Where are Canada’s queer scientists?

Tags

LGBTQ

Recently, David Smith, a chemistry professor from York, England, posted a video on Youtube that asked “Where are the gay scientists?”  He went on to compare two lists of influential people – one from the general public, of which about 10% were scientists, and one of influential LGBT people, which included 1(ish) scientist in the UK.  Using Wikipedia as a launching point, he also revealed that there was but one living UK LGBT scientist (Sophie Wilson).

So how does Canada stack up?

Pretty poorly.  Richard Summerbell is at the University of Toronto’s School of Public Health, but Bruce Bagemihl is a linguist by training (though he has written about homosexual behaviour in other animals).

So where the heck are the queer scientists in Canada?

There are organizations in the US, like NOGLSTP, and programs like Out To Innovate that out academics in the US can take advantage of.  But the general attitude toward and culture of LGBT folks in the US is different from that in Canada.  North of the 49^th, we have had same-sex marriage nation-wide since 2005 (and with that, the same benefits for same-sex partners as our straight neighbours), and prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (gender identity still has a way to go, sadly), for example.

But while we might not face the same legal issues as our queer cousins south of the border, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that we do need to talk about in the context of scientific research, academic culture, and our lives as out LGBT scientists.  For example:

• Travel to locations that are less welcoming of LGBT people (including places were being gay is illegal, some of which might be surprising)
• Coming out to colleagues, lab-mates, supervisors, and students (including those from less-accepting social backgrounds and countries)
• Fieldwork in small crews for long periods of time where personal details will inevitably come out (pardon the pun)
• and generally being “out” in academia

True, these are not strictly “Canadian problems”.  During the fight for marriage equality in Canada, organizations like Egale Canada were a strong unifying force in the LGBT community (much like the HRC is in the US today), but today, they seem to have fallen by the wayside (at least in terms of initiatives apart from their push for gay-straight alliances in public schools).

As an openly gay scientist, these are things I think about on a fairly regular basis.  I want to hear how others in my position have handled these situations, and what they struggle with.  I want to hear about what we can do to foster inclusive environments at our scientific workplaces.  I want to know how we can educate our straight colleagues about the issues their LGBT students and colleagues encounter.

This summer, I met Kyle Hodder, and it was the first time I had discussions about being a queer scientist with another “out” queer scientist.  It was the moment when the “only gay in the village” shroud was lifted.

So where are all the queer Canadian scientists? I think I can certainly learn from them, and hope that I can offer them something from my experiences.

The benefits of out queer Canadian scientists

Another thing that David Smith did was conduct a short anonymous survey to see how welcoming his department was to LGBTQ students.  Here’s a sampling of the response:

Many of the issues LGBTQ folk deal with are country- (or state- or cultural-) specific; having a network of out queer Canadian scientist to mentor each other, and students and other young professionals puts the discussion into a Canadian context.

What’s wrong with the status quo?

Queer scientists are largely invisible, as we’re part of a hidden minority.  The same argument has been made in sports for the last few years to encourage athletes to come out as role models

“The need for positive roles models for gay youth is illustrated by the It Gets Better Project, created by writer Dan Savage in 2010. Savage developed the project in response to the highrates of suicide among gay youth; gays are significantly more likely to attempt suicide compared with heterosexual youth (21.5 percent versus 4.2 percent), and among gay youth, the risk of attempting suicide is 20 percent greater in environments characterized by homophobia or lack of positive support services. As gay youth progress to adulthood, these stresses may continue to manifest themselves in poor health outcomes. My own recent research, published in the American Journal of Men’s Health, drew on a sample of 1,000 gay men from Atlanta, and showed that gay men who reported that they heard statements such as “being gay is not normal” in their youth were more likely as adults to engage in sexual risk-taking. Similarly, Diana Burgess and colleagues at the University of Minnesota noted that compared with heterosexuals, gay adults are 68 percent more likely to experience depression, and 56 percent more likely to experience anxiety. Ilan Meyer, a senior scholar at UCLA’s School of Law, offers an explanation for these disparities through his “Theory of Minority Stress,” suggesting that these health inequities are rooted in discrimination, with negative behaviors acting as coping mechanisms for repeated exposure to stigma-related stress.

Growing up without visible gay role models sends a clear message to gay youth that they are different. A lack of high profile gay athletes sends the message that they don’t belong in mainstream sports. These social scripts act to perpetuate a division of gay and straight; all youth, regardless of sexual orientation, are sent a clear message that gay people either don’t belong in sport, or must hide their orientation until their career is over. As my own research shows, these messages have lasting impacts — sometimes fatal — on health behaviors as adults.”

The very same arguments could be applied to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

A modest proposal

Let’s start connecting.  If you’re an out queer Canadian scientist, drop me a line or get in touch on Twitter (or tell me where you’ve all been hanging out, and how I can get an invite!).  Let’s chat about how we can get a conversation going, how we can engage our LGBT colleagues who aren’t out professionally.  Let’s figure out the best way to keep the dialogue going, and form links among ourselves.  But most importantly, let’s learn from each other, and give back to each other from our experiences.  Most of us have probably experienced the feeling of being “the only gay in the village” already. Science doesn’t have to be that way, too.

With thanks to Kyle Hodder for thoughts, encouragement, and witty banter.

The (not-so-fabulous) life of gay academics

Tags

jobs, LGBTQ

Today, 10 June 2013, is the 10^th anniversary of the decision by the Court of Appeal for Ontario to allow same-sex marriage in Halpern v. Canada (Attorney General), and also Pride Week.  As someone who’s benefited directly from this ruling, I think it merits some reflection.  And as an academic, I often find myself explaining to straight colleagues why my career choices are so heavily influenced by the fact that I have a husband, not a wife.

As a bit of background, same-sex marriage rolled out gradually among Canada’s provinces between 2003 and 2005, when the federal government passed bill C-38 on 20 July 2005, and it’s extremely unlikely to be overturned by any government or court.   Canada’s been seen as a sort of haven for progressive LGBT rights, most having been read into Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Consequently, I can’t be discriminated against in employment, benefits, housing, health care, and more.  This has fostered a culture of openness, and I’ve been out to all of my academic supervisors, fellow grad students, and anyone who’s asked (though I still get the occasional “So what does your wife do?” when folks notice my wedding ring. Rather than embarrass me, it tends to embarrass them).

For comparison, my queer colleagues in the US are subject to a bewildering array of homophobic legislation that varies state by state.  In 30/50 states, same-sex marriage has been enshrined in the state constitution.  I think it’s worth taking some time to think about what that means.  The constitution, what defines an organization, and how it operates, explicitly prohibits two consenting adults who love each other from having that relationships recognized by the state.  Many states allow discrimination in employment (though local authorities and specific companies may have their own non-discrimination ordinances or policies).  There are still some places where housing can be refused to LGBT individuals or families (though, thankfully, this number is shrinking).

Why all this exposition on the sad state of affairs south of the 49^th parallel?  There are about 100 degree-granting institutions in Canada (or 1/360,000 people), while the US has 4495 (or 1/70,000 people).  For Canada to have the same per-capita number of universities, we’d need another 400 or so.  True, some of those US schools are staunchly religious schools where I wouldn’t even consider working (or even be allowed to work!), and some are often termed “Central Podunk State College”, meaning a general low quality school where no one wants to live, but that doesn’t change the overall picture.

Terry at Small Pond Science (and the subsequent comments) summed up the job situation in the US nicely, I think.  I’d be equally happy (perhaps even more so) at a teaching-focused university (often termed a “liberal arts college”), a class of post-secondary institution that is generally lacking in Canada (by my count, there are < 10, most on the east coast, and with little faculty turnover or new hires).

A natural idea for many early-career researchers and grad students (and entertainers) is to go to the US for a degree or a postdoc, or even a first job, even if they eventually want to end up back in Canada.  “The cultures can’t be that different”, I imagine them thinking.  For my family and I, that’s just not an option.

The most obvious example is in immigration.  Though I’m happily married here in Canada, my husband and I would have to immigrate as two individuals rather than as a couple.  This means, among other things, that we both need job offers in hand, and that our respective salaries have to be sufficient to support us individually.  A common solution to the “two body problem” in academia, especially if there’s a non-academic partner/spouse who is flexible in their work, is to move according to the academic in the family, and their spouse will find a job in the new city when they arrive.  That’s obviously not an option for same-sex couples immigrating to the US.

There’s also the general climate towards the LGBTQ community.  Humboldt University recently aggregated racist and homophobic tweets and mapped them to the county level (normalized for the total number of tweets per county).  You can zoom in and explore this map, and see that there are some places I’d probably not care to live in (well, that combined with the lack of marriage recognition, partner benefits, and full protection under the law).

But I don’t want to beat up on the US too harshly.  A few years ago, we had a plenary speaker come in from southern California, who was a lesbian.  She found the climate (in a non-weather sense) generally favourable (if not indifferent), and enjoyed her position, and the environment in which she lived.  There’s marriage equality in 14 states now, and that number will only grow.

While I generally agreed with Terry’s advice to apply to many and sundry places, at least for now, the US remains off my books.  That was a decision we made as a family a few years ago before I started the academic job-hunt, and we’ve stuck to it.  Some times it’s been very hard – when I see a position for which I’d be a great fit in a location I could see myself living, for example.  But generally I don’t follow the US job market because I know that it’s not something I’m entertaining.

Yes, the tides in the US are changing, but I’m not willing to give up the rights I have now (which, I think many people will agree, are fairly fundamental).  I expect that, in my lifetime, the LGBTQ (yes, including T) community in the US will be equal in the eyes of the state (if not all its inhabitants), but until that happens, I’ll just pop down for a visit now and then.

One of the interesting side effects of the LGBTQ struggle in the US has been the formation of organizations like the National Organization for Gay and Lesbian Science and Technology Professionals (NOGLSTP, recent Twitter adopters).  They frequently appear at large scientific meetings like the AAAS or AGU.  There’s no Canadian equivalent (and many have argued that our national LGBTQ organization, Egale Canada, has vanished since the 2005 marriage decision (though they continue to do good work, especially with anti-gay bullying in schools).  But through The Lab and Field, I’ve been able to connect to a couple of other LGBTQ academics, and I’m sure there are more.  There’s even a study of LGBTQ folks in STEM professions that I encourage you to go and fill out, even if you’re not in the US (it appears US-centric, but study co-lead Jeremy Yoder gave me the go-ahead).

LGBTQ academics, even in Canada, have different challenges from our straight colleagues, and it’s important to recognize these, and hopefully mentor our fellow queer graduate students, postdocs, and early-career researchers (something I wish I had received as a student, and would still benefit from now as a postdoc).

So in the absence of a formal Canadian group for LGBTQ scientists (and heck, other disciplines, too), we have to find each other through other channels.  Hopefully this post will foster a few more connections.

Epilogue

If anyone wants a 6-minute primer on the last 30ish years of gay rights in the US, I highly recommend checking out the extended trailer for “Second Class Citizen”, a film project by Ryan James Yezak. Heck, just watch it.

While the context is American, the issues aren’t.  Read about Jamie Hubley from Ottawa, or the Pots and Hands restaurant in Morris, Manitoba.

And, since I know that some folks don’t want to out themselves on the interwebs, if you’d still like to comment, send me an e-mail, and I can post it for you.