Universities in the US tend to be fairly liberal places (real universities, not Trump University or right wing Christian Loony universities), and scientists are obviously logical, rational people – so the sexual harassment of women ought to be fairly rare for female science undergraduates and graduates, right?
No fucking chance. A survey conducted at the University of Texas System [Swartout, K. (2018). University of Texas Climate Survey. Report on the University of Texas System Campus Climate Survey. P. A. Johnson, S. E. Widnakk, and F. F. Benya (eds.) In Sexual harassment of women: Climate, culture, and consequences in academic sciences, engineering and medicine pp. xxx−xxx . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press] found that about 20% of female science students, more than 25% of female engineering students, and more than 40% of medical students experienced sexual harassment from members of faculty or staff. In 2018, for fuck’s sake. And other surveys come up with even worse numbers. I picked a good one¹.
But surely academic institutions have policies, training, and compliance requirements designed to prevent this? Surely the law requires it? Well yes, but as so often happens, what the law does is promote policies that focus on merely symbolic compliance with the law, and are designed primarily to avoid liability, and not at all to actually prevent sexual harassment. And this is, of course, only concerned with illegal sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is only illegal under federal law if it creates a hostile environment - gender harassment or unwanted sexual attention that is “severe or pervasive” enough to alter the conditions of employment, interfere with one’s work performance, or impede one’s ability to get an education, or when it is considered quid pro quo sexual harassment - when favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity. Sexual assault is always illegal.
And we wonder why we don’t have more women in the Sciences. This hits home to me particularly as my sister – retired now – was a senior academic; a mathematician and astronomer, who I won’t name, but well known in her field. She fought through the dreadful misogyny of our childhood, and rose to heights that left the rest of us trailing, and she battled with this shit her entire career. Well done Sis.
¹The academic workplace has the second highest rate of sexual harassment at 58%, beaten only by the military at 69%.