On Friday, Ben Barres (Stanford) and Nancy Hopkins (MIT) were at MIT to talk about women in science -- they were panelists, had some opening remarks, and then the idea was to open the forum up so that the audience could speak about their experiences and feel less isolated, as well as ask the panelists questions. The forum was open to the public.
At first, the panel was fantastic -- Hopkins had some great graphs from work she had done on a study on women faculty at MIT (you know, the big one from 2001 or so) and Barres had some great stories about what his experiences had been as a woman in science, and now over the last years as a man in science (he is transgender). You can search for the 2006 Nature article to get his whole story (or email me for the pdf). I worried a bit when Barres kept talking about how women had to take this into their own hands and how he just didn't understand why more women didn't speak up when things went wrong. But in all, I think a lot of us younger female scientists felt like their might be some allies in the faculty after all.
During the question and answer period (which, again, was stated to be for the younger scientists in the room) lots of faculty and administrators started trying to speak, to toot Hopkins' and Barres' horns, their own horns, their non-profit's horns, etc. The grad student doing the moderating was clearly getting annoyed and was doing a great job trying to shut those folks down and get grad students to talk.
I couldn't bear it. So of course I raised my hand.
I talked briefly about my experiences as a grad student, touching really only on the problem where my dept was all male faculty and primarily female grads, and that the faculty only hung out socially with the few male grads. I said it was one of the most oppressive situations I've ever been in. I mentioned mentoring was heterogeneous and that women and people of color were the ones to get shafted. So then I asked (though I was so nervous that I really fudged this part) whether they thought mentoring should go into tenure review and contract review processes.
Both Hopkins and Barres advised me that I should have gotten out of the situation, and that I should have talked to someone about it. Are you fucking KIDDING me? I shouted over the increasing din (because I was not the only one pissed to hear this 'advice') that I had allies by being a union organizer for five years. Hopkins just said, "Oh, well, um yes."
Thankfully, my question opened the floodgates (not because I had been eloquent -- I really was too shaky and angry to make a lot of sense -- but because they were waiting to be opened by the tiniest thing) and a number of young women got up to tell their stories and say how ridiculous it is to simply tell women to get out of bad situations. It's not always that easy, and it doesn't seem fair to penalize women when men in the same situations are doing fine (or excelling).
I don't remember it all, likely because I was so upset, but women and men, white folks and people of color, all spoke really wonderfully about the issue. Here are a few small highlights:
- First, before I discuss these 'authoritative' speakers, try to imagine the sound of fifty to seventy five angry young women buzzing and being outcompeted by faculty who wanted to speak. Then imagine the sound of a dozen or so angry young women who did speak, and who all shared similar stories of being ignored, of not being taken seriously, of being harassed, of being told they were only in grad school for affirmative action because they were black (yes, to their face, and this is something I have heard said about women of color I know too), of having their work stolen by male faculty, and more.
- A research administrator said that her office and human resources are the best places for women to go if they feel they're facing discrimination, especially relating to pay/resources. HR and research admin folks are not going to lose their jobs for telling a chair that he's paying the women in his department 40% less than his men, and she can also get her boss in there to make the point.
- An older black male prof who I don't know spoke wonderfully about the "subtle" racism and sexism we are facing today. He talked about how we may no longer have lynching, but that the sexism and racism of today were just as bad if not worse, and that to call it "subtle" was ridiculous. Just call it racism. He also made the point (which Hopkins had also alluded to in one of her slides) that we've barely started to look at race. He noticed that most of the women in the audience were white, and said there needed to be some attention on the issues for women in color.
- Professor Jonathan King from MIT (I only knew who he was because he said his name) spoke well about his experiences interviewing labs where the PI is trying to renew a training grant. He said in every institution where the grad students were somehow organized, things worked better.
- Professor Sherley -- yes, the hunger strike one who was denied tenure -- also was in the audience and spoke. Every time I think of it I start to cry again. This is a man who fought incredibly hard to have his voice heard, who twice went through the administration to try and get his tenure review reconsidered, and who want on a hunger strike for weeks in order to get tenure, and in the end had to end his strike. And yet Sherley had a message for hope. He said that if we kept trying, if we gather people together, that things will change. He wanted us to be hopeful (in the face of his becoming a martyr before a racist institution, no less). I can't describe the kind, generous expression on his face, and how in that moment I didn't feel as though any of us in the room deserved it.
All of this is simply to say, there is too much to say! And, frankly, the reason that Barres and Hopkins had so little useful advice is not only because they are tenured and have lost sight of the stronger discrimination that occurs to younger scientists, but because they lack the framework (or maybe foresight) to understand the necessity of a labor union for grad students, post-docs, faculty, and scientists everywhere. Without a way for folks low on the totem pole to speak up for themselves (without repercussions or being singled out), there is no way to end oppression. You can't just leave a lab every time you experience discrimination or sexism, because you'd be leaving your new lab as soon as you moved in (not to mention that sometimes you're in a small enough field that moving at all is impossible).
So, organize, organize, organize! Stop worrying about how your salary might go down if humanities students salaries go up (it won't happen), stop worrying about dues (they're 1% of salary), stop worrying the teamsters are going to end up on your committee (yes, I've heard that one before). If you are tired of the fact that you have to work twice as hard to get half as far as a man in this profession, you need to gather people around you. You need to lead, and you need to build leadership. It's the only thing that's ever worked at ending any oppression.
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