Small victories in street harassment

One of my favorite things about my new life is that I can walk to my office. 

Today was the first day in six weeks that I have walked all the way there and all the way back home without a single instance of a man: whistling at me, screaming at me, honking a car horn at me, making a rude gesture at me, yelling at me, or grabbing his crotch in front of me.

Today, I just walked there and walked home. 

Things you should read this week

(In order of priority)

The Washington Post on the backlog in processing evidence of sexual assault.

Then, on a lighter note:

The Dissolve on female characters in movies.

First Things on Not-A-Dates.

Aspirations

Today, I aspire to a job in an environment in which a comment on my attire is not the standard way to open a conversation.


The first conversation I had this morning went like this: 

Me: "Good morning, [Professor X]."

Prof X, disapproving: "Hello, Lauren.  You look very school-marm-ish today."

Me, cheerfully: "Oh!  In a good way, I hope!"

Prof X, doubtfully: "Well I don't know... I'm really not sure about those shoes."


For Pete's sake. 

Hunh? (Faculty Edition)

I have had these conversations about my appearance this week:

Faculty Person 1: "That's a nice dress.  In fact, that color actually looks GOOD on you!"

Me (in tasteful --- albeit very green --- dress): "Thank you."

I am pretty sure that this person was trying to compliment me, but the shock and awe in the tone of voice undermined that intention a bit.


Faculty Person 2: "Even in the twenty-first century, a young female theologian should look non-threatening... and be wearing rather less lipstick than your good self!"

Me (in black turtleneck and grey slacks, with a swipe of a color called "pure red" on the lips): "Well, fortunately I'm not a theologian!"

And I am pretty sure that this person has, as my father would say, all the social skills of a charging water buffalo.  But really?  Really, folks, is this the best we can do?

 

If You Can't Say Something Unrelated to My Gender, then Shut the F*** Up

Spend a few minutes reading the short article and watching this video by Emily Graslie, who is a science reporter/blogger in Chicago.  (Props to facebook friends for bringing attention to it).

I don't know how Graslie remains so poised -- this sort of thing makes me furious -- but we all benefit from her wisdom and clarity when tackling the issue of gender bias against women in science, technology, engineering and math (and one can safely extrapolate to pretty much any academic discipline with significant underrepresentation by women and other minorities).

Awareness is the first step, but lord it feels so small.  And in my heart of hearts I thought we'd be well past the point, in 2013, in a progressive country, where the following still needs to be stated: after a woman presents her work, whether it be in print or in a video or at a conference or during a workshop or lecture, etc., it is never okay for your response to include, let alone be solely comprised of, commentary about her physical appearance, dress, posture, or "mansplaining" (cf. here and here) aspects of her own research back to her.

Do you know how often this sort of thing happens?  In my own experience, more often than not.  In the over 30 talks I've given at this point in my career, I'm hard-pressed to think of more than 9 instances in which I received only appropriate, professional, collegial responses to my work.

That means that after 2 out of every 3 talks, some guy has sauntered up to me with commentary primarily directed at my being female. (Once, a colleague told me he was too distracted by my looks to focus on my talk. ABSOLUTELY OUT OF LINE.)  More frequently I receive special male "instruction" on how to better give my talk or present my own findings, or how to answer certain questions I was asked during Q&A.  One man even gave me advice on how to stand behind the podium during my talk.  In this case, I did tell the man flat out that this was entirely irrelevant, and he should only speak to me further if he has actually understood the content of my research and can formulate a coherent question pertaining to it.  He didn't respond; in fact, he didn't speak to me for the rest of the conference (no great loss on my part).

This behavior is unacceptable.  The fact that people evidently still don't know or realize that this behavior is unacceptable... is unfathomable.

Re: L's last Post

I'm no expert at photoshop, but look what I did after work today!

(That's all I got.)

In Which Hugo Chávez Is Praised

The commercialization of a woman's figure in the US is bad, no doubt about it.  But it is nothing compared to the immense pressure our sisters in Venezuela are under regarding their bodies.

The New York Times International today published a short piece (with video) on the rise of plastic surgery in Venezuela among all classes of women despite dire economic circumstances there.  Women will sacrifice all else in order to pay, and pay, and pay...to be perfected.

You can watch the 5-min video here.  Warning:  there are a few graphic surgery shots.

After you've seen it, you will find yourself entertaining very dark thoughts involving a meat mallet and the face of Osmel Sousa while simultaneously wanting to shake hands with the late, notorious Huge Chávez, who according to this report "...railed against the procedures, saying it was 'monstrous' that poor women were spending money on breast surgeries when they had trouble making ends meet."

Young (Female) Historians

Why yes, I am taking the Daily Mail seriously enough to respond to it.

 


It occurs to me that I can respond in about six different ways:

1. Look!  Female historians!  With jobs!

2. Lady, get your fingers off the ink on that manuscript page. 

3. Why are they all white?

4. Actually, why are they all young and attractive?

5. I wonder what it would take to get the tenured male profs I know to wear outfits and poses like this.

And finally, as always:

Are you £@$%-ing kidding me?

No Such Thing As Winning

"No complaint outcome, on paper or in the form of material support, is going to undo the damage that harassment does."

-- From a sobering account of sexual harassment in the academy. Read it all.

Great idea! (Or not.)

The scene: I'm at the opening reception of a multi-week international seminar for graduate students in my field and associated fields, chatting with strangers, eating unidentifiable canapés, being charming, trying to remember names, and drinking a magically-refilling glass of wine. 

Editorial note: Despite the fact that the relevant fields are about 50-50 men-women at my university, and quite possibly majority female on a national level, women make up less than a third of the cohort of seminar participants.  

The great idea: Male graduate student from another university declares, "I have a great idea!  Since we're all staying in adjacent flats, why don't you girls just cook us all dinner every night?"

Me: Dumfounded. "Ha! Or not."

Editorial note: What a comeback, hmm?  And here's the thing: even if he didn't mean anything by it, even if he was just trying to be funny, he wasn't.  It's not about the cooking.  It's not even about the comment.  It's about his assumption: we do the work, you do the cooking.

On Campus? C'mon!

Yes indeedy do, it's a happy Monday afternoon when you leave your office to walk across campus for a coffee and get sexually harassed on the way.

I was walking along the path and a teen-aged boy (at least it wasn't a student here) came up behind me on his bike, followed right behind me for a while, then made an inappropriate comment about my physical appearance.  I glared and snapped back, full voice, "I am FACULTY here!"

Which I thought would be some sort of win for The Witty Insult Campaign (I've been working on that entry by the way-- forthcoming, my dears!).  But instead of being ashamed of himself or being cowed by my loud and articulate response in the presence of the, oh, 3 or so other people in the vicinity, he made an obscene gesture with his tongue, laughed, and rode away.

Curses upon thee, thou goatish bat-fowling botch of nature!

Well, I'm going to publish the Witty Insults anyway, even if this whole having-a-good-response thing doesn't deter idiots from being idiots like I hoped it might.  The next best thing is to laugh about it, I suppose.

More bad news for women in philosophy

Today, a Facebook friend linked to this short blog post, and it left me simply aghast.

Seriously?!?

It got me thinking about my own recent experiences. One involved the convening of a very big-wig, super-exclusive, by-invitation-only annual conference in my field that has rarely had women participants and even more seldomly invited women to be official discussants or speakers. I gave some moderate flack to a few of the organizers and participants from this year's all-male shindig, but was met with the very unsatisfactory response that "An effort was made" to include women.

Seriously?!?

As far as publications, I've got a story there, too. I was recently asked to contribute an article to a volume of conference proceedings. I was flattered and accepted, but then got to thinking. The proceedings are of a conference that I was not invited to, that took place a while ago, was an all-male event, and was on a topic I have not myself specifically engaged with in research or teaching. Not by a good margin, in fact.

I conclude that I was surely invited to contribute in order to serve as the token female. Or at least, that had to have been a key factor. Why else would they have asked ME? I was so bewildered by this that I wrote a brief email to the organizers asking point-blank why they had asked me to be a part of this project, given the non-overlap between my research and the topic of the conference/volume. What I wanted to know but didn't add to my email was: Why are you asking me when I can easily list 6 women in the field who HAVE published outstanding work in recent years on topics of greater relevance to the proposed project? Do you not know of this work by your female colleagues? Additionally, given the existence of such relevant work by women in the field, why weren't any of them invited to be part of your original conference? Hmm???

The answer I got back to the question I did ask was vague-- along the lines of, you've done some historical work that is kind of relevant, but if you don't wish to write about that, well, you can pretty much write whatever you want to write.

I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that, but something died in me a little to realise that they wanted a contribution from me and they didn't necessarily care about its contents. I mean, maybe -- just maybe -- I appear to be such a brilliant light in my field that they had to have a contribution from me, even if it wasn't in my subject area. Or perhaps through divine foresight the organizers sensed I would add something crucial to the debate, despite my lack of engagement in the debate hitherto. But the likelihood of that is quite small, whereas my being welcomed in as the lone female author is far more probable.

For now I'm going to adopt an optimistic stance, because what else can a girl do? I'm going to forget about all this and give the organizers the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they just wanted to help a young career kid get another good publication out, and I just happen to be female. Who knows. And besides, why the hell not? I'm up for the challenge of adopting an entirely novel direction for my research and having the resulting work be published alongside contributions from Big Names in The Field who've been thinking about, writing about, and attending conference without me on this particular topic for years. All in a girl's day's work, I guess.

Wish me luck.

Speaking of domestic violence...

... you may have seen the horrifying pictures of Nigella Lawson being strangled in a restaurant by her husband, who later said that the incident was merely a "playful tiff."  Wiser people than I have responded to that particular incident, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to issue this general reminder:

Domestic violence is a real problem.  It is everywhere: among the wealthy, the poor, the beautiful, the homely, the educated, the illiterate, the religious, the secular.  No group of people is magically made immune.  And violence from a date, a family member, a partner, or a spouse is never ok. 

Update: Everyone, men and women, should read Gavin De Becker's The Gift of Fear.  This book had been on my list of things to read for years, and I finally got around to it.  I'm sorry it took me so long.  If you think you may be suffering from abuse, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-SAFE. 

What is it like to be a woman in Philosophy?

No commentary from me.  Just read it all.

Writers and women writers

Every so often, I have a conversation with someone, usually a well-meaning man of above-average intelligence, about whether or not sexism is A Real Thing in 2013.  Yes, yes, it is.  And for today's example, I bring you wikipedia.  Go ahead and read it all.

 When sex is an important identifier only for women, not for men, that's sexism, folks. When women are systematically moved from the category "writer" to the category "woman writer," while men get to keep being called "writer" instead of "man writer," that's sexism too. 

On Steubenville

I don't know if things are worse now than they were, say, ten years ago, or if it's just that I'm paying more attention now, but I can't believe some of the rhetoric around rape and sexual violence these days.  It makes me inarticulate with rage.  So I'll pass along a few of the more thoughtful responses I've read and call it a day.

"The Steubenville rape victim was certainly someone’s daughter. She may have been someone’s sister. Someday she might even be someone’s wife. But these are not the reasons why raping her was wrong. This rape, and any rape, was wrong because women are people. Women are people, rape is wrong, and no one should ever be raped. End of story."  Read it all.

And the always-inflammatory but totally-on-the-money Gawker take on CNN's coverage here:

"For readers interested in learning more about how not to be labeled as registered sex offenders, a good first step is not to rape unconscious women, no matter how good your grades are. Regardless of the strength of your GPA (weighted or unweighted), if you commit rape, there is a possibility you may someday be convicted of a sex crime. This is because of your decision to commit a sex crime instead of going for a walk, or reading a book by Cormac McCarthy. Your ability to perform calculus or play football is generally not taken into consideration in a court of law. Should you prefer to be known as 'Good student and excellent football player [blank]' rather than 'Convicted sex offender [blank],' try stressing the studying and tackling and giving the sex crimes a miss altogether."

Or there's a Catholic perspective on rape culture more braodly here:

"Our culture surrounding sex is violent, exploitative and destructive to the dignity of women. Rape is Rape.....The Didache speaks of the way of death and John Paul II the culture of death, and for me, one clear example of this is the pervasive acceptance of sexual violence against women and girls. When we participate in and allow the persistence of the culture of rape exposed by this case through our complicity (and the complicity of so many others beginning that night but continuing through the trial is striking) we are facilitating the culture of death, we are following the way of death."
Lord, have mercy. 

Conferences and photo ops

In this month's glossy magazine for my field, I found a photo montage with snapshots from the recent Annual Conference.

Now, if one were to describe the roles women play in The Field by looking at the photos, here's what one might say.  Women, judging by these photos:

• Sell books
• Listen to men and diligently take notes
• Have men point to a large map and explain things to them 
• Drink wine
• Serve cake
• Buy books
• Sit in cafés

In these pictures, the men:

• Walk and look important
• Talk into a microphone
• Lecture
• Explain things
• Think Deep Thoughts
• Drink beer
• Use smartphones
• Buy books
• Walk other places looking important
• Lecture again
• Interview for jobs

There are twenty-five photos over three pages.  Not a single photo shows a woman giving a paper.  "Oh, I know," quipped a colleague, "they must be at a conference where only men are allowed to speak!"  I'm terribly tempted to write a scathing letter to the editor... but I want a job.  I don't dare.