Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

broadly.vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 402 posts

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#291

Post by nitrogen »

zkhalique wrote: post #140
goodcanadian wrote: post #96

I must admit that I was genuinely surprised by this. I have worked in Astronomy (as a technologist) for over a decade, and I have never witnessed this sort of behaviour. Of course, I am male. There are, however, plenty of assholes in the world including in academia, and I have noticed that universities tend not to want to rock the boat, so I suppose that it is not entirely surprising that these things are occurring.…

I wonder where I can read about frank male experiences in a female-dominated field, such as nursing, or teaching elementary school.

I have seen women in superior positions comment on the attractiveness of men in work meetings in ways that would get the superior in a lot of trouble were the roles reversed, and then go on to justify and defend it.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#292

Post by rokhayakebe »

ghostcat wrote: post #240
jbmorgado wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making it sound like it's actually his fault that he kept asking until she actually gave a definite answer. Worst than that, some people would call that harassment and chastise me and others for victim blaming, just stating a simple fact: She should have said no. I wonder how many of these cases get into the statistics about harassment when it should just be considered simple human interaction up to the point…

Using a straight-up "no" can turn it into an outright confrontation, which can be pretty dangerous if the guy isn't the type that will take "no" for an answer. Once I gave a guy a simple-but-polite "no" in college, and he responded with harassing emails/repeated phone calls/stalking/etc for months. Once during an internship, a superior cornered me in my office after-hours, blocking my exit and declaring his love for…

Using a straight-up "no" can turn it into an outright confrontation, which can be pretty dangerous if the guy isn't the type that will take "no" for an answer.

While it is not evident a guy will take a no worst than a girl would, I agree that a straight "no" will always lead to an unpleasant outcome.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#293

Post by labster »

grahamburger wrote: post #268

There is an interesting side effect to these issues that I think doesn't get discussed very often. I try to be as aware as possible of these issues in the hope that I can make sure that I'm not part of the problem. As such I make a concerted effort to give anyone that works for me equal opportunities for advancement, and when in doubt I try to err on the side of the person who's in a marginalized class. I also try to…

If you ignore all women socially at work, you're going to end up discriminating against women. People have a strong tendency to select for what they already know. If you have a hiring choice between a theoretically equal woman and an equal man, you'll probably want to select the man because you'd feel safe to interact with him socially. You won't because it's Wrong, but what about all of the little decisions you don't think about so hard? Even if you were outside of management, you'd still be marginalizing the women on your team by your actions -- making an in group and an out group.

It's possible to run so far from sexual harassment you run into sexual discrimination. I don't know if there is an answer to this other than "be a nice person". Not trying to pick on parent in particular, just trying to illustrate how thorny the issues are.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#294

Post by fweespee_ch »

stcredzero wrote: post #270
fweespee_ch wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's much stronger evidence in combination. But I think it's weird you led with the population distribution in your account, not the reported behavior. I wasn't expecting someone to argue that it was reasonable to have a homogeneous population of hires on a gender/race axis. > There are a bunch of places that hire out of whack to the natural distribution of the population. I've never encountered one IRL that was…

Can you provide examples of this happening on the scale you state? I find it telling that you were assuming I was talking about female minorities. Reread.

Why don't you provide examples rather than insisting I read your intentions in vague statements?

I was discussing the context of my comment, not the world in general.

So once again:

Please provide examples where homogeneity on both the gender and race axis occurs so frequently this could be considered a reasonable event?

And the boss is attracted to that gender?

EDIT:

> There are a bunch of places that hire out of whack to the natural distribution of the population.

That is what I was talking about xD

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#295

Post by Declanomous »

home_boi wrote: post #267
Declanomous wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized I wrote a wall of text in response. I'm not picking on you, but I think you brought up a point that I think is really worth responding to in depth, because I felt that way in one point in time, and I've slowly realized how wrong I was. I used to believe that I would surely notice if I was in an environment that fostered harassment. Over time, I've realized that harassment is a problem, but I was just looki…

On the flip side, you will see exactly what you are looking for.

I understand what you are saying. It isn't wrong to judge the claims of other people with a critical eye. It is wrong when you don't turn the same critical eye to your own views or work. In life, as in science, it is important to design your observations so that they measure what your intend to measure.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#296

Post by rokhayakebe »

devilsavocado wrote: post #222
jbmorgado wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making it sound like it's actually his fault that he kept asking until she actually gave a definite answer. Worst than that, some people would call that harassment and chastise me and others for victim blaming, just stating a simple fact: She should have said no. I wonder how many of these cases get into the statistics about harassment when it should just be considered simple human interaction up to the point…

I don't necessarily think that it's his fault... But try asking 100 random people on the street what it means when you ask a girl out and she responds that she is busy, and she does not suggest another date. I'd bet that at least 98 of them would say that is means she is not interested, and she is letting you down nicely. I'm kind of surprised some men don't understand that.

Guys do. Some people (men and women) are just very clear cut and they do not try to understand the subtext. They say what they mean and they expect the same. They are usually thought of as arrogant.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#297

Post by dang »

Cyph0n wrote: post #92

I never knew BuzzFeed wrote exclusive longform (and interesting) content. Thanks for mentioning it.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11519919 and marked it off-topic.

Btw this comes up every time a substantive Buzzfeed article appears on HN.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#298

Post by graycat »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #287
graycat wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For "being part of the problem", look at yourself. You are profoundly confused, mixed up, misled. The women in the OP are suffering, from "constant nightmares", and I gave them some powerful, difficult to obtain, wise, helpful advice.

Advice like "say no" and "stay in groups" is neither difficult to obtain nor helpful. (And: "carry a hat pin"? seriously? this is the 21st century here)

Your response makes no sense, is not a reasonable or rational response to what I wrote.

E.g., "say no" and "stay in groups" is VERY helpful.

Of course that advice is not "difficult to obtain". Neither is advice to keep breathing, but all the advice is helpful.

But much of my other advice and descriptions of the real world of work is very helpful and difficult to obtain.

Given your response, maybe you need a remedial course in reading comprehension -- try a US community college.

More likely, you are angry, at me, personally and for no good reason. So, likely you are lost, confused, mixed up, and misled.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#299

Post by backpocket »

grahamburger wrote: post #268

There is an interesting side effect to these issues that I think doesn't get discussed very often. I try to be as aware as possible of these issues in the hope that I can make sure that I'm not part of the problem. As such I make a concerted effort to give anyone that works for me equal opportunities for advancement, and when in doubt I try to err on the side of the person who's in a marginalized class. I also try to…

This is entirely because we have moved the locus of control toward those who may potentially be harassers in an effort to remove all liability from those who may potentially be harassed. This twisted logic means we can never find a real solution, just continue to patch issues in contrived ways that in turn create other problems.

This is also why we are told ludicrous things like "teach men not to rape" - eerily similar to obscenely inappropriate comments like to "teach the poor not to steal" or "teach blacks not to murder"; we have forgotten that progress requires all parties to be elevated.

Re: For Female Astronomers, Sexual Harassment Is a Constant Nightmare

#300

Post by dang »

danso wrote: post #18

Though the submitted article does link to the BuzzFeed articles, it's curious that BuzzFeed isn't mentioned by name in the same way that the NYT and WaPo are...even though in the WaPo case, the WaPo was simply playing catch-up to BuzzFeed's exclusive investigations, particularly in the cases of Drs. Marcy and Ott, which are indepth enough to be interesting longform reading on their own: - http://www.buzzfeed.com/azee…

If there's another URL which is a more substantive original source on the same story, we can swap it out. I'm hesitant to do that without having time to read the articles carefully but am fine with taking suggestions.
Post reply on HN