“Indeed, despite programs designed to interest girls in STEM, GoldieBlox, and supermodels celebrating the virtues of coding, the fields are still overwhelmingly male and seem virtually resistant to change. Jahren, a geochemist and geobiologist, argues that the problem is hardly one of enthusiasm, but rather widespread sexual harassment in the fields that, unsurprisingly, goes unpunished.
The kind of sexual harassment Jahren describes is hardly that of a Mad Men episode: groping and outright dickishness are easier to label and condemn as sexual harassment (and it’s worth noting that STEM has a problem with that too).
Rather, it’s the kind that prioritizes men’s feelings, and their expression of them, over the simple act of treating a woman as a professional colleague. Jahren persuasively argues that the persistence of this kind of behavior—the constant demand from both male colleagues and academic advisors that their feelings be acknowledged and legitimized—is one of the reasons women leave STEM fields.
An email forwarded to Jahren by a former student asking her advice typifies the problem:
[The student] forwarded an email she had received from a senior colleague that opened, “Can I share something deeply personal with you?” Within the email, he detonates what he described as a “truth bomb”: “All I know is that from the first day I talked to you, there hadn’t been a single day or hour when you weren’t on my mind.” He tells her she is “incredibly attractive” and “adorably dorky.” He reminds her, in detail, of how he has helped her professionally: “I couldn’t believe the things I was compelled to do for you.” He describes being near her as “exhilarating and frustrating at the same time” and himself as “utterly unable to get a grip” as a result. He closes by assuring her, “That’s just the way things are and you’re gonna have to deal with me until one of us leaves.”
It’s hard to imagine that the sender of the email thought that it would earn him the romantic admiration of his female colleague, coupled as it is with a vague threat likely meant to convey the authentic intensity of his attraction. And yet, as Jahren writes, this behavior has “been encountered by every single woman I know.”
I have no concept of the pain scale, like…I just realized that last week I said I was in especially awful hip pain and when my pt asked to rate it I said “3”. And then this week I said I felt a lot better than last week and when she asked me to rate it I said “3”. I really don’t know what the numbers are supposed to be. I know it’s supposed to be out of ten but like. I think I rate the pain by what time of the day it is. Like “i will rate the pain I’m in at a 5 at the end of the day, so compared to what my pain level will be later, what I’m feeling right now is a 3.” I also think i rate in overall pain rather than specific pain? Like, systemically I’m at a five. Some parts will be worse or better but i just rate it all at five because that’s the average
That and the Mankoski pain scale are what I go by! Two important things to note though: make sure your doctors know what scale you’re going by because we, especially women, have to play these mind games to get taken seriously- don’t just say “7″ because they might assume you’re being dramatic, say “7- as in my pain is impossible to ignore and severely restricting activities.” And secondly I don’t know about all hospitals, but at the hospital where I had my surgery my nurse told me to never underrate my pain because their protocol doesn’t have “use your own judgement’ if a patient is requesting more meds, but if you tell them your pain is an 8 or above they’re allowed to put in request for more meds with that as the reason.
Wingardium Leviosa Potter, you were named so that every time a teacher yells at you they’re going to make stuff fly around the room. Your mother wanted to call you Fred, but I thought this would be more true to his memory.
I wanted to take a minute to give a shout out to @words-writ-in-starlight, one of the most amazing people that i know. Today is her 19th birthday and I hope it was everything she could have hoped it would be.
To those who don’t know her: Go check out her blog. Not only does she have excellent taste in books and movies, she also has the best sense of humor and goes on the most informative, accurate and useful tangents and rants. If that isn’t a great sales pitch, I don’t know what is.
To those who already know her: You know what I’m talking about here. If you think she is as awesome as I think she is, maybe go let her know or wish her a happy birthday.
In an effort to take up less space on people’s dashes, I’m going to put my sappiness below the read more.
Oooooh nooooo, my platonic wife is too good to me, everyone look at how good my platonic wife is to me, she’s the best ever. She listens to me yell about people and rant about my writing and about medicine and about religion and when we have bad days we lie on the floor together in our bras and stare at the ceiling and talk about deep stuff until terrible hours of the night. That post I made about good things, she’s a good thing. She’s the BEST thing.
