Infuriating

It's been a frustrating and exhausting week. Cops are still killing people, even kids, and lying about it so brazenly. The recent gunman at the Fedex facility means the return of regular mass shootings again, after I got used to the pause during COVID. Everything's reopening, so I guess we're going back to "normal" for gun-crazy America. Whoo-hoo!

I was even annoyed at Biden who decided to not lift the cap on refugees, but eventually he backtracked. I worry that he's not acting quick enough about immigrants still kept in camps; I know he's got a lot of things to do, but he needs to fill up more departments to deal with this.

Plus, PBS aired a Nova special called "Picture a Scientist", a documentary about harassment and discrimination against women scientists. When I think of #MeToo sexual harassment, I think of rape, Harvey Weinstein's grossness, and degrading acts like Anita Hill testified about. One woman does describe an overt case of the famous Francis Crick manhandling her; (he and Watson stole credit from Rosalind Franklin about the double helix, but that's another story). This "Picture a Scientist" special mainly talks about male scientists just being chauvinist pigs who belittle, undermine, and bully women to dominate them and chase them out of the profession. Some men do it by just consistently underpaying women or giving them less lab equipment and resources than male peers. Plus the whole system of how each scientist-in-training is dependent on a faculty advisor or other university boss to advance their career is broken; it encourages men to abuse their underlings and get away without repercussions. Checks and balances need to be put in place so that people have some recourse against intolerable behavior.

One woman in the Nova special filed a Title IX sex discrimination complaint against a professor who treated her like shit during a research expedition to Antarctica. There were other men on the trip too who witnessed his bullying, but they did not intervene and they mistakenly thought that the woman was fine, because she acted like it didn't bother her. Totally blind to the fact that she could not react any other way. That if she made a scene and cried, she'd be called hysterical; if she angrily complained, she'd be called a troublemaker and the professor would sabotage her career. An ally needs to see that and realize that if he spoke up, it might at least get the abuser to back off or realize that not every man is on his side. Silence makes you complicit. Anyway, this woman waited until many years later, when she had tenure, to file the complaint, and at least the male witness then supported her testimony and said he regretted not helping before. They're friends, and she explains to him patiently on camera about why women "grin and bear it" or even go along with sexist jokes so they won't lose their career. Anyway, the abusive professor was finally fired for his pattern of mistreating many women subordinates over his career, and his name even got removed from a place in Antarctica. Some small justice at least.

If more men can learn to be allies earlier, that would help fix the system. Otherwise women will continue to get fed up and leave science when they can't take this sexist crap anymore. One research professor banded together with other women at MIT so they could collect data to show people the problems were real; they eventually published a damning report full of evidence. She said that all they wanted was to do was the science; they didn't mean to become political activists until they were forced to do it when the sexism interfered with their ability to do their job. Think of all the great science and discoveries they could have made if they hadn't had to waste time dealing with this garbage!