industry & research campusreview. com. au
Will time ever be up?
Women studying and working in STEM fields say more needs to be done to stamp out sexual harassment.
By Loren Smith
Since the Harvey Weinstein allegations were publicised in October last year, it seems the world has shifted. For the first time, women appear to be asserting their power over sexual harassers and abusers, and are being validated for doing so.
Among the swathe of subsequent # MeToo allegations are those of women in academic STEM disciplines. However, unlike in Hollywood or politics, many women in STEM say nothing much has changed.
Kathryn Clancy has been studying sexual harassment in the sciences for six years.“ Too often the story is the same: a man sexually harasses a woman, the woman reports it, and she gets told that’ s just how it is,” the University of Illinois anthropology professor wrote of her research topic in a recent essay for National Geographic.
Obviously, there are exceptions. One of Australia’ s most decorated scientists, statistician Professor Terry Speed, became the subject of a sexual harassment complaint in 2016. The incidents were described as“ devastating”. They included repeatedly asking for dates, unwanted hugs, and unsolicited,‘ intimate’ messages.
A prolonged investigation began last year. His employer at the time of the alleged incidents, the University of California, Berkeley, refused to comment on the inquiry.
“ Professor Speed resigned from the university effective July 1, 2009, and no longer has any affiliation, emeritus or otherwise, with the university,” spokesperson Janet Gilmore told Campus Review.
“ As he no longer has any affiliation with the university, matters involving him are now closed and the university will not have further comments.”
Yet news reports suggested the inquiry found that Speed had breached the university’ s code of conduct.
Dr Marguerite Evans-Galea is confident that future perpetrators will be brought to justice. In this sense, the executive director of the Industry Mentoring Network in STEM with the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, and co-founder and CEO of Women in STEMM Australia, is more optimistic than Clancy that real change is coming.“ I feel really positive about it right now,” she says.“ I know it’ s happening through my service on the Victorian
Ministerial Council [ on Women ' s Equality ].“ Organisations now realise they’ re on notice. Change is coming whether they like it or not.” Buoying her confidence is the recent announcement that the government will inquire into sexual harassment in Australian workplaces, which Evans-Galea hopes will include academic ones.
Also an honorary research scientist at the Murdoch Children’ s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne, she says while the extent of sexual harassment in STEM academia is currently unknown, she believes it to be“ quite high”. And at least reports-wise, it’ s growing: this year, the Victorian
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