All posts by Anne-Elizabeth Brodsky

Women Faculty Forum in the News-Letter

Unconscious Bias

“Report Reveals Gender Inequity in Academia” by Sabrina Abrams (11/1/2018)

Here’s your excerpt du jour: Screen Shot 2018-11-06 at 9.02.11 PM

Fleming . . . explained that hierarchical power structures inherent in academic institutions allow sexual harassment to take place more often. She pointed out that hostile conditions often occur in laboratories, where principal investigators (PIs) are in charge of student researchers.

Senior Sam Gomes agreed, describing situations where her peers had experienced gender-based harassment during their research experiences.

“After learning about the types of gender harassment that can take place in an academic setting, I realized that a lot of my friends’ complaints about their lab PIs and professors were actually complaints of gender harassment,” she said.

[The image above is a slide from Prof Fleming’s presentation on the NAS report]

It’s not over for NIPS

equitable policies & practices, Institutional Climate

img_13451As you may know, over 100 Hopkins professors, researchers, grad students, and postdocs signed a letter to the machine learning conference known as “NIPS” urging a name change. The acronym is misogynist slang and a racist slur; a google or twitter search for the conference produces porn; participants at the conference have a long history of employing the acronym in ways that are hostile and demeaning. To get a taste of this one need only look back to last year’s conference, when Elon Musk is reported as having made “nips” and “tits” jokes on stage . . . to a cheering audience.

Astonishingly, the board of NIPS said no.

Those of us who support the name change must say so out loud in our departments. Silence will endorse the NIPS decision. Here are some lines you can have handy:

 

  • National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS/NASEM) published a report this summer that 58% of women scientists have been sexually harassed and makes 15 urgent recommendations for changing the culture in STEM, including to “address gender harassment.” And NIPS doesn’t change its name?
  • Numbers don’t stand alone, and biased data don’t give accurate answers. NIPS should know better.
  • The fact that NIPS can’t use its own name for a website because it’s already claimed by a porn site is all the board needed to know.
  • Whatever you think of the acronym, the fact remains that this conference has a terrible reputation (see here and here) in terms of gender. Perception matters.
  • Whatever you think of the acronym, we just lost out on extraordinary talent among young women and their allies who want nothing to do with a field that appears to be short-sighted, tone deaf, and/or hostile.
  • A conference that sells out in less than 12 minutes is in a pretty good position to rebrand itself. What are they afraid of?
  • We are the last people who should be making it harder for girls to pursue CS, AI, ML, and the like. Just the opposite. Anything we can think of that taps into the talent of 1/2 the population is something we should do.
  • You can’t taut GirlsWhoCode one minute and then turn around and pretend that “NIPS” is gender inclusive. Or is it that they know it’s not gender inclusive, and they just don’t care?

The background noise on our campuses matters. If we speak up, even in passing, we contribute to background noise that is supportive rather than derisive or silent.

You can also sign a petition, based on the original JHU letter, protesting the decision.

There is some good news: at this year’s conferences, there will be an inclusion town hall, help with child care, gender-inclusive restrooms, a code of conduct, and mentor breakfasts for women and minorities. You can read the good, the bad, and the ugly about the Not Gonna Do It here. Just be prepared; there is some serious ugly.

Wired was right on top of this, interviewing our own Elana Fertig in “AI Researchers Fight Over Four Letters: NIPS.”  The board based its decision on analysis of a survey it sent to previous attendees at the conference. Medium.com’s “NIPS AI Conference to Continue Laughing about Nipples at the Expense of Women in Tech” comments:

As a conference on what is essentially fancy statistics, you might expect them to have a better grasp on concepts like sampling bias.

 

Where We Stand 2018

equitable policies & practices, Events, Institutional Climate, JHU

Thank you to everyone who was able to come last Thursday, and an additional thank-you to those who helped set up!

We began with welcome remarks by Dean Toscano and an overview of the NAS report by Professor Fleming. Then, participants discussed the following recommendations in small groups:

#1 Inclusive environments and #15 The whole community is responsible

#2 Address gender harassment and #6 Support the target

#3 Move beyond legal compliance to address culture and climate

#4 transparency & accountability and #7 strong, diverse leadership

#5 Diffuse the hierarchical & dependent relationship between mentors & trainees

Details to follow!

 

Please share this post with colleagues

equitable policies & practices, Events, Institutional Climate

Please join other faculty, staff, and students this Thursday, October 25, from 5:30-7pm in Mudd Atrium to discuss ways to improve the climate at Homewood, across disciplines. Children are welcome.

Screen Shot 2018-10-21 at 5.02.24 PM. . . [B]y far, the greatest predictor of the occurrence of sexual harassment is the organizational climate in a school, department, or program, or across an institution. (NAS report, page 15)

. . . . Organizational climate  . . . is evaluated on three elements: (1) the perceived risk to those who report sexually harassing behavior, (2) a lack of sanctions against offenders, and (3) the perception that one’s report of sexually harassing behavior will not be taken seriously. . . .

In addition to these risk factors, there are also conditions on campus that are exacerbating the problem, including the following:

  • Insufficient attention to this topic among campus leaders—including presidents, provosts, deans, and department chairs.
  • Lack of clear policies and procedures on campus, and within departments, that make clear that all forms of sexual harassment, including gender harassment, will not be tolerated; that investigations will be taken seriously; and that there are meaningful punishments for violating the policies.
  • Minimal or merely symbolic compliance with the law without regard to whether policies actually prevent harassment and retaliation.
  • Insufficient protection for targets of sexual harassment, who often suffer undue consequences when they report sexually harassing behavior.
  • Lack of effective training on sexual harassment. While nearly all institutions offer some form of “sexual harassment training,” and often require all students, faculty, and staff to take the training, rarely is the training evaluated and revised to ensure that it has the desired effect of reducing or preventing harassment.
  • Measuring the problem of sexual harassment based on how many cases are formally reported to the institution, rather than through regular climate surveys.
  • Insufficient attention to a climate that tolerates the gender harassment form of sexual harassment, which increases the chance that other forms of sexual harassment will occur. (NAS report pages 15-16)