Last year, I wrote a post motivated by a case of sexual harassment and assault committed by a professor in my department against a student in his group. The incidents happened in the spring of last year, but the news about the incidents and the nominal punishment only came at the end of the year. Since then, there have been further developments, as described in this article (by Marcia Brown in The Daily Princetonian), so I am writing this post as a follow-up regarding the specific developments of this case and our department's response, even as my post last year was my attempt at exploring the broader issues at stake. Essentially, Princeton University had reason early this year to investigate further claims of past consensual relationships between that same professor and other direct professional dependents (students & postdoctoral associates), and suspended him for the spring semester and summer as they conducted their investigation. The university concluded the investigation with findings of guilt on his part of having engaged in at least one such consensual relationship, and as that is a violation of university rules, he was fired. Follow the jump to read more about my thoughts regarding this; as mentioned above, compared to my previous post on this subject, this post will have more of my raw emotional reaction to this whole process and to the specifics of this case rather than a more measured take on the broader issues at stake.
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
2017-12-18
Book Review: "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
I've recently read the book Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. It weaves together the true stories of a few particular mathematicians, who happened to be black women (among a larger group of such female black mathematicians), who made extremely important contributions to the development of American warplanes in WWII and then spacecrafts during the 1950s and 1960s, including the crafts that took John Glenn to space and then the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon. It highlights the skills of these women and their own personal lives, in conjunction with the broader social issues of that time.
The book is moderately long, but it is very well-written and engaging. I liked seeing the descriptions of these towns that flourished during the wartime years and the space race as bustling with life and energy, because with the trends of deindustrialization starting from a few decades ago, I haven't really been able to see descriptions such towns as much beyond shells of their former selves. This also ties in with the discussions of the military-industrial complex and how the formation of these towns during the wartime was a symptom of that phenomenon, which in turn meant that as wartime research facilities and organizations were often temporary, even if they hired black people, allowing them to economically advance to the middle class, those economic advancements became tenuous due to the temporary nature of such jobs, such that when the goal was met (whether it was winning the war or landing on the moon), those facilities would be closed and the employees there would be displaced with few, if any, alternatives available to them. Of course, pervading the book were descriptions of the explicit and implicit forms of institutionalized racism and sexism, whether at work in the form of barriers to career advancement or collegiality/free exchange of ideas, or in the context of daily life with respect to the civil rights movement, sit-ins, et cetera. Not only were those issues discussed in a broader context, but their impact on the specific protagonists of the book was detailed, showing how these women had to deal with so many struggles just to stay afloat while still trying to achieve the same goals to which any other family of any ethnicity would strive, namely, caring for spouses and children, putting food on the table, balancing work and family, and being able to raise children in a safe environment and educate them well; it really helped that the author so masterfully portrayed the mundanity of daily daily life for these women to show how stupid obstacles, like legalized segregation and institutionalized barriers to career advancement, could get in the way of the passion that these women had for STEM. It was also interesting to see that black communities like those in this book were acutely aware of how much more advanced the USSR and other communist countries were in terms of race and gender relations, and actively called out the US on its own failings in that regard (in the context of the US trying to ally with African and Asian countries that used to be European colonies), while these black women, despite being in the middle of such institutional bigotry, kept their heads held high and persevered in pursuit of their goals to contribute to STEM R&D. Related to that, it was also chilling to see how de facto segregation has persisted in education in many places through the US resulting in school facilities that in many poor places are no better than they were several decades ago, and also to see how many of the arguments for white parents sending their kids to private schools at that time were more explicitly about preserving racial segregation in education. Overall, I enjoyed this book thoroughly and would strongly recommend it to people for a clear and engaging account of how NASA and the social issues of the middle of the 20th century became intertwined.
The book is moderately long, but it is very well-written and engaging. I liked seeing the descriptions of these towns that flourished during the wartime years and the space race as bustling with life and energy, because with the trends of deindustrialization starting from a few decades ago, I haven't really been able to see descriptions such towns as much beyond shells of their former selves. This also ties in with the discussions of the military-industrial complex and how the formation of these towns during the wartime was a symptom of that phenomenon, which in turn meant that as wartime research facilities and organizations were often temporary, even if they hired black people, allowing them to economically advance to the middle class, those economic advancements became tenuous due to the temporary nature of such jobs, such that when the goal was met (whether it was winning the war or landing on the moon), those facilities would be closed and the employees there would be displaced with few, if any, alternatives available to them. Of course, pervading the book were descriptions of the explicit and implicit forms of institutionalized racism and sexism, whether at work in the form of barriers to career advancement or collegiality/free exchange of ideas, or in the context of daily life with respect to the civil rights movement, sit-ins, et cetera. Not only were those issues discussed in a broader context, but their impact on the specific protagonists of the book was detailed, showing how these women had to deal with so many struggles just to stay afloat while still trying to achieve the same goals to which any other family of any ethnicity would strive, namely, caring for spouses and children, putting food on the table, balancing work and family, and being able to raise children in a safe environment and educate them well; it really helped that the author so masterfully portrayed the mundanity of daily daily life for these women to show how stupid obstacles, like legalized segregation and institutionalized barriers to career advancement, could get in the way of the passion that these women had for STEM. It was also interesting to see that black communities like those in this book were acutely aware of how much more advanced the USSR and other communist countries were in terms of race and gender relations, and actively called out the US on its own failings in that regard (in the context of the US trying to ally with African and Asian countries that used to be European colonies), while these black women, despite being in the middle of such institutional bigotry, kept their heads held high and persevered in pursuit of their goals to contribute to STEM R&D. Related to that, it was also chilling to see how de facto segregation has persisted in education in many places through the US resulting in school facilities that in many poor places are no better than they were several decades ago, and also to see how many of the arguments for white parents sending their kids to private schools at that time were more explicitly about preserving racial segregation in education. Overall, I enjoyed this book thoroughly and would strongly recommend it to people for a clear and engaging account of how NASA and the social issues of the middle of the 20th century became intertwined.
2017-11-29
Sexual Harassment, Power Dynamics, and Institutions
I've been thinking (read: armchair philosophizing without necessarily going into much depth) lately a bit about the notion of individuals shaping the interactions they have with other people versus the other way around, and the related notion of how individuals shape institutions versus the other way around. This idea has stuck in my mind especially in the context of sexual harassment committed by a professor against a student in my department (for a broad overview, see this article by Alanna Vagianos in HuffPost, and for a more detailed account, see this article by Allie Spensley in The Daily Princetonian; disclaimer: I know the student but not the professor), because of the complicated way that power imbalances between faculty and students intertwine with institutional tensions at large research universities like Princeton University. Follow the jump to see more blather from me about this.
2017-01-09
Book Review: "More Than Just Race" by William Julius Wilson
The book that I've been able to read most recently has been More Than Just Race by William Julius Wilson. It is essentially a collection of 3 essays (each as a chapter) concerning various issues of the black experience (especially in cities) in the US, separately considering the conditions of black ghettos, the socioeconomic problems of poor black males, and the breakdown of poor black familial structures. These chapters are bookended by introductory and concluding chapters summarizing and further expounding on these issues. The main purpose of the book is to analyze, through various studies from the social sciences, the complementary roles of structure and culture in explaining why blacks in the US, especially in inner cities, are worse of by many metrics than their suburban counterparts and than people of other races/ethnicities in the US.
It is a relatively recent book (2009), but it isn't recent enough to have touched upon issues of police brutality and exploitation in urban black communities or issues of socioeconomic decay in poor white communities in cities as well as in rural areas (characterized by structural joblessness, opioid addiction, et cetera). The book itself is short, but the main three essays themselves are a bit dry. In particular, the essays are essentially separate from each other and can be read as such, but there aren't many attempts to form an overarching narrative (beyond the idea that structure and culture combine to explain the issues that many black Americans face), and the few attempts that do exist feel somewhat forced; perhaps the issue is that these issues are simply too nuanced to be described in a single broad brushstroke, but while that is clear from the details of the book, it would have been nice to see such a thesis made a little more explicit. Additionally, there are a few arguments that get rather muddled, and some ideas that aren't touched upon much after their introduction, perhaps because they don't fit the local narrative quite as well; I'll discuss these and other issues after the jump. Overall, while the discussion of structural issues seemed to be in line with a lot of what I've read in articles in newspapers and magazines in the last few years (probably because the author is an academic heavyweight in these areas anyway), the discussion of which cultural factors seem more (or less) plausible is relatively new to me, and their combination is much more nuanced than any of the broad stereotypes of individuals or institutions that I have seen previously; I rather appreciate this book for providing that perspective.
It is a relatively recent book (2009), but it isn't recent enough to have touched upon issues of police brutality and exploitation in urban black communities or issues of socioeconomic decay in poor white communities in cities as well as in rural areas (characterized by structural joblessness, opioid addiction, et cetera). The book itself is short, but the main three essays themselves are a bit dry. In particular, the essays are essentially separate from each other and can be read as such, but there aren't many attempts to form an overarching narrative (beyond the idea that structure and culture combine to explain the issues that many black Americans face), and the few attempts that do exist feel somewhat forced; perhaps the issue is that these issues are simply too nuanced to be described in a single broad brushstroke, but while that is clear from the details of the book, it would have been nice to see such a thesis made a little more explicit. Additionally, there are a few arguments that get rather muddled, and some ideas that aren't touched upon much after their introduction, perhaps because they don't fit the local narrative quite as well; I'll discuss these and other issues after the jump. Overall, while the discussion of structural issues seemed to be in line with a lot of what I've read in articles in newspapers and magazines in the last few years (probably because the author is an academic heavyweight in these areas anyway), the discussion of which cultural factors seem more (or less) plausible is relatively new to me, and their combination is much more nuanced than any of the broad stereotypes of individuals or institutions that I have seen previously; I rather appreciate this book for providing that perspective.
2009-11-19
Sarah Palin is Right - For Once and Once Only
I don't like Sarah Palin.
It's obvious that she wants to spread misinformation about current government policies for her own benefit. In fact, facts themselves are nuisances to her.
Thankfully she's not VP.
That said, Newsweek this week had a cover story on her and why she's bad for the GOP; while this in itself was not bad, Sarah Palin called the cover picture of her (stolen from some celebrity magazine or some such thing) sexist.
I totally agree.
It's obvious Newsweek wanted to provoke a visceral negative reaction, so they used the picture they did. Even editor-in-chief John Meacham had no excuse other than that they tried to use the "most interesting picture" possible.
Seriously, this level of sexism is too much, and it has got to stop. Newsweek does already have journalistic credibility; they lost a fair amount of it for this one picture, which they didn't need to use in the first place.
It's obvious that she wants to spread misinformation about current government policies for her own benefit. In fact, facts themselves are nuisances to her.
Thankfully she's not VP.
That said, Newsweek this week had a cover story on her and why she's bad for the GOP; while this in itself was not bad, Sarah Palin called the cover picture of her (stolen from some celebrity magazine or some such thing) sexist.
I totally agree.
It's obvious Newsweek wanted to provoke a visceral negative reaction, so they used the picture they did. Even editor-in-chief John Meacham had no excuse other than that they tried to use the "most interesting picture" possible.
Seriously, this level of sexism is too much, and it has got to stop. Newsweek does already have journalistic credibility; they lost a fair amount of it for this one picture, which they didn't need to use in the first place.
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