Girls in the office

Lately there has been a problem with the shared printer in my area. Lots of people use it, including some non-research, technical support type of folks who are all men and relatively new to our building. Yesterday, I saw one of them in the printer room, where we had the following conversation.

Dude: Should I go tell the girls in the office about this problem or have you already done that?
Me: No. You should tell [Man]. Do you know [Man]?
Dude: No.
Me: He looks like [description of Man].
Dude: Oh yes! I know who you mean. Where is his office?
Me: His office is [description of where Man works]. And they're women, not girls.
Dude: Thanks. Wait: what?
Me: The people who work in the office are women, not girls.
Dude: Oh. Oh! Should I go report myself to HR now?
Me: No. Just don't call them girls. [More description of the printer situation]
Dude: Thanks! I'll go find Man.
Me: Good luck!

I know some people think this is dumb, but it drives me absolutely fucking crazy when people call adult women girls. The women he was referring to are administrative assistants in their mid 40s to mid 50s. They are SO not girls. I think it's ok to call women girls when it's in the context of "girls' night out" or maybe dating, but not in a situation like this.

I was proud that I said something about it in the moment, but did not make it a big deal. I ignored his defensive joke, and continued the main conversation with no hostility. I wish I could do that sort of thing more often.

The worst part is that it crossed my mind to offer to take care of the problem myself, i.e., go email Man to report the problem. But why? Producing science by means of published papers is the mission of my institute. I was going back to my office to work on a paper. This man's job is in support of that mission in a kind of indirect way (i.e. although his work is important, he does not do research, write grants, or in any way produce new science). Why should I consider his time more valuable than mine? Honestly, this gender role shit is hard to shake.

Cultivating allies

I'm not aggressively feminist at work, but I do preach from a low level women-in-science soapbox pretty consistently.  Sometimes it's met with resistance, other times empathy, and many times with a blank stare.  I worry a little bit that it's annoying, but I figure sexism is such a pervasive problem that it's worth it to irritate people a little bit.

It seems my persistence has paid off.  I work with a male technician who, as far as I can tell, was brought up in a fairly traditional family with pretty typical gender roles.  This guy is terrific -- super cool, quite competent, excited by science, and respectful of me as someone senior to him -- but had never really been confronted with feminism and so had never really considered that the way men and women navigate the world, especially the science world, may differ. 

Today this colleague made a point of telling me about his recent experience with an auto mechanic.  His sister's car broke down, so he drove her to the shop to pick it up after the repairs were done.  He said that although the car was clearly his sister's and she paid for the work, the mechanic looked at him as he explained everything.  No eye contact at all with the sister.  My colleague said this was the first time he had noticed such an injustice, and thought it was because he was more aware of it now after all my bitching and not because it had never happened before.  Very cool.

It's that simple

Ecogeoman simply cannot understand why any man would discriminate against women at work.: "Why would I want to go to work in a sausage fest every day?!"

I suppose the ends are more important than the means?

Once, I was a fool

Well, I still can be a fool sometimes. But this story is about a time when I was biased against a woman doing science, which I thought would be appropriate for Peggy's Scientiae Canival theme. I can’t believe I ever felt this way. I won’t do it again.

When I was in college, I worked in the lab of a brand new assistant professor. I went to a smallish school with no PhD program and a limited number of master’s student in the department, so undergrads had great access to research opportunities. Because this professor was new, she was still setting up her lab when I joined it. And because the department was small, she was doing most of it by herself. I recall one day I was there during the installation of a fancy piece of equipment that I now know is pretty standard fare for labs in our subfield. There were problems with the installation that required much troubleshooting during the first weeks she had the instrument. As this bright, capable women was buried up to the elbows in tubing and electronics, performing major surgery on the new instrument, I thought, Can she really fix this? She needs to get a man to deal with this. She’s going to break it! Of course, she didn’t break it. She fixed it. And when I moved on to the next lab, I met several very smart and technically savvy women who did similar work and expected me to be able to use and troubleshoot just such an instrument. Which I did, thank you very much.

I shudder now to admit those thoughts even crossed my mind! I would never think such a thing now. There’s no job a woman can’t do with the right tools. But knowing that someone like me could have had those thoughts once upon a time makes me realize that lots of people still have them. I think that’s why I’m drawn to women-in-science issues even though I rarely feel bias myself. Hopefully, women doing great work and speaking out about these issues will shown the remaining fools just how foolish they are.

scientiae-carnival

I have it so good

I've been thinking a little about why I am interested in women-in-science issues. I have never once personally experienced gender discrimination at work. Two of my three advisers have been women, the third is an extremely enlightened man. Yet, I identify with the plight of the screwed-over woman scientist.

I think it's because my culture is steeped in sexism and I hate it. This post on Propter Doc's blog clarified it for me. I think I just expect the negative stereotypes present throughout the rest of my life will carry over to my work. But they haven't (so far). I know they have for many, many other women. I feel very sensitized to that.

I'm very thankful that so far my work experience has been free of that crap. It's almost like it's one place where it doesn't matter that I'm a woman; the expectations are the same for me as for a man doing the same job (with the exception of field work, but that's just practical). I want more women to share my experience, except that I want all the cultural stereotypes to disappear too. I'm sick of the image that women are bad at things like investing or home repair and men shouldn't plan a holiday meal or buy their kids' clothes. An example: my friend would love to have a boat someday, but I pretty sure she considers it something a man buys and maintains, not something she would be responsible for. I think when I suggested she start saving for her own boat, it was the first time it occurred to her that she could get one for herself. It shouldn't be this way.

Anyway, I'm glad I get to work with a group of wonderful, mostly female, people. Am I the only lucky one? Or am I totally sheltered?

Is she hot?

When someone tells me about a new person, like a new coworker or a friend they want to introduce me to, usually I ask "is she cool?" Now, I know that this may not be the most important quality in a person, but it is usually what I want to know first. I should probably ask "is she competent?" about a new coworker or "is she nice/trustworthy/honest?" about a new friend.

Even worse that "is she cool?" is "is she hot?" It really ticks me off how so many men in my life ask "is she hot?" about a new person. Even Ecogeoman does it sometimes! I'll describe how a potential grad student visited the lab and he'll ask, is she hot? It's doesn't f'ing matter! Why do men do this?

When asked about someone's irrelevant hotness, I, of course, rant on about how this is a rude and sexist thing to ask and that it doesn't matter anyway, but it never gets me anywhere. I know that Ecogeoman doesn't really treat people differently based on their looks (at least consciously), and I know that he asks that just to get me worked up, but I HATE it.

This topic is on my mind because the very worst abuser of "is she hot" is visiting us this week, a friend who always mentions a person's looks when saying anything about him/her (to be fair, I think it's mostly joking, but still). We went out last night and bickered the whole time about "is she hot". I admit that hotness counts for some things, and that hot people probably are treated better in general, but it just shouldn't be the first thing we want to know about a person.