Since arriving at Harvard I've become close friends with Katie Hinde, who runs the Comparative Lactation Lab, where she uses evolutionary theory, lab studies and field work to study the relationship between mother's milk and child development. Katie is an active blogger and Tweets as @mammals_suck.
As a field researcher, she and her collaborators became all too aware of the problem of sexual harassment and assault at distant field sites where ethical standards and reporting protocols are not often made explicit and bad behavior is often rife. To quantify just how prevalent sexual harassment/assault is at scientific field sites, they conducted a scientific survey of their field. Think of it as an anthropological field study of field anthropologists. However, their respondents weren't limited to just field anthropology, and they ended up having respondents across 31 different social, life, and physical sciences. Their refereed journal article was published in PLOS ONE today.
Here's the press release:
Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE):
Trainees Report Harassment and Assault
For many social, life, and
earth science disciplines, conducting research in field settings is an integral
component of scholarship. However, anecdotes shared via email or
whispered in the corners of hotel conference rooms suggested that sexual
harassment and assault were common experiences for many young scientists,
especially women. Biological anthropologists Kate
Clancy (UIUC), Robin Nelson (Skidmore), Julienne
Rutherford (UIC), and Katie Hinde (Harvard) set out to explore more deeply
the pervasiveness of these experiences and what the results they published on
July 16, 2014 in PLOS ONE are a sobering wake-up call.
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| Image from McGill Africa Field Summer |
Building on
a preliminary study conducted in 2013, the team surveyed 666 respondents, both men
and women, and found that not only were codes of conduct or sexual harassment
policies largely absent in field settings, but that harassment and assault were
not rare occurrences. Nearly three-quarters of respondents were aware that
harassment or assault had been committed at field sites where they worked. Even
more disturbing, 64% of respondents
reported they had personally been a target of sexual harassment; 22% indicated
they had been sexually assaulted. Women were three and a half times more
likely than men to be targets of harassment and assault. Further, the
targets were overwhelmingly students and postdocs at the earliest stages of
their academic careers: over 90% of women and 70% of men were trainees or employees at the time that
they were targeted. . Robin
Nelson argues, “The suggestion that these are isolated incidents or rare
occurrences is not borne out by the data. This is a pervasive phenomenon
affecting many researchers, especially those with the most to lose and the
least recourse.”
Field settings typically
occur at a distance from a researcher’s home institution, and frequently, very
far from their home country. This separation from daily norms often leads to a
“what happens in the field, stays in the field” attitude. However, Kate Clancy points out, “The field site is a workplace, and sexual
harassment and assault create a hostile work environment. If you are on
constant high alert because you have been harassed or you are at a site where
you know it happens, it drains your cognitive reserves and makes you less
effective at your job. When this happens disproportionately to female trainees,
it becomes a potential mechanism driving women from science.”
Women tended to be targeted
by people senior to them in the professional hierarchy, for example, principal
investigators and site directors. Men tended to be targeted by peers. Previous
work by other researchers has shown that being targeted by one’s superior in
the workplace has more severe impact on psychological well-being and job
performance than when the perpetrator is a peer, suggesting that women may be
even more burdened by the phenomena of workplace sexual aggression. Rutherford said, “Many people in our
discipline will be surprised that this kind of abuse is still occurring,
thinking it was all in the past. Sadly, that’s not the case. And women are still
getting the message that they are not welcome as full members in academic
society.”
The authors conclude that clarifying and enforcing codes of
conduct, and establishing actionable mechanisms for reporting sexual harassment
and assault could go a long way to moving the needle. Katie Hinde says “The discussion that emerges from these results
provides an opportunity for our professional communities to come together and
effect solutions to improve the experiences of our trainees and colleagues.”
Q: What are the main
findings of your research?
A: Sexual harassment and assault
are common experiences in fieldwork settings. Nearly 2/3 of respondents
reported being harassed; nearly a quarter reported being assaulted.
Q: Who are the
targets?
A: Women were 3.5 times more likely
than men to be the targets of harassment and assault. Among both men and
women, students and postdoctoral
associates were more likely to be targets than were faculty.
Q: Who are the perpetrators?
A: For women, the perpetrators
tended to be people senior to them in the professional hierarchy, people like
advisors, principal investigators, or site managers. For men, the perpetrators
tended to be peers.
Q: What might be some
ways to reduce the number of incidences?
A: Very few respondents indicated
the presence of any field site-specific codes of conduct, sexual harassment
policies, or means by which to report incidences. The development and
enforcement of such policies is critical to shedding light on the issue and reducing
its prevalence. Because junior women are the primary targets, the education of
senior faculty and other supervisors is also key.
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