I am delighted to present a guest post from a good friend and talented scientist, Defiant Bitch, PhD! Her story is one of many; I am proud that she has held her head high following sexual harassment from her former boss, and continues to persevere in the competitive world of scientific research.
Defiant Bitch, MD
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Very, very slowly, some of the biggest harassers in biomedical research are facing consequences for their actions. Oftentimes, it is decades after the abuse has occurred, and universities were well aware of these events. Sometimes, even when the university has found a harasser guilty, he gets a slap on the wrist and returns to teaching after a semester of paid leave, leaving a broken department in his wake. Beyond just bringing the misconduct to light, though, it has been a long, slow fight for these harassers to be stripped of their prestigious titles as well. While it is somewhat heartening to see some action in this arena, I am continuously frustrated with how much work is yet to be done. How many continue to fly under the radar? And how many trainees and colleagues’ careers have been irreparably harmed during that time?
Recently, Science magazine reported on a study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that outlined some of the consequences of sexual harassment on women’s scientific careers, including that “women in science, engineering, or medicine who are harassed may abandon leadership opportunities to dodge perpetrators, leave their institutions, or leave science altogether.”
I should know, because I almost left science myself for this exact reason.
After completing my Ph.D., I landed a job in what I had considered to be my dream lab. It was extremely well known in our field and incredibly productive. As I met the PI and lab members at various conferences over the last couple years of my doctoral work, I also felt they were a fun and vibrant group of scientists. For the first few months of my postdoctoral work, I genuinely enjoyed coming into lab and started a number of very exciting projects.
Slowly, there were a series of events that started off as small red flags you feel in your gut but don’t know how to address, and eventually progressed to me documenting interactions with my PI that happened almost weekly. A disappointed chiding that I hadn’t mentioned starting a new romantic relationship. Lamentations about being bored and that I should either dance for him or tell jokes for entertainment. Lab Christmas parties where holiday-themed lingerie was encouraged. Annoyance that I still talked to my old (also male) advisor and considered him a great mentor.
Eventually, I was flat out told that he found me attractive, and asked me what I wanted to do about it. Absolutely stunned, I was barely able to blurt out, “Nothing!!” Mere months later at a conference while debating a few issues in the lab, my PI began to yell and curse at me — in front of several other colleagues — that I was apparently critiquing him and his leadership efforts and how dare I call him out. Mercifully, I managed to hop in the next cab back to my hotel room before I burst into tears. Not a single one of my colleagues ever mentioned the event again or ever reached out to me. I often see them post on social media or speak at conferences about the importance of supporting women in science and wonder if they’ll ever have a moment of self reflection on their role in the current culture.
Not long after the cursing session from my PI, I made an appointment at our university’s counseling center. After the events of the past year, I had found myself paralyzed at work and anxious at even the sight of my advisor, because there was no way of telling if he was having a “good day” or “bad day,” and I now had witnessed a variety of “bad days” that seemed to be increasing in frequency. The conversation with this counselor was incredibly helpful and we unpacked a lot in that hour, including how I was chastising myself for even the thought of leaving science and worrying that it made me a less dedicated professional. Let that sink in– the verbal abuse was causing me to burst into tears just driving into work every day, but my first worry was that I simply wasn’t trying hard enough.
Towards the end of the session, the counselor paused and said, “So it sounds like you aren’t planning on reporting this?” I was a bit surprised at the question and confirmed that the thought of reporting everything formally just seemed too daunting to even begin. We work in a small enough field, and one where my mentor had literally decades of friendships. What she said next left me in complete silence.
“Good…whistleblowers don’t fare well here.”
We continued to talk, and she explained how desperately she wished she could tell me to report it and that justice would prevail, but she knew better. Rather than push me towards a system that was interested in no more than lip service to supporting employees, she wanted to be sure I pragmatically knew the cost I would have to pay. Years later, I still doubt myself on that choice, but I don’t regret avoiding the ensuing trauma that would come from the institution, in addition to my advisor.
One saving grace in my situation is that I had robust systems in place to cope with these experiences. I have had some incredible female mentors at every stage of my career (among those, a quick shoutout to the amazing Defiant Bitch, MD!), access to mental health services, and friends and family that have listened to hours of phone calls and coffee breaks trying to wrap my head around it all. I was “lucky” in that about a year after things came to a head, I was able to make a lateral move to another institution across the country. I’m happier and more productive here, but it has also meant years of long distance flights for myself and my partner, all so I could just get up and go to lab each morning without fear of harassment.
There are some in the scientific community who fear that getting rid of harassers from science will be a detriment to scientific progress; however, that notion rests on the unfounded assumption that the price we pay for intelligence is at best rudeness and at worse harassment. The truth is that there are more than enough scientists who are able to conduct all aspects of their work with integrity and decency that are fully capable of moving the scientific enterprise forward. No positive aspects of perceived or actual genius outweigh the negative impact of harassment. We have a lot of work to do, and science will be just fine without the abusers.
Defiant Bitch, PhD