Everyday Sexism in AcademiaEarlier today, I co-hosted a panel discussion by
STEM Women on Everyday Sexism in Academia, along with Dr
Buddhini Samarasinghe a Molecular Biologist from the UK. Our guests were Professor
Rajini Rao PhD in Biochemistry who runs her own lab at Johns Hopkins University USA, and Dr
Tommy Leung, Evolutionary Biologist with the University of New England, Australia.
We discussed the sociological definition of everyday sexism, which demonstrates how everyday social exchanges between individuals are connected to institutional discrimination. Specifically, how conversations between academic colleagues that are sometimes called “
benevolent” or “
unintentional” sexism, are actually the outcome of
systemic issues of gender inequality. This includes “jokes” that play on a woman’s gender and sexuality (“You’re a cheap date”); complimenting a woman on her looks and propositioning a junior colleague at a conference; and critiquing a woman scientist for the way she speaks, such as saying she’s “too aggressive” in negotiations or “not nice enough” when addressing sexism (this is often known as “
tone policing”). We also noted that everyday sexism intersects with other forms of discrimination, such as race, though
overt forms of racial discrimination are more heavily sanctioned in academia. (Even still, institutional racism persists.) White male academics do not experience the same additional pressures in university careers.
We also covered the recent case where the
Journal of Proteomics published a photo of a bare chested woman in an abstract to promote a scientific paper (more on this later but you can read our article on our
STEM Woman website). Finally we discussed how, even in professional contexts, people often discuss women scientists as mothers and wives first, rather than focusing on their professional achievements. For example in
The New York Times obituary of rocket scientist Yvonne Brill.
Everyday sexism shows that women’s gender is a both a barrier to professional recognition, as well as a heavily policed focal point of scrutiny.
People think these seemingly innocuous examples of sexism are subjective - that women should just take a joke and not be “so sensitive.” We showed how social science actually connects these everyday comments to the professional barriers that women face in their scientific careers. This includes women’s pay, their career progression and professional esteem, their publications, women’s contribution and participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), and other more overt forms of workplace discrimination and sexual harassment.