Women Astronomers Say Discrimination In Field Persists

Author: BARBARA SPECTOR, p.20 The good news for women astronomers is that their numbers are increasing, according to a recent survey of members of the Washington, D.C.-based American Astronomical Society. But along with this good news comes some additional, disquieting information: Many of these women astronomers reported having been the victims of, or having observed, gender-based discrimination or sexual harassment at some point in their careers. Pamela H. Blondin, who prepared the report, and Peter B. Boyce, AAS's executive officer, presented the survey results at the 177th national meeting of the 5,600-member society, held this past winter in Philadelphia. The study found that 11.2 percent of AAS members are women, up from 7.9 percent in 1972. Of the 2,208 AAS members who responded to the survey, 12.6 percent were women. EXPERIENCING DISCRIMINATION Against women Against minorities % of women % of men % of minorities General social treatment 39.9 12.4 8.0 Promotions 32.5 7.6 10.0 Accommodations--special circumstances 30.8 5.7 0 Pay/fringe benefits 29.1 7.3 5.0 Tenure decisions 25.8 4.9 7.0 Hiring practices 24.1 7.0 14.0 Research opportunities 21.0 3.6 10.0 Accommodations--job mobility 15.6 1.8 1.0 Opportunities to give talks, etc. 15.5 0.9 6.0 Competition for institution's resources 13.7 1.4 4.0 Admin. appointments 13.1 1.9 4.0 Admission of students to grad programs 12.0 2.4 8.0 Nominations, elective offices, honor societies 11.4 0.8 5.0 Committee assignments 10.7 1.1 6.0 Competition for grants/fellowships 9.5 0.7 5.0 Teaching assignments 9.5 0.6 7.0 Prizes and awards 9.1 0.6 6.0 Access to research facilities 7.9 1.7 3.0 Source: AAS membership survey, prepared by Pamela Hawkins Blondin Of the women responding to the AAS questionnaire, 39.9 percent said they had experienced or witnessed discrimination against women in the form of "general social treatment," 32.5 percent said they had perceived discrimination in promotions, 25.8 percent in tenure decisions, and 24.1 percent in hiring practices (see accompanying table). Says Blondin, AAS's former director of society programs, "This was the most subjective question we asked in the survey, and we have to be really careful how we interpret [the answers], because the question itself was subjectively phrased." But, she adds, "whether or not the discrimination exists, the fact that 40 percent of the women feel that they had been discriminated against in a particular area is appalling. Whether [discrimination is] there or not becomes a secondary issue; the fact that they think [discrimination exists] is a serious problem." As a basis for comparison, male AAS members were asked whether they had ever witnessed these types of discrimination against women astronomers in the workplace. Only 12.4 percent of the men reported having seen discrimination against women through general social treatment, 7.6 percent said they had seen gender-based discrimination in promotions, 4.9 percent in tenure decisions, and 7 percent in hiring practices. Moreover, women perceived that they had been discriminated against in far greater percentages than did members of ethnic minorities surveyed in the study. Only 8 percent of minority group members said they had witnessed or experienced discrimination against minorities in the form of general social treatment, 10 percent in promotions, 7 percent in tenure decisions, and 14 percent in hiring practices. In another survey of female AAS members presented at the Philadelphia meeting by astronomer Jill S. Price, assistant professor of physics at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass., 71 percent of the 90 respondents reported having been harassed or discriminated against at some time during their careers. Forty-two percent of Price's respondents indicated that they had suffered from verbal harassment and were treated as a "second-class citizen" at work, 39 percent said they believed they were not taken as seriously as their male colleagues, and 26 percent said they had been sexually propositioned on the job. Price's questionnaire consisted of a list of types of harassment or discrimination; respondents were asked to indicate which, if any, of these types of bias they had experienced. The list included being denied an interview because of one's sex; being sexually propositioned in the workplace; and being asked inappropriate questions in an interview, such as "What's your husband going to do if you get this job?" Price says she compiled this list by citing "things that had happened to me or to people I that know." The astronomer adds that she was motivated to conduct her study "out of curiosity, to see how many other people had had the same things happen to them." The types of harassment she personally has experienced, she says, have included "being accused of being vocal or overbearing or [having a] strong personality" and "being pinched . . . by a faculty member when I was a grad student." While the results of Price's survey are not statistically significant because of its subjective nature, her study does yield some interesting findings. One of these is that "women who are extremely, extremely well-known astronomers" were among those who reported being harassed, she says. "I found out that they really had experienced a lot of the same things I had--and some worse than I had. It's not [only] the ones who haven't been harassed who have made it to the top; [harassment] just seems to cut across all boundaries." Price found that the incidence of gender bias is highest in academia. While only 25 percent of her respondents working in industry reported that they had experienced harassment or discrimination, 72 percent of those in academia reported such incidents. The reason, she speculates, is that "there's not any mechanism to deal with it at most universities," whereas many corporations have formal anti-discrimination policies. "In academics, there is a lot more politics that goes on, and if you make waves, you can kill off your chances for being tenured or promoted." Many female astronomers, though disturbed--and, in some cases, angry--about the high incidence of sex discrimination reported in the surveys, believe that as more women join the profession, the incidence of bias will decline as a matter of course. "Astronomy and physics, I think, are still very male-dominated, and women suffer the social ills of a minority," says Vera Rubin, a staff member at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. Says Heidi B. Hammel, a research scientist in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's department of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences, "I don't think I've been a victim of any gender discrimination or sexual harassment during my career, but I won't say that women aren't treated differently" because of their small numbers. At a professional meeting, explains Hammel, who got her Ph.D. in 1988, a woman asking a question is "noticed just because [her] voice sounds different. Everyone in the room will turn around, and they wouldn't if some guy asked a question." But increasing the number of women employed in the field is not easy. "You can't just lay down rules that you have to hire a certain number of women," says Boyce. "You always have a certain selection of people who just won't do that. Certainly as a society we have difficulty telling our colleagues how to run their departments." Because of the slight rise in the number of women in the field, "I see people not caring about this as much as they did five or six years ago," says Susan Simkin, professor of physics and astronomy at Michigan State University. "The perception that things are better leads people to avoid the problem. Everybody's hired `their woman'; everybody feels they've fulfilled their affirmative action plan." Part of the problem, says Nicholas Z. Scoville, professor of astronomy and director of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory at the California Institute of Technology, is that "when departments hire people, very often they're hiring in very narrow and specified areas. It becomes increasingly hard to hire a very good woman on the faculty" if the criteria are so specific. "What I would like to see is much broader hiring guidelines, which come from the administration and which don't have the stigma of affirmative action." " Just from what I see around, I think the survey results are reasonably accurate," says Neta Bahcall, professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University. In conversations with men in the field about a female job applicant or candidate for promotion, she says, "you hear comments sometimes . . . that are somewhat negative, not necessarily based on the [candidate's] record." A newly hired female astronomer, she says, is likely to be hounded by rumors that "she got [the job] because she is a woman." Such a remark is "a normal male defensive reaction," says Scoville, who serves on an affirmative action committee at Caltech. "I think that's a serious problem. In most cases, the woman is getting the job by the same standards that a man would have [to meet]." Women astronomers who are married to other astronomers--a large percentage of the AAS membership, according to society officials--have historically had significant problems finding jobs or receiving tenure or promotions. In many cases, when these husbands and wives both begin looking for a job in the same geographic area, says astronomer Michele Kaufman, a lecturer in the department of physics at Ohio State University, "it comes down to the idea that the man should have the job." For many younger women in the field, the inherently stressful position of a junior faculty member becomes even more exhausting when the responsibilities of child-rearing are factored into the equation. Yet those who try to arrange some flexibility into their teaching schedules are not always treated sympathetically by their institutions. Astrophysicist Katherine Freese, an assistant professor in MIT's physics department, had to fight to receive permission to take a semester off from teaching when her child was a year old. She eventually was given her leave, in exchange for a semester's worth of intensified teaching immediately afterward. "That's a workable arrangement," she says. "You shouldn't have to fight with the entire department to get it. It hurts your reputation to do that." Freese suggests that women planning to have children negotiate for a year off from teaching--a semester during and a semester after pregnancy--before accepting an academic appointment. AAS's Committee on the Status of Women is now reviewing the two surveys and plans to propose actions to combat gender bias, based on the recommendations of the researchers and those of committee members. In light of the findings of the two studies, says Blondin, the committee "now has sort of renewed purpose, and we're hoping that they're going to redefine their goals, and try to establish some goals that have to do with battling the problems that were outlined." The very existence of these two studies may represent a first step toward resolving the problems, according to astronomer Bruce Partridge, provost of Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Partridge, a member of the AAS Council, the society's governing board, says that the surveys will help raise consciousness in astronomy by "[getting] it into the minds of male astronomers that there is this difference in perception" of the existence of bias in the field. "Our [male astronomers'] relaxed view of the situation," he says, "is not shared by our female colleagues."

Women Astronomers Say Discrimination In Field Persists

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