-There is an increase in serious misconduct (physical, mental harassment and sexual abuse) and abusive behavior with women researchers and young female students by male colleagues at international meetings, symposium, and conference dinners and “party” afterwards at venues that involve a lot of excessive alcohol consumption. Several participants experience uncomfortable behavior that might be in violation of the code of conduct of the meetings. Disturbing behavior is increasingly being performed by several male participants and involves multiple attendees who experience/witness the behavior silently (Bystander effect). Several of the female attendees experiencing the above behavior feel very uncomfortable and prefer not to attend the meeting and conference dinners in person. Why is the Ethics or Scientific Organizing Committee inefficient in taking actions against such individuals?
-To not be expelling known sexual predators and abusers (physical and mental) in meetings and conferences is a serious failure of the meetings SOC and organization's duty of care to potential future victims, and totally undermines its claimed support for diversity and equity. If a woman astronomer can’t go to a meeting knowing that dangerous abusers have not been excluded, they are in fact themselves being excluded because they will not be safe. This also points towards increased mental health issues in these domains with gender imbalance. The organizations that claims to have standards against bullying, harassment, abuse etc.. unless it takes actions to uphold these standards, then they are just ineffective. We need strong resolutions that will actually lead to information sharing and action across member societies to protect vulnerable members from bullying, harassment and exclusion.
-A senior women researcher who has been advocating 'Equality' at workplace issues, once called a female researcher with colored skin to discuss the discrimination issues that she has been facing at workplace and she said that - `You should leave research career and take up teaching job at schools, in any-case your husband is there to put food in your mouth'
-A senior male researcher has been bullying and mentally harassing a female researcher at work place systematically for a couple of years and later threatened her that if publicly criticized then it won't be acceptable.
-If we still don't have equal representation after over a decade of programs to improve diversity, then obviously we need to try a lot harder. Our field is predicate on understanding statistics, and yet somehow we fail to apply that same scientific understanding to the lack of representation in our workplaces. It just astounds and depresses me.
-PAY US! There is no reason that we are forced to work more than double the time we are payed for, at less than poverty wages. Universities have complete ability to set minimum stipends, set benefits, and enforce ethical labor practices.
-Issues faced by women of color in STEM are worse and need to be addressed. In my experience, universities aiming to address diversity just focus on hiring white women. Being a women of color, I have faced discrimination and bias from both the genders.
-Universities and funding organizations need to actively support women for instance with child care and parental leaves. It is important that the evaluation committees take into account balancing work and personal life as a strength and to provide permanent positions at earlier stages of the career to avoid making females leave the field because the lack of stability / the obligation to move in different countries when working on fixed term contracts. Additionally, they have the ability to enforce policies that protect employees from working overtime without any compensation. They have to ability to create these policies. These types of groups have political and societal influence and literally choose to ignore our pay every single day.
-Like to address the issue of mental health, where I have known some issues while doing phd, the students may even lead to suicidal mentality and depression.
-Not all harassers are men. Some are women who either don't want to compete with other women in the field or who just have so much internal misogyny that they carry it through to their mentees.
----more coming......
