Six Hundred Scientists Come Together to Call Out Journal for Reinforcing Harmful Gender Norms

You may remember a few weeks ago when the “Science Careers” section of Science‘s website quickly pulled down an advice column that suggested a postdoctoral researcher should “put up” with a pervy male adviser for the sake of her career. As it turns out, that’s not the only thing about Science that has the scientific community upset, and they’re not going to “put up” with it.

But just what is so upsetting that over 600 scientists felt the need to co-sign a letter to the journal to call out their bullshit? Well, if the above scenario wasn’t enough for you, consider this slut-shaming Science cover and all the things it’s trying to imply with the imagery/HIV text combo:

Buzzfeed published the letter to Science‘s editors, written by PhDs Aradhna K. Tripati, Jennifer B. Glass, and Lenny Teytelman, that’s managed to gain all those signatures of concerned scientists by circulating on Facebook and email. They write,

We are writing about four recent AAAS publications and communications in the past 12 months that reinforce damaging stereotypes about underrepresented groups in STEM fields. It is particularly concerning that two of these four pieces originated from Science Careers, which purports to be “the leading resource for job listings and career advice in science, technology, engineering and mathematics”, given that these incidents risk deterring people from underrepresented groups from pursuing careers in STEM, and (in the fourth case) appear to mock criticisms from the scientific community in response to these communications.

Then they go on to bring up four specific incidents that are harmful in a time when so much progress is being made in breaking down gender barriers in scientific fields, with two of them being those mentioned above. The others involved the journal’s discussion of how a female scientist took on more “domestic duties” so that her scientist husband could further his career, as well as this bit of childishness:

4) A tweet from the @SciCareersEditor account stating “Am I the only one who finds moral indignation really boring?” [4] in apparent response to comments made on Twitter criticizing the offensive Science cover photo described above.

The authors concluded:

We request that Science’s editorial staff and reviewers work more diligently to ensure that Science’s web and printed material does not reinforce harmful stereotypes that hinder the advancement of underrepresented groups in STEM fields. Such material is counter to the AAAS’s stated mission to: “advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people”.

But let’s focus on the positive here for a bit: tons of people in the scientific community have jumped on board to back the letter. No matter who many people complain about “outrage culture” and people being “too sensitive,” we are starting to see a world where harmful behavior like this gets called out and can become a PR nightmare instead of getting ignored.

And to that end, Science‘s editor-in-chief got wind of the letter and responded with an editor’s note admitting that mistakes have been made:

Science and Science Careers in particular have had a couple of missteps, which we regret; they have raised questions about our commitment to supporting women in science. We’ve been rethinking our strategy for Science Careers and are in the process of changing its oversight, but not fast enough. Much of our Science Careers content demonstrates our commitment to diversity in science. But we will continue to scrutinize our advice columns, and we will avoid highlighting dated role models in first-person accounts—or will provide alternative commentary or perspective.

AAAS (the publisher of Science and Science Careers) as an organization has always been, and will continue to be, strongly focused on promoting the role of women in science—particularly with Dr. Geri Richmond as our president, Dr. Shirley Malcom heading our education and human resources directorate, and more than half of our senior management positions held by women.

So that’s that. Randos on the Internet may continue to shout about us “feminazis” bullying people into following our “agenda,” but the reality is that people are finally owning up to their mistakes, and the world is getting better for it. This is a good thing that we’re all happy about, even if some not-so-good things happened first. What? Science is evolving!

(via Jezebel, image via Science)

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