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Professional Society to Astronomers: Stop dating each other! It’s not worth the risk!
The feminist reaction to sexual harassment has ended with this jaw-dropping statement from the American Astronomical Society’s executive officer. Effectively, he’s telling astronomers not to date each other. I’m not exaggerating much. He’s specifically and explicitly saying that the risk of sexual harassment is so great that you are not allowed to date anybody you meet at a conference, even if you scrupulously behave yourself:
Second, do not treat any AAS meeting or other event as a venue for finding a romantic partner. Yes, there are people at our events, and yes, people do make romantic connections, and yes, there may even be opportunities to make such connections at our events, but please, everyone, just shelve these inclinations for our conferences. Too much damage is being done. Just one negative interaction in the poster hall, at a session, in the bar during the meeting, or at a restaurant or offsite event may be all it takes to dissuade a bright young scientist from participating in our field. This is unacceptable, and it needs to stop.
And then,
Some of our members and other meeting attendees are likely going to be upset at this message, claiming that they act responsibly and with consent — why should they curtail their social activities at meetings just because a few bad actors are ruining things? I get that. I understand that. I enjoy the social aspects of being human, being at a conference in an interesting place, and being engaged in such an exciting field of research with people I find interesting and might even want to dance with, drink with, dine with, or whatever. But I am distraught over the damage that has been done and could be done in the future. Frankly, it is not worth the social happiness of a majority if just one of our attendees is made to feel uncomfortable, under pressure, or damaged enough to leave our profession or to attend future conferences in a fearful state.
So let’s recap: Out of the roughly 7,000 members of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and out of the 2,000-3,000 who attend our major meetings, he cites six cases of “sexual harassment.” (I only put the quotes because the details aren’t public, and the term has gotten awfully broad—much broader than most of us would accept. See the “If it’s unwanted, it’s harassment” sign on the page.) That 0.09% harassment rate (or 0.2%, if you only count meeting attendees) is so unbelievably high that we’re going to go nuclear and forbid dating between astronomers at the meeting. Or who met at the meeting. Or forbid meeting at the meeting before dating, or something.
Considering the radicals’ claims (admittedly debunked) that one-fifth or so of all college women will be sexually assaulted during college, one marvels at the remarkably low rates of professional sexual harassment under even the vague terms of the AAS. A comparable response would be to forbid dating between well behaved, consenting college students, because it’s just not worth the risk!
Dr. Marvel (great name for a superhero, but he’s got the crazy scheme of a comic book villain) has no real way to enforce this besides stigmatizing dating between astronomers. He’d be sure to say that he only means it to apply at meetings (our AAS president actually suggested we go pick up women in bars instead!), but is he suggesting that it would be better to date an astronomer you work with? Like that’s playing it safe with harassment issues? I’m not against it, but there’s long been a broad wariness of dating people at work.
The fact is that meetings are where we astronomers meet. We’re a relatively small profession—just a few thousand in the United States, and we’re often in small groups scattered across the country. I met both my wife and my previous two girlfriends at astronomy meetings. In each case, we lived hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. The growing panic at the AAS doesn’t merely seek to constrain human nature in productive ways. By pretending that even well-behaved interactions between men and women are too fraught with danger to permit, it is a very denial of that nature, and this can’t end well.
Published in Culture
Stargazer, you can call the shots!
Dating anybody associated with your profession and employment is an extremely risky proposition. In my field, IT, there have been many cases, some high profile, where saying something that a womyn at a conference or job might consider offensive has gotten people fired and their careers destroyed.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes-got-two-people-fired-and-led-to-ddos-attacks/
If your interaction with womyn is in anyway connect to your livelihood, it is best to keep that interaction on a business only level and leave any and all personal out of it. Today’s womyn are too fragile and prone to offense and to discuss anything other than work with or around them is to but your career in jepardy and leaving only yourself to blame when you visit HR and / or the unemployment office for your mistake.
Gazing at womyn is now considered a form of rape. It is best if you keep your eyes averted.
Wouldn’t this entire problem go away if we let the government pick breeding partners for each of us?
Yes, yes it would. All problems as a matter of fact.
No people, no problems.
Welcome to the AAS, where all the men are pervy gropers and all the women are fragile flowers. Or, that’s the impression I got from reading the statement. This stuff just slays me. Reminds me of the middle school band trip, where the chaperones tuck everybody in at night and put tape on the outside of the hotel room doors.
The distance between such star-crossed lovers is measured in time.
(I am desperately trying to work “event horizon” into this thread, but am drawing a blank)
Interesting. You would think they would at least provide hookers as a sort of comprimise.
Anyway, looking at the website I saw the phrase “LGBTIQ astronomers” for the first time.
Couldn’t the panicking thing itself be a sign of social ineptitude?
Nah. It’s the SJWs forcing the AAS into moron mode. SJWs hate astronomers because SJWs subscribe to an egocentric model of the universe. They think everything revolves around them, and current astronomical theory contradicts that.
Seawriter
Dang it John beat me to it. I mean if you guys and gals are not allowed to “bred true” we would be back to only amateur astronomers in just two generations. You must ignore Dr Marvel for the sake of your profession (and Science!) or it is in grave peril. (this real does sound like some hack comic book plot).
But there are so many valid reasons to avoid relationships with astronomers, or even us amateurs. The wisest sage of our times put it thusly:
Oh, that’s hilarious. I would love to imagine myself having the nerve to say that, in a lazy drawl, at the AAS Executive Committee meeting…then leaning back in my chair with a cigar and a smirk.
And I don’t even smoke.
Right. The kinds of social…things, issues, groups…the AAS wants to put its imprimatur on are the kind you’d expect—anybody claiming to be oppressed. We have that official group and an official women’s group. Maybe a black astronomers’ group, too. Meanwhile, we have Christians who are fairly openly discriminated against. Here’s a successful employment discrimination case a friend of mine won. The best quote is in an email from a hiring committee member:
I’ve seen a few other astronomers (on our professional discussion group page) state that this is acceptable—something you’d never hear said about women or blacks in the field. There’s a strong stigma against that kind of discrimination. But could you imagine the AAS setting up an official Christian astronomers’ group? No. We have such a group, but it’s run entirely independently, and I expect we’ll stay that way on purpose.
Hahaha oh man AAS. What about all the alcohol that gets consumed at all these meetings? The last collaboration meeting I went to (cosmology not AAS related), there was a banquet dinner. A lot of the grad students and post-docs were getting pretty friendly after all that uhhh social drinking.
Right! They lubricate some of the official social events but claim that the risk of sexual harassment is so great that normal, well-behaved flirting must be off limits.
P.S: Speaking of the young astronomers’ nightclub event, with all of the drinking and techno dancing: The first time I went there, I saw Neil Degrasse Tyson on the dance floor, with a wide-brimmed black hat on, and surrounded by a gang of female groupies.
I have a photo!
Haha. Why am I not surprised? Neil should really stick to astronomy.
Doesn’t that leave out green and blue women? Will the first thing aliens learn about us be our small-minded discrimination?
OmiGawd, where to start.
I am aware of numerous adulterous flings carried on at Medical and Musical and Scientific conferences. No good done there. A side to this that no one seems to have noted is the seduction of junior people by senior people while out of town, and often, in a lovely exotic location. There is indeed a power disparity between a professor and a grad student. But in my observations, the seduction goes both ways.
For a year, years ago, I seriously dated a woman from a nearby city, whom I had met at a conference. She chaired a session at which I gave a paper and there is a photo of me presenting my paper, with her giving me the most amazing look. We were both single adults. Whose business is that?
I met my wife for the first time at a medical conference. Hmmmmm. Lots of good done there.
Overall, just another example of the Leftist’s irresistible impulse to meddle.
cont’d:
Continued, again…
Maybe there is a general principle of Leftism:
It begins by advertising ‘Free Love’, but within a generation or so winds up with something like the Junior Anti-Sex League.
Both of these statements are untrue.
If they’re concerned about extrajudicial abuses, they’re probably furious that Hillary Clinton was able to escape justice for her destruction of public records. Historians of course don’t approve of that sort of crime, so maybe they and astronomers could work together in solidarity.
Yes! In the second paragraph, he pulls out the “if just one…” trope. The cases that have been brought up are remarkably few. There have been some real and wrong examples of sexual harassment (including by a couple of high-profile astronomers), yet he’s talking not about that but about draconian restrictions on normal dating behavior. Banning flirting between meeting attendees is not going to stop some dirty old man from groping a young girl. That’s already wrong. Since this won’t stop the behavior, then what will he do when there’s one more case? After all, “just one” happened. Maybe that’s justification for giving up meeting in person altogether, right? He’s already said that he’s unconcerned with the happiness of the majority if even one person is very unhappy. So why not go even farther?
And now that you mention it, “negative interaction” is awfully nebulous (see my astronomy reference, there?). There is morally reprehensible behavior that we should all oppose, but “negative interactions” are plentiful and of varying degrees, and it shouldn’t be the business of our professional society to police all of them. I think I can see the objection that if a mere “negative interaction” (but not something very wrong) is enough to push someone out of the field, this scientist doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in life.
Wow, scientists supporting unscientific twaddle.
As long as people wear the right shirt.
You sorely underestimated the gravity of stepping on my nebulous joke.
O. M. G. It’s ADC:
Anthropomorphic Dating Change
In 5 years all dating will cease.