Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
I hope you’re right. It does sound like I’m getting worked up over a little thing, but I really do fear that any ridicule of this proposal will be marked as a sign of misogyny itself. He almost certainly can’t enforce it, but if this attitude spreads, the expectations of others could enforce it for him. If you make the expectations of conference behavior change, anyone flirting at the meeting might get reported and kicked out. I worry that that’s where we’re going.
Is your wife also a member of the society? If so, have her write a letter along the lines of one of my previous comments – that this is a sexist attempt by a man to limit educated women’s choices. That this proposal needs to be opposed by everyone who is pro-choice or they play into the hands of the patriarchate. It is eminently mock-worthy, and the mocking would best be done by a woman.
Seawriter
I will say that I have seen some aggressive behavior at poster sessions, where the posters of young attractive female graduate students are always the most popular.
Seriously though, if you are a generally smart female and have any interest in physics or electrical engineering you can basically write your own ticket because these disciplines are desperate to increase the number of females in these fields.
Why don’t they force conference attendees to use Tinder? :-)
That could be another reason why feminists would want to discourage dating. Dating could lead to marriage, which could lead to babies, which could lead to spending time raising said babies, which means less time
filling quotasserving a role model for other young woman.I don’t see how Skype helps. They don’t have to meet in person, you could sexually harass someone via video conference as well. Actual physical contact (such as the “groping” mentioned earlier) would bring a charge of sexual assault. Sexual harassment includes unwanted sexual advances plus anything that creates a “hostile environment” including telling dirty jokes. Either could be done just as easily over Skype.
Simple solution – require the females at these conferences to wear burkas so that nobody will know if they’re young and attractive.
Pokemon Go is for normies. Girls are normies, almost by definition. Therefore, you stand a better chance of getting a date by going to those hot spots.
This is exactly why. As the number of females goes up, the more this emotional nonsense will go on, with both men and women. Those younger women are especially the problem. Female STEM people can’t be on the front lines of the SJW front (because they actually have to do real work and stuff), but they are certainly in the auxiliaries and reserves. The more young women there are, the worse it will get.
I was afraid this might be the case, even though I don’t entirely understand the psychology of it. The more women there are in the field, then apparently the larger the fraction of those women (and men, in this case) who want to be activists and claim oppression, when their very numbers and success argue against this.
Of course, it doesn’t actually require very many loudmouthed activists to make everybody miserable and seem like the whole field is a mess. Peace and harmony require a remarkably consistent sanity among the members, and just a couple or three nuts are enough to get us into full SJW mode.
Of the ones signing the “black lives matter” statement they want the AAS to issue, I don’t recognize a single name from research.
Well then, why stop at dating? The other day I was referred to as “too honest”, another person joked about my um…lack of good looks….both of these comments made me feel uncomfortable. This is an outrage!!! It.Must.Stop.
I think it was Werner Erhardt who said: “Institutional evil is when surviving the institution replaces fulfilling the mission as the purpose of the institution.” It seems that in this case the good of the institution (defined as lack of hassle) means more than the pursuit of happiness of the members. Not to mention the patronizing idea that grown women would be deterred from a career in science because of a romantic or sexual encounter.
And haven’t lovers always been star gazers? Then star gazers must be lovers, at least some.
Sorry, but “honest people” and “ugly people” are not protected classes, so you don’t have any rights. You need to get yourself a protected class.
Ha! That’s so precious. You yourself admitted the field is only 1/4 female, and while my math is rusty, 1/4 < 1/2, right? Until the field is at least 50% female, it is clearly oppressive, misogynistic, and discriminatory. QED.
Count me in.
In case anybody is still following this post, I just found this article linked to by an admittedly radical colleague. It basically scolds you to avoid dating and marrying within the field. The reasoning is all about the “difference in power,” which the left views most of life in terms of.
Weird that the more senior person needs to quit. It seems this person has a problem with people in senior positions full stop. And why would it be weird that you find “true love” in the tiny percentage of those who share your narrow interest?
It’s also interesting how people complaining about power structures are the ones who want to run your life for you. No thanks, I’ll stick with The Man for now.
Interesting—I didn’t pick up on that. I think this is the result of viewing all of life through “power relationships,” a concept I find repulsive. Power (however vaguely defined) is apparently bad, so the one with more power needs to give it up for the sake of the one with less.
Oh, good point! And since people with this mindset are in power at the AAS, they should find a wonderful time criticizing their own power in eternal circles and leave the rest of us alone.
It’s a wonder any of these people are ever able to step back from their angry sociology obsessions enough to unanalytically enjoy the company of another human being enough to get married. Actually, they probably don’t.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Seawriter
I just wonder what the author’s position was on the Clinton Impeachment.
“Shut up!” he explained.
It’s a wonder these people ever find time for astronomy.
I think the AAS should stay in the conference room and out of hotel room. Who are they to tell people who they can fall in love with?
I don’t understand the reticence about laying the blame for all this squarely at the feet of the radical feminists. Most of them are ensconced in universities ‘teaching’ ‘women’s studies.’ They have raised this subject to symphonic levels, dragging the university administrations with them This then has led to the infusion of this squirrely thinking into the population at large – such as companies in general and professional societies such as yours.
For all those precious snowflakes who see harassment in every thing said to them, when will they grow up? And for those times that merit action, when will she learn to confront the offender and politely tell him that if he ever does that again she will rip his head off and make him carry it around in a bag?
I think some of them have real trouble on that point. One person who’s a big instigator on the race/sex/homosexuality fronts (read through her “articles” here—it’s astounding stuff) has whined that her work colleagues think she doesn’t leave herself much time for her actual astrophysics job. Her publication level is below what you’d expect for someone who started out working for a famous cosmologist. She just hasn’t lived up to the usual expectations—yet, anyway. I rarely see her writing on astrophysics. It seems to be only her anger of the day that she cares about.
Doesn’t matter how little she produces. She will continue to be employed (and probably put on a tenure track) because her bosses are afraid of the consequences if they do not retain and promote her. Considering how much trouble she would cause if they tried to get rid of her (especially for legitimate reasons such as lack of research output) keeping her and/or promoting her so she is someone else’s problem child is the path of least resistance.
The karmic payback is she goes through life as a miserable human being unable to appreciate the privilege she has and the gifts she has been given. And when she finally does go to the last judgement she will have little to present when asked “what did you do with the talents I lent you?”
Seawriter
Actually, all dating will be forbidden. Because forbidding sexual relations has been so successful over the years.