RE: Female scientists report pervasive gender bias, sexual harassment

["Abraham Punnen" <apunnen@sfu.ca>]

It is not simply a matter of women and not simply within the realm of sexual
harassment. It is an important issue.  We need to discuss openly on all
forms of harassment, bullying, and discrimination to make the SFU community
stronger. If SFUFA wants to conduct a study to see if such issues exist at
SFU,  there might be volunteers who will bring forward cases (their
experiences) and even allow them to be discussed openly to hear all views,
supporting and opposing, so that informed conclusions can be made. Victims
of discrimination often feel helpless in reality, despite policies exist to
address them, and sometimes be labelled as complainers without any formal
investigation of the issues they bring forward.  Continued voluntary silence
by a victim or when the issues brought forward are dismissed without proper
investigations leading to forced silence, could eventually lead to major
health problems for the victims and it is a loss for the organization, for
our country, and for our profession. 

Abraham Punnen
http://www.sfu.ca/~apunnen/ 

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Abramson [mailto:nabramso@sfu.ca] 
Sent: May 21, 2016 9:09 AM
To: SFUFA Forum <academic-discussion@sfu.ca>
Subject: Female scientists report pervasive gender bias, sexual harassment

When I was an affirmative action consultant in the 1980s it was well known
that in the federal government a woman who complained would probably win the
first time but be judged negatively as a complainer the second time. So you
couldn't complain because though you'd often win, then you'd be a sitting
duck and everyone would know that.

Do we know for sure that this is not a problem at SFU? I know of more than
one very competent woman researcher/teacher consistently denied full prof
status in my faculty these last 23 years. But I was not on the relevant TPCs
so perhaps I am misinformed.

I imagine the same situation is true for some visible minority men and
women.

Regards
Neil Abramson
Beedie

https://www.statnews.com/2016/05/17/sexual-harassment-female-researchers/


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