everyone was damn near fighting over who got to work with her.
This is actually also an issue, at least when it serves as a distraction from class, but it's only part of the issue- at least for some of us.
I was also a CompSci major, and while I experienced this (all throughout class, at every class), I also experienced being told repeatedly by faculty that I did "pretty good for a girl," I was repeatedly encouraged by faculty to drop out or change majors specifically because of my sex (despite performing better than my peers), and my access to the lab was frequently blocked by undergrads and TA's alike who demanded my digits (or often much more than that) before they would let me in. If I was allowed into the lab- the lab that I paid for access to just as they had- I couldn't get any work done because someone was constantly up my ass, whether they were trying to "help" me (despite not actually asking for help), or whether they were perusing my work over my shoulder and giving me flak for not working according to how they would work.
This experience was universal among the 12 female CompSci majors and alumni. We had a lovely discussion about it at meetings- and no, it was not in the context of "playing victim." If anything we found the desperation inherent in that kind of behavior to be both hilarious and sad. Alumni reported similar behavior in some workplaces, but it's not a universal experience. It depends on the culture there - other departments at the same school seemed not to have this problem.
I've asked lots of male colleagues and classmates if they experienced anything like what I've described and the answer was obviously a resounding "no."
Is everyone's experience going to be similar to mine? Of course not, and maybe things have improved in the decade since I was in that program. If so, that's great news...But let's not pretend that it simply doesn't happen just because you weren't personally privy to it.
The bottom line with harassment of women in CompSci programs is that simply being female is often all it takes to draw that unwanted attention. Videos that specifically point them out are only going to serve to exacerbate the issue, so yeah, of course women are made uncomfortable by them. This all also has a residual effect, in that when people like me share our experiences, that can be off-putting to women who may be on the fence about joining the program, who may not have the strength of will to work through that sort of thing. Now you have a department that has a reputation for treating women students differently, and it just snowballs from there.
Real cultural change is going to require one-on-one intervention, and it necessitates that women are not treated as some foreign agent or special snowflake, but as just another one of the crew. Everybody has to take responsibility to do that and accomplishing that is not going to be as easy as shoving a liability-driven video course in someone's face.
In cases where it was other students acting up, the TA on duty would tell them to chill out if they were actually present and if I could get their attention (somewhat difficult to yell over a gaggle of dudes blocking the doorway).
Unfortunately one of the major issues was not actually knowing many of them (kids from other classes or upperclassmen), so I didn't have names to provide if I had to report something after the fact. There was a few times where I would ask the TA to get them to chill out, and they were surprised because they thought the whole thing was some kind of banter between friends. That they would behave that way with someone who is ostensibly a stranger was as puzzling to them as it was to me. Naturally the atmosphere got pretty tense if the TA ever left the room after one of those episodes, so even if I managed to get into the lab, it was pretty clear from the glares and stuff that I wasn't really welcome there after spoiling their little party.
I was able to get names of 3 TA's and reported them for inappropriate behavior, but that was he-said-she-said stuff. One TA actually copped to it, to my surprise, and they removed him from the position. The other two denied it and kept doing their thing.
I was finally able to get a laptop after that, so I just stopped trying to get into the lab. It was disappointing since it meant I couldn't ask the TA on duty for help if I got stuck on something, but you do what you can.
In class that kind of behavior was disruptive, not just for me, but for other students. Whispering, leaning over on our desks, even just talking out loud, just grade school type stuff. The professor would often tell guys to sit back down in their seats, to stop talking and passing notes to me and the other girl in class, and to leave us alone. The few guys who got particularly rowdy, the prof would have them move to a seat in the front row and sit on their hands...But the stuff would just start all over again in the next class. You'd think they would have gotten bored of it after a while. It was pretty bizarre. 🤷♀️
It sounds to me like reporting isn't a good way to deal with a situation like this; especially where the details are vague. The only person who took responsibility for their actions and may have been open to changing their behavior was removed outright and everyone else became resentful and more subtle.
I don't disagree. It obviously wasn't a very workable solution to the problem. It's something of a catch-22. If you confront the person directly about their behavior, they deflect or deny unless other people in the group (peers) are willing to hold them accountable. But what if there isn't someone in the group that will back you up? You can try to appeal to someone in a more authoritative position, like a TA, teacher, or department head, but as you say, that doesn't really resolve the issue, either, because it's a cultural problem, rather than an issue of any one individual's behavior.
I can see why administrations would not want to get involved with situations like this; they're complicated, time consuming and likely to stir up controversy if anything is misjudged.
To be frank, the actual administration at this school was hyper avoidant of addressing a number of serious, chaotic problems on campus that year. I'm not even going to get into that stuff because it's way off topic, but suffice it to say through their actions (or rather lack thereof) they communicated to staff all the way down the chain that apathy was the preferred way to go. Not all that surprising to see conduct in a department spiral out of control the way it did, considering (again, didn't have this issue in other departments, just CompSci).
Bearing in mind the conclusions of the study in the article and your own experience, what do you think the desired outcome is in situations like this and how would you acheive it?
Already answered in my original post:
Real cultural change is going to require one-on-one intervention, and it necessitates that women are not treated as some foreign agent or special snowflake, but as just another one of the crew. Everybody has to take responsibility to do that and accomplishing that is not going to be as easy as shoving a liability-driven video course in someone's face.
I would tweak this a bit, though, just to say that what I mean when I say "one-on-one" is not literally one person talking to the person bothering them, but that it's something that requires intervention by others in the group, and that it should be dealt with on an interpersonal level and not necessarily an institutional problem. To reiterate what I said at the beginning of this post, it requires something of a group effort. Once the bystander effect kicks in it's the kiss of death.
I feel the same way about sexual harassment and racial discrimination videos in the workplace. I don't think they help address the behavior of individuals who actually commit those behaviors. I think it's necessary instead to have a culture that makes it clear that behavior is unacceptable, where people will have the wherewithal to say "Not cool," and then escalate as necessary if they don't get the picture from social pressure. The problem is that developing that culture is tricky. I think it takes a lot of time and effort, and there isn't an easy answer.
For what flak I've gotten for even bothering to say anything, I think we're all mostly in agreement, here, even if some people think I'm just pulling my experience out of my ass.
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This is actually also an issue, at least when it serves as a distraction from class, but it's only part of the issue- at least for some of us.
I was also a CompSci major, and while I experienced this (all throughout class, at every class), I also experienced being told repeatedly by faculty that I did "pretty good for a girl," I was repeatedly encouraged by faculty to drop out or change majors specifically because of my sex (despite performing better than my peers), and my access to the lab was frequently blocked by undergrads and TA's alike who demanded my digits (or often much more than that) before they would let me in. If I was allowed into the lab- the lab that I paid for access to just as they had- I couldn't get any work done because someone was constantly up my ass, whether they were trying to "help" me (despite not actually asking for help), or whether they were perusing my work over my shoulder and giving me flak for not working according to how they would work.
This experience was universal among the 12 female CompSci majors and alumni. We had a lovely discussion about it at meetings- and no, it was not in the context of "playing victim." If anything we found the desperation inherent in that kind of behavior to be both hilarious and sad. Alumni reported similar behavior in some workplaces, but it's not a universal experience. It depends on the culture there - other departments at the same school seemed not to have this problem.
I've asked lots of male colleagues and classmates if they experienced anything like what I've described and the answer was obviously a resounding "no."
Is everyone's experience going to be similar to mine? Of course not, and maybe things have improved in the decade since I was in that program. If so, that's great news...But let's not pretend that it simply doesn't happen just because you weren't personally privy to it.
The bottom line with harassment of women in CompSci programs is that simply being female is often all it takes to draw that unwanted attention. Videos that specifically point them out are only going to serve to exacerbate the issue, so yeah, of course women are made uncomfortable by them. This all also has a residual effect, in that when people like me share our experiences, that can be off-putting to women who may be on the fence about joining the program, who may not have the strength of will to work through that sort of thing. Now you have a department that has a reputation for treating women students differently, and it just snowballs from there.
Real cultural change is going to require one-on-one intervention, and it necessitates that women are not treated as some foreign agent or special snowflake, but as just another one of the crew. Everybody has to take responsibility to do that and accomplishing that is not going to be as easy as shoving a liability-driven video course in someone's face.
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In cases where it was other students acting up, the TA on duty would tell them to chill out if they were actually present and if I could get their attention (somewhat difficult to yell over a gaggle of dudes blocking the doorway).
Unfortunately one of the major issues was not actually knowing many of them (kids from other classes or upperclassmen), so I didn't have names to provide if I had to report something after the fact. There was a few times where I would ask the TA to get them to chill out, and they were surprised because they thought the whole thing was some kind of banter between friends. That they would behave that way with someone who is ostensibly a stranger was as puzzling to them as it was to me. Naturally the atmosphere got pretty tense if the TA ever left the room after one of those episodes, so even if I managed to get into the lab, it was pretty clear from the glares and stuff that I wasn't really welcome there after spoiling their little party.
I was able to get names of 3 TA's and reported them for inappropriate behavior, but that was he-said-she-said stuff. One TA actually copped to it, to my surprise, and they removed him from the position. The other two denied it and kept doing their thing.
I was finally able to get a laptop after that, so I just stopped trying to get into the lab. It was disappointing since it meant I couldn't ask the TA on duty for help if I got stuck on something, but you do what you can.
In class that kind of behavior was disruptive, not just for me, but for other students. Whispering, leaning over on our desks, even just talking out loud, just grade school type stuff. The professor would often tell guys to sit back down in their seats, to stop talking and passing notes to me and the other girl in class, and to leave us alone. The few guys who got particularly rowdy, the prof would have them move to a seat in the front row and sit on their hands...But the stuff would just start all over again in the next class. You'd think they would have gotten bored of it after a while. It was pretty bizarre. 🤷♀️
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I don't disagree. It obviously wasn't a very workable solution to the problem. It's something of a catch-22. If you confront the person directly about their behavior, they deflect or deny unless other people in the group (peers) are willing to hold them accountable. But what if there isn't someone in the group that will back you up? You can try to appeal to someone in a more authoritative position, like a TA, teacher, or department head, but as you say, that doesn't really resolve the issue, either, because it's a cultural problem, rather than an issue of any one individual's behavior.
To be frank, the actual administration at this school was hyper avoidant of addressing a number of serious, chaotic problems on campus that year. I'm not even going to get into that stuff because it's way off topic, but suffice it to say through their actions (or rather lack thereof) they communicated to staff all the way down the chain that apathy was the preferred way to go. Not all that surprising to see conduct in a department spiral out of control the way it did, considering (again, didn't have this issue in other departments, just CompSci).
Already answered in my original post:
I would tweak this a bit, though, just to say that what I mean when I say "one-on-one" is not literally one person talking to the person bothering them, but that it's something that requires intervention by others in the group, and that it should be dealt with on an interpersonal level and not necessarily an institutional problem. To reiterate what I said at the beginning of this post, it requires something of a group effort. Once the bystander effect kicks in it's the kiss of death.
I feel the same way about sexual harassment and racial discrimination videos in the workplace. I don't think they help address the behavior of individuals who actually commit those behaviors. I think it's necessary instead to have a culture that makes it clear that behavior is unacceptable, where people will have the wherewithal to say "Not cool," and then escalate as necessary if they don't get the picture from social pressure. The problem is that developing that culture is tricky. I think it takes a lot of time and effort, and there isn't an easy answer.
For what flak I've gotten for even bothering to say anything, I think we're all mostly in agreement, here, even if some people think I'm just pulling my experience out of my ass.
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