Picture a scientist

There is an initiative within the college of natural science and engineering to try to prevent sexual harassment during field trips, and mitigating the effects if it happens anyway. The school of natural sciences had already created a document with a sort of code of conduct, which they thought would help in this endeavour. I will attempt to adapt it for ocean sciences. 

We also, of course, have an attempt at making our school a bit more diverse and inclusive. And to sort out the gender imbalance.

When we as a school were thinking about this sort of things anyway, someone had the idea of organising a screening of the film "Picture a Scientist". From the title, I imagined it was all about public perception of science. If you search Google images for a scientist, you tend to get a white male doing chemistry. And that is not just Google’s fault; that is probably a fair proxy of how society sees these things. And I thought the film wanted to address this. But it was much more hard-hitting than that.

It started with a lady talking about that she had brought her three-year-old daughter to work. The daughter knew, of course, that her mother was a scientist, but it only fully sank in when she saw her in her place of work, with all the paraphernalia. She immediately wanted to be a scientist as well. And that made the woman ponder about what world she would face if she did. And that brought back very painful memories of fieldwork she had done in Antarctica. She had been endlessly harassed and denigrated by her male supervisor. And at the time, she hadn't done anything about this; what power do you have as an early stage PhD student? But by now she had tenure. And she decided to act. And that may have provided the inspiration for this film.

From sexual harassment (and other harassment; this man had had all registers open) the film that went to more day-to-day issues. Women in science just being generally considered less than men. And a lady who had been doing genetic research at MIT extensively spoke of how she had realised she was just not treated equal to the men. And she started gathering data. And then she reached out to other women, also in MIT, but of course at the time a stark minority. Them being so few and far between, many of these women didn't know each other. But when they started talking, they realised they all had the same experiences. They all realised now that this issue was institute-wide. And they compiled a report.

As it happens, the Director (or whatever this function is called) of MIT took this seriously. This is not to be taken for granted! And he endorsed the report. And that set a ball rolling. And we are now decades further, and a lot has changed for the better. But we’re not there yet.

There was also Black female chemistry professor in the documentary. She of course got it from both sides! Both female and black. Double minority. And she had the sort of stories that you expect; for instance, that people think she is the janitor. What else would she be? She doesn't look like a chemistry professor. I was quite struck with that most of the times you see her, she is wearing a top with a message; she had one T-shirt that said something like "support your local girl gang", another with "is Wakanda forever", another one with the Wonder Woman logo. It gave me the impression that this woman is basically campaigning full-time. She probably is!

Altogether this documentary didn't provide many surprises. I suppose all women in science know how bad things have been, how much has improved, but how much more there still is to do. I found it heavy on the heart. But I admired the ladies for their groundbreaking work.

And the abominable supervisor on the fieldwork in Antarctica? He got fired. But he had of course been free to engage in this sort of practice for decades. But I do hope in this day and age, people will think more than twice before they let their primitive urges run free when they think the world isn't watching.

And now I need to get on with that document for SOS…

Still from the film