Sociologists Candace West and Don Zimmerman popularised the theory of “doing gender.” This theory sees that gender identity is something we do – it is a performance and an achievement that people put a lot of work into, rather than some innate biological state of being. People do gender by the way they dress, the way they talk, the way they move their bodies, the types of leisure activities they engage in their spare time, through their division of labour at home, at work and in every other context. Doing gender takes work: you need to learn what’s expected of you as a “man” or as a “woman.”

Early knowledge on doing gender comes from childhood socialisation. Subsequent life experiences teach us, often through trial and error, what the norms and expectations are for masculinity and femininity in different social settings, such as at work.

West and Zimmerman argued that, since gender is something we learn to do, and doing gender leads to inequality, it is possible to undo gender inequality, by doing gender in alternative ways that do not punish femininities. The doing/undoing of gender has been an ongoing focus of gender studies, most recently focused on transgender people. I will discuss recent scholarship about how transgender people do gender at work, with a focus on the experiences of transgender women. Social scientists are preoccupied with the idea that transgender people are in a special position to “undo” gender. I want to explore why viewing transgender experiences in this way contributes to the Othering of transgender people, by amplifying their difference as a solution to gender inequality. Society can absolutely undo gender, but part of this means addressing the inequalities transgender people experience. This is something that mainstream feminism has yet to fully embrace.

Transgender Women’s Experiences of Gender Inequality. Photo: Purple Sherbet, CC 2.0, via Flickr. Adapted by The Other Sociologist

Doing Gender

Gender is not just personal identity; it is a social identity. Gender depends upon social interaction and social recognition. To this end, it helps if the biological body you were born into matches your personal gender identity. This is known as cis-gender. This gender experience is distinct from being transgender, which is where one’s biological sex does not align with their gender identity. Doing gender is time and knowledge intensive for all other genders, including transgender people, because our gender performance is constantly being judged by others.

The stories we tell about being male or female are part of doing gender. Where those stories are informed by bias and prejudice, the outcomes lead to gender inequality. As such, West and Zimmerman show that by doing gender, we are in fact, “doing inequality.” For example the stereotype that women make bad leaders is a way that we do gender. Research shows that women excel at leadership, particularly in managing diverse teams, but they are not rewarded (remunerated or promoted) for their outcomes because they lead in ways that male Executives see as weaknesses. Women take more time listening to and acting on concerns; women negotiate outcomes; and women are more likely to give the team credit, rather than take all the glory of success. In short, the traits that are considered feminine in a professional context are undervalued, and as a result women are generally disadvantaged professionally. Gender expectations impact transgender people of different backgrounds in different ways than for cis-gender people.

Doing Gender at Work

An estimated one in 1,000 Australians are transgender or intersex. Surveys specify that over 4% of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) people identify as transgender. Similar surveys overseas estimate that 0.1% of people identify as transgender in Britain and up to 0.5% of Americans are transgender. The First Australian National Trans Mental Health Study finds that transgender people face various problems at work that impact negatively on their mental health. The idea of “coming out” as transgender can lead to anxiety. The lack of general awareness training on transgender issues for employers and other staff leads to discrimination and abuse. Transgender people report:

“I’m having a hard time acquiring paid work because of my ‘trans status.’ While I can’t prove it, as soon as a potential employer finds out I’m trans the interview ends suddenly. They find out because they ask for proof of my right to work and see the female marker on my birth certificate.”

“[I was] forced to resign my job, verbally abused and belittled in front of co workers, stalked, threatened, hate mail.”

Not all transgender people experience active or overt discrimination about their gender at work. Instead, gender inequality manifests in more complex ways. I’ll focus on the everyday experiences of gender at work.

Catherine Connell is an American sociologist who has taken up West and Zimmerman’s theory of doing gender to see the extent to which gender can be undone in a professional context where transgender people work. That is; can transgender people challenge how gender is “done” through their jobs and work relationships? Connell is not a trangender woman (otherwise referred to as “cis-woman“). She conducted in-depth interviews with 19 transgender people. The majority of them were from White, middle class backgrounds. Five of the participants were in “stealth mode” in their workplace, meaning they did not identify themselves a a transgender person. In a couple of cases this was because they had transitioned a long time ago when society was much less accommodating of transgender people (notwithstanding the problems that exist today). Others said their gender was private and they had no desire to share this information with work colleagues. The other 14 participants had “come out” as transgender to work colleagues.

Connell finds that the male-to-female transgender people put a lot more work into doing gender after their transition. These transgender women talked about taking a lot more time and care in thinking about their outfits and in putting on make-up. The female-to-male transgender men reported the opposite. One transgender man talked about life being easier now, with less time spent on grooming. Notably, these findings are not specific to being transgender; rather having experienced life in the opposite gender, these people were acknowledging how “doing gender” happens. Society expects women to put a lot of time into their appearance, but the same expectation is not placed on men (and yes, this is changing, but the imbalance still places women under more scrutiny).

Doing gender requires another type of maintenance: impression management.

Impression management

Dealing with, and trying to control, the judgements other people make about us because of our gender performance is part of doing gender. Connell’s research finds that, prior to transition, the female-to-male transgender men faced hostility from work colleagues for appearing “too masculine.” After transitioning, their masculinity was no longer seen as a threat to colleagues. The transgender men in this sample found it easier to achieve authority in the workplace as a man. One White male participant said:

“I don’t feel like I have as much to prove to my clients because I already get the whole, ‘Oh you’re the man,’ kind of privilege.”

At times, the participants emphasised the gender traits they learned in their early life in order to get ahead at work. For example, one transgender man says he might make more emotional appeals or speak differently when speaking with female clients, a trait he saw as being feminine.

Some people feel ambivalent about how far they would take their transition with regards to hormones; so doing gender in this case is not about physical treatments, but it is more about performing gender in other ways, such as through dress and behaviour. This is not unusual, as many transgender people do not undertake hormone therapies nor surgery. Other participants found that some aspects of their newly adopted gender status didn’t suit them. For example, one transgender woman said that acting “girly” isn’t part of who she is. This variation in “doing gender” after transitioning highlights the diversity amongst transgender people, a point that is often lost in mainstream depictions of what it means to be transgender.

Gender policing

Gender policing. Judging people’s gender practices. Reminding Others of the rules of “doing gender.” This reinforces the gender order & reproduces gender inequality

Given that gender is a social identity, society is heavily invested in trying to maintain the existing gender order. To this end, society encourages everyone to get involved in policing gender – to judge and remind people of the “rules” of doing gender, with reference to a strict gender binary of male/female sex. This is part of why gender leads to inequality. Being expected to conform means additional scrutiny for those who are seen to deviate from the norm. The participants in Connell’s study find that their colleagues were constantly giving them advice about how to do gender “properly” – how to dress, how to behave, how not to behave. Even though some of their colleagues were supportive, others expressed reservations about how gender reassignment might affect their employees. One computer programmer who transitioned from male to a woman says that her boss was afraid she wouldn’t be able to do programming as well. (Because ladies don’t do computer programming, get it?) In this respect, the transgender women felt devalued in their workplace after their transition, and they adopted what they saw as masculine traits in order to gain back respect. This included being “more aggressive” during meetings. For example, raising one’s voice, banging on the table, and adopting behaviour that appears “more assertive.”

Doing gender made the male-to-female participants more aware of gender inequality. As a result, they feel they are in a better position to speak out against inequality on behalf of other women. In this predominantly White, middle class context, transgender women are more disadvantaged than transgender men. Connell argues that working class transgender people would face additional challenges which require further research. I’ll return to this point soon.

Connell ultimately argues that transgender people have a great capacity to undo or “re-do” gender at work. She sees that their experiences advance the “feminist cause of gender equality.” There are some gaps in Connell’s analysis, as her study does not really support this conclusion.

Connell’s work shows that doing masculinity in dominant ways (“hegemonic masculinity,”) is the primary method for gaining respect at work. This does not bode well for “undoing gender.” In this respect, transgender people are in no greater position of power to assert gender equality on behalf of feminism, and nor should they be expected to carry this burden.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality: Inequalities are connected. Gender inequality is impacted by racism, class, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination against disabilities (ableism) & other issues.

Feminist theory has generally failed to integrate transgender issues as part of the feminist agenda. The feminist theory of intersectionality examines how inequalities are connected. Gender inequality is also impacted by racism, homophobia, transphobia, discrimination of disabled people (ableism) and other issues. In other words, the experiences and issues that transgender people face when they “do gender” are impacted by socio-economic status.

Sociologist Kristen Schilt interviewed 54 transgender men. She finds that they were quickly promoted in comparison to their slower career progress before their transition. One transgender man was promoted within months of starting a new job, while another went from working in sales to a manager position – a position that is only ever given to men in his workplace. He remarks “it’s the guys that rise through the ranks, and they rise quickly.” Other men remarked how when women speak they are ignored or overlooked, but after their transition, these men are now praised more frequently. One transgender man noted that he spoke up for a woman colleague who had been silenced during a meeting, but was surprised when he was applauded for “making an excellent point” even though he’d simply repeated the woman’s words. So as a man, he was invited to take credit for a woman’s idea. Another man remarks that after transitioning, “I’m right a lot more now.” This pattern held true for blue collar workers as well as professionals.

Nevertheless, Schilt notes that  racial hierarchies persist. Transgender men whose bodies conform to the “ideal male worker” (White and tall) made greater economic gains than Other transgender men who were minorities and those who did gender in more ambiguous ways.

Male Privilege

Stanford University biologists, Professor Joan Roughgarden and Professor Ben Barres,  have experienced both sides of male privilege. Joan is a transgender woman. Whereas before she was free to share her ideas with peers who would engage with her respectfully, she is now undermined at work. She is routinely intimidated by male colleagues who accuse her of being “irresponsible” when presenting new ideas, and who literally shout her down and tell her she is wrong simply because they disagree with her. This did not happen to her when she was perceived to be a man, prior to transition.

”I will have some man shout at me, try to physically coerce me into stopping [during a conference paper] …When I was doing the marine ecology work, they did not try to physically intimidate me and say, ‘You have not read all the literature.’ They would not assume they were smarter. The current crop of objectors assumes they are smarter… You get interrupted when you are talking, you can’t command attention, but above all you can’t frame the issues.”

In contrast, Barres is a transgender man who has gained professional esteem because he is a man. When he was living as a woman and studying at MIT, a professor assumed his boyfriend at the time must have helped him cheat because, then a woman, he was the only person to get the right answers during an exam. As a medical student, he noticed only the men were given opportunities to try out difficult procedures. After his transition, all that changed: people routinely commend his ideas and praise his professionalism. In short, he notes: “I am taken more seriously.” Roughgarden compares her experience to Barres by saying:

“Ben has migrated into the centre whereas I have had to migrate into the periphery.”

Male privilege is affected by other social characteristics, including race and sexuality.

White Privilege

Artist Chella Coleman has also reflected on the connection of race, gender and privilege. She feels like a beautiful, Black woman, but as a transgender woman of colour, she is instead treated with fear and disrespect. It is not only her gender, but her racial background that compounds the inequalities she faces daily. For example, potential employees discriminate against her and undermine her mental wellbeing:

As I try to attain some stability, sitting in possible places of employment dressed as the woman I want the world to perceive me to be, I’m ever so mindful of my feelings, knowing how I feel affects how people see me. But when I hear the words: ”We have already filled the position,” or “I’m sorry, we are not looking for any new people at this time, but we’ll keep your application on file…” I know something bigger is at play. I see the new hires just a few days later, always assimilated black and brown non-queer folks. This happens to me all the time, and each time I reach into my belly and channel the same resilient energy my people have always had to. This is not to say it doesn’t get me down; it gets me real down.

Coleman’s struggles show that even though people of colour generally occupy a marginalised position in society, as a transgender woman of colour, she faces heightened problems of racism, sexism and transphobia. Transgender people of colour do gender in ways that are meaningful to them personally, but other people denigrate them, making them feel excluded and undervalued. The extent to which transgender people can “undo” or “re-do” gender is limited by the norms of society, and transgender women of colour bear the brunt of gender and sexual oppression.

The narrative of “undoing gender” that has been a recent focus in social science research is a position of privilege largely imagined by White cis-women feminists. This is an odd twist, given that mainstream White feminist traditions still largely ignore intersectionality, which is why women of colour and transgender people are largely missing from mainstream feminist accounts of gender inequality.

Limits of “Undoing” Gender

Photo: Ted Eytan, CC 2.0, via Flickr

Catherine Connell notes that transgender people are not the only group actively challenging gender expectations (some cis-women and cis-men do this too). Still, she places a great responsibility on the shoulders of transgender people, by claiming they have the capacity to undo or re-do gender. To an extent, they are reconstructing gender, by noticing patterns of inequality that they did not see clearly before. Some transgender men now feel emboldened to speak up on behalf of women colleagues who are passed over at work. They did not have the power to be heard as women, but now, as transgender men, they have more sway. Nevertheless, gender transition brings up other inequalities.

Kristen Schilt’s work highlights issues of race.  White male privilege confers greater power to White transgender men, but White privilege gives transgender women  limited autonomy to negotiate the way in which their professional identities are viewed. As a result, White transgender women sometimes fall back on “masculine” traits in order to be respected at work. Conversely, transgender men adopt “feminine” traits such as listening and focusing on emotions. These strategies help them win over clients. Transgender women may or may not choose to do gender in “girlie” (that is, in conventional ways), but behaving in masculine ways is the primary way to seek equal treatment.

Doing femininity in a masculine way, however, can be seen as threatening. Transgender women may get “heard” when acting “more aggressive” but it comes with some professional backlash. Some transgender women are literally shouted into a place of submission, creating a hostile working environment. Femininity is therefore largely being punished, while adhering to dominant masculinity is rewarded.

There is diversity in the way transgender people do gender, but transgender men who embody the hegemonic ideal (being White, tall and “assertive”) face less overt forms of gender policing at work. Under the current model of doing gender, transgender women of colour are particularly disadvantaged.

The research shows that doing gender has similar trappings for transgender people as they do for everyone else. Gender relationships are constructed in ways that reproduce inequality, whether it’s a White cis-woman being ignored at work, or a White transgender man being promoted because he’s a man.

The idea that transgender people are in some ideal or unique place to undo gender inequality by virtue of their previous gender experiences is a trap. This notion falls into the general hoodwink of mainstream feminism. This conceives all women have the same needs and resources as the White middle-class cis-women who lead mainstream feminism.

To be sure, gender must be undone – we must stop rewarding gender patterns that generally punish women. Yet the professional experiences of transgender women actually suggest that undoing gender is highly complex. Transgender people are placed in a no-win situation, where conforming to dominant models of gender helps them mediate further discrimination, and in some cases, to get ahead. They spend more time and energy after their gender transition thinking about gender inequality and trying to help where possible, but they face other struggles that cis-people do not.

Part of undoing gender is undoing White feminist traditions that divide women, by marginalising women of colour and other minorities. Part of undoing gender is not looking to one group, whether it’s White cis-women, or transgender people, to transform inequality for the rest of us. Gender inequality cannot be undone at the individual level without institutional change.

Learn More

My related posts:

• Sociology of Gender
• Rethinking Gender and Sexuality: Case Study of the Native American “Two Spirit” People
• Visit my Pinterest for more visuals on the Sociology of Gender and Sexuality.

Other resources:

• National LGBTI Health Alliance – Inclusive Language Guide: Respecting People of Intersex, Trans and Gender Diverse Experience
• Zoë Hyde et al. (for Beyond Blue) – The First Australian National Trans Mental Health Study

In late 2014, two sociologists were featured in the New York Times (NYT) talking about the “cultural bias against mothers” in the paid work force. Professor Michelle Budig’s research finds that high income men with kids enjoy the biggest career benefits while low-income women suffer as a result of having children. In part, this is because employers think that marriage and children makes men more stable, while women with children are stigmatised as being less reliable (employers see mothers as “flaky”). This stereotype goes back to the traditional male breadwinner model that arise during the Industrial Revolution, which became solidified in post-WWII period during the 1950s. People presume the model we know today has always existed but that’s not the case. Marketing and economic relations have made it seem as if married men are ideal workers, while women are supposedly made for care-giving. This is not the case, when we look to institutional barriers and employer biases.

Motherhood penalty

Professor Shelley J. Correll’s research was also cited in the NYT. She sent out fake CVs with a line about being part of a parent-teacher association. CVs with women’s names were half as likely to get a call back as men. The presumption is that women are going to be too busy looking after their kids to devote themselves to the job. The flipside of this assumption is that, because women are socially expected to provide most of the primary care-giving in families, male employees will be free to work harder. In another study, Correll found that the starting wage offered to mothers was $13,000 less than for fathers, and $11,000 less than for childless women. On top of this are a range of other biases, that depend upon race and industry, with Black working class applicants suffering even more due to employer bias.

How does this situation look in academia? Well it’s not much better.

Fatherhood Bonus in Academia
Historian Robert Townsend’s study shows that married male historians move up quickly through the academic ladder while married women are pushed back. On average, married men achieve full professorship within 5.9 years. In comparison, married women took 7.8 years to become professors. A curious pattern emerges for unmarried academics: unmarried men took 6.4 years (so longer than married men, but much quicker than married women). Unmarried women took 6.7 years to get full tenure. Other studies show the same is true in other fields, like sociology. Clearly parenthood is a career asset to married men. Many people assume that women’s career suffer because they take time off to look after babies when they’re first born, but Townsend controlled for this and looked at other variables. Married academic women are more likely than married academic men to have a partner with a PhD. This means that men’s academic careers receive additional support by their (non-academic) wives in a way that’s not true for academic women with academic partners.

Townsend also finds that married academic women make “more career sacrifices” than men. While both men and women are spending the same amount of time on professional activities, women are putting in two to seven hours extra on childcare than men. Additionally, women are almost three times as likely as men to leave their positions to support their husband’s career. Given that men progress quicker in academia and therefore earn more money, this becomes a self-fulfilling cycle as women can’t get ahead. By the time they reach full professors, women are twice as likely as men to be divorced, thus placing a greater child-caring burden on women that married men don’t experience. Gender obscures how men and women perceive academia. While almost 85% of the male history professors think that their faculty treats women fairly, only 55% of women professors agreed.

Other research still shows that the logistics of being a mother make it harder to reach full potential in academia, from the lack of breastfeeding facilities at universities, to the types of socialising events that men and women participate in, to the opportunities to publish research, to the types of grants awarded, and so on.

Double Burden
Together these studies show that from working class jobs to academia, married women with children bear a “double burden” of inequality in the paid labour force, as well as additional work in the family. The two spheres of inequality reinforce one another. The additional social barriers faced by ethnic minorities and LGBTQI mothers is even greater.

To be clear, motherhood isn’t the problem. It’s the cultural bias against mothers, including active discrimination by employers; the way in which paid work is structured to favour men; and the systemic failure to recognise and reward the work of mothers.

This post was first published on my Google+ page.

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Latina actress Gina Rodriguez, star of Jane the Virgin, has won a Golden Globe for Best TV Series Actress – Comedy or Musical! She said in her speech:

“This award is so much more than myself. It represents a culture that wants to see themselves as heroes.”

This win is especially important given the research on Latin people on screen which shows that Latins are relegated to unnamed roles, and playing to the stereotypes of criminals, blue collar workers and sex objects.

Stereotypes

The 2014 study by Frances Negrón-Muntaner and colleagues, published by Columbia University, found that (at the time of publishing) Latinos did not make up any lead roles in any top ten movies or scripted network TV shows. Even worse, Latino men comprised only 3% of supporting roles on TV and film from 2010-2013. Latinas made up 4.6% of film appearances and 9.5% of supporting roles on TV. Afro-Latinos do not star in any film or TV shows, but they make up less than 20% of all Latinos in films and TV.

When we are represented, most characters are linked to a crime (18% of Latinos on film; 24% on TV), or they are depicted strictly in law enforcement (37% of Latinos on TV). Latinas are overwhelmingly cast as maids. Since 1996, 69% of maid characters on major films and TV shows are Latina!

The study also finds that almost three quarters (72%) of all roles given to Latinos fit into three stereotypes: crime/law enforcement, blue-collar workers and “sexy women.” The rest are minor characters who are mostly cast as unnamed members of a large Latino family – yet another stereotype. Most alarmingly perhaps is the fact that almost half of all Latins on TV shows are uncredited (45%). The study concludes that Latin people “tend to embody many of the same stereotypes first visualised in cinema over a century ago: criminals, cheap labour, and sexual objects.”

Objectification

Another study by Dr Stacy Smith and colleagues from the University of Southern California finds that only 4% of the top paid actors in Hollywood are Latin. The research analysed over 3,900 characters in 600 popular movies and restricted the sample to actors with at least one line of dialogue. Women of colour are less likely to be cast on screen than their male counter-parts. For example, Latinas only make up 37% of all Latins on film.

Latina actresses are most likely of all women to appear partially or fully naked on screen: 38% of Latinas are naked compared with 32% of White actresses, 24% of Black actresses, and 18% Asian actresses. (No data on Native American actresses were given in the study.)

Latinos are also more likely to be depicted in tight or revealing clothing than other racial or ethnic groups (17% Latinos compared with 14% Asian males and 8% of White men).

Both studies show that Latinos are also less likely to direct films and do work behind the scenes in pivotal cinematic jobs than White people. Black people are slightly better represented as directors in comparison to Latins, but they are a minority overall.

Subverting Stereotypes

On the surface, Jane the Virgin draws on a type of stereotype within Latino cultures, that of the passive, obedient virgin, which is something I’ve previously researched. My research identifies that Latinas in Australia recognise this stereotype and its opposite, “the slut” (the so-called Madonna/Whore dichotomy) and they reject these binaries. Latinas recognise that they can assert their sexuality while also seeking gender equality and change within their communities and wider society.

Jane the Virgin subverts the passive “Madonna” stereotype however, in that Jane is working towards her education degree and has a strong relationship with her mother and grandmother. The show is based on a Venezuelan telenovela created by Latina director Perla Farías Lombardini. This version is centred on three generations of Latinas.

Learn More

For global statistics on gender representations on film, read my article: Women & Girls on Film: “Inequality is Rampant.”

“Gender inequality is rampant in global films.”

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A new study by Dr Corinne Moss-Racusin and colleagues has analysed the public’s comments in response to a prominent study on gender bias in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The researchers find that men are more likely to post negative comments in response to scientific findings about sexism in STEM careers. To provide a flipside illustration, I share some examples of what it is like to be a woman moderator of a large, international science community on Google+. This case study will illustrate the recurring arguments used to invalidate the science on inequality in STEM. These arguments are focused on biological (mis)understandings of gender; stereotypes of what motivates men and women; and a desire to police the boundaries of science. Denying that sexism exists is a common tactic to invalidating the science on gender bias in science, and attacking the social sciences is concurrently used to discredit findings on inequality, as well as support the idea that inequality does not exist in STEM.

Sociology of Gender Bias in Science. Photos: Texas A&M University-Commerce, CC 2.0

Gender Bias in STEM

In a study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly, Moss-Racusin and colleagues analysed 831 comments in the New York Times website, Discover Magazine blog, and the IFLS website, all of which reported on a highly cited and reputable study on the gender bias in faculty hiring committees. The original study was published in PNAS in 2012, and was also authored by Dr Moss-Racusin leading an interdisciplinary team of researchers. The PNAS study was chosen because it was the one science story on gender that gained the most online comments in 2012. The three websites were chosen for analysis because they have a high public following and because all three included a link to the original study, which the public could read freely should they have further questions on the findings.

The PNAS study involved an experiment where biology, chemistry and physics professors at research-intensive universities evaluated job applications for a lab manager position. They were presented with identical CVs with either a man or a woman’s name. The participants rated the male applicants more favourably along every measure and offered them a higher starting salary, even though the women’s CVs had the exact same information.

Photo: Texas A&M University-Commerce, CC 2.0, via Flickr

In the present study, the researchers find that 433 comments were negative. That is, the commenters refuse to believe the findings on gender bias. Men are more likely to do so. There are eight types of negative responses, that draw on a range of justifications from biology to social conventions. Men especially used subjective and sexist observations about women’s supposed innate inability to succeed in science. Ideas that prevailed included “women get pregnant and leave their jobs!” Women’s interests are also cast as fundamentally different to men’s:

I think that a proportion of the gender divide can be accounted for by a division in interests.

Men also evoked ideas of personal choice, such as arguing men are “hungrier” for success and work harder than women, or that men work harder in STEM because women push them to make more money. (Men would not be sexually competitive, they argue, if they didn’t succeed.)

I note that in all these discussions, “men” and “women” are discussed as two discreet groups, implicitly drawing on biological narratives of gender. Transgender and alternative genders don’t feature; racial and other socio-cultural differences are not considered; and heterosexism prevails. That is, the discussion is centred on the presumption that everyone is heterosexual, and that all women and men want the same things.

In the study, men are more likely to deny that inequality exists, or conversely they blamed women for inequality and said that gender bias targets men (“I’ve experienced it in the opposite way so far.”). These men evoke a general discontent with affirmative action laws, or they raised other unrelated social issues as examples of “bias against men,” such as divorce laws and custody of children, and saying women get “the most stuff.”

• The majority of sexist comments against women are made by men (95%);
• Between 79% to 88% of comments that justified bias using biology or social arguments, and those who blame women, are men; and
• Men predominantly mentioned that sexism targets men and they overwhelmingly critiqued social science (68% to 85% of comments).

Gender Differences

Photo: Laurent Neyssensas CC 2.0, via Flickr

Men are more likely to refute the science findings on inequality by stating that they work in STEM (75% of men’s comments). In comparison, women shared personal and detailed stories about the gender bias they’d experienced at work, but only 25% justified their opinions by saying they work in STEM. Women shared stories like:

Speaking as a female computer geek, who seems to be unemployed twice as often as my male counterparts – YES. Gender bias definitely still exists.

My instructor told me he generally believes women are bad at math but they’re great if they don’t catch you staring at their butt! Whatta jerk!’’

The gender difference here is that men use blanket statements about biology and innate differences, as well as using personal opinion (society is biased against men) to refute scientific evidence about gender bias. Conversely women use personal anecdotes to illustrate the scientific findings.

The first strategy – to deny the science on inequality – is used largely by men to invalidate science on sexism in support of the status quo. The other strategy, used mostly by women, supports the science using personal experiences of bias to challenge the status quo. Neither approach is scientific as personal anecdotes are not science, but the first approach rejects science evidence, saying things are fine the way they are, while the other approach embraces the science, to say things are unfair and should change.

Social Science of Inequality

Photo: Ben Seese, CC 2.0, via Flickr

One strategy that men used to invalidate the PNAS study was to establish themselves as a science expert, by saying they work in STEM. Men also critiqued social science but did so on moral grounds and using emotive language. Social science is often categorically excluded from the umbrella term of STEM. Social scientists rarely use this phrase to describe their practice. While sociology was set up by our early founders to mirror the practices of the natural sciences (for example Durkheim), more recent traditions are expressly critical of the natural sciences for contributing to the marginalisation of women, minorities and vulnerable populations (Foucault is a key critic).

Nevertheless, social science is very much a scientific practice – we offer valid methodologies for the critical study of society. We collect data and use established theories to draw conclusions about the social influences on behaviour. Unlike the men who refute the science on gender bias in science, we do not use emotional arguments to dismiss scientific studies. We draw on our training and credible peer reviewed science studies.

I run several science communities, and no single issue (other than climate change) draws more heated debate than posts about social science studies on science inequality. I present examples of posts that I’ve authored, all of which draw on social science research, as well as a couple of other examples from other social scientists and non-social scientist women who write about inequality. The common denominator is that whenever inequality in science is raised as an issue, this is immediately met by cries of bias, almost exclusively by men. When the authors are women scientists, we encounter even more push back.

Case Study: Science on Google+

Science on Google+ is an ever-growing community with over 503,300 members, most of whom are general members of the public with an interest in science. We also have host a Google+ page with over 521,200 followers, many of whom are scientists. Even with a slightly higher following, our page rarely descends into personal attacks, possibly because our followers are predominantly science practitioners who use Google+. Our community generates many excellent discussions as we have practising scientists who share their posts, but posts about gender almost always become unruly.

Royal Society

Consider a post where I discussed the Royal Society’s own data that showed gender inequality in their science fellowship program. When I shared this post on Science on Google+ it did not take long for a man to angrily cry that I was asking for special treatment for women simply by writing about women’s experiences of inequality.

New York Times

Via STEM Women

In another post which I authored for STEM Women, social science is also called into question in a most illogical way. I had presented a scientific critique of a study published in the New York Times. The study argues sexism is dead in academia. I showed that the study’s methodology was flawed. In the Google+ discussion, a man argues that my analysis (of a social science study) is biased because of my sources (also social science studies). Another male mathematician posted the original NYT article and used it to attack psychology as a science, but he also offers his personal experience saying that the authors (both psychologists) are correct in their assessment that there is no sexism in academia.

In these examples, we see how social science is malleable to the public and non-social scientists alike, who either attack the study based on its argument (that gender bias exists) or discipline. Social science findings are welcome when they match someone’s world-view that inequality does not exist.

Nobel Prize

Image: STEM Women

In a post I wrote for STEM Women, I discuss data published by the Nobel Prize committee, showing that less than 3% of laureates have been women. Again, men (and some women) cry foul. One man does this by calling into question my scientific credentials, even though he is not a scientist. He wants to argue that women may simply not be good enough to win Nobel Prizes but he has no data to back this up.

True scientists would not discard the politically-incorrect possibility of intellectual differences out of hand. (My emphasis)

I have presented scientific data. He has presented a “possibility” that the science is wrong and argued it with great emotion (see the thread). He persists in arguing that I and my fellow women science moderators (who are biologists) are simply being “politically correct.” He then goes on to copy paste a series of statements from Wikipedia. As it turns out, he is inadvertently referencing a series of social science studies. He tries to dismiss the social science studies he doesn’t like, by using other social science studies he thinks support his argument that women are inferior to men. The problem is he hasn’t actually read these studies and he is not trained to read them critically. I am. So are my fellow women scientists. As we show, not only has he cherry picked his examples, but the studies actually validate my original argument about inequality in science. Other men show up and give the predictable examples of “My wife has a PhD…” Personal examples are used to try to discredit the science.

Confirmation Bias

Another post by diversity specialist and lecturer, M. Laura Moazedi, on the science of confirmation bias (how stereotypes are used to justify outcomes by men and women) leads a man to argue she is being biased.

What about confirmation bias of “scientists” searching at all costs the gender inequality in stereotypes, while ignoring biology?

Note the quote marks, which are used to discredit social science. The fact that the study is a piece of social science research rather than biological science is also used as a rationale to discredit the findings (even though it is a study of social behaviour) .

There are many more examples I can give from our community. (I will do a follow up post on how I manage these types of arguments.) The point I want to illustrate here is that when women speak up about science inequality, the science is dismissed. The responses are gendered in other ways, however, as our male colleagues generally face less push back. Nevertheless, resistance still rears its head when a woman scientist speaks up.

Men & Women Moderators

Lewis’s Law: “Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.” – Helen Lewis, journalist

Take this post by male moderator Dr Jason Davison, who speaks up about the level of sexism in our community. Most of the comments are positive until Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe, a biologist, speaks up to confirm her experience as a fellow moderator of our community. She notes that, having to regularly manages sexism, she is reticent to reshare posts from STEM Women. Dr Samarasinghe is the second woman to post, but her response is lengthy and informed by her science practice. A man promptly begins to argue with Dr Samarasinge, saying the fact that STEM Women exists (a group she founded) is proof that sexism affects men more than women.

the fact that +STEM Women on G+ exists shows women have sexism problems against men, you are asking for the opposite.

He goes on to raise superfluous examples of women being biologically inferior and unable to join the military (in his eyes). The thread rages like this for a couple of days.

Compare these two posts about Dr Maryam Mirzakhani’s Fields Medal win. The Fields Medal is colloquially referred to as the “Nobel Prize for Mathematics.” Dr Mirzakhani is the first woman in the award’s history to be recognised. One community member simply posts the news of the win. The second comment is by a man commenting on Dr Mirzakhani’s looks. Another male community member calls out the commenter, asking if he’d make such a comment about a man. I step in as moderator and remind the original commenter about our guidelines that expressly ban sexist comments. A different man jumps in saying:

Zuleyka Zevallos your comments offend me. There was nothing derogatory in Vincents comments, neither was it sexist. You have taken it upon yourself to portray yourself as the almighty of the science discussion community group by suggesting that his free speech was not allowed. This may have been handled better by yourself had you possibly been complimented about your looks, i dont hold out for that compliment or the stepping down from your high horse. #neigghhhh (My emphasis)

I am chastised for enforcing our community rules, in my role as moderator, and I receive a sexist comment to boot. This discussion goes on for two days with my fellow women moderators jumping in. The thread only quietens down when a male moderator (Dr Davison) repeats our rules against sexism. Let me spell this out: the sexist discussion only comes to an end after a male scientist repeats my original point about sticking to the rules, which officially ban sexism.

In a second post about the Fields Medal win, this time written by me on behalf of our moderator team, it takes only 15 minutes for a sexist comment to appear.

In almost all of these cases, it is men who deny the science or who make sexist comments and expect these to be okay in a science community. These are, by and large, White males (or men who “present” as White from their photos). These men are heavily invested in protecting the boundaries of science to remain the exclusive domain of (White) men. Writing about inequality in science is critiqued for being “biased against men,” and social science is dismissed for not being biology, and when this tactic fails, other social science is evoked to (erroneously) discredit the original post.

“Focus on the Science”

On her personal Google+ feed, astronomer Dr Katie Mack noted that her large public following loudly revolts when she publishes on issues about equality in science. She notes that her followers shout to have her “focus on the science.” She argues this makes little sense since science is practised by human beings; therefore scientific practices impact on scientists.

So, no, I won’t just “focus on the science” at the expense of actual human scientists. I will keep talking about the ways we can make scientific culture better and more welcoming to anyone who has a contribution to make.

The idea that women should not talk about inequality in science dominates public discussions of science. This happens in science communities such as ours, which expressly state that sexism is grounds for being banned. Women who speak up about inequality are accused of bias or they are otherwise targeted for personal attacks. This includes the women moderators, who are practising scientists with PhDs and a strong knowledge of the science on gender bias. It also happens to women scientists writing about inequality on their personal social media profiles.

A rowdy sub-group, largely men, want to read about science and talk about how much they love science without hearing about what it means to practice science. They want to follow women experts but they demand that these women not discuss issues of inequality as a scientific concern. They want to be members of science communities without having to see posts on inequality, even when the community expressly supports such posts.

In all these cases, simply ignoring posts about inequality is not enough. Men feel a need to vehemntly disagree with science on inequality even when they have no data and when they do not understand the science. Why? As I’ve previously shown, the sociology of science shows that people are more likely to speak up against science issues in which they have an ideological vested interest. The science about inequality in science is polarising because it is tied to personal identity and deeply-held values. Some men want to imagine science as being uncontaminated by women. If inequality does exist, surely women are inviting it, by virtue of their biology, by their choices, by their mere existence. Women should just shut up and do science. Their science should be seen, but their experiences not heard. Above all, though, these women cannot be allowed to write about the science of inequality in science because this is an encroachment on White men.

It goes against nature that women don’t simply accept inequality. It’s unscientific to want to address inequality using science. It’s biased for women to talk about gender bias. It’s censorship to remind people not to objectify women scientists and to stick to community rules when talking about science. Or so the logic of sexism goes.

Moving Forward

Photo: Argonne National Laboratories, CC 2.0, via Flickr

The research by Moss-Racusin’s team presents a framework for thinking about why men react negatively to the science of gender bias in STEM. Being able to educate the public and STEM professionals to recognise personal gender bias is the first important step in making STEM a more equitable space. Moss-Racusin and her colleagues argue:

“Simply put, women are likely to perceive potential personal gain from research that may ameliorate men’s privilege, whereas men may believe that such research can only harm them. More broadly, because people are often more receptive to information that confirms their existing worldviews… it may be critical to understand participants’ pre-existing attitudes toward gender bias and diversity when creating effective interventions.”

In better understanding the types of arguments used to sustain gender inequality, educators, managers and policy makers can begin to target attitudes that undermine gender inclusion in STEM. I have shared some examples of the issues I encounter as a science moderator with the aim of further illustrating the flipside of Moss-Racusin and colleagues’ findings – what it means to be a woman dealing with these comments. I have more to say on this issue and will return to it again.

One take away message for now is that, despite the problems, it is worth speaking up on these issues. Moss-Racusin and colleagues’ study shows that comments on science sites are largely positive. Despite the negative experiences, continuing to discuss the social science on gender bias in science is important. First, because without social science data, the public would bicker about inequality using solely subjective examples based on dangerous stereotypes that undervalue women’s contributions.

Second, while there is plenty of evidence that gender inequality in STEM is not based in biology, we still need to keep elevating this science precisely because the message is still not getting through. A very vocal sub-group of people, most of whom are men, want to see women stay quiet on this issue. They see bias in social science but they see no bias in themselves. Why they feel a need to police the boundaries of science is central to moving forward. By crying out that scientists should just “focus on the science,” they are actually calling for the maintenance of White men’s dominance in science.

Lack of diversity in STEM impedes innovation. So, in fact, while these men disguise their bias as concern for science, they are in fact saying that they don’t want science to answer new questions. In a nutshell, by protecting men’s perceived dominance in science, they are, in fact, advocating for scientific stagnancy.

How much can one really love science if they are heavily invested in gate keeping scientific inclusion, thereby ensuring that new ideas will fail to flourish?

Learn More

To read more about how social science can be used to debunk gender myths in science, see my post, “Science Inequality in the News: Avoiding Dangerous Gender Narratives in STEM,” in Minority Postdoc.

Credits

Top image: photos 1 and 2 via Flickr.

Measuring the “Nasty Effect”

In support of their decision to close down comments on its blog, Popular Science cited a study published in July by the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. The study set out to measure online incivility, or as the researchers call it, the “nasty effect” that online comments can have on people’s understanding of emerging technologies.

The researchers surveyed around 2,300 people measuring their “familiarity” with science (in their study, nanotechnology). The researchers did not measure levels of general education nor scientific knowledge specifically. They measured socioeconomic status by aggregating education and income. This variable was not tested against knowledge. This matters because education shapes  not simply our ability to think critically. It also gives us the mental tools to process new information, as well as giving us the research skills to seek out alternative and reputable sources of information. Scientific training teaches us how to read articles and data from an objective perspective, using objective theories, concepts and methods. More importantly, it teaches us to argue from a place of knowledge, not from emotion or personal opinion.

The researchers did not measure where people got their information, lumping different newspapers into one category, TV in another, and then the internet. The problem here is that if people are generally getting most of their information from poor sources, their thinking is already coloured by misinformation.

The researchers find that irrespective of their subjective ideas about how much they think they know about science, negative comments influenced people’s opinion. Religious people and those who already held low levels of support for nanotechnology were more likely to perceive a risk of this technology after reading negative discussion. The researchers do not engage with these findings.

Understanding, support and risks associated with science might be understood as  the socialisation of science. These biases don’t just exist in individual minds; they are shaped by prior education and exposure to poor scientific debate either through their family culture, religious schooling, or media use.

What this tells us is that people who think they know about science are swayed by others’ negativity. The distinction between “surface” science and “deeper” science might help put this into perspective.

Surface Science versus Deep Science

Photo: Michael Gil via Flickr, CC 2.0

Many people think they know science because they find science  news  and certain factoids and images interesting. This might be seen as “surface level” science. Pop science is lots of fun, but there is wide scope for science to be misleading when it is reported incorrectly. This is the tip of the ice berg as far as science communication is concerned.

Nurturing deeper level scientific engagement is achieved by reading the science directly. This is difficult if you don’t have a science degree because science is written in technical language. Plus articles are hidden behind paywalls that require institutional access. Unless you have a personal fortune to invest in these collections, it’s hard to get access.

The other way to achieve deeper scientific knowledge is by engaging with scientists directly. This is where blogs and social media can help make science debates more accessible. In a community setting, the conversation is shaped through moderation. This was not measured in the study, and this is something that Popular Science has essentially given up on.

How might opinions be swayed when real scientists jump in to lead, moderate and comment on popular science discussions?

Science is about informed debate, not personal opinions. There’s little point pumping out science to the public if we give up on informed discussion, leaving the public to (often erroneously) fill in their own gaps. Here’s a Science on Google+ video that I co-hosted with biologist Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe, where we chat with Jason Osborne and Dr Aaron Alford, founders of two citizen science programs. They discuss the benefits of engaging with the public through not-for-profit initiatives, especially in bringing science to marginalised and under-privileged  youth.

Supporting Public Science

Photo: Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, CC 2.0 via Flickr

It’s interesting that Popular Science kept their other social media channels open for discussion, suggesting perhaps that they are happy to support debate so long as it’s not in their direct domain (their website). This suggests, perhaps, that they are washing their hands of moderation, and letting people comment on Facebook, Twitter and so on, without feeling the same pressure to respond to comments. This will only feed the same “familiarity” with science, without the informed discussion. Elsewhere, I’ve shown why this is a problem, with a popular science news website publishing a poor article that lacked science and led to sexist discussions, leaving the public’s science questions unanswered.

Abandoning moderated science discussion only contributes to poor public engagement with science, rather than supporting spaces where the public might learn to think more critically about science.

I empathise with the difficult task of moderation from personal experience on my blog and the other communities that I help moderate. In many ways, it is much easier to academic publish in journals read by our peers and to present at conferences where everyone already has the same training. Yet if scientists and popular science news sites give up on public debate, what’s the point of putting out science into the world? The public will continue to write and debate science, picking up little snippets – which are often incorrect. The only outcome is that science illiteracy continues without informed discussion.

Let me illustrate this with another video I co-hosted for Science on Google+. Dr Samarasinghe and I we spoke with virology expert Professor Vincent Racaniello and epidemiologist Dr Tara C. Smith who dispel myths about the Ebola virus in 2014. Our science moderation team worked tirelessly to address misinformation and conspiracy theories. On one thread, our life science moderators Dr Samarasinge and Professor Rajini Rao address our members’ questions about mutations and spread of the disease, and I address the negative stigma placed on African and Muslim societies as a result of poor reporting by news sites.

Overcoming the Fear

I was intrigued that so many scientists wrote about their research on one Science on Google+ thread about our future community events. Many of these scientists are members who read and comment on other people’s posts, but do not necessarily write their own posts. I wonder why more of these scientists are not writing to the rest of the community about their work. Could there be a fear of the “nasty effect”? Is it simply too daunting to write for a larger audience, or is there a fear that it might be too time consuming?

I’ve spoken with other sociologists about how to use blogging and social media, and I see a mixture of these two issues: fear of public backlash and fear resource drain. In one discussion, a sociologist and editor of an academic publication candidly said:

“I’d be scared to write in my own voice and not to hide behind my academic references.”

Yes, running a blog means moving away from a purely academic style, and inevitably dealing with negative comments, but there are many different ways to blog and moderate these public discussions.

Very few Australian sociologists blog, though more of them prefer to publish on conventional media publications likes established newspapers and new media hybrids like The Coversation (though even then, few sociologists seem to engage with public comments). The Australian Sociological Association currently lists 10 sociology blogs; two have been inactive for a couple of years; one is largely used to reblog other articles from The Conversation; and three of the other blogs are mine! Sociology Professor Raewyn Connell writes about her recent academic activities and publications in plain language, but she also writes other issues-based articles without a single academic reference. Her content is an excellent example of public science: original, thought-provoking, and authoritative without the jargon. Interestingly, she does not have a comments section, nor does she use other social media. I’ve been enjoying The Australian Sociological Association’s Youth blog, where postgraduates write about their ongoing dissertation research and conference papers, such as this excellent piece on gay youth identity in urban Japan. This is a good example of a curated, multi-author blog, which provides scholars a way to publish their material for the public without the strain of managing their own website.

You get to set your own boundaries for public discussion. Write about what you know. Write about the science you’re currently reading. Write about your lab work. Remember that basic concepts, theories and methods that seem old hat to you would be interesting to others. Link to original sources to give people an opportunity to read the science directly if they have access. Whatever science you share, know that it’s within your control to answer the comments that challenge your thinking and move  your argument into new areas, and alternatively it is within your control to not allow unhelpful comments.

I am clear that I do not engage with abusive comments. Informed criticism and debate are fine, but personal attacks, racism, sexism, and other forms of hate speech do not advance science in any way. The comments I get on my blog and on sometimes on social media range from passive aggressive provocations (random Wikipedia links tweeted at me about feminism and racism) to downright offensive. Towards the end of last year, a White male academic publicly tweeted racist and sexist comments at me, presumably because I had ignored his email request to work for free. (No thank you!) Of course negative comments are unpleasant to read, but the constructive comments far outweigh the bad.

I deal with the awful nonsense by having ties to other science bloggers I can privately vent with, in support of problem-solving and general good mental health checks. It also helps that for many of the other science communities that I help moderate have private communities for moderators, so we can collectively deal with problems (and with a good dose of humour!).

Regardless of what comments are sent my way, I do not have to allow these to derail my public conversations about sociology. I am influenced by The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, who only allows comments on his articles that add value to the discussion.

The only thing I ever think about is what I would like to read. I always tell people it’s like a dinner party – and I try to host it that way. I try to keep the conversation interesting. In terms of what is the bane of all comments sections, the rude commentary, people going over the line, trolling that sort of thing, I generally follow the same rules. I always tell people: if you were in my house and you insulted one of my guests, I would ask you to leave. I don’t understand why it would be any different in the comment section.

While Coates admits that moderation can limit diversity of voices, he notes that those voices already dominate in other online and public spaces.

The beauty of the web is that whatever my comment section is, it’s not the internet. So if that’s not what you want, you can go somewhere else. – Ta-Nehisi Coates

There is a very clear distinction between not allowing comments that perpetuate bigotry and exclusion, and censorship. Just as you would walk way from a person yelling obscenities face to face, blocking commenters who are deliberately disruptive is an option, especially when they derail conversations that are already pushed out of the mainstream, such as on gender equality. Clearly communicate your rules for science discussions and your policy on moderation, and remember that public science does not have to be done as a silo. Join a community, talk with other science bloggers, especially if you’re a woman or an under-represented minority (as we cop additional abuse). Stay engaged with the conversations that matter to you by staying true to your own terms of scientific engagement.

Feel empowered to join us at Science on Google+. We’re the biggest science community on Google+, with an ever growing membership, currently over 510,000 people, many of them members of the lay public. (We also have a Google+ page with an additional 537,000 members, many of whom work in science and technology). Tell us about your latest research project, or submit a summary of your latest publication, or simply explain a new or classic study that influences you. See some of our favourites at Curator’s Choice, and visit the Social Science stream that I help curate. All of these acts of public communication improve science outreach!

This post was first published on my Google+. I’ve expanded my original argument.

Learn More

Check out this feature on PBS MediaShift, where I was interviewed about how our dedicated team of 10 moderators collectively manages our Science on Google+ community.

Read my other posts on science literacy and public outreach by scientists.

• How Media Hype Hurts Public Knowledge of Science
• The Sociology of Why People Don’t Believe Science
• Sociology of Gender Bias in Science

Connect With Me

Follow me @OtherSociology or click below!

Dehumanisation, Superhumanisation and Racism

Dehumanisation and “super-humanisation” are two sides of the same coin serving a racist agenda. Dehumanisation is the process by which conscious and unconscious bias leads people to see a racial minority as less human – less worthy of respect, dignity, love, peace and protection. Psychology research finds that White police officers and young White students are more likely to see Black children as young as 10 years of age as being less worthy of protection and inviting violence in comparison to White children. Super-humanisation is on the other end of the dehumanisation continuum. It is when majority groups harbour latent ideas that minorities have special qualities or powers that make them less deserving of bodily consideration and pain relief. Research finds that White people have a tendency to see Black people as being stronger and therefore more able to withstand pain. These two twin processes, that place Black people outside of humanity, are steeped in colonial practices and they contribute to excessive policing and violence aimed at Black bodies. There are implications of dehumanisation and super-humanisation on the ongoing events in Ferguson. This social science research speaks to the issues raised by the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

Dehumanisation of Black Youth

Image by Mary Engelbreit

A psychology study from 2014 finds that White police officers as well as White students overwhelmingly perceive Black children as young as 10 years of age to be older, less innocent and culpable, even though they have done nothing wrong.  The study by Dr Phillip Atiba Goff and colleagues is published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It included 176 police officers, who were mostly White males (average age of 37), and 264 mostly White women undergraduate students. The participants over-estimated Black and Latino boys’ age by an average of 4.5 years. The participants also held an unconscious bias that led them to associate boys of colour, especially Black boys, with animals. Experiments show that the police officers were more willing to use violence to control Black youth.

Bringing together a wealth of social science literature as well as their own data from experiments, the researchers argue that White people are more likely to dehumanise Black boys, not showing the same empathy and willingness to protect their innocence in comparison to images of White children. In other words, Black children are presumed to be guilty and inviting violence by simply doing nothing.

The researchers write:

“Again, the implicit dehumanisation of Black children predicted the extent to which police officers overestimate the age of Black suspects, how culpable those Black suspects are perceived to be, and the extent to which officers were more likely to use force on Black suspects than suspects of other races throughout their career, controlling for how much suspects resist arrest or  are located in high-crime areas.”

Dehumanisation denigrates Black people by subtracting from their humanity. Super-humanisation does the opposite, but to the same effect of making Black people seem less worthy of support.

“Super-Humanisation” of Black People

Psychology research explains how racial bias in pain perception might also apply to the latest series of non-indictments of police officers over the wrongful killing of Black Americans, including Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

Psychology student Kelly Hoffman finds that the history of “super-humanisation” of Black people still informs how White people see Black people. This history has its origins in justifications for slavery: White people thought that Black people were sub-human on the one hand, yet capable of back-breaking labour on the other hand. This view also informed medical procedures in the late 1800s, where Black salves were subjected to torturous surgeries without aesthetic. Most infamously is J. Marion Sims’s gynaecology experiments on Black women slaves who were operated on multiple times.

Hoffman has conducted a series of experiments showing that White people still think that Black people are exceptionally stronger and able to withstand more pain than White people. Officer Darren Wilson, who fatally shot Michael Brown, said in his indictment hearing that Brown appeared “like a demon” and that he was like “Hulk Hogan.” This is despite the fact that both men have similar body types: Michael Brown was 6’5″, and weighed 289 pounds; Wilson is 6’4″ and weighs “210-ish” pounds to “213” pounds by his own admission.

Brown was unarmed, standing outside on the street. Wilson was armed and inside his vehicle when he shot Brown as he ran away form the car. Regardless, plenty of tall White men are arrested without being killed, and the onus is on police to use their training to avoid using  lethal force.

Darren Wilson’s Indictment Hearing Statement on Michael Brown Hulk Hogan. Via uproxx

Hoffman notes that doctors are less likely to prescribe pain medication to Black patients when the same conditions lead to different treatment for White patients. Hoffman says:

“this super-humanisation might suggest that one reason that they’re undertreated for pain is because people perceive them as having more strength and being less susceptible to pain. And the finding that Whites are more likely to tolerate police brutality against Blacks – and again, that might be because they think of them as super-human.”

These findings on super-humanisation and dehumanisation can help to put police brutality into context.

Police Violence

The social science research on how Black bodies are perceived help to explain why police violence against Black people continues unabated. It can also explain why White people’s confidence in police has increased since the non-indictment of police officers who murdered unarmed Black people including Aiyana Jones (age 7), Michael Brown (age 18), Eric Garner (age 43), Tamir Rice (age 12) and several other high-profile cases, as well as various other lesser known cases involving women of colour and transgender women. Dehumanisation and super-humanisation of Black bodies is a colonial practice that reinforces racist hierarchies in the present day.

Writing in August 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates argues:

“This summer in Ferguson and Staten Island we have seen that dominion [the police] employed to the maximum ends—destruction of the body. This is neither new nor extraordinary. It does not matter if the destruction of your body was an overreaction. It does not matter if the destruction of your body resulted from a misunderstanding. It does not matter if the destruction of your body springs from foolish policy. …The destroyers of your body will rarely be held accountable. Mostly they will receive pensions.

It will not do to point out the rarity of the destruction of your body by the people whom you pay to protect it. As Gene Demby has noted, destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations. All of this is common to Black people. All of this is old for Black people. No one is held accountable. The body of Michael Brown was left in the middle of the street for four hours. It can not be expected that anyone will be held accountable…

the body count that led us to our present tenuous democratic moment does not elevate us above the community of nations, but installs us uncomfortably within its ranks.”

Police brutality against Black people and the dehumanisation/super-humanisation of Black people by the public is reinforced by social institutions. When Black people can be murdered with impunity, with the protection of the criminal justice system, the logic of racism is sustained. The logic goes thusly: Why are Black people killed? Because they are scary; because they are guilty even when they’ve done nothing; because they are sub-human. This institutional process of violence is maintained through social interactions at the everyday level. On a general level, White people do not have enough close contact with Black people to accept their full humanity. This is clear from their social networks.

Social Networks

While the average Black American has eight White friends, White Americans only have one Black friend. Research by the Public Religion Research Institute finds that 75% of White people have “entirely white social networks without any minority presence.”

In sociology, we use the concept of homophily to explain the structure of social networks. This word literally means “love of the same.” In sociology, this concept measures how little people mix outside their groups, and the consequences of this lack of intermingling. On the outside, friendship groups seem diverse because we tend to think of relationships in reference to individuals. For example: I have a friend who is outgoing and likes horror films and manga comics; I have another friend who’s quiet and likes 70s rock music; another friend likes going to the art gallery and reading Margaret Atwood books; and so on. The fact is, that most people tend to know people similar to themselves where it really counts: along racial and socio-economic lines.

Research shows that lack of diversity in White people’s friendship circles has a societal impact, in that it stagnates social change. White people share the balance of social power, whether they like to admit to it or not. People of colour find ways to connect with White people, but the reverse is not true of the majority of White people. Friendships don’t just “naturally” happen; they aren’t even the strict outcome of personalities or personal preferences. Social relationships are one clear way that power and the status quo are maintained.

Researcher Robert Jones argues the lack of diversity amongst White social networks has a negative impact on civil society. White people lack a personal connection to Black history and culture because they don’t receive adequate formal education on these issues, and because they do not know many Black people. As a result, they are not forced to see and recognise the marginalisation that Black people go through. As such, Jones argues, White people are not “socially positioned” to understand the significance of events at Ferguson and other civil disputes.

These data are backed up by a recent Pew Research study which finds that only 37% of White Americans think Michael Brown’s death and subsequent events in Ferguson raise important issues about race, in contrast to 80% of Black people who do see the connection to racism.

Want to help break down the dehumanisation and super-humanisation of Black people? Start with understanding the history of colonialism and its impact. Know that racism is a system of domination reproduced through social institutions, social relationships and unexamined bias. The knee-jerk reaction from some White people is to deny that they are part of the system, or to make excuses for racism. This only feeds the cycle designed to take away from the humanity of Black people.

Learn More

You can read more of my writing on sociological responses to Ferguson, and a summary of my live tweets of racist media coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests and other events in the USA and Australia. Below, you can learn about gender dynamics of the Black Lives Matter movement, and how to be a better ally.

Top image by artist Mary Engelbreit, who donates all proceeds from this painting to the Michael Brown Jr Memorial Fund.

Migrants in Australia

Australia is home to the oldest continuous culture in the world, that of Indigenous Australians, and our society also houses one of the highest migrant populations in the world. Australia encompasses over 300 migrant ancestries, with migrants and their children making up half of our population. I’ve just launched a new video series called Vibrant Lives, which explores some of these diverse cultures and the various meanings of multiculturalism in Australia. I’ll focus on different minority groups, as well as covering community events, religious festivals, art exhibitions and community organisations around Melbourne. This post provides some sociological context for my first video on migrant-Australians.

Brief History on Immigration

Princes Piers is an historic immigration port, used for 150 years in Victoria. Photo: Zuleyka Zevallos

Australian immigration history is complex and ever-evolving. It begins with the dispossession of Indigenous Australians in 1788, with the arrival of British settlers. They declared Australia to be terra nullius, land belonging to no one, and then decimated our Indigenous population and controlling the remainder through violence and exclusionary policies.

Australia was first used as a place to resettle convicts from England, but from the time of Federation in 1901 to the early 20th Century, immigration was tightly restricted. Amongst the first federation laws passed was the restriction of immigration, first targeting Pacific Islanders, and then more broadly all non-British groups. Afghan Cameleers, Chinese gold miners and various other groups gained entry to Australia at various points to support the expansion of the colony and the economy. These workers were largely exploited and faced intense racism, social exclusion and poor health. In 1919, Prime Minister William Morris Hughes said our discriminatory immigration policy was “The greatest thing we have achieved” as a newly formed colonial nation.

Up until the early 1940s, Australia maintained a strict immigration policy that largely restricted the groups that were allowed entry into Australia. At that stage, the biggest waves of migrants had come disproportionately from English-speaking countries, namely Britain, as these migrants were favoured over non-English speaking migrants. Migrants with darker complexions were screened out from applying for entry with an unfair written exam given to them in a language other than English and not in their native tongue. This became colloquially known as the “White Australia Policy,” a term encapsulating Australia’s racist immigration policies.

Melbourne in the mid-20th Century. Photograph taken at the Melbourne Museum, by Zuleyka Zevallos

During the Second World War, the Australian government allowed asylum to Jewish refugees from various nations, in the first mass-immigration program following British colonisation. Other refugee groups also gained entry, such as a small group of Japanese asylum seekers. In the post-War period, Australia would go on to revolutionise its immigration stance; firstly, by allowing greater numbers of Western Europeans into the country, and eventually by encouraging migrants from Southern Europe, with a preference for lighter-skinned workers. Our immigration policies remained committed to racist ideals, but economic demands for cheap labour motivated an increase in foreign workers.

The so-called White Australia policy began to be softened in 1966, with a greater number of migrant workers allowed entry, and citizenship granted to migrants who had been in Australia for at least 15 years. Up to this point, migrants were expected to assimilate to Australian culture, and lose as much of their cultural practices as possible. From 1973 to 1975, Australia officially moved from its race-discrimination stance and assimilation policies to a non-discriminatory immigration policy. Migrants could now become migrants after three years, and the government started to invest more resources into research and social services to support our new official policy of multiculturalism – the respect of cultural diversity and social inclusion of migrants.

Faith, Fashion, Fusion at the Immigration Museum, Melbourne

From the mid-1970s and early 1980s, Australia’s immigration intake has included refugee groups from various parts of South-East Asia, Central and South America, and the Middle East. Our family reunion and skilled migration programmes have brought in migrants from all over the world, particularly from China and India. From the 1990s to the present day, response to ongoing civil conflict led to a widening intake of migrants and asylum seekers from African and Middle Eastern nations. As a result of Australia’s changing immigration intake, Australia’s population has diversified considerably.

Demographics of Australian-Migrants

The first national Australian Census of 1911 recorded that the biggest overseas groups in Australia were English, Irish and Scottish. From 1947 to 2004, over six million migrants arrived in Australia. The overseas-born population has grown from 10 percent in the post-War period to to 27 percent in the most recent Census of 2011. Over 6.2 million Australians were born overseas. People from the United Kingdom make up our biggest migrant group. They represent over 5% of Australia’s population. By 2014, the other relatively larger migrant groups include New Zealand (2.6%), China (1.9%), India (1.7%), the Philippines (1.0%) and Vietnam (1.0%) (see image further below).

Migrants in Australia by Country of Birth 2014. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

European groups such as from Italy and Germany have been in Australia longer, and as a result they have an older age structure, with a median age over 60 years. This is up to twice the age of relatively newly arrived groups such as from India.

Top 10 countries of birth in Australia. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Australians belong to over 300 ancestries. Generational trends highlight that our nation’s diverse origins are much bigger than we might expect. Over a quarter of Australia’s population are first-generation migrants (people born overseas). Alternatively, they are known as first-generation Australians. Amongst the biggest ancestry groups, at least three quarters of Indian (80%) and Chinese people (74%) are in the first-generation. Only around a third of Dutch and Greek Australians are first-generation, only one quarter of Italians and less than one fifth of Anglo-Celtic groups are the same. People who claim an Irish ancestry are the least likely to be in the first-generation (13%).

Additionally, there are 4.1 million second-generation Australians who represent 20% of the nation. They are counted in the Census as an Australia-born person who has at least one parent born overseas. The biggest second-generation groups are European, including Greek (45% of ancestry group), Dutch (43%), and Italian (41%). Only around one fifth of Anglo-Celtic, Chinese and Indian Australians are in the second-generation.

Altogether, this means that half of Australia’s total population is either a migrant or the child of a migrant.

47% of Australians are either a migrant or the child of a migrant

Around 10.6 million people, or 53% of Australians, are classified as third-generation or beyond. This refers to Australia-born people with both parents born in Australia. The biggest ancestry cited is Australian, while most of the other groups are predominantly Anglo-Celtic. This includes Irish, Scottish, and English, with two-thirds to three-quarters of people reporting these ancestries being in the third-generation. Germans also have a large proportion of people in the third-generation (63%). In comparison, other European groups have only one quarter to one third of people in the third-generation. Only a minority of Chinese (4.4%) and Indian (1.6%) Australians are in the third-generation.

The Census includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the third-generation (670,000 people or 3% of the nation), although they are the only non-migrant group in Australia, as they are the Traditional Owners of Australia.

Most Australians speak only at home (81%), but other major languages include Mandarin (1.7%); Italian (1.5%), Arabic (1.4%), Cantonese (1.3%), and Greek (1.3%).

Malaysian Street Festival, Melbourne, 2014

The median length of residence for first-generation migrants is 20 years. This ranges from a median of 40 years for most European groups, to only 10 years for most Asian groups. Migrants live largely major cities, predominantly Sydney (39%); Melbourne (35%), and Perth (37%). The biggest proportion of urban dwellers include people from Somalia, Lebanon, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Groups from Asia and Southern Europe are also predominantly settled in urban areas, while Anglo-Celtic and Western Europeans are more spread out. This includes migrants from New Zealand, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands who live in outer metropolitan and regional areas.

Despite their cultural and linguistic differences, most migrants feel Australian. Even though up to 40% of migrants face racism, the overwhelming majority of migrants say that Australia’s multiculturalism is good for the nation, and that it’s important to their sense of national belonging.

International Perspective

Ten countries with the largest number of international migrants, 1990, 2000 and 2013 (millions). Source: United Nations

Since the beginning of this century, Australia sustained the ninth largest overseas-born population in the world, following nations such as the United States, Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Australia also has the eleventh largest proportion of its national population born overseas. Australia is known as one of  four “Traditional Immigration Nations,” along with Canada, the USA and New Zealand. We have an higher proportion of overseas-born people than the other Traditional Immigration Nations. We also have the fourth-highest overseas-born population amongst OECD nations.

Overseas-born Population in Traditional Immigration Nations. Data: United Nations. Image: Zuleyka Zevallos

Vibrant Lives

Vibrant Lives on YouTube.com/ZulZevallos

Since the late 1970s, Australian law has recognised the right for migrants to maintain their cultures free from discrimination, and to have their social, cultural and historic contributions to the nation recognised. There is much to celebrate about Australian multiculturalism, but also much that requires change. My research shows that Australian multiculturalism is a source of strength to migrants, who often feel excluded by Anglo-Australians. Other research comes to similar conclusions. A national survey by Professor Ien Ang finds that, while Anglo-Australians feel free to dip into certain aspects of minority cultures that they enjoy (such as music or food), they are uneasy about embracing these cultures as part of our core national culture. Migrants who are not Anglo-Celtic feel that they do not see enough of themselves in mainstream portrayals of what it means to be Australian.

Racism remains an ongoing problem, not just for migrants, but also acutely for Indigenous Australians. Additionally, our social policies on refugees have worsened to the point of callous exclusion. In later posts and videos, I’ll explore these themes further.

My Vibrant Lives video series will look at multiculturalism from a sociological perspective. I’ll provide demographic profiles of different migrant and Indigenous Australian groups and discuss community events in the city of Melbourne. As a migrant-Australian sociologist (first-generation Latin-Australian), I want to create videos that are informative and shed light on minority cultures that otherwise receive little media and public attention. I’ll talk with community organisations about their advocacy and efforts to expand social inclusion. I’ll also be interviewing artists, researchers and other community leaders, as well as making other videos about Australian sociology.

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to get notifications on my videos or to have them delivered to your inbox. Follow me on Instagram @OtherSociology to get updates on my series using the tag #VibrantLives

Here’s a taste of upcoming videos!

#SosBlakAustralia

The Australian Government is actively sustaining cultural violence against Indigenous Australians. The Abbott Government is trying to force 150 Aboriginal Australian communities off their lands in Western Australia. This would displace up to 12,000 Aboriginal Australians, effectively making them refugees in their own ancestral lands. This comes after months of ongoing campaigns to address:

• The removal of 15,000 Indigenous children: The Grandmothers Against Removals group have been fighting for the return of Aboriginal children who live in so-called “out of home care,” away from their families. This practice goes back to early colonialism, where Indigenous children were removed from their communities and forced to give up their culture.

• The Indigenous Advancement Strategy: The Government announced that $860 million of Commonwealth funding would be cut from already under-resourced Indigenous programs.

• The denial of basic services to remote Indigenous communities: as shown in the Utopia Homelands in the Northern Territory, an Indigenous community that lived without clean water for two months in late 2014.

The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called remote Aboriginal communities a “lifestyle choice” only six months after declaring Australia was “unsettled” prior to British colonialism.

A 2011 DNA study published in Science, headed by Professor Morten Rasmussen, shows that Aboriginal Australians are descendants of the first people to leave Africa up to 75,000 years ago. The study provides genetic evidence that Aboriginal Australians represent theoldest continuous culture on Earth.

Rather than supporting Indigenous culture as a unique national resource, with special insight on everything from cultural resilience, to history, to environmental sustainability, the Abbott Government is instead opting to maintain colonial practices that push our traditional landowners off their country. Aboriginal people made their move to Australia 24,000 years before the first wave of people who would eventually populate Asia and Europe.

The displacement of Indigenous Australians is in direct violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states Indigenous people “have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.” Under this charter, nation states have a responsibility to:

“provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for: Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities; (and)
Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources.”

Australia is the only Commonwealth nation in the world not to have a treaty with our Indigenous people. The Australian does not recognise Indigenous Australian’s right to self-determination. There are two articles that reference race, which enables the Government to make decisions on behalf of Indigenous people. The majority of Australians would support that this discrimination be removed.

Join the conversation to support Aboriginal communities on Twitter using #SOSBlakAustralia.

Learn More

Credits

Image: My Instagram @OtherSociology

HT Professor @marcialangton for Science study; @LukeLPearson on United Nations Charter. Follow @sosblakaust and @IndigenousXon Twitter for updates on protests.

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Follow me @OtherSociology or click below!

Biologist Dr D. N. Lee has been doing an amazing job educating on how enthusiastic narratives of “colonising” Mars are problematic. On her Twitter, Lee notes that the dominant ways of talking about colonisation add to the marginalisation of under-represented minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). If we want to make science more inclusive, we need to better understand how the stories we tell about STEM may exclude and damage under-represented groups we are trying to support.

Not Just Semantics

Lee notes that talking about Mars in terms of colonisation is not simply an issue of semantics – for example using “settlement” instead of colonising. Rather, media narratives unquestioningly champion rich White men’s ideas about what Mars travel should mean: “we don’t have to be stuck on Earth!” The narrative is being framed around “saving” humanity. (See a Storify of Lee’s discussion for further context.)

Lee asks: saving from what, whom, and why? And in this re-imagining of humanity’s salvation, who is left behind? Who does the dangerous, under-paid work of building new colonised spaces? In short, what have we learned from history about colonisation? It is rooted in exploitation and inequality. On Twitter, Lee writes:

“When I hear scientists discuss “for the good of humanity” I check who is talking and if they listen to “others.” History AND Contemporary events have demonstrated how often people will exploit and harm ‘others’ when diverse ppl cant inform policy… If Mars will be better place (where the wealthy are clamoring to) & earth is the place to be “stuck”, then WHO is stuck & w/ what resources… In human history there’s a profound diff in exploration, recon, even trading with other peoples vs Imperialism, conquering & colonization…Thing is, when Some of us hear Colonization, Enterprise Expansion, New wealth acquisition, we have a VERY different Movie trailer playing”

Lee is clear that space exploration is not the problem; she is questioning the context of talking about Mars as a place to colonise, as a way to escape problems on Earth, which have arisen as a result of colonial practices in the first place.

White Male Privilege in STEM Narratives

Mission to Mars. You to got to be rich to see it. Via D. N. Lee

Lee demonstrates that White male entrepreneurs encourage the public to give up on our responsibilities on Earth, both environmentally and socially. They do so in ways that mirror the colonisation of Indigenous cultures.

Lee shows that this Mars narrative is exclusionary. The reaction to her discussion amplifies this exclusion.

White male space enthusiasts have been arguing back at Lee on Twitter, saying that Mars represents an opportunity to start over; to get social justice right. They tell her that if she continues to be “negative,” she will miss out on the opportunity to engage with the future of space science, because the public will turn off her. One White man even said to Lee the equivalent of: We need women like you on Mars to procreate! (As if women’s special place in this brave new world is solely to reproduce, rather than her scientific practice and the leadership she is demonstrating.)

Former NASA engineer Homer Hickam was one of the men who dismissed Lee’s conversation as “silly.” Hickam is someone Lee says she looked up to (Hickam’s life story inspired the movie October Sky starring Jake Gyllenhaal). She tried to engage him in a discussion about why the points of view of people of colour (POC) matter. She discussed colonialism and White male privilege. For example, his views as a White man dominate STEM, but her views as woman of colour are dismissed.

Hickam responded that he is proud that his ancestors had social privilege because that means they were successful and earned their place in colonised spaces. He applauds manifest destiny more than once. He evoked a Native American ancestor to justify his racist comments (whilst celebrating the tenacity of his White ancestors to colonise). Hickam derided Lee’s concerns as a fellow scientist because she is a woman of colour. He then blocked her, effectively shutting down the conversation about inclusion. As a senior figure in STEM with greater social power, Hickam proves Lee’s argument, that only White men’s views are allowed respect in STEM.

Lee notes that if we can’t get the conversation about diversity and inclusion right, here and now – then how can we ever hope to restart afresh elsewhere?

Why Understanding Colonialism Matters in STEM

Exploration can happen in many ways, and these do not necessarily have to involve exploitation, enslavement, dispossession, rape, genocide, removal of children from their communities, being forced into missionary settlements, forced to convert religion and violently made to assimilate. Colonialism only happens through violence – including all the methods mentioned, which have happened to Indigenous groups around the world. This colonial violence continues in the present day.

In Australia, our Indigenous population was the first to migrate out of Africa 75,000 years ago. Their population was decimated when Europeans arrived in Australia in 1788. The colonisers declared Australia “terra nullius” (uninhabited land). Indigenous Australians, like all other Indigenous groups, have suffered violence and inequalities ever since. In fact, right now, the Australian Government is forcing 150 Indigenous communities off their ancestral lands in Western Australia. This will make 12,000 Aboriginal people refugees in their own country.

Why is this happening? Because the Government says living in these lands is not economically viable and wanting to live there is a “lifestyle choice” the Government does not support. More to the point, these communities are set up on land that is rich in natural resources. Other parts of Western Australia are just as remote, yet business and Government made them viable so mining towns could be set up.

So the point Lee makes about colonial narratives is valid and pressing: rich White men make decisions that adversely affect minorities. They talk about these decisions in ways that replicate historical violence, and in so doing, they compound inequalities happening on Earth. Lee is saying: why would Mars be any different if Indigenous and POC perspectives are being forced out of discussions and policy making?

Imagine you are a young Indigenous child intrigued about space. Indigenous groups, including in Australia, already have many sacred stories about the stars that have influenced science. Indigenous Australians may be “the world’s oldest astronomers.” What a great way to connect Indigenous youth with STEM careers! But now imagine they see these media stories, where White men conceive of space travel in colonial terms, while at the same time they are living through their communities being pushed off their lands. They also see only a few brave people of colour, like Lee, standing up to big-name White men in STEM, while these leaders and other so-called “allies” are calling this Black scientist “silly.”

We have so few Indigenous groups in STEM as it is; the numbers in astronomy can be counted in one hand when we look at gender breakdowns in different locations.* So why would these minorities want to join a STEM profession if White scientists want to assert their right to ignore historical violence? STEM pushes out minorities in many ways; this is just one example.

Language is not benign. Language matters for diversity and inclusion, as do the ideas informing our choice of words, and the stories we choose to weave, and those we ignore.

Making STEM Inclusive

Lee’s Storify only covers the first day of comments; Lee fended off racist push-back for a couple of days. I encourage you to go to Lee’s Twitter feed to read how she further connects her argument to discussions about diversity in STEM.

Lee’s key point is on the importance of framing STEM stories in a more inclusive manner. It’s not just words; it’s the thinking behind these words that also influences how we teach and learn science; it’s how existing policies are maintained; it’s how some voices continue to shout down Others.

For a complementary perspective, see science artist Glendon Mellow’s tweets, where he uses an art metaphor. The culture, training and perspective of the first artists and architects sent to Mars will shape how the new world is designed. If that view is White, male and framed around colonialism, that will be reflected in the infrastructure.

The conversation we need to have: how can we learn from Lee’s arguments to make science more inclusive? How might we use this perspective in our teaching and advocacy? How can we use post-colonial theory (study of how history of colonial oppression shapes modern-day inequalities) to support diversity and inclusion?

Learn More

On inclusion of Indigenous groups in STEM:

• Visit Lee’s Twitter feed for more discussion.
• Learn more on Indigenous Australian astronomy and a career in cultural astronomy
• *I’ll soon publish data on minority astronomers in the USA (including Indigenous men and women) on the Women in Astronomy blog.

Read my other posts on Indigenous Australians:

• #SOSBlakAustralia: Colonialism of Indigenous Australians in 2015
• Paternalism, Colonialism and Indigenous Education
• “This Is Another Invasion”: 99 Year Township Leases
• More resources on my Tumblr

About the ongoing impact of colonialism in Australia:

Credits

• Top image: Original by NASA, via Wikimedia. Adapted by Zuleyka Zevallos.
• Centre image: [White woman showing a story that reads “Mission to Mars.” She says: “Yay! Mars. Let’s go!” Group gathered around her frowns. Man of colour thinks “This is some bull.” Another woman of colour thinks “I don’t see it. Do you see it? You got to be rich to see it.”] Source: via Lee.

Connect With Me

Follow me @OtherSociology or click below!

A new article on CNN by psychology professors, Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci, boldly proclaims that gender bias in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is a myth. Their research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Unfortunately, their work has a flawed methodological premise and their conclusions do not match their study design. This is not the first time these researchers have whipped up false controversy by decrying the end of sexism in science.

Williams and Ceci write on CNN:

Many female graduate students worry that hiring bias is inevitable. A walk through the science departments of any college or university could convince us that the scarcity of female faculty (20% or less) in fields like engineering, computer science, physics, economics and mathematics must reflect sexism in hiring.

But the facts tell a different story…

Our results, coupled with actuarial data on real-world academic hiring showing a female advantage, suggest this is a propitious time for women beginning careers in academic science. The low numbers of women in math-based fields of science do not result from sexist hiring, but rather from women’s lower rates of choosing to enter math-based fields in the first place, due to sex differences in preferred careers and perhaps to lack of female role models and mentors.

While women may encounter sexism before and during graduate training and after becoming professors, the only sexism they face in the hiring process is bias in their favour.

Williams and Ceci’s data show that, amongst their sample, women and male faculty say they would not discriminate against a woman candidate for a tenure-track position at a university. Sounds great, right? The problem is the discrepancy between their study design, that elicits hypothetical responses to hypothetical candidates in a manner that is nothing like real-world hiring conditions, and the researchers’ conclusions, which is that this hypothetical setting dispels the “myth” that women are disadvantaged in academic hiring. The background to this problem of inequality is that this is not a myth at all: a plethora of robust empirical research already shows that, not only are there less women in STEM fields, but that women are less likely to be hired for STEM jobs, as well as promoted, remunerated and professionally recognised in every respect of academic life.

Flawed Research

Photo: Argonne, via Flickr CC 2.0

Williams and Ceci sent out an email survey to a randomised sample of over 2,000 faculty members in the USA in two maths-intensive fields where women are under-represented (engineering and economics) and two non-maths intensive fields where women are relatively better represented (psychology and biology). They had a 34% response rate, meaning their final sample was over 700 faculty. This rate of response is standard in many email surveys, but with this sort of study design, researchers need to critically examine and control for bias. In the social sciences, we know that people will participate in studies where they are 1) Given an incentive (usually paid); or 2) They have a personal stake or interest in the study.

Williams and Ceci say they have addressed self-selection bias of their sample by conducting two control experiments. In one, they sent out surveys to only 90 psychology faculty who were paid $25 for participation. They had 91% response rate (82 agreed to participate). Psychology not only has one of the highest proportions of women faculty relative to other fields, but this discipline uses gender as a central concept of study. That means that awareness of gender issues is higher than for most other fields. So including psychology as a control is not a true reflection of gender bias in broader STEM fields.

In another control study, Wiliams and Ceci surveyed engineering faculty by sending out hypothetical applicants’ CVs to 35 academics. This means that for a small sub-set of participants, they were evaluating material that is more like what we usually review when we are considering a candidate pool.

The rest of the sample – over 500 participants – were asked to rate three candidates based on narratives. This is not how we hire scientists.

In effect the study design does not simulate the conditions in which hiring decisions are made. Instead, participants self-selected to participate in a study knowing they’d be judging hypothetical candidates. While the researchers included a “foil” in their study design (one weaker male candidate) to contrast with two identical candidates who only varied in their gender, it is very easy to see from their study design that the researchers were examining gender bias in hiring.

Photo: Argonne, via Flickr, CC2.0

Participants read a small vignette about three candidates where the gender pronouns (he and she) were varied; some were given stories about candidates who were single; some were single divorced mothers; some were married mothers; and vice versa for men. Some of the stories contained adjectives usually associated with men (independent, analytic), others with “feminine” characteristics (creative, kind). Participants were assessing candidates based on the narrative by a hypothetical hiring committee chair. They were then asked to rate their preferred candidate. Under these highly atypical conditions, the participants were found almost equally likely to hire women and men, and in some cases, some sub-groups say they would prefer to hire a woman.

Here’s the thing; we don’t hire scientists based on short narratives.

When we hire scientists, the first thing that is assessed is their CV. It is the CV that gets an interview; the interviewee sits before a panel; individual panellists make notes; the committee makes a decision together. The researchers claim that their control groups and their “consultants” have proved that these individual evaluations would not be any different than the way in which a panel makes hiring choices. To suggest this is ludicrous given that they don’t have data about how hiring panels make decisions. If they did have these data, their study would be a completely different piece of research.

Gender Bias in Hiring

Photo: Argonne, via Flickr, CC 2.0

The process of hiring any professional is the outcome of social interaction. Biases shape social exchanges. Biases also influence how we read and interpret CVs, so our previous social interactions, from education to our workplace setting, all have a bearing on how CVs are assessed. A panel involves deliberation, another social exchange that is influenced by pre-existing biases.

Various studies have used hypothetical CVs in an experiment and these demonstrate how gender and other biases influence outcomes. This includes a study showing that amongst male and female psychologists who assessed potential candidates, men and women prefer to hire a man, even if women have the same qualifications. In light of this previous research, it is most striking that in Williams and Ceci’s study, the paid control group of psychologists were used to show that gender bias is not present. The fact that the control group was paid for their time and opinion in a study by two psychologists, where no other participants were paid is most unusual. There is nothing wrong with paying participants (their time is valuable) but if only a small sub-set are paid and others are not, then we need to question why.

Regardless, other research, including another study published by PNAS, shows that academics would prefer to hire men over women for prestigious managerial positions. Moreover, even in the life sciences, which has a relatively higher rate of women, male scientists  in elite research institutions prefer to recruit men over women.

This issue aside, the fact remains that Williams and Ceci do not have data to support how scientists rank potential candidates. They have produced data about how scientists respond to a study about gender bias in academia, when they can easily guess that gender bias is being observed. Academics already understand that gender discrimination is morally wrong and unlawful. After all, North American universities have anti-discrimination policies in place, and they offer some level of training and information about their institutional stance on sex discrimination.

Photo: The Women’s Museum, CC 2.0 via Flickr

Research shows that academics do not fully understand how unconscious gender bias informs their decision-making and behaviour. Unconscious bias plays out in everyday interactions within STEM environments, from comments that undermine women’s professionalism, to “jokes,” to broader institutional practices that exclude women. Unconscious bias has a damaging effect on women, who are continually undermined at every stage of their education and careers.

The same goes for other professionals and the public at large: people are not aware of their biases unless they are trained to understand and address these preferences, which are deeply ingrained into us through early childhood socialisation.  The myth that girls and women can’t succeed in STEM is demonstrated through the Draw a Scientist Test, a process that measures how young children are conditioned to accept the image of a scientist as being a White older man in a lab coat. This latent stereotype is further reinforced in the way girls are discouraged from learning STEM, and it impacts on their subsequent success when following these career paths.

Motherhood penalty

A wealth of literature has shown that women are disadvantaged in STEM. Women academics who are mothers are less likely to be hired over fathers; these fathers are offered an average $11,000 more than mothers as a starting wage. Women are disadvantaged at every step of the hiring process, including for the types of activities that boost CVs for tenure-track positions, such as Fellowships.

Other research shows that, even when presented with empirical data about gender inequality in STEM, men are overwhelmingly more likely than others to reject the existence of gender bias. White men in particular either reject outright that inequality exists, or they otherwise think that inequality impacts on men, and that women are conversely more favoured. Sound familiar? This body of research demonstrates just how deeply held the so-called “myth” of gender inequality runs. Williams and Ceci have managed to reaffirm the popular, but ill-informed, idea that gender inequality is over, even when their own data cannot prove such a feat, particularly since it runs counter to decades of research.

Nationally representative data shows that over a 30 year-period, it is White women who have benefited from affirmative action, and that women of colour have made minimal progress under these diversity policies. Even still, White women remain under-represented in STEM relative to White men, while women of colour scientists are even more marginalised and less likely to be hired for jobs. As for the minuscule proportion of women of colour who manage to secure employment, they are subjected to routine sexism and racism within scientific settings. Transgender women, especially women of colour, are further subjected to additional prejudices, including gender policing and stigma that further alienates and undermines their professionalism.

Power, Race & Gender Bias

Photo: Argonne, via Flickr, CC 2.0

This is not the first time Williams and Ceci have published flawed results on gender in STEM, and it’s not the first time when they’ve completely ignored the real-world context in which women in STEM are battling to be hired, promoted and rewarded. This includes fighting not just sexism, but racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and so on. I critiqued their last study, which similarly tried to argue that sexism in academia is dead. Their data and methods prove no such thing. Rather, their previous studies have set up a precedence that is continued in their current research, which shows that two White, tenured professors draw insubstantial conclusions about gender inequalities that are simply not supported by their findings.

Power and race matters: these White professors who have “made it” in academia do not see a major problem with the gender imbalance in STEM. Instead, they explain this inequity away by arguing that women are self-selecting not to enter academia, and that those who do subsequently accept the “motherhood penalty.” That is, that women choose to sacrifice their careers for child-rearing. Williams and Ceci do not recognise that institutional factors and unfair policies do not really give women a real “choice” about their family and professional responsibilities.

Elsewhere, I have shown that Williams and Ceci’s previous research is informed by a false narrative of individual choice. The same can be said for the present study. The researchers’ own biases lead them to believe that women and men belong to two discrete groups (making genderqueer and transgender scientists invisible). Similarly, they do not see that issues of intersectionality (the multiple experiences of inequalities faced by minority women) have a profound impact on gender inequity in STEM.

Women’s experiences of gender are mediated by their culture, family, sexuality and other social factors

Ignoring race, sexuality and other socio-economic factors is a power dynamic: White, senior academics can pretend that race doesn’t matter, because racism does not adversely affect their individual progress. They can choose to believe that sexism is over because they have secured their tenure, even though they did so in a different climate to present-day pressures, where tenure is even tougher to find and early career researchers face precarious employment.

We must be ever-vigilant of how our biases contribute to inequality in STEM, and we must not accept abuse of power pandering to populist notions that we live and work in a so-called post-feminist, post-racial world. The evidence does not support such White patriarchal fantasies. Inequality has a concrete impact on the working lives of many women scientists, and this is felt most acutely by women of minority backgrounds.  Rather than pretending the problem does not exist, let’s work together to eradicate gender inequality.

Further Reading

Edited to Add: Some excellent posts analysing Williams & Ceci below. I’ll add more as I find them.

• Karen James, #StillaProblem II: academic science is (still) sexist. Storify of discussions on Twitter about problems with the study.
• Helen De Cruz, Assessing inductive risk in the Williams and Ceci studies. “A problem with Ceci and Williams’ research (not just this paper, but their project as a whole) is their too-narrow focus on what counts as personal choices by women.”
• Marie Claire Shanahan, Be careful saying “The Myth about Women in Science” is solved. With discussion of other research showing bias exists
• David Charbonneau, New Study Demonstrates Shocking Truth About Faculty Hiring. Satiric article on the problems with the study, with useful introduction about how hiring committees actually work.
• Claire Griffin, Women preferentially hired in STEM – but does that solve the problem? “Many of these hindrances are not based on “supply-side” decisions, as the paper calls the problem. Rather, they are a result of structural obstacles and biases within academia and society at large.”
• skullsinthestars, A one-act play about a study in hiring practices in STEM: “if you question people on their hypothetical preferences for hiring, it seems obvious to me that you’ll get very different answers than what you’d get in an actual hiring process.”
• Dr Kate Clancy has started a collection of articles on this study as an example of Gaslighting, leading to the #GaslightingDuo on Twitter
• Matthew R. Francis, A study in how not to talk about sexism in science. A follow up to his Slate post which covers the mainstream media’s uncritical reporting on this study.

Photo Credits

Top image: photos adapted by Zuleyka Zevallos from these Creative Commons (2.0) sources:

1. Ford School via Flickr
2. Argonne via Flickr
3. Ford School via Flickr
4. Argonne via Flickr

Barely a few days have passed since the last gender bias in science crisis, and the scientific community is already dealing with yet another high-profile example of gender discrimination. This time, the issue is with sexism in science publishing.

Dr Fiona Ingleby, a postdoctoral researcher in evolutionary biology from the University of Sussex, took to Twitter to express her frustration over sexist comments by a reviewer from a journal by PLOS ONE, an open access publishing network. Dr Ingleby and her colleague, evolutionary biologist Dr Megan Head from the Australian National University, are both women. They had submitted a manuscript based on their research on gender differences amongst students moving from PhDs to postdoctoral roles. The reviewer rejected their manuscript on the basis of the researchers’ gender, suggesting the data would be more fit for publication if they included a male author. In other words, the science of gender bias can only be “objective” if a man is involved. I’ve previously noted that women’s research on gender bias in science is often rejected by men, who, despite scientific evidence to the contrary, will argue that gender bias either does not exist, or if it does, it is is skewed in women’s favour.

“Get a Man’s Name”

Below are Ingleby’s tweets, which led to a renewed social media discussion about women’s exclusion in science, which includes having to fight against the idea that sexism is dead.

Many researchers have spoken out about this case of gender discrimination, including Professor Katie Hinde, who links to existing research on women’s disadvantage in science publishing, and how we might better measure this gender bias. Various media have interviewed Dr Ingleby, who waited a month for her complaint about the reviewer’s sexism to be addressed. Having been ignored, she shared her story on Twitter, which ultimately led to PLOS ONE dismissing the reviewer and publicly stating it will accept the manuscript for review under the guidance of a new editor

Professor Michael Eisen is one of the co-founders of PLOS. He has written a lengthy reflection on this incident. It is commendable that Professor Eisen is not only addressing this issue in public, but that he is also seeking advice on ways to prevent sexism on PLOS in the future. Below are the comments I made on Professor Eisen’s blog.*

Practical Ways to Address Publishing Bias

My colleagues, Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe and Professor Rajini Rao, and I have covered the issue of sexism in academic publishing on STEM Women. While the context was different, the broad suggestions we made have relevance here. We suggested that publishers needed to set clear gender equity and diversity guidelines that are communicated to editors, authors and their readers. We see that better training on sexism should be provided. We also argue there needs to be a system of accountability, which Professor Eisen alludes to in his post.

Academic and research institutions need to implement safeguards to prevent sexism and harassment, as well preventative measures to support positive change. All too often in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), we find ourselves being reactionary to public crises and media outcry. It’s time for institutions to become proactive.

There are career repercussions for sexual harassment and abuse in other aspects of academic life; publishing should be no different. There needs to be policies in place that define behaviour that is unacceptable, and a plan to address these issues swiftly. Transparency is one central way to achieve gender equity. Greater collaboration between publishers and academic institutions would help to better regulate discrimination, and to train researchers, reviewers, editors and others.

Here are some general suggestions:

• Publishers should be clear about their gender equity policies, including what they are doing to improve women and under-represented minorities’ participation and representation in scientific publishing
• Set out the complaints procedure and consequences for sexism (and other forms of discrimination and exclusion). Optimise this process so that sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and other forms of abuse and discrimination are handled swiftly. The aim should be to reduce damage to the women and minorities who launch a complaint, and to reach an equitable resolution for these under-represented authors
• Provide mandatory training materials to editors. Training materials can be hosted online. PLOS might even consider setting up a short online training “course” (1 hour for example) covering basic principles, such as awareness about unconscious bias as well as PLOS ONE’s policies and commitment to gender bias
• Professor Eisen rightfully points out that it’s already very tough to get reviewers to volunteer to help academic journals given these duties are unpaid. Nevertheless, reviewers should be directed to gender policy guidelines about gender inclusion and the consequences for abuse, harassment or bias. Ideally they would be offered the option to complete training to further support their understanding of gender equity policies. Ultimately, however, editors should be acting as gatekeepers for abuse of power and discrimination, and they should be advocates for gender diversity
• Those who manage the complaints should also be given mandatory training on gender and diversity

Professor Eisen is wise to presume this is unlikely to be an isolated incident. If sexist abuse escaped one PLOS editor it is safe to assume there may be other examples. Even if most reviewers and editors are professional and fair, incidents such as this have broader implications, given the so-called “leaky pipeline” in STEM. For the benefit of other readers: this term describes how women are already disadvantaged at every step of their education and careers. Institutional barriers and everyday experiences of bias at every stage increase the likelihood that women will drop out of academia.

As a mid-to-long term plan, PLOS might consider addressing gender bias as an ongoing commitment. This may include hiring independent evaluators to assess how PLOS’s current structure and review process might be improved to increase gender diversity. There are many useful models being used around the world that have practical outcomes. For example, see the research by Professor Frank Dobbin on establishing a diversity workforce for improving the workplace; Professor Joan William’s research on bias interrupters for sexism and racism in academia; and the Athena SWAN Charter. While these processes are geared more to corporate policies and higher education reform, the principles can be adapted to scientific publishing.

The incident at hand may present an opportunity for PLOS to move towards becoming a publishing leader on gender diversity. Professor Eisen and the PLOS Board might consider leveraging their publishing networks to see how PLOS and other science publishers might collaborate on gender equity and inclusion. Addressing industry standards is one way to address discrimination. Collaborating in partnership with other institutions in higher education, medical research and so on would also go a long way to pre-empting future problems that alienate women in STEM from submitting their papers to science publishers.

Learn more on STEM Women’s work on addressing gender bias in science publishing, or watch our video discussion on women in science publishing with editors from Nature, Scientific American and Digital Science.

Notes

* My comments are reproduced with minor edits to improve the flow of my post.
Photo: Original by Francisco Osorio, CC 2.0 via Flickr. Adapted by Zuleyka Zevallos.

The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, is currently showing an exhibition of two monumental artists, Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei, whose work and interests often intersected, even though they were working in different eras. As Weiwei was still studying in the 1970s and early 1980s, a time when Warhol’s star was meteoric. In this post, I only focus on Weiwei’s work.

Ai Weiwei shares Warhol’s scepticism for “high art” and authority, as evidenced in his 1995 classic artwork, “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn,” which he redid in 2015 with legos (featured in my photos below). Similarly his two installations, Chandelier with Restored Han Dynasty Lamps for the Emperor and Forever Bicycles (both 2015) make a comment on the cultural artefacts that are revered at a later point in time, even though they were once everyday household items with little value.

Flower Power

Weiwei uses a recurring motif of flowers. Their symbolism is particularly effective in his daily two-year protest that began after his Government in China confiscated his passport without legal recourse. He put out flowers on his bicycle outside his house every day, in full view of Government cameras that watched his every move.

Weiwei uses ceramic flowers and white sculptures of himself in various works to reflect on the 81 days he spent imprisoned by the Government; time he spent without any legal charges made. He was jailed very publicly after attempting to board a flight, to make a point about his passport status. Even upon his release, the Government had him under surveillance.

Gaol and Gender

The artist created a thought-proving video reflecting his time of incarceration, depicting the torture he endured, his anguish and boredom, and his humiliation. The short clip (below) ends with Weiwei shaving his overgrown beard and the hair on his head, with the help of a young boy, perhaps evoking his young son. Weiwei then dresses up in make-up, a lace dress and stockings. He parades in the room symbolising his jail cell with two male guards by his side, and he struts as if he is on a high fashion runway, rolling his eyes.

This is an interesting video through which to explore the sociology of gender and social protest. Is the artist equating his degradation in jail, where he had no control over his body and movement, to femininity? Is he making a feminist connection between the surveillance he endured to the state’s authority over women’s bodies? Is he linking his sexual frustration, also depicted in his film, to the sexualised, feminine subject he became to his captors, who mocked his body and undermined his creativity and autonomy?

Much of Weiwei’s previous and ongoing work has shown solidarity to women’s agency, including a famous photo of Lu Qing his now-wife “flashing” her underwear in defiance of the state, five years after the Tiananmen Square massacre (June 1994, below).

The Art of Protest

Why is this artist so dangerous to one of the world’s superpowers? Quite simply, due to his revolutionary ideas that creativity, social protest, free speech and critique of social issues should be the right of all people in China and elsewhere. The artist created interactive spaces for the public to consider these themes through play.

Social protest has been an ongoing theme in his work since the early 1980s, when he moved to New York City and chronicled his daily life through photographs and home movies. He continues these photographic and cinematic journaling to the present day, through his various social media accounts.

Building Blocks of Human Rights

Weiwei dedicated a room made entirely of “legos” to human rights activists from Australia, made especially for this exhibition. The quotes and portraits were difficult to see clearly until viewed from a camera lens. He featured gay and lesbian academics, women campaigning against domestic violence, Indigenous leaders, and other human rights pioneers from various walks of life.

I used the term “legos” because the world-famous company would not give the artist permission to use their building blocks for this artwork. He substituted with a cheaper version made in China, which suits his ongoing comment on commercialisation and China’s economic position.

Pleasure in Play

The Studio Cats space is a free exhibition, boasting a wonderland for children to explore Weiwei’s love of cats (he has over 30 of them in his home) as well as Warhol’s adoration for felines. Adults, including me, also had a joyous time.

Weiwei was in Melbourne last weekend, at the launch, and he posted various photos of himself online interacting with fans as well as observing behaviour in the gallery space. This suggests the artist’s genuine interest in how his art connects with people.

Weiwei’s work is a must-see. Now showing at the NGV until 22 April 2016.

I want people to see their own power. – Ai Weiwei

Learn more:

Visit the artist’s website. He’s prolific on Twitter and Instagram.

Read more about his art and politics.

Image credits:

Art: Ai Weiwei. Photographs: Zuleyka Zevallos.

TW: Rape. Today in White people justify racism: two examples of how sexism is used as racist scaremongering.

West Indies cricketer, Chris Gayle, who is Black, was sexist during an interview with an Australian woman journalist, Mel McLaughlin, who is White. Gayle issued a non-apology, saying he was joking. Sexist jokes are not “jokes;” it is sexism. Gayle’s behaviour is unprofessional and profoundly damaging given his prominent position, and also because women everywhere deserve to go to work without men objectifying them, regardless of their job or the stature of the person indulging gender inequity. It’s the second time Gayle has behaved this way to a woman journalist; in his homeland, feminist groups have called out his behaviour. This pattern is toxic. Gayle has been fined $10,000 for his comments. Good! This is an appropriate response; a better response would be to require that he additionally undertake gender equity training.

The Sydney Morning Herald, in their infinite wisdom, decided to publish a racist response from a White man, sports writer Malcolm Knox, which is written as a White man emulating his White view of how Black West Indies people sound like:

“Unlike dem Australians wit their BS about PC, me know where you comin’ from, brethren. Me know you got a good lovin’ heart like all we Jamaican brethren.”

“Satire” does not mean that White people get to be racist to teach Black men a lesson. The fact that this was published in a national paper is yet another daily reminder that racism is both reproduced and celebrated by the media.

To make things worse, other White men are defending this racist diatribe. Francis Awaritefe, former professional soccer player and human rights activist points out the racist logic.

Awaritefe’s argument is subsequently explained away by a White man, who uses the logic of Whiteness to school a Black man on racism. This is known as whitesplaining , as geologist Heide (@lada90) demonstrates below:

Luke Pearson, founder of Indigenous X, points out the false equivalence of racism and sexism(1):

The reporting and public discussion of this incident matters because when Black women are the subjects of sexism (or racism or other injustices), Australian media does not react in the same way.

The response to this media circus is similar to European responses to recent reports that men in Cologne, Germany, sexually harassed women over New Year celebrations.

Paternalistic Sexism & Racism in Cologne

The reports are focusing on the men’s appearance (“Arab/Middle Eastern”) and explicitly on their citizenship status (“migrants” and “refugees”). Politicians are now threatening that sexual harassment will lead to deportations. Women should not be subject to harassment, full stop. But the fact that the media and politicians are running with a racist discourse, tells us that the safety of “women” is not really what’s of concern. Instead, protection of White women are a proxy for protecting White people against The Other.

Is there the same moral panic over the daily assaults of 17% of women are sexually assaulted by local-born men in Australia and the UK (or higher in other European nations)? Nope. Wonder why?

These two examples are part of a long history of using men of colour as a threat to White women in order to justify racism. White women are treated as a paternalistic resource to be protected, but only from Black men and Others (read: not from White men’s violence, which is “normal”). Women of colour’s experiences of sexism and violence is completely ignored. See the numerous Indigenous Australian women who have died in custody, such as Ms Dhu who died in grave pain as police refused her medical aid, and her limp body was then “carried out like a kangaroo” by police, who literally dragged her outside. Where is the moral outrage from the Australian mainstream media?

Racist Hierarchies

Despite the fact that Gayle and those involved with the Cologne attacks should not get away with sexist behaviour, the media’s response is fuelled by racism. Black, migrant and refugee men of colour are seen as a threat, and public responses to these cases are used to justify racist practices.

Rape apologists are having a field day feigning support of “women” over the Gayle’s sexist remarks and the sexist events in Cologne. White men who usually do nothing to support gender equity get to be publicly self-righteous in their racism; and the social order is maintained, with White men up top; White women much, much further below; men of colour near the bottom; and Black women, other women of colour and Indigenous women pushed to the uttermost lowest position.

That is how racism works: by setting up categories where some groups are set up as superior to others based on skin colour and culture. Concern for “women” is proxy for “White women,” and even then, White women are an afterthought. These two examples show us how institutions (the media and politics) maintain racial hierarchies, and how everyday people, in everyday conversation, reproduce these hierarchies.

Notes

(1) Image reads: “I have a problem with the idea that sexism coming from a Black man is so much worse because he should know better as he has probably experienced racism, and vice versa for White women to be racist because sexism… not only is it a false equivalency that flies in the face of what we know about racism and sexism but it lets White men off the hook for both as it infers they have no reason to know better.”

Zuleyka Zevallos, Swinburne University of Technology

This article was originally published in The Conversation

The culture in astronomy, and in science more broadly, needs a major reboot following revelations early this year of another case of harassment against women by a senior male academic.

The journal Science revealed earlier this month that the latest case involved Christian Ott, a professor of theoretical astrophysics at Caltech university, in the United States.

Frustrated that Ott was not fired and only placed on unpaid leave for a year, the two female students who raised the allegations took their story to the popular online news outlet Buzzfeed.

Also this month, US Congresswoman Jackie Speier raised the case of Professor Tim Slater, who had been investigated for various sexual harassment incidents that began after he was hired by the University of Arizona in August 2001. Slater went on to the University of Wyoming.

Slater spoke to the news website Mashable and said he had received sexual harassment training as an outcome of the investigation.

But Congresswoman Speier questioned why the investigation into Slater’s sexual harassment was sealed “while he went on with his career”, even though women who were victims lost years of study and career progress due to his conduct.

A familiar pattern

In these two cases, a pattern emerges: so-called rising stars in academic astronomy engage in routine harassment of students early in their careers, receiving tenure and accolades, all the while engaging in abuse of power.

Remember last year’s case of the Professor of Astronomy, Geoff Marcy, who in early October wrote an open letter of apology acknowledging his history of sexual harassment at University of California, Berkeley.

Two days later Buzzfeed broke the news of a six-month investigation into Marcy, which covered incidents from 2001 to 2010. A few days later Marcy’s resignation was announced by the university.

But later that month, Buzzfeed reported three more women shared their experiences of harassment by Marcy while he was at San Francisco State University. In December, the journal Nature reported more incidents in 2011, 2013 and 2014.

A few days ago, it was revealed that UC Berkley has granted Marcy an honorific Emeritus Professorship, despite these events.

How big is the problem?

The current incidents are not isolated. A recent survey by the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy included 426 astronomers, 82% of whom had heard sexist remarks from peers; 57% had experienced verbal sexual harassment; and 9% had been physically harassed.

These recent high-profile cases are notable because the victims of harassment have pursued alternative routes to raise awareness and chosen to speak out. Still, going to a politician or the media should be a last resort.

The pattern in these cases is clear: women attempt to manage the harassment directly with their abusers, who hold power over them. They are afraid to launch a formal report due to fear of retaliation.

After prolonged harassment, sometimes years later, they make a formal complaint. In all cases, harassers are not immediately suspended. They are given some one-off training and then allowed to move on with their careers.

The same is not true of victims, who struggle to put their progress back on track and who live with the anxiety of having their harassers back on campus.

Institutions appear reticent to take strong disciplinary action, focusing on mentoring rather than tackling sexual harassment as a systemic problem requiring an institutional solution.

The system is failing women

Science careers depend heavily on recommendations from supervisors, and this is in an environment where many senior researchers collaborate. This leaves victims vulnerable, fearful of the consequences of speaking up. This anxiety is not unfounded.

In mid-2015, prominent scientists jumped to the defence of Sir Tim Hunt after he made a sexist “joke” during the World Conference of Science Journalists in South Korea.

The women scientists who spoke out against this, and other incidents of sexism, are routinely faced with a torrent of abuse.

Senior leaders’ kneejerk reaction is to publicly defend sexual harassers, such as by emphasising a friendship with Marcy even after he was found guilty of sexual harassment, without adequate consideration for his victims.

But as of this week, more than 500 astronomers and physicists from across the world have signed a letter of support for both of Ott’s victims, which reads:

A career in astronomy is a joy and a privilege, and one that we firmly believe should be open to all. Harassment and bullying force talent out of our field, and as such have no place in it.

Too few institutions are proactive about sexual harassment. MIT took action in December 2014, but then again Dr Walter Lewin was already retired when he carried out online sexual harassment. The online course he ran was cancelled.

Administrator of NASA, Charles Bolden, recently issued a strong statement warning institutions to be compliant with civil rights laws against sexual harassment in order to remain qualified for grants.

The National Science Foundation similarly warned it may terminate funding to institutions found to be non-compliant with anti-sexual harassment regulation. Still, the onus largely remains on institutions to police compliance. Recent history shows this is not always effective.

The situation we are seeing within astronomy is perhaps more public than in other areas of science, but the machinations are by no means unique. A Survey of Academic Field Experiences by the University of Illinois’ Professor Kate Clancy and colleagues included responses from almost 700 scientists from various disciplines.

Almost three-quarters of the sample (72%) had observed or been told about sexual harassment at their most recent research field site. Two-thirds (64%) of researchers had experienced sexual harassment, mostly at the hands of a senior researcher.

Women were 3.5 times more likely than men to report being subject to sexual harassment.

Beyond sexism

Beyond sexual harassment, science has problems with other forms of harassment, and it’s not confined to just the US.

Astronomer Dr Jessica Kirkpatrick founded the Equity and Inclusion in Physics and Astronomy group on Facebook, which she manages with fellow astronomer Adam Jacobs and me, a sociologist.

At its peak, late in 2015, we had more than 4,000 members from around the world. Our group was expressly formed to support underrepresented groups in astronomy and physics. This included white women; racial and ethnic minorities; people with disabilities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people; and others.

Our group was regularly inundated by astronomers and physicists who were angry at our group’s aims to improve inclusion of underrepresented groups.

During the “shirtstorm” incident, where a prominent scientist wore a shirt with naked women during an interview about an international space mission, our group was descended upon by astronomers trying to derail discussions of sexism.

In various other incidents, especially in discussions of racism, very senior researchers attacked junior scholars for their activism, both within our group and in other, more high-profile professional astronomy networks.

All of this harassment and abuse happens in front of a potential international audience of thousands astronomers and physicists.

But senior astronomers rarely speak up, simply watching from the sidelines as our most vulnerable members, women of different race or ethnic backgrounds, people with disabilities and other minority students and early career researchers, are lambasted, sometimes by hundreds of disparaging comments and abuse over a weekly period.

After trying different approaches to reform the group, we took drastic measures. We decided to reboot the group. We ejected everyone and asked them to re-join after filling out a form where members explicitly vow to uphold our mission to create an inclusive culture in astronomy and physics.

Our group is currently close to 900 members who made this commitment, and the environment is much improved (though we occasionally experience individual issues). The culture has shifted because everyone who belongs to our community has signed on to take responsibility for their education on issues of inclusion and equity. We are striving towards proactive action.

In a similar way, astronomy at large needs a reboot. The culture of harassment, abuse and resistance to equity and diversity needs to be stamped out through direct intervention.

Rebooting the culture of harassment

At the individual level, we need more astronomers speaking out against sexual harassment and related forms of discrimination. The current system relies heavily on victims coming forward in a climate where this is professionally and personally costly.

It is therefore up to the rest of us to pick up the slack, so here are a few ideas on what to do.

We need to speak up

When you hear or see a colleague being made to feel uncomfortable due to gender and sexual issues, a few simple words calling out this behaviour can make a big difference.

Inappropriate sexual and gender-based jokes or sexual comments are not benign. They plant a seed for sexual harassment, making women uncomfortable and unwelcome, and setting the tone for future abuse.

Lead by example

Leaders who take an active approach to equity and diversity foster stronger, more productive teams. Be sure to find regular opportunities to discuss issues of sexual harassment (and racism and other forms of discrimination). Invite an expert on discrimination to give talks, or discuss useful anti-harassment resources.

Make it easier to report abuse and harassment

Equity and diversity officers are often an underutilised resource. Institutions that are serious about stamping out harassment should empower these officers to pursue action that is effective.

Information escrows can be one way to manage confidential sexual harassment claims, where a third-party agent holds onto anonymised reports until a second complaint is made. When two independent claims are made, an investigation can be launched.

Alternatively, host regular confidential discussions with students and staff that allow institutions to gather confidential feedback about incidents that individuals are otherwise too afraid to report. This is more about creating an environment where faculty, staff and students have an opportunity to tell you about departmental or managerial issues before they spiral out of control.

Make sure the policies work

Listing anti-harassment policies on your website and campus manual is not enough. Administrators might ask themselves these two questions:

1. Does my institution have evidence that the policies are working for the people they’re meant to protect? Absence of complaints does not necessarily mean your faculty, staff and students feel safe and supported.
2. How do you know if reporting mechanisms are working? Scientists who experience harassment don’t always know the options available to them, and those who do report are often unhappy with the outcome.

Make safety a day-to-day priority

Much of academia is a baptism of fire. We are not taught how to teach; we are not taught how to supervise students effectively; we are not taught how to manage sexual harassment and other issues of discrimination. (These guidelines can help you make a start.)

Relevant and ongoing anti-sexual harassment training should be part of managerial responsibilities. All staff should get the same basic training, but it should be tweaked at the individual level.

Managers and decision-makers (anyone who sits on a funding or recruitment panel, for example) should attend training on physical sexual harassment. They should also attend training on other forms of harassment that make workplace culture untenable for many women and underrepresented scientists.

Unconscious gender bias training can help managers see how the behaviour they take for granted may be a problem for those with less power.

Diversity training encourages managers to effectively manage different groups and be more aware of potential exclusion. It can show them the benefits of having a diverse team finding innovative solutions to research problems

Strategic planning

What would it take to overhaul and radically improve your institution so that women are not demotivated through a hostile work environment? How can you actively protect staff from harassment, bullying and discrimination?

University strategic plans nowadays often have equity and diversity statements, with anti-harassment and anti-bullying sometimes highlighted, but how will your university reach its goals if harassment underpins organisational culture?

Given that surveys find sexual harassment is a common experience, a strategic vision for a healthy, successful science organisation needs to formulate clear targets and key performance indicators that directly address the elimination of harassment, gender bias, racial discrimination, and other forms of abuse

A collective stand against harassment

National efforts in the UK and Australia as well as regional programs in Europe are working towards the elimination of gender bias. Sexual harassment is one important piece of the puzzle.

Joining the global movement to make gender equity and diversity policies and outcomes more explicit is the best way to commit to a more inclusive culture within science.

In order for institutions to make a clear commitment against harassment, discrimination and bias, they should publish data and analysis about their policies and practices. This makes institutions more publicly accountable.

Act now, before it’s too late

There is no denying that astronomy has a problem with sexual harassment, along with other forms of discrimination and abuse of power.

But we don’t need to wait for journalists and politicians to shine a spotlight on more individual cases of harassment. It’s time individual researchers, science managers, departments and institutions made the commitment to reboot science and wipe out harassment.

Science faces many complex problems that require the type of innovation that can only be fully realised with gender equity and diversity. Astronomy, like other sciences, simply cannot afford to miss out on the talents of different groups of women if they feel forced to leave the professions because of sexual harassment.

Similarly, science cannot reach its full potential without diversity, and diversity cannot flourish in a culture of racism, discrimination and fear. Research excellence cannot happen without rebooting science culture. The rest of us are ready for change. Are you?

Zuleyka Zevallos, Adjunct Research Fellow, Sociology, Swinburne University of Technology

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Any time there is an article about vaccine initiatives, a segment of the public begin to shout about government conspiracies and their perception of nefarious science. What is behind the anti-vaxxer movement? I start by discussing the scientific evidence about the fraud that inspired the anti-vaxxer movement before providing a broad sketch of the public who don’t believe in vaccination.

The science demonstrating that there is no link between autism and vaccines is peer-reviewed and well-established. The original paper that made the assertion that such a link existed was retracted by the original publisher, The Lancet, due to fraud by Andrew Wakefield and his team.

People who are convinced that vaccines cause autism have never read the original article that made this outlandish claim, let alone understand the science and its motives. For example, the fact that the study used a sample of only 12 boys; that the methods and conclusions were falsified; and most importantly, that Wakefield had a financial interest in making his fraudulent claims. He was funded by lawyers who were engaged in a lawsuit against vaccine companies. The retraction can be clearly seen on the original paper. The original retraction states:

“no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient.”

It is rather ironical that some people imagine there is some financial or political incentive amongst scientists to support vaccines. This is simply not true.

Fraud & the Anti-Vaxxer Movement

Science supports the use of vaccines because they save lives. This is the official position of the World Health Organization (WHO), which has dispelled the myth that there is a link between autism and vaccines. Instead, the WHO shows that vaccines prevent up to 3 million deaths annually, for 25 otherwise lethal diseases.

The public needs to better understand the that the fraudulent science against vaccines is actually motivated by profit. Lawrence was charged with ethics violations and scientific misconduct. His team was “found guilty of deliberate fraud (they picked and chose data that suited their case; they falsified facts).”

Conspiracy Theories & Anti-Science

People who believe in conspiracy theories do so due to lack of education on particular subjects, and they are heavily influenced by political ideology, rather than scientific facts. People who disbelieve scientific evidence in favour of conspiracy theories overwhelmingly seek out random statements that support their personal beliefs, but these people do not engage with scientific evidence that contradicts their personal values.

There is no grand scientific conspiracy behind vaccines. There is, however, only, lack of valid data, hyperbole and scaremongering behind those who want to argue otherwise. The roots of the anti-vaccine movement are firmly tied to fraud motivated by financial gain. All that the anti-vaccine movement does is continue the greed of one disgraced man who was exposed for being unethical many years ago.

Sociological Profile of Anti-Vaxxers

Scientific data show that anti-vaxxers come from all walks of life. There are no significant differences along gender, education, religion, race and income, though there are some differences in terms of political ideology. The strongest difference is in age. The main issue I highlight here is that the biggest divide is lack of trust in science amongst younger parents.

Parental Anxiety on Safety

Image: World Health Organisation

A 2014 study from Professor Dan Kahan from Yale University finds that only a minority of the American population does not support immunisation. Sampling a nationally representative group of over 2,300 American adults, the study finds that the majority support vaccines: 80% agree that the benefits of vaccines outweigh the risks; and 75% reject the idea that vaccines are not targeting serious diseases.

Let’s look at those with negative views: 41% of people had some level of doubt that vaccines were safe; and they were more likely to think the risks might lead to autism (25%) than other health risks like diabetes (10%).

While there were no major gender differences overall, it is actually White men who exhibit the greatest scepticism on safety of vaccines (amongst those who question the science). This is consistent with other anti-science views. The idea that this is a “mummy-blogger” driven problem is incorrect. The biggest problem is anxiety parents of all genders have about their young children’s safety.

Even amongst the people who were hostile towards other science issues like climate change and evolution, they were more likely to believe that the risks of vaccines were low and the benefits outweighed the risks. “Even within those groups, in other words, individuals hostile to childhood vaccinations are outliers.”

The study is focused on attitudes, but notes that behaviour is a stronger indicator of immunisation stance – and 91% of infants are immunised according to CDC data. The study suggests there is not a large and growing number of people who don’t believe in vaccines, it’s just that these groups are in “enclaves” who “often harbour communities of vocal critics of mandatory vaccination.” They now receive more media coverage, especially with new technologies that proliferate their views. The problem is of course, that even if a minority choose not to immunise, this puts a high number of infants at risk. The study suggests that understanding these perceptions of risk, and addressing them directly, is paramount.

Giving us hope is the fact that dispelling myths through targeted education does make an impact: 78% of skeptics were more likely to agree on the science after reading an official statement on vaccine safety by the American Academy of Paediatrics. The report argues that policy and education should be focused on addressing confusion about vaccines:

“Pockets of under-vaccination pose a serious and unmistakable public health concern… An important objective of such [public education] inquiry, moreover, should be to devise effective communication strategies for reassuring ordinary parents who are not hostile to vaccination but simply confused or anxious—whether as a result of misinformation being disseminated by critics of universal immunisation or otherwise.”

I have more to say on how to better understand these concerns and how to target education programs, but I’ll do this in another post.

Generational Differences

Photo: Pan American Health Organisation via Flickr, CC 2.0

Another recent survey released last last week by the Pew Research Centre came to similar conclusions on the diversity of people who don’t believe in immunisation. There are no single demographic profile, but political views have some impact. More Democrats (76%) think vaccines should be required in comparison to Republicans and independents (65% of each).

The most pronounced difference is in age. The majority of older adults support vaccines (79%) while 59% of those under 30 support this view. A slightly higher proportion of (younger) parents with children believe vaccinations should be a parental choice rather than policy-determined mandate. What’s the key difference here? Generational experience. Older cohorts have living memory of measles and similar diseases while younger people do not; hence their scepticism.

While level of education does not have a strong impact on refusal to believe vaccines are safe, being a scientist does have an impact: 86% of scientists say vaccines should be required for all, compared to 68% of the American public as a whole.

What’s the biggest problem here? As noted above, part of the issue is lack of trust in science and a related issue is poor scientific literacy. People distrust science because there are so many information sources out there which cast doubt on basic scientific facts. While I’ve previously shown that part of the waning trust in science is linked to general distrust of institutions and, for minorities especially, unethical experiments in the past, in the case of vaccinations, it is younger parents who fear vaccinations. This is due to seeing the (very minor) risks for their own child as more important than the risks of disease to public health. A tiny minority of people may be unable to be vaccinated due to a compromised immune system, or to some other individual factor. The majority of people do not fit into this minority risk category.

Photo: Apotek Hjartat via Flickr, CC 2.0

There are risks with anything in life: from walking down the street, to getting into a car, to giving birth, to having minor surgery and beyond. Many modern ideas about risk are manufactured by groups with vested interested specifically to foster a sense of anti-science. Individuals rarely understand how and why anti-science becomes adopted as taken-for-granted knowledge, whether it be scepticism about climate change serving corporate interests, or anti-vaccination, which served the greed and fraud of one team of unethical shills, long-since debunked.

For ordinary individuals, risks are weighed up against personal benefits and values, but equally important in the case of vaccines, is the notion of social responsibility. Vaccination is most effective when all who are at risk participate in immunisation. The basic aspect of this science, coupled with the notion of our social contract, our collective moral imperative to support public health campaigns for the benefit of all, has been lost in the fraud that led to the anti-vaccination movement.

The loudest anti-vaccination voices are defending personal values. They drown out the participation of the undecided and disengaged. At the same time, I know many researchers from the social, biological and other sciences are engaging in wonderful outreach efforts on immunisation. By pooling our knowledge and resources from different disciplines, we can collectively work on ways to reach those who are privately worried about the risks and safety of vaccines, and provide them the educational resources that might help them put their worries at ease.

Learn More

On scaremongering:

• No vaccine for the scaremongers. By the WHO: http://goo.gl/Ku4mxo
• Doubt and Denialism: Vaccine Myths Persist in the Face of Science. http://goo.gl/vi6YRe
• Debunking risks of side-effects associated with vaccines, see Dr Robert Woodman’s comments towards the end of this thread: http://goo.gl/d1cwSB

Debunked myth linking mercury in vaccines to autism:

• Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Cohort analysis of 1.3M children and control case studies of 9.9K children finds no link between vaccines/mercury to autism. (http://goo.gl/HgOFmA)
• Thimerosal in Vaccines Questions and Answers. Showing mercury has not been included in vaccines since 1999 and there was no proof prior to this mercury caused neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. (http://goo.gl/G1h5Nu)
• More resources on science of vaccines by Cliff Bramlett: http://goo.gl/9UYqxY

This post was first published as two posts last year on Google+ (here and here), where you will see ongoing discussion with much conspiracy and distrust that has been maintained for almost one year and counting. Special thank you to my colleagues on Science on Google+ who volunteer tirelessly to address the myths and misconceptions on vaccines that dominate our community, especially in this case Dr Chad Haney and Dr Robert Woodman who provided their expertise answering comments on related posts in our community and on my posts.

Canberra is Australia’s capital city, but you may not necessarily know this if you were parachuted in blindfolded, out of the blue. While Sydney is bustling with tourists and attractions, and Melbourne is brimming with multicultural events, Canberra is seemingly pedestrian. On a Sunday, the majority of the shops close at 4 PM, even in the city’s central business district, and on holidays, there are few people in the centre of the city. That’s because Canberra is, in many ways, a satellite city: our politicians fly in on weeks when Parliament sits, which ramps up the pulse of taxi drivers and plumps up some of our cafes and bars at peak times, every other week. Many people who live here are not locals. Young people tend to move away, while public servants and academics move their families here for their careers.

I had previously lived in Canberra for six months as part of a secondment for another job, many years ago. I was much younger then and, looking back, I did not really enjoy the city. I mostly spent my free time with groups who knew each other from graduate placements and often talked about work, even at 1 AM outside clubs – which is, by the way, the time that most clubs clubs closed back then (and likely do still). “Did you know he’s still an APS5?” (Australian Public Service Level 5) “He’s never going to be promoted!” I was surrounded by Anglo-Australian people who had little interest in multicultural experiences – having come from a highly multicultural part of Melbourne, this was a big change.

Back then I worked very long hours (and do still but not quite so intense) and, to be honest, I was often tired and I own the fact that I did not make a big effort to get to know the city. This time around, knowing that I’d be here a bit longer, I have gotten to know different types of people and have gone out of my way to get the most out of Canberra, by exploring more of its heart and culture. I aim to bring you a few visual stories of how I reacquainted myself with this city, with a visual sociology series I’m calling, Weekends With a Sociologist.

Rituals in visual sociology

I travel for long periods as part of my job, and have to do a lot of public speaking (and yes, I cope with extensive travel using visual sociology!). On the one hand, I’m an extrovert who enjoys being around people and making sense of the world by talking as much as possible (luckily this gels with an applied sociological career). On the other hand, I have come to cherish being back in Canberra, in my own bed and following my own routine. So whenever I’m home, I revel in mundane tasks and relish taking my camera and other visual sociology gadgets out on adventures (my camera, my smart phone, laptop or tablet, portable charger, a couple of pens, and a notepad).

Pathway to the Shine Dome, Australian Academy of Science

I like to start my weekends with a Zumba class as dancing is one my favourite things in the world. I come home and do a couple of hours of housework (bliss!) and then start my visual sociology with an all-day-breakfast lunch.

I could eat breakfast for every meal quite happily and I’ve been on a quest to find the best all-day-breakfast in the region. Dobbinsons is a favourite haunt because they serve breakfast until 3 PM and it’s probably the best value in town. The people who frequent are also very interesting sociologically; Dobbinsons’ famous pastries (which I’ve yet to sample, sadly) draw in eclectic crowds. Another current faithful is Ricardo’s Cafe. While it’s not quite as economical, they are open on public holidays and their homemade hashbrowns are on point. It’s another great place for visual sociology reconnaissance, as their outdoors area is lovely in the sun, with big tables for writing and lots of inspired conversation.

It is an important part of my visual sociology ritual to be able to sit down to eat and observe the city as I go about planning the types of events I aim to capture with my cameras. I take the time to record my surroundings as I’m eating and coordinating logistics, and then it’s off for a visual adventure.

Canberra is organised as a series of circled suburbs, connected by large roundabouts and many highways. As such, we enjoy many separate cultural hubs. Today I’m mostly talking about the city centre and surrounds.

I easily spend five hours or longer walking around drinking in the sights and chronicling my experiences, more often than not posting about my sojourn on social media, especially Instagram (more on this below). I photograph, record and make notes about exhibitions, interesting sites and community events.

In between these long hours spent walking and photographing, if I can, I try to stop for a cup of tea, a juice or a hot chocolate, giving me an opportunity to type up my notes or get some other writing done. Koko Black is the gift that keeps on giving because, while always packed with chocolate lovers, there is plenty to see and write about.

My visual documentation takes a short break in the early evening as most cultural sites close, but my visual sociology continues soon enough. I take the time to once again choose an interesting place to rest and eat.

In the city centre, I like to stop at Bunda Street in Civic, or a bit further along London Circuit and New Acton. Various surrounding streets are home to inviting visual culinary scenes. From the ever-reliable Jamie’s Italian, to a wide range of ever-enticing local foods (Garnish of India has me looking for excuses to visit), the tasty treats Canberra has on offer are all bountiful opportunities for visual sociology.

Even after a long day, I like to document my night. Whether it’s dinner with friends or a film festival or a cheeky night cap, I keep my visual sociology going until I head home. The city has narrow options in terms of a late night coffee or snack, but there are many little bars for chilling out, and other alternatives for firing up the sociological imagination. In particular, I have been curating a visual sociology series of movie theatres and the culture of hotels.

Visual adventures in Sociology

Canberra City is fun to photograph as quirky public art peppers the urban landscape, attracting interesting people and behaviour. The Canberra Times Fountain (pictured top) lights up at night, as well as igniting smiles from appreciative passers-by all day long. Life Cycle, the stainless steel statue prominent in Civic, outside the mall of Canberra Centre, is supposedly an homage to spirituality and “cosmic concepts” (I’ve pondered the significance of this giant metal spiral many times). Ainslie’s Sheep commemorates a prominent early European farmer from 1835. In true Australian metropolitan city fashion, the sheep are an irreverent favourite with tourists. Adelaide has its pigs and Melbourne has it giant purse in their respective city malls; Canberra has two naughty sheep playing, one with its legs up in the air… Symbolism ahoy!

Beyond these and other iconic artworks, Canberra is also lucky to have the Sculpture Park at the National Gallery of Australia, our art gallery that is only five minutes’ drive from the centre of the city.

Some of my favourite wanderings have been spent chronicling a few series I hope to bring you soon, such as my visual sociology of how natural and physical sciences are represented at museums, and the relative absence of social science displays (what “counts” as science?). I also enjoy visiting art galleries and have been accumulating a series on how women’s bodies are exhibited and how women’s stories are told, as well as recording the (lack of) artworks by people of colour, especially in major galleries that are dominated by Western European men. I have been collecting works for my series on Australian artists for my Antipodeans project.

I also have a focus on museums and the representation of Indigenous Australian history and culture. I’m especially interested in capturing how non-Indigenous curators collaborate with Indigenous artists (or how they don’t), and how museums acknowledge and reconcile the tension of hosting artefacts that some Indigenous leaders have fought to have restored to them.

Some of this visual analysis already exists on my Instagram (follow my hashtag #VisualSociology), but I hope to compile this body of work on my blog in due time.

A social view

I use my Instagram to do visual sociology on a regular basis, especially to journal my travels, and share my sociological observations when I visit galleries, museums and other public spaces. Some are brief impressions:

Other posts are (relative) long reads:

I’m also fond of Vine, which is perfect for looping amusing sights, sounds and golden nuggets of information, such as this on Male Peacock Spiders at Questacon, Australia’s national science museum.

This video caught my attention as Western convention tends to compare human gendered behaviour to other animals (even though gender is a social construction). The outdated notion is that females need to attract a mate and so they are more concerned with their own attractiveness, while also being more “naturally” cautious and fragile. In contrast, so the pop evolutionary psychology goes, male species are virile and dangerous “hunter gathers,” who get their mate via aggression and dominance. This simplistic narrative is not true for many species, and least not with the Male Peacock Spiders.

The male partner primps, preens and struts for female attention. This clip marks my sociological bemusement at how often biological determinism misinterprets actual biological science.

More and more I gravitate to Snapchat. Making stories from short clips as I move around the city has been challenging and fun, such as the snaps I did on the public art around Questacon, all (scientifically themed of course), and the history of the National Library. There is more room to make mistakes on videos, but I see that making little ephemeral films on Snapchat have profound educational potential.

Visualising Canberra

Blending my visual sociology interests with my social media and blogging has provided an additional incentive to explore the city of Canberra. There is always lots to do and experience, especially when seen through a sociological lens. You can even find a little slice of Peru in Canberra, whether it’s the Mr Papas food truck, or Inka Marka playing El Condor Pasa, one of the most iconic Peruvian songs, in the heart of the capital.

This is the story of my blog, and why blogging became a strategy to make sense of my career and my life as an Other – a woman of colour, the “non-academic” sociologist.

I started my blog in September 2011. This inauspicious date is not coincidentally aligned with the 10 year anniversary of the September 2001 attacks in the USA. Back in 2001, I was just beginning my PhD and had been trying to recruit Turkish-Australian women for my dissertation, with little success. I wanted to extend my Honours thesis, which focused on heterosexual Latin American women in Australia. A small aspect of that study had lingered, with respect to otherness: the Latin women, who had experienced much racism, expressed high support for  multiculturalism. They had many friends from various backgrounds, and some had boyfriends of diverse origins (though Latin American men were a preference). One group they would not date was Muslim men, and many referenced Turkish men specifically due to negative gender stereotypes surrounding Turkish men in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, where most of the women lived.

Given the Latin women’s experiences of racism by Anglo-Australians, this intrigued me, as it suggested what I came to term as hierarchies of otherness. 

Hierarchies of otherness

Melbourne Latin Summer Festival

Society places Anglo-Australians at the top of the social hierarchy in Australia; the women I interviewed, as Latin women of colour, were near the bottom. The women referenced the lack of respect shown to all migrants and even more so towards Indigenous people (both collectives were identified as being near the bottom of the social hierarchy). Still, the women were inclusive in their friendships, including having Turkish women friends, but they seemed to place Turkish and Muslim men near the deepest part of the hierarchy of otherness.

For my PhD, I wanted to explore this by interviewing another group of Latin Australian women, as well as wanting to hear directly from Turkish women to see if they identified similar hierarchies of otherness and to capture their unique experiences of gender and race. Well, the latter proved a problem. I wanted to speak with second-generation women and most listed groups for Turkish Australians were for first-generation migrants. The student clubs for Turkish Aussies did not seem interested in participating in my study.

When the September 11 attacks occurred, this all changed in a matter of days. The student groups rang me back and put me in touch with other groups of young Turkish women. I completed most of my interviews within a couple of months. Though there were important differences between the Turkish and Latin women, especially with respect to religion and sexuality, the common theme was the struggle to claim an Australian identity against a profound sense of social exclusion at the hands and deeds of Anglo-Australians.

For the record: these two cohorts did talk about hierarchies of otherness; all identified that Indigenous Australians received the most unfair treatment; most identified Muslims were characterised as “Other;” but the Turkish women did not refer to Latin men in any way. This is likely because Latin Australians have a low profile in Australia (due to relatively low numbers), so they may not be on Turkish women’s horizon, nor to most other ethnic groups, for that matter. Muslims were already stigmatised and even more so after September 11, so unsurprisingly perhaps, they remained a reference point on the hierarchy of otherness for Latin women.

Viva Victoria Festival

The year 2001 was significant for many personal reasons, but one of the experiences that shaped me was conducting my research speaking to Turkish women about how racism and exclusion impacted them in the wake of the September attacks.

Being a first-year postgraduate student in sociology, my political consciousness expanded swiftly. Having always followed so-called ‘left’ politics, my sense of social justice rapidly altered seeing the way in which the attacks shaped media and political discourse. These attacks gave mileage to the Liberal Government, then led by Prime Minister John Howard, who used scaremongering on terrorism to excise Australian land and begin what is now a 15-year campaign against asylum seekers.

When I completed my PhD three years later, the political landscape had worsened. Hierarchies of otherness were more pronounced than ever on the national stage.

Leaving academia

Scholar ‘s Rock (17th Century Base). Yingde Guandong province. Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria

I tried to make a ‘full-time’ career in academia happen out of a casual contract in one research-intensive university (paid only for my contact hours even though I wrote a course from scratch). At the same time, I had a part-time contract at another university (that was very difficult to negotiate). I was poor, unhappy and scared about my future. In 2006, I made the decision to leave academia – something that many of my academic colleagues have never forgiven nor supported. I went into policy work and worked on issues of political violence, intercultural communication, migration and refugee policy, and social modelling.

Leaving academia was one of the best decisions of my life. Yet it left me alienated from my former community of sociologists. Experiencing acute professional isolation, I noticed immediately that our peak professional association only concerned itself with academic sociology careers and interests. I hear this is changing and look forward to seeing this bear out; however, back in 2006, there was nothing for sociologists working beyond academia. I founded the Applied Sociology group in 2007, and two years later I launched Sociology at Work.

The latter is how I eventually found my way here, to the Other Sociologist, and the world of blogging and social media… but the pathway was less than linear.

My early life as a diarist

Baby Other Sociologist dreams of being a writer. Ends up as sociologist & blogger

I kept a daily journal since I was eight years old. In Grade 4, my primary school teacher used little home-made exercise books to encourage us to be creative; she also read our entries and wrote back to us. I’d always said I wanted to be a writer, even when I was little. Journaling was the perfect way to practice. I also wrote poetry and stories throughout high school and shared these with friends at school. Additionally, I was a prolific letter writer in my youth.

Eventually, however, the only thing I kept as an adult was the journals. I filled countless books with my thoughts. I wrote every night for a couple of hours just before I fell asleep, usually with a pen in hand. This helped me process not just daily events, but also my emotions and traumatic experiences, from extreme violence to racism to sexual harassment. I kept this up throughout my time as a postgraduate student as well as when I left academia and needed to processes what it was like to be rudderless, without peer support, being one of only five sociologists in my organisation, and the only junior woman of colour among them.

Sociology at Work (S@W) was born in 2009 to help other sociologists like myself, who were navigating careers without colleagues who are trained to think like them. Initially aided by a small group of colleagues from the Applied Sociology group, we wrote and edited articles from applied sociologists in different parts of the world. After the first year, the group moved on and I have kept it up alone ever since (but consequently bowed out of the Applied Sociology group).

Beginning a website for S@W meant getting on social media to promote our work. Back then I hated the idea of Facebook, let alone blogging. In the first years, I tended to reproduce content that people sent to me on S@W – please promote my conference; tell people about my article/book/thing. I only used Facebook and Twitter to promote the posts on S@W. Pretty soon, however, it became apparent that all the material being sent to me was spruiking academic wares, with zero awareness or interest in applied sociology. For the most part, applied researchers can’t afford to go to academic conferences, which are timed around the academic year. Plus the academic conference programs speak solely to academic issues. The books, articles and other bits and pieces that academics produce render applied sociology invisible. So – no – I decided that I had to start producing the type of content that was meaningful to applied sociologists.

There in lied the conundrum. How did I know what applied sociologists wanted? I only knew what I was hungry to read.

My life as a blogger

My blogging habit includes searching for Canberra’s best all day breakfast

I consumed sociology blogs and social media accounts for a couple of years, producing sporadic content on S@W as I tried to figure out what to do next. Again, these were filled with academic ideas and voices. The triumphs, concerns and views of sociological blogging back then were coloured by the ivory tower, a place that had only shown me disdain or disinterest since I left.

The more academic sociology blogs I read, I had two distinct, simultaneous experiences. On the one had, reading other blogs helped me feel less alone, because I could read sociology on my time off as I went from one assignment to another in my paid work. I travelled a lot and it felt good to read and think about sociology outside the research I did.

On the other hand, I felt frustrated. Back then, the most widely shared blogs were written almost exclusively by White sociologists (then mostly Americans and a handful of British academics). Whenever these relatively higher-profile White sociologists wrote about race, they often wrote from a place of White privilege, even when critiquing White privilege. It’s not that sociologists of colour weren’t blogging – it’s that it took me awhile to find them. Getting on Tumblr was a great help. Still – Australian voices of colour in sociology were lacking at the time.

So I started to read more broadly about blogging. I did a lot of research about how to use social media more effectively. At the same time, I had started to feel a sense that it was time to leave my job in public service. I had loved what I’d accomplished but so much of what happened to me had drained me. I needed to find new meaning. The journaling that had helped me process my life was no longer productive. Where once it helped me to feel as if I better understood the injustices I had endured, my diaries were no longer having this effect. My voice simply echoed back at me on pages and pages of ink. I did not feel better. I felt disconnected from my friends and many of my colleagues.

And so, less than one month after I officially quit my first applied research role, I started this blog, The Other Sociologist, named after the experience of being minimised as savage; vilified, exoticised and unfavourably reduced in social status in comparison to a dominant group, just for being different. The idea of this blog was then, as it is now, to seek empowerment in witnessing and critically examining experiences of otherness. As I said earlier, the impetus for this blog was the 10-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The political landscape was even more appalling in 2011 than ten years prior. I was different too, and not just because I was older and more experienced as a sociologist.

The private diaries that had thus far kept me alive and well were no longer having a positive effect. I decided to channel all my energies into blogging and social media, making public my struggle, albeit, focused on external events. I made a conscious commitment to plunge fully into the world of blogging and social media where I am now prolific in my activism. Soon, I stopped journaling altogether.

So here I am, almost five years later, more seasoned and very public in my social activism, all thanks to this little blog.

The Others like us

Blogging is a transformative experience and an excellent vehicle for thinking critically about social justice. I have learned a lot since I started this blog. I use other social media to write daily, but this blog is special. I am selective about what I publish, favouring this platform to make sense of public issues that reflect my personal politics. Here is where I best put into practice the type of critical and reflexive applied sociology that I want to read. I write in long-form, an art that is not especially conducive to high click-rates, but one to which I am deeply committed. I write about research in a way that honours my own experience as a woman of colour. I write about issues that lead me to be trolled constantly (more so on social media than here where I have better control over comments due to my strict moderation policy).

This is another liminal time for me as I gather strength to make more difficult choices. Sexism and racism are firm features of my life that are adversely affecting my health and wellbeing. Amidst these never-ending ups and downs, fighting the tower as a woman of colour—I am grateful to have finally started connecting with other women of colour in academia and beyond, who are close to my field. I hope to find more who are also applied sociologists, fighting systems that barely acknowledge our existence, and actively stand against our progress.

This blog remains, as ever, a public testament that people like us, The Others, and our experiences of otherness, matter.

The Other – our experiences of otherness matter

Note

This blog post is inspired by the WordPress Learning the Fundamentals Course “Who I Am and Why I’m Here” challenge and WordPress Daily Inspiration. In an attempt to overcome the institutional racism and sexism I face in my daily life, I aim to bring more posts on what it’s like to be a woman of colour writing, working and volunteering in equity and diversity advocacy and other things in between. 

On Friday the 11th of March, I travelled to Auckland New Zealand for Kiwi Foo, a two-and-a-half day “unconference” where 150 participants from New Zealand and other parts of the world from a wide range of professional backgrounds self-organise the sessions. This includes people from technology companies, policy and community organisations, as well as academics . The idea behind Foo Camp is to bring together like-minded individuals who might otherwise not meet, and listen to one another and look for ways to connect in our common goal to make the world a better place.

In order to attend, one must be nominated by a previous Foo alumn from Kiwi camp or SciFoo from the UK. You pay for your own travel but all other costs, including food and lodging if you want it, are provided. When you accept the invitation, you nominate three keywords. Upon arrival, in a large hall filled with around three hundred people, each person stands up to introduce themselves by their name, their affiliation and their keywords, without elaboration. It took awhile but it was really fun. I went representing myself (and this blog!) and my three keywords were: gender equity & diversity; science communication; sociology.

Kiwi Foo proved to be one of the most personally challenging but most rewarding experiences I’ve had. It was an insightful sociological weekend. This is part one of two posts. Part one focuses on what I learned, how I was inspired, and why you should jump at the chance to go, should you get  a chance. Part two contains my talk, Informed and practical ways to enhance gender equity and diversity in STEMM.

The Unconference Challenge

The Other Sociologist goes to New Zealand!

I do a lot of public speaking. I started out as a tutor (teaching assistant) and lecturer in academia and have since worked in different government and industry contexts. My current job sees me speaking to large academic audiences all over Australia as well as senior scientists and Executives. All that history does not compare to how uncomfortable I felt at the idea of an unconference.

I have been reading about unconferences for many years and liked the concept, but had never considered attending. I like to be hyper-prepared when I do a presentation, even when I have to deliver under time-pressured conditions. I left academia a decade ago, but for many years I attended the annual Australian sociology conference. In fact, my only previous visit to New Zealand was for the one-off combined Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand conference in 2007, which was held in Christchurch. Coincidentally that was the same year I stopped going to academic conferences, mostly because the timing does not really suit applied work (at the end of the academic year, which is a busy time for applied researchers working beyond the academy).

My current job is very demanding and I travel constantly. Having just finished an exhausting trip around Australia in February, the idea of travelling again so soon was taxing. So why did I go? Kiwi Foo was so intriguing and so unlike anything I’ve ever done, I decided to go even though it was daunting. Also the proposition of presenting to a new type of audience was invigorating in its own way, as I desperately miss the intellectual interaction from attending conferences and presenting my own work.

My personal life, politics, leisure and paid work are all intermeshed. As my regular readers know, other than social justice issues, I write about two things consistently: women in academia and science generally, as well as science literacy and communication. I help run several sociology and science communities. The way in which I think and write about these issues on my blog impacts my day job. For these reasons I was excited to potentially make new connections at Kiwi Foo with other people who care about gender equity and diversity in similar ways to my personal preference. I was trepidatious but excited at the idea of meeting practitioners across the Tasman Sea who were similarly committed.

Auckland Airport

From the little I knew about Kiwi Foo, it seemed dominated by people from tech backgrounds. I didn’t doubt the natural and physical sciences would be at home at Kiwi Foo – but what about social science? I wondered how my unapologetic intersectional feminism would be received. All of the public sociology and science communication (scicomm) I do brings a lot of abuse and it can be very draining. Other elements of my daily work exposes me to painful experiences of discrimination, sexism and racism. I felt raw from the cumulative experiences of harassment from work, blogging and my activism. In my little precious time off, travelling on only a couple of hours of sleep, did I want to subject myself to the possibility of being face to face with more hostility?

In the end, I went for two reasons. First and foremost because it’s an opportunity I might otherwise never have again and second, because I felt so uncomfortable at the unconference format that I knew I had to try it once.

At an early stage of Kiwi Foo, a lovely and well-meaning male colleague said that previous Kiwi Foos had gone poorly for feminist discussions, with much derailment from the mostly-male audience. This did little to allay my inner disquiet.

I needn’t have worried. Kiwi Foo turned out to provide a highly supportive discursive space where feminists were not only welcome, but heard and validated by new colleagues looking to make a change. In fact, I was heartened that the Kiwi Foo website has an anti-harassment policy that is also emailed upon registration. This solidified my decision to attend the conference. Details like this make a tremendous difference on women, as conferences cansometimes be be daunting places where sexual harassment and sexism prevail. Thankfully this was not the case.

Kiwi Foo led to one of the most productive gender equity discussions I’ve participated in.

Foo Feminists

Kiwi Foo Baa Camp, Snells Beach, Auckland

After a long and delayed flight from Canberra, it was a comedic tragedy trying to meet my travelling companions once I cleared customs at Auckland airport. One of the many benefits of Kiwi Foo Camp is its excellent organisation. As soon as you accept registration, you get access to private parts of the website and various other apps and tools to coordinate travel with other Foosters. Seven of us travelled in a van. Auckland traffic turned out to be treacherous. Google Maps had told me to expect Foo Camp being only one hour and 15 minutes from the airport… but on a Friday afternoon, Auckland’s roads had another devilish notion. My flight arrived was meant to arrive at 3:15 PM. By the time we set off from the airport it was well after 4 PM. We did not arrive at Base Camp until after 7:30 PM.

Luckily, my fellow travellers turned to be just as interesting as I’d hoped, including tech entrepreneurs, designers, economists, policy advisors, and academics. We feared we’d missed all the introductory fun, which starts from 5 PM and includes choosing sessions. Luckily, the organisers delayed the formal proceedings, such as they were, to after our arrival. Unfortunately due to the delay, I didn’t get to properly meet my whanau (Maori for “family”), the Rhinos, which was a shame. Each newbie is paired with a more experienced person who has attended Kiwi Foo before to help them navigate their way around.

Not fully knowing what to expect, it was fortuitous that one of the first things I saw when we got to Base Camp was one of the organisers… a man, wearing a t-shirt proclaiming: “This is What a Feminist Looks Like.” The next day I would see another man wearing a FEMINIST t-shirt. These little signs made me feel immediately at ease.

Kiwi Knowledge

Kiwi Foo lounge

The unconference begins after the three-word introductions, where new Kiwi Foos are given first preference in putting up proposed talks and sessions. The main lounge area has several large posters up around the room with times and rooms available and you take the spot that best suits you. Most people do not propose talks but rather prefer to participate in discussions. If there are similar talks, the organisers will encourage the speakers to join together in the spirit of collaboration.

The talks were surprising in breadth of topic and sentiment. There were talks about new research and innovation; but there were also talks about how to redefine life after surviving cancer; some people nominated their own passion projects or their professional work; but others led discussions on how to enhance collaboration and not for profit work. Almost every talk was an interactive discussion or hands-on session, and few people used any PowerPoint.

Below you get a sense of the diversity of talks I’m going to tell you a little about some of the sessions I attended.

Law, I.T. and the future

Judge David Harvey

David Harvey, a former judge recently turned academic, talked about progressive online legislation. He is set to open a new academic centre on the topic and sought ideas and questions about the type of issues they might cover, as well as crowd-sourcing ideas for further funding. He talked about how slow the law has been to catch up on international patterns of internet use, and how online legal resources were arcane and difficult to navigate. I asked about how to bridge the digital divide given some socio-economic groups barely have access to reliable internet connections, including in Australia. Harvey said dedicated public spaces such as libraries and court houses should support access to online laws.

Taking people with you

Kiwi Foo main hall

Another session on building stronger teams when creating social movements was well attended by people from various backgrounds. Shaun Hendy and Jess Weichler led the session. We sat on pillows on the ground and shared our experiences running volunteer groups. Other audience members talked about methods to leverage corporate sponsorship, and the limits of different approaches, as well as online tools to help connect potential volunteers to particular causes through skills, not just their passions. One suggestion that appealed to many people, including me, was Wellington’s Time Bank, where volunteers are “paid” in time credits, which they can use to hire someone else to volunteer for your cause.

A few of us discussed the challenges in keeping volunteers engaged, by knowing why they sign up and by validating their service in tangible (if not material) ways.

I talked about how one of my common experiences co-managing several scicomm groups is that people who volunteer do so for different reasons, and expectations will vary. One thing that has helped the groups I volunteer with is to set rules and be explicit on what it means to be a volunteer, as well as publicly state our values. For example, in an earlier incarnation of Science on Google+, three women of color moderators would exclusively respond to sexist trolling in our online science community. It helps that, with clear guidelines and new volunteer moderators, we can explicitly say our group is run by feminists, and know that our male colleagues will uphold this.

I liked the suggestion by another participant who said that showing appreciation of volunteers goes a long way, with someone else suggesting that “experiences” are given as trade and “payment.” For example, friends will donate activities (such as indoor rock climbing) that a volunteer group can offer their members, in exchange for other forms of volunteering.

Networking is hard

Kiwi Foo central lounge area

Laura Campbell, a lawyer in her everyday life, and Mikee Tucker, founder of record label Loop, led a lovely discussion on how to make networking more diverse and accessible. A colleague talked about how Kiwi Foo was great, but very difficult for an introverted scientist such as himself. He suggested that organisers might consider putting on more one-on-one activities every evening. The first night, there were drinks and everyone was supposed to meet their team leaders. But for people like my travelling companions and I, who arrived late due to international flight and traffic chaos, missed the early team building. Another colleague also missed the introductions due to a delayed flight. Team activities on the first night were good, but still force introverted people into group situations when they are trying to settle in. Games and structured conversation scenarios are more ideal for introverts.

I made a (rather clumsy) point about logistics of networking. Having just organised a series of workshops in different cities, I had become painfully aware that the breastfeeding facilities I’d asked for were woefully inadequate and had led to one participant having to go home. My point was probably lost, but what I wanted to make clear is that networking at events should be inclusive in many different ways. From ensuring that people with caring responsibilities are accommodated, and that disability access is high on the agenda. It’s also useful for networking organisers to think about other matters of inclusion, such as creating social events that aren’t predicated on sharing alcohol.

One woman at Kiwi Foo for example, left a game we were playing because people were starting to drink more heavily. Some people’s religious or cultural beliefs mean they can’t participate in networking events where alcohol is being served. Certainly during the games, those who were drinking more heavily became excessively mean, and were reminded exclusively by women facilitators about the Kiwi Foo rules against excessive drinking. Other people’s rowdy behaviour, edging towards the nasty and confrontational side, made an otherwise great night uncomfortable for the rest of us.

So balance is key: different type of activities, in different types of social arrangements, to maximise inclusion.

Co-design to tackle complex social problems

Jane Strange discussing co-design

Jane Strange talked about using co-design to tackle social policy problems. This involves not simply gathering data from community groups affected by particular issues, but also supporting community members to lead solutions. Using a set of posters, Strange discussed how two government agencies partnered with an NGO to better engage youth in South Auckland to increase the rates of youth-of-driving-age getting their licence. This area has a low-socioeconomic profile with high rates of youth crime and incarceration, however, many offences begin with minor issues, such as driving without a license. Getting a licence requires a relatively sound level of literacy and additional costs to qualify, and in rural areas where many families are struggling on social welfare, such things are luxuries.

Strange talked about driving licenses as a social justice issue. Eighty percent of youth cannot afford to pay driving-without-a-license fees of around $200. They are duped by the system into accepting community service, convinced by unscrupulous advisers that this is a good way to get work experience; however, this is a gateway into the criminal system. After another offence of driving-without-a-license, youth are less likely to get community service and instead are sent to jail, which exposes them to other criminal activities.

Not having a licence is also an economic justice issue: 70% of jobs in this area require a license. Strange talked about one young person who was qualified as a nurse but had to wait to be able to afford to go for their full licence, which meant working at a burger place for two years, while her qualifications went to waste.

Where driving-without-a-license is the norm, there are family consequences. One youth Strange worked with had been fined and subsequently lost his car. Now he continues to drive his mother’s car unlicensed, which jeopardises his mother’s car being impounded.

In this context, it became clear that the legal framework was failing youth and their communities.

Strange’s program connected youth with agencies, service providers and other community workers so they could together find priority areas during an initial workshop. Beyond traditional community consultation, youth would test their own recommendations by going back to their own communities and testing their proposals. Youth and community members were involved in evaluating and improving the new set of guidelines and public information campaign ideas. At the implementation phase, multiple ministers and a range of government agencies were linked together to find ways to keep the program running long term.

Strange noted that to collaborate in co-design policy, government agencies had to be willing to lose control. While this proves very challenging for policy-makers, the program so far suggests the results are far better than perpetuating the senseless imprisonment of disadvantaged young people.

This Girl Can

Digital strategist, Dan West, discussed the impact of “behavioural economics” in tapping into gender equity themed advertisements. West noted that the UK ranks at around 7th place in the world amongst men who exercise, however it is in 17th place in terms of women who exercise. In comparison, Sweden ranks in 4th place for women. Market research shows that women in Britain refrain from exercise for a mix of reasons:

• Worried about looks when exercising
• Concerned about letting their team down
• Mothers sacrifice the time they would otherwise spend at the gym to spend more time with their children.

For their advertising campaign for This Girl Can UK, West’s team focused on fear of judgement. The campaign was mostly well received on social media, evidenced in encouraging tweets; however, there was some backlash. The advertisement was made by “mostly women” (though West did not elaborate further) and yet the public perceived that the opposite must be true. Some women perceived that the use of the word “girl” infantalised women. At the same time, West reports that the advertisement had success in increasing the number of women who exercised over a 1.5 year period.

During questions from the floor, West addressed the misuse of behaviour economics and brand identity, such as Cadbury chocolates sponsoring an exercise campaign. In another case, Dove’s “feeling hot” campaign focused on women’s hairless underarms.

I’m not a fan of behaviour economics as it overstates how consumer behaviour is supposedly “universally” driven by “irrational” choices. This is a Western European concept that significantly fails to address cultural variability, and it also fails to address the role of structural inequalities when accounting for the motivations behind consumer choices of vulnerable populations (which I have co-researched with respect to social marketing).

What I especially enjoyed about this walk was West’s open-ended reflection on the social justice “foot print” of advertising. He mused: what is the accountability for his field? He used the example of Benson & Hedges, a cigarette company now being held accountable for contributing to decades of poor health, spurred by heavy-handed and misleading advertising. West notes, however, that while the smoking giant has faced public scrutiny, the advertising agencies who worked with them have not.

Ethics and social justice in advertising – a fruitful dialogue that I’d like to pick up again some day.

Werewolves

Kiwi Foo tent city. Werewolf free since March 2016

The two nights at Kiwi Foo we played a fun and sociologically intriguing game called Werewolf. I’ve never played it before but my cousin assures me it’s like the game Mafia. Each player is given a card with their identity. Most are villagers, but at least two players are werewolves, who silently collude to kill off villagers in their sleep overnight. At least one person is a seer who can “check” who might be a werewolf while the village is asleep, and another person is the healer, who can protect one villager in case they are picked for an attack overnight.

The most experienced player is God; the person who assigns village roles via the cards, and who helps the other special players complete their nightly activities. They also keep the village on time; villagers awake to find out who was killed and they deliberate to identify and kill the werewolves before nightfall. As more people are picked off, villagers may choose to support the healers and seers whose identities are secret to come into the open to further narrow down the list of suspected werewolf.

The game is sociologically insightful because, like most games, competition in Western societies brings out extreme behaviour in individuals. Most psychology studies are based on the WEIRD model: Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic participants. This leads to patterns of individual competition and aggression. When faced with a game of competition, some non-WEIRD cultures develop group-based solutions, even if it means some trade-offs for individuals.

The WEIRD response was on extreme display in Werewolf.

The games we played involved at least 20 players and so the game went for a long time, and multiple games were being played in different rooms (other people preferred to socialise individually or in other spaces). At the beginning of each game, when there is no other information, villagers make werewolf accusations based on nonsensical ideas. I kept being singled out because the first question asked was, “Who is Australian? Kill the Australian!” Everyone laughed. The accused then has an opportunity to defend themselves. People were signalled out often for mean reasons and the same people were being picked off again and again. There was an element of primary school cruelty. I wondered about the patterns people were playing out: I think you’re the werewolf because I don’t like your beard; I don’t like your jacket; I don’t like your face. This was easily the least enjoyable part of the game.

Werewolf is based on skilled deception and it a lot of fun, as not everyone pandered to juvenile meanness. I played for hours and even delayed my precious sleep as long as possible the night before my 9AM talk. The sociological aspect is watching the group dynamics during discussions of who should be killed off as a potential werewolf. There were instances where no decision was made which meant two villagers were killed off instead of one.

The Stanford Prison Experiment infamously argues that otherwise law abiding White middle class people turn into despots with the slightest bit of power (though I’ve shown the cultural limits of making universal inferences from this research). Werewolf was a less extreme version: players take glee in accusing and killing off others. It is a nice social experiment and worthwhile playing to see what rationales emerge for accusing werewolves, as well as trusting seers and healers.

It was infinitely amusing that this was the game we played for hours on end, given that the rest of the weekend was spent in serious discussions about collaborating to make the world a better place.

During the fun plenary talks, a member of each group gave a lighting short speech, with PowerPoint slides flashing by to keep them on time. Lisa Wong talked about the use of games at work for team building. She discussed a few examples of board and character based games that require teams to work together, as activities she runs at her work during leisure time. I am a big supporter of adults playing such team building games and generally of play.

The question remains: is there a way to play the Werewolf differently, perhaps less about individual competition, and maybe more in the spirit of Kiwi Foo?

So long and thanks for all the Foo

Some parting thoughts to future Foosters who might happen to read this post:

• If you get a chance to do an unconference, do it! I found it to be intellectually and creatively inspiring. Skip the PowerPoint slides
• Opt to stay on site: some people stayed in tents, others in bunks. As soon as you get your email invite, get in early and secure your sleeping place. It took me awhile but I found a lovely place – yet even the short walk (less than 15 minutes) was punishing in the poorly lit night
• Find ways to make introverted people feel welcome: one-on-one opportunities for networking work a treat. What about a “speed meet” session where everyone talks to a few new people about pre-structured topics? Get in on Werewolf for sure, but maybe create other opportunties for play and interaction, and consider creating no-alcohol spaces. Don’t leave it to women to remind boistrous, drunk men about the rules; this is offputting at best and a bit scary
• Consider intersectionality: I was impressed that one of the keynotes was Potaua Biasiny-Tule, a Maori entrepreneur who talked about his internet business in a way that told the story of his community. More diverse speakers from a range of ethnic and racial backgrounds and gender balance (including transgender speakers) is always better wherever possible
• Make feminism visible: I cannot talk highly enough of having the rules of conduct include a statement against harassment and as I noted the men wearing their feminism on their sleeve – or chests – was important in making me feel welcome
• Cross-disciplinary dialogue matters: By far the greatest success of Kiwi Foo to my mind was in how the organisers brought together individuals from different sectors. I speak about and work on gender equity and diversity every day – but I really needed this space, to speak about these themes as myself, and interact with others on the same level. I hope there is further scope for connecting with the people I met beyond the social media ties I currently have.

Even though it was just a conference, attending Kiwi Foo was a leap of faith which ended up rejuvenating me at a vital time in my life and career.  One of my favourite lines ever about networking actually comes from Guy Kawasaki, ex-Apple and technology “evangelist,” who said this in context of start ups and social media: plant many seeds. Rather than being hierarchical, creating connections with one person “LonelyBoy 15” can lead to big things over time; that’s the power of social media. This is also how I see gender equity and diversity work.

Thank you to the organisers for planting new seeds. I hope to see these ideas grow and cross-fertilise over time.

Read about my Kiwi Foo talk in Part 2: Informed and practical ways to enhance gender equity and diversity in STEMM.

Notes

All photos of Kiwi Foo by me are available for use from my Flickr under Creative Commons. In accordance to Foo rules, I asked all participants photographed for permission to take pictures and write about their work on social media (other than the plenaries which were obviously keynote talks).

This is Part 2 on my participation in Kiwi Foo, an invitation-only “unconference” in Auckland, New Zealand, that brings together people from broad fields to work on social change (read about the rest of Kiwi Foo in Part 1). I spoke about Informed and Practical Ways to Enhance Gender Equity and Diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM).

Ruby Payne-Scott. Photo via Peter Gavin Hall, Wikipedia, CC 3.0

I started my talk at Kiwi Foo by telling the story of Ruby Payne-Scott, a pioneer in radio astronomy whose work led to major technological innovation and scientific knowledge. She supported top secret science on radar detection in the 1940s during the war, and she was a women’s rights activist. During the 1930s and 1940s, she worked for Australia’s premier government research agency, CSIRO, at a time where women were not allowed to be married and working in the public service. So she secretly married in 1944 and subsequently lost (but fought hard to keep) her permanent position at CSIRO. She was finally forced to resign in 1951, a few months before the birth of her son, Peter, as her pregnancy was no longer able to be hidden. Her career in science was effectively ended because her family status was deemed unlawful for the public service.

Ruby Payne-Scott, 5th from the right, at the 1952 International Union of Radio Science conference, University of Sydney. Photo: Wikipedia, CC 3.0

Women scientists and allies who care about gender equity in STEMM tell Dr Payne-Scott’s story often, though it is a shamefully unknown story by broader Australia. My point in beginning my talk with this lamentable tale is that Payne-Scott’s historic impact lives on for the wrong reasons. In Australia, the shameful employment discrimination she endured overshadows her scientific achievements in many ways. More sadly, while women in the present day are no longer discriminated in the same overt way, other structural inequalities make it difficult for women to remain in science, especially after they have children. So Payne-Scott’s legacy remains perennially relevant, 70 years later.

I talked about the culture in science, which consistently ensures that women are squeezed out of science careers, by being looked over at every stage, and not being given the opportunity to reach senior levels. Less than one fifth of senior academics in Australian STEMM are women. I discussed how this pattern is entrenched in our socialisation. We see this clearly in the Draw a Scientist Test, which has shown consistently for five decades that children move from initially seeing scientists as non-gendered people in preschool, to exclusively White men in lab coats.

Draw a Scientist Test, image from David Wade Chambers stdy 1983. Source: Wikipedia, CC 3.0

From the age of five, when children begin primary school, they begin to absorb gender stereotypes from their parents, their teachers, the media and other social institutions. Without intervention, these stereotypes dig deep into our way of thinking, tempting us to reproduce gender stereotypes as we grow up, in our undergraduate and postgraduate classes; or in our jobs or other areas of life. We know from research, however, that this is a social phenomenon, because intervention programs where teachers are taught to control their unconscious biases, can reverse these trends.

Stereotype threat. Image: Stem Women

The phenomena of stereotype threat shows that girls and boys perform at comparable rates on math and science tests, and in many cases girls actually outperform boys. Yet when girls are reminded about their gender before a test, they perform poorly. Scientists such as Professor Chad Forbes are able to show that this occurs due to a physiological response: elevated anxiety impairs brain function that leads to poor test scores. The effect is exacerbated for students from minority racial backgrounds. Having received overwhelming signals that society does not expect White girls and minority groups to succeed in STEMM, has a profound impact on their outcomes.

Even when young White women and minority groups defy the effects of stereotype threat, they continue to face other structural barriers.

Motherhood penalty

Research shows that when two sets of fake CVs have been sent out with identical qualifications, with the only difference being the applicant’s male or female name, academics still favour hiring the male applicant. Additionally, academics will offer an average of $4,000 more to male applicants, and other perks such as special mentoring to attract male candidates, but they do not offer such attractive remuneration for women, even though they are present the same educational and work achievements. The so-called “motherhood penalty” is more punitive, with $13,000 bonus starting wage offered to fathers relative to mothers.

Other research shows that in high achieving faculties, male postdocs are 90% more likely to have a male adviser who is a Nobel Prize laureate. Internationally, data from the United Nations show that only one in five nations have gender parity in science. Nevertheless, this variation tells us that culture does play a role in STEMM outcomes.

I discussed that gender equity and diversity requires active management and that no one approach will fix the problem. It’s not just a matter of trying to get more women “into the pipeline” of STEMM, but rather looking at the ways in which the whole system needs a reboot. I discussed three levels where action can be taken: individual, group and structural.

Individual

Women’s leadership is vital. Source: Me on Social Science Insights

Research shows that men overemphasise their achievements and women do the opposite; however, even when women do speak with confidence about their abilities, they are more likely to be punished for being “aggressive” – something that does not happen to men. In some contexts, such as in business, women who are assertive are more likely to get ahead – however, they need to “monitor” this “aggression” and check themselves. Women who are assertive without being “chameleons” (adapting the “directness” of their self-confidence) are seen in a negative light.

Research shows that managers undervalue women’s leadership and collaborative approach, seeing it as a weakness instead of what it is: an organisational asset.

Why are we forcing women to change in order to succeed in STEMM? Programs that focus on eroding feminine styles of leadership require a taxing balancing act (“be more masculine but not too masculine”). This may help a few women climb upwards, but with mixed results. Moreover, this maintains the status quo. Programs that do not question dominant styles of leadership predicated on being White, heterosexual, able-bodied and cisgender (also known as “hegemonic masculinity”) accept that emulating established models of management are the best ways to get ahead. This is not the case.

Group

I talked about how there are many good programs in STEMM, but they are limited because they address interpersonal dynamics (“group”) but not structural factors. Unconscious bias training is all the rage at the moment, especially in Australian STEMM. This training is important because it provides managers the mental tools to think critically about their own biases. Equity and diversity programs should make this type of training standard for anyone who manages staff; it should be mandatory for executives, recruitment and funding panels, and anyone with decision-making power.

Positioning unconscious bias as a one-stop-shop training program, however, is misguided. Most of this training merely scratches the surface, helping senior staff understand that everyone has biases they need to control. This can lull leaders into a false sense of confidence and softening the impact of discrimination: if everyone is biased, then no one is responsible. The majority of programs also do not provide practical measures to end unconscious bias. Simply put: training is not enough.

Let’s say you’re on a recruitment panel. Where are the gender equity and diversity guidelines? What is the step-by-step process that each panel member must cover when they assess grants to ensure they are applying relative-to-opportunity measures in a helpful manner? Who is monitoring decision-makers and making them accountable for biases? This can’t simply be left for groups to police themselves, especially when most decision-making groups in STEMM continue to be dominated by White, cisgender heterosexual men.

LGBT Climate in Physics report by LGBT+ Physicists

In my other life, a very senior, White male heterosexual scientist said to me he honestly did not believe homophobia played a role in hiring practices. He should know, he said: as a senior STEMM executive, he oversees hiring in STEMM faculties. He would not abide by discrimination, he said. I asked him: how many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or asexual (LGBTQIA) scientists did he know in his faculty? (I happen to know there are none who are “out” from mid-career upwards.) None, he conceded – but this was not due to bias in hiring, he said, incensed at the thought that his unconscious bias detector might be off.

I noted he could not guarantee that bias was not taking place, given that a recent study shows that gay men and lesbians are less likely to get a call back for a job, and they are offered a lower starting wage than heterosexual counterparts, especially lesbians. Similarly, LGBTQIA staff experience a range of overt hostility and subtle exclusion everyday in their faculties, such as in physics.

How would a panellist possibly know someone is gay, said the White heterosexual man? No one is discriminating on his watch! Another White woman from his faculty spoke up and said that the point was that he cannot guarantee if there are no ways to monitor for biases, irrespective of training.

My point here is that even amongst allies with good intentions, bias training gives a false sense that simply being aware of bias reduces discrimination, unconscious or otherwise. The threat of being called homophobic (or racist, sexist, ableist and so on) is more incredulous to even the most committed leaders than actual acts of discrimination which are well-documented.

So: training is important, but it’s the first step amongst many that institutions need to take.

Structural

Kiwi Foo path to my talk

I argue that in order to really tackle institutional gender equity and diversity patterns in STEMM, we need a multi-dimensional approach, and one that is guided by intersectionality. Intersectionality is a concept examining how the effects of gender discrimination are multiplied by racial discrimination, along with other forms of social disadvantage.

I discussed how most equity and diversity programs have focused on support for White middle-class, heterosexual women. Corporate diversity programs in general focus on hiring but they do nothing to support minority staff once they enter an organisation. Thirty-years of data show that minority women and men benefit very little from current equity strategies. White women benefit almost exclusively from affirmative action programs. Moreover, bias training for mangers has the least impact in terms of hiring, retention and promotion of minority women; while mentoring has little impact on anyone other than White women (because these programs match White women with other White managers and do not address the impact of race on gender equity). The most successful and truly inclusive gender equity and diversity programs address intersectional concerns, specifically by having clear responsibilities assigned to managers who are tasked with improving equity and diversity.

This sounds like I talked a lot, but actually I spoke only for around 30 minutes leaving half an hour for open discussion. I received excellent questions that led to interesting discussion; I want to share a couple with you.

Addressing gender equity and diversity

Informed and practical ways to enhance gender equity and diversity in STEMM

One White woman talked about technology that strips out gender identifiers to minimise bias. These apps are good, but I will note that gender and race remain present, for example in long career gaps that are easily read as parental leave – especially stigmatising for mothers, or which may also signal chronic illness – which disadvantages people with disabilities. Similarly being educated in a non-English-speaking country identifies ethnic minorities, which I’ve shown elsewhere is a barrier for international students, even if they complete their higher education in Australia.

A Maori man had a wonderful question about how to be a better ally to women academics; he noted that his cultural response to inequity was to try and rush in and “rescue” women and he knew that was inappropriate. But he was at a loss on how to help. I said that recognising this pattern and reflecting on it was an excellent first step that all male allies should take. Additionally, men should use their position to listen to and amplify women’s voices. Speak up when a group of men engage in sexist behaviour, but when women are talking, ensure there is space for them to be heard and for their lived experiences to influence decision-making. Is the room using White women as a proxy for “all women”? This is not good – help to make meetings, conferences, panels and other important decision-making meetings inclusive to women of all backgrounds, including transgender, Indigenous, LBQIA women, women with disabilities, plus others who have intersectional identities (again, a White lesbian is not a good stand-in for “minority women”).

One White male ally asked how we can challenge scientific institutions such as professional associations and science academies, who are resistant to equity programs which they see as diluting science. I said that we need these institutions in particular to lead bold discussions about the definition of merit and “scientific excellence.” These terms were coined in a different era, when men dominated the sciences and could do so by relying on women’s childcare and domestic labour. Do these arcane definitions serve science in the present day, now that we know better? More to the point, can these arguments be used to resist equity and diversity given the wealth of scientific evidence we have about the impact of discrimination in STEMM? We need to push back on this together, and make our institutions accountable for change.

A White woman asked me for the one top action that I think will make the most significant impact on gender equity and diversity in STEMM. I wanted to say two things but in the spirit of playing fair, I nominated making managers clearly responsible for change, especially through targets and key performance indicators for managers, as this is shown to make a dramatic impact on keeping White women and underrepresented groups in STEMM. Workplaces that tie other incentives such as pay increases and manager promotion to gender equity are effective. Ongoing training (rather than one-off) as well as actively supporting the promotion of these groups to higher levels works because manager’s own careers are tied to the embodied support of gender equity and diversity.

I had a couple of questions on intersectionality after my talk; namely how to get started in STEMM. I have written a guideline for defining the issues and for beginning action elsewhere. I will republish and expand on my blog soon.

One of the themes of my visual sociology is the representation of science. Conservation is as much about social practices as it is about earth science, biology and other biophysical sciences. Today’s post is about the sociology of the National Arboretum, which sits on Ngunawal country. Ngunawal people are the traditional custodians of this part of Acton, west of the city in Canberra. Less than a seven minute drive central business district, this is one of the world’s largest arboretums for rare and endangered trees. I am no arborist. I cannot even claim to be a fan of gardening. I was interested in the Arboretum first in an attempt to capture a visual sociology of Canberra, and second to see how people interact with this place as a science centre. The focus of my post today is on the social dynamics of the Arboretum, especially on community aspects of conservation and the trees that drew the greatest interest amongst the crowds I saw: the Bonsai and Penjing Collection .

Canberra’s roots

The Ngunawal people have been in Acton for at least 25,000 years. The National Arboretum was built relatively recently, near an area sacred to the Ngunawal people. The land is diverse in plant-life as well as being rich in traditional Aboriginal knowledge of sustainable practices.

The Arboretum is home to 44,000 trees from over 100 countries, organised into 94 forests.  Three of the forests are over a century old, with the first of these planted in 1917.

While the American architect who designed Canberra, Walter Burley Griffin, had initially intended to establish an arboretum, the National Arboretum was formally built 90 years later, after the 2003 bushfires that devastated the area.

On the day I visited, the Arboretum was well attended by families and groups of friends who were charmed by the beautiful setting.

The Village Centre beckons with its science fiction-themed dome exterior. It was opened in 2013, and now displays information about the forests as well as community planning and sustainability.

Community science

The Village Centre has a focus on community science, visually displaying the data collection efforts of volunteer groups such as the Friends of the National Arboretum, the Canberra Ornithologists Group and FrogWatch. These “citizen scientists” collect tree and other biological measurements. For example, frog observation is central to better understanding the ecology of the surrounding area.

The Arboretum is used as a site to study climate change. In collaboration with the Australian National University, three forests are being used to simulate drought conditions to see how trees cope with environmental stress. Some species such as the spotted gum relies on a complex root system to sustain its water intake and others such as the red ironbark stops growing during times of drought.

Another community science element highlighted at the Arboretum is the Avenues of Honour around Australia, which dedicate the planting of trees in remembrance of fallen soldiers. The Arboretum tells us that the country town of Ballarat in outer western Melbourne was the first to establish this tradition. Similarly the nearby town of Bacchus Marsh, a 20 minute drive from where I grew up, planted close to 300 trees in 1918, four years after the first group of local soldiers went to war.

There is bountiful sociological value at the Arboretum. Displays about community and identity demonstrate how local and national practices are linked to trees and sustainability. A sign tells us:

Trees are part of national identity. They witness our triumphs and our tragedies.

Australiana is evoked via the corten steel sculpture that screams ‘Wide Brown Land‘ atop a hill. Australians would recognise this famous line from Dorothea Mackellar’s quaint and beloved poem ‘My Country.’ The artwork, made in 2010, uses cursive handwriting in an ode to Mackellar, and it can be read clearly from afar, evoking nostalgia and patriotism.

Wide Brown Land, sculpture by Marcus Tatton, Futago Design Studios and Chris Viney, 2010

Despite the splendour of the artwork, such a grand-scale celebration of Australia’s Anglo-Celtic roots stand in stark contrast to the Arboretum’s engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. While the Arboretum has an Indigenous program of guided activities, this educational resource seems to be a pre-booked service.

It might be curious that there is not more Indigenous science and art on display beyond the entrance, nor did there seem to be Indigenous professionals on site. Unfortunately, this is one way in which the Arboretum is sorely lacking, as is the case with other science programs. Indigenous knowledge has much to teach us about science, including ecology and sustainability. This is one consistent pattern I see when I visit public sites dedicated to science: the absence of Indigenous contribution and leadership.

From China to Japan to Oz

The National Bonsai and Penjing Collection is a delight, with around 80 varieties of overseas and local miniature trees designed to inspire cross-cultural connections between Australia, China and Japan.

Aged 60 years or less, the Bonsai trees in the Arboretum are only one tenth the age of their counterparts in their native homeland. From black Japanese pines to mini moss gardens, there is much to absorb.

While many Westerners outside of Japan may have heard of bonsai, penjing is the Chinese tradition of miniature landscaping and actually predate the art of bonsai. Penjing also feature rocks, figures and multiple species in the one setting. Take the Reed Pipe Rock (left below, click to enlarge). It is made from soft stones; perfect for sculpting a space for the trees which are later added. Look closely at the Chinese elm (right below). Can you see the little red fruit in the trees, above the coy red deer that watches the frolicking birds?

The Dwarf Alberta Spruce (below) are a bonsai variety. The white parts of the trunk are painted to represent dead wood; ‘jin‘ is the name for the branches and ‘shari‘ is the trunk.

Dwarf Alberta Spruce – 1950

A standout was the Queensland Small-Leaf Fig, styled from a native tree planted in 1987.

Queensland Small -Leaf Fig

One of my favourite pieces is the 165 million year old petrified tree stump fossil (below) donated by the National Dinosaur Museum. It dates back to the Jurassic era, preserved in sediment that replaced the plant material with silica, opal and other organic materials.

Petrified wood fossil

The Bonsai and Penjing Collection easily drew the largest crowds. People talked in low, animated tones pointing out beautiful foliage, while others spoke more loudly, especially Anglo-Australian men, showing off their botanical knowledge.

Family flight

Families with young children tended to rush through the outside garden that is dense with fascinating information about local conservation techniques, such as how to plant the most resilient native species in sustainable local gardens. Instead, many opted to play on the impressive Pod Playground. I must admit I wanted very badly to climb up that slide but norms of adulthood kept me firmly in place!

Others flew colourful kites in the luscious outdoors amphitheatre. A glorious array of gliding paper was on show. One family flew a giant Rainbow Flag (a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people). A Chinese-speaking family commandeered a giant dragon. Others opted for modest handmade affairs, while there were also a couple of impressive motorised kites. In fact, there were more adults gleefully flying kites than their children, who ran around squealing and rolling down the hill in sublime joy.

Whatever one chooses to indulge at the Arboretum – whether it’s bonsai admiration, climbing pods, or a sociological frolic through information displays – a very good day is guaranteed for one and all.