STEM Archives - Heinous Dealings

In case you missed it: Science Careers, from the journal Science, decided to publish some advice from Dr. Alice S. Huang, former president of AAAS (the American Association for the Advancement of Science, whose tagline is “Advancing Science, Serving Society”) and someone who, according to her bio, advocates for women in science. The piece, titled Help! My adviser won’t stop looking down my shirt!, was swiftly taken down but lives on in Interneternity thanks to PDF screengrabs and the Wayback Machine.

The tl;dr of the piece? “Suck it up, Buttercup.” The rest of it is some rather disturbing and gender-essentialist apologia for the sexual harassment of women in STEM. Continue reading “#DontAskAlice for Help with Sexual Harassment” →

The Matt Taylor ShirtGate / ShirtStorm issue has been covered to death. As a supporter of women in STEM who is not herself a graduate of a STEM program, I thought I’d be okay with limiting my participation in conversations around it to signal-boosting others’ takes on it.

Kiran Opal discusses why people’s reactions to Matt Taylor’s apology were so terrible. Gretchen Koch explains with whom exactly she is angry. Phil Plait makes a case for why, although the conversation has centered around a shirt, it isn’t just about a shirt. Greta Christina took on the issue from her unique perspective as a pornographer.

Many people on Twitter and other social media platforms have brought up the fact that women and people perceived to be female face constant criticism for their clothing choices both within and outside of the workplace.

This is where my outrage as a person perceived to be female comes in.

Until the day comes where women and women-perceived people’s clothing choices are not policed to death, especially in the workplace, I am entirely unsympathetic towards Matt Taylor’s choice to express his sexual preferences via his clothing choices at work.

Continue reading “Do I Get to Dress Like the Women on Matt Taylor’s Shirt at Work Now?” →