Excellent review of an important study! I had such concerns - that this fixation on sexual harassment and #MeToo hysteria will poison the climate and ultimately hurt women professionally. And everyone socially -- by making professional interactions less fun. And here it is -- the data show exactly that. We should fight against this. I complained about ACS flashing opening slides with hoteline numbers for anonymous reporting and statements of zero tolerance to sexual harassment. This time around (Fall ACS meeting) there are no such slides, although there are signs in the halls with things like "see something - say something."
I hope someone with more tech and business savvy than I develops a pin that women who don't agree with this "women are too fragile to speak for themselves and must invoke third party enforcers to destroy men who flirt with them or otherwise make them uncomfortable" can wear to advertise this rejection of the reigning belief. Maybe connected to a database where women publicly pledge "I will tell a man to stop bothering me and only report to authorities if I have attempted to deal with this man in good faith." I don't know that men would necessarily trust it, but it would be a start.
Thanks for writing this summary, otherwise I wouldn't have become aware of Gertsberg's 84-page paper (too long for me to do more than skim) or Strumia's tweet (too short to trust on its own). Gertsberg studied 83 female academics from 58 universities, and also analyzed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The author claims that the effect was larger from MeToo than the pandemic!
I feel a sense of futility in such studies along the lines of confirmation bias, as in your words, "It comes as no surprise that the #MeToo movement did indeed reduce the number of scientific collaborations between men and women...."
You also wrote, "many men secretly confided to me that yes, they do not volunteer to mentor junior women and are circumspect ..." which makes me wonder if there are anonymous surveys that simply ask academics that sort of question, with a sampling technique that insures that respondents can feel secure to respond truthfully without implicating themselves (like, "for each T/F answer, please roll a die each time and mark the opposite of your true answer only if the roll is a 6"). I know there are such techniques - my example may not be the best in practice, but you get the idea. Of course, surveys of how people claim to behave and how they actually behave is another matter.
Astronomy Allies apparently serve a similar purpose to the ones you describe in SSE.
The normal non-insane people need to go on the warpath to fight this shit. Here's what I would do - file anonymous complaints about every single one of the people who came up with this idea. Accuse them of sexual crimes. Turn their weapon of destruction against them.
Excellent review of an important study! I had such concerns - that this fixation on sexual harassment and #MeToo hysteria will poison the climate and ultimately hurt women professionally. And everyone socially -- by making professional interactions less fun. And here it is -- the data show exactly that. We should fight against this. I complained about ACS flashing opening slides with hoteline numbers for anonymous reporting and statements of zero tolerance to sexual harassment. This time around (Fall ACS meeting) there are no such slides, although there are signs in the halls with things like "see something - say something."
In the following sentence accompanying Fig 2, it appears as through the words "light" and "dark" should be reversed.
"The light bars on the left side of the graph show the number of pre- #MeToo new collaborators, while the dark bars show post-#MeToo collaborators."
I hope someone with more tech and business savvy than I develops a pin that women who don't agree with this "women are too fragile to speak for themselves and must invoke third party enforcers to destroy men who flirt with them or otherwise make them uncomfortable" can wear to advertise this rejection of the reigning belief. Maybe connected to a database where women publicly pledge "I will tell a man to stop bothering me and only report to authorities if I have attempted to deal with this man in good faith." I don't know that men would necessarily trust it, but it would be a start.
Thanks for writing this summary, otherwise I wouldn't have become aware of Gertsberg's 84-page paper (too long for me to do more than skim) or Strumia's tweet (too short to trust on its own). Gertsberg studied 83 female academics from 58 universities, and also analyzed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The author claims that the effect was larger from MeToo than the pandemic!
I feel a sense of futility in such studies along the lines of confirmation bias, as in your words, "It comes as no surprise that the #MeToo movement did indeed reduce the number of scientific collaborations between men and women...."
You also wrote, "many men secretly confided to me that yes, they do not volunteer to mentor junior women and are circumspect ..." which makes me wonder if there are anonymous surveys that simply ask academics that sort of question, with a sampling technique that insures that respondents can feel secure to respond truthfully without implicating themselves (like, "for each T/F answer, please roll a die each time and mark the opposite of your true answer only if the roll is a 6"). I know there are such techniques - my example may not be the best in practice, but you get the idea. Of course, surveys of how people claim to behave and how they actually behave is another matter.
Astronomy Allies apparently serve a similar purpose to the ones you describe in SSE.
The normal non-insane people need to go on the warpath to fight this shit. Here's what I would do - file anonymous complaints about every single one of the people who came up with this idea. Accuse them of sexual crimes. Turn their weapon of destruction against them.
"It’s clear that well-intentioned actions (protecting women from harassment) can be taken too far."
i.e., https://www.the-sun.com/news/6072174/nightclub-bans-staring-without-getting-verbal-consent/