In June, I helped organize Solutions Summit 2014: Women in Science Writing, a conference on harassment and gender bias held at MIT. Afterwards, one of my editors at The New York Times invited me to write an essay about these issues. My piece discusses our conference, the survey that we did beforehand, a similar survey that several prominent scientists conducted before ours and my personal experience with these issues. Real solutions, I conclude, will require a culture change.
“Whether harassment or discrimination takes place at a field site in Costa Rica or in a conference room, the problem will not be solved with new rules archived on unread websites. The responsibility for pushing back should not rest solely with the victims. Solutions require a change of culture that can happen only from within.”
Read the essay here, and find a link to the Science Times weekly podcast, where I discuss the essay with my editor, David Corcoran.
Christie Aschwanden 