oh noes!
won’t somebody think of the white males!
4 Likes
Gee, how about a random woman or person of color who has worked extremely hard in their field within science - who has put up with systemic racism, misogyny, and seen their own brilliant work be pillaged and plagiarized by inferiors and presented as their own ? Just because you sound like you are unfamiliar with what would be classified as obstacles and barricades that are unfortunately drawn along race and gender lines - does not mean that they do not exist.
4 Likes
This kind of thing just annoys me. Its an honest mistake, and its a bloody advert, who cares. I give young female scientists enough credit to think they won’t decide to hang up the lab coat after seeing this. Typical PC bull that is a total distraction from the real issues. If science was serious about female scientists they would install compulsory maternity leave arrangements in all postdoc and assistant professor employment contracts through NIH/NSF initiatives. Real progress. But wait, that will cost $$, so lets just make noise about a stupid advert by a company we all hate (me included).
1 Like
Who said it was a mistake? It just casually reinforces traditional views of academia. It was posted here as just that, an observation. When asked for comment, the guy who created it didn’t even know what he was supposed to be commenting on.
So, no mistake. Just the status quo. And why question that, hey?
3 Likes
I question because these same scientists are the ones paying poverty wages to postdocs, using PhD students as result factories, and at the same time not getting behind maternity leave provisions that would actually make a difference. Its easy to make noise about this kind of stupid garbage (and yes perhaps I should have used ‘mistake’) but effecting real change is much harder, and so far I’ve seen little progress.
2 Likes
Not sure if MRA, or if metasnarking…
This is a symptom of a much wider and deeper type of thought about who “real” scientists are. Media like this supports the dominant and discriminatory paradigm.
Are you working for real change to end discriminatory attitudes, policy and practice ? If you are working within science academia and you see unfair policies then SPEAK UP - loudly, specifically. Dismissing valid criticism of a really problematic issue of which this advert is a symptom as merely “stupid garbage” is not helping.
3 Likes
Or you could see it as life science, as well as many other “sciences” as being traditional practices invented and propagated by White Males and that the appropriation of such practices and traditional knowledge by women and nonwhites is an act of cultural appropriation and colonization. White Male scientific endeavors should be subsidized and protected as an indigenous cultural folkway.
Stick that in your PC pipe and smoke it.
1 Like
I’m especially stunned by the lack of thought in Elsevier’s response. To say that he “hopes” there will be more female Nobel prize winners publishing in their journals suggests a complete disconnect from the scientific institution the company services. Of course, publishers like Elsevier have a role in promoting women in science and publishing their work.
There is a long history of preferential treatment of males within academia that includes actions of the publishing houses. Hope Jahren most recently wrote publicly about her experiences with Nature, and why she turned down the opportunity for an interview. Additionally, others have commented on a commentary by one Nicholas Koube who seems to think that having babies is all that holds women back.
This is definitely not the end, nor the beginning of this story. I hope that it leads to some soul-searching on the parts of the callous tweeters and commenters out there.
3 Likes
I love that someone spoke up about this!! I’m a woman, frequently a customer of Elsevier (because they carry topics that aren’t represented elsewhere) and representation matters!! Oh my goodness, does it ever matter.
1 Like
For what it’s worth, I take the comment as snark about the quality of most HR departments token attempts at “diversity” - “we’ll put non-white/non-males in brochures, because it’s a lot easier than actually hiring them for real.”
Probably not the spirit it was intended in, granted, but I’m willing to use it to carry that flag anyways.
Well attitudes clearly are changing.
It’s also true in almost every other field of employment now that there is no noticeable gender difference for the most part in measurable things like earnings and promotions (this is sector comparison now whole economy comparison as that is basically useless because on average women choose to work in sectors areas that have lower earning potential) , I do wonder about top level execs as that does seem closed to women etc but overall the data show this parity between men and women without children. Then at about 30 as women start having children things start to split and a big gap develops between men/childless women and women with children.
There isn’t a gender gap anymore, the data is strikingly clear on that. There is a mothers gap.
It is probably one of the biggest parts of why there aren’t as many women scientists (coupled with women in some courses simply being a small minority of people doing those courses)
It’s estimated sexism (so women deliberately paid less or passed over for their promotion etc because they are women etc etc) makes up a few to 5% of the income gap. Pretty much all the rest comes from having children and a few other reasons.
There probably is a big cultural problem in the science (and also a recruitment problem) field but you are also probably underestimating the mother effect on diminishing the career of a scientist.
Why should Elsevier have any obligation to ‘reflect community diversity’ or whatever in its marketing materials, when it isn’t a state institution with that sort of stuff in its charter, and the whole point here is to say, ‘come join all these Nobel winners’?
It could just as easily be interpreted as saying they’d like to see more diversity, what with the missing jigsaw piece.
And although Reller is being a bit abrasive here, I can’t see anything wrong with his point:
The thinking was promoting our nobel winners, which is quite common. Too bad they all happen to be men. Hope that changes.
You want me to apologize for the fact that more women don’t win nobel prizes? And how exactly should I fix that today?
Whose job is it to apologise for the status quo?
I’d say that if we want to hang shit on Elsevier, there’s a plenty of more legitimate complaints than imaginary sexism or racism.
Interesting to note there may have been some actual racism in his response; either he didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole, or it didn’t occur to him that darker faces are missing too…
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
