{"id":15453,"date":"2017-10-23T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/?p=15453"},"modified":"2017-10-20T11:20:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T10:20:57","slug":"harassment-and-assault-disheartening-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/2017\/10\/23\/harassment-and-assault-disheartening-trends\/","title":{"rendered":"Harassment and assault: \u2018Disheartening\u2019 trends"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Paul Smaglik<\/em><\/p>\n

The belief that rules of workplace conduct don\u2019t apply away from a university setting helps to perpetuate a culture that gives rise to sexual assault and harassment of female scientists conducting field research, says a co-author of a report<\/a> published this month in American Anthropologist. <\/em><\/h3>\n

\"pathway-1081989_1920\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The attitude means that workplace regulations around assault or harassment either don\u2019t exist in the field or aren\u2019t enforced, says Robin Nelson, an anthropologist at Santa Clara University in California. The study follows on from one conducted in 2013<\/a> that found that about two-thirds of the 666 women who were surveyed experienced some sort of assault or harassment in the field during their career.<\/p>\n

The new report features interviews with 26 of those respondents and finds some \u201cdisheartening\u201d trends, says Nelson.<\/p>\n

Respondents said that some field directors\u2014typically principal investigators who lead offsite data collection–seem to ignore the traditional rules of conduct that apply on campus. \u201cI feel like they just see this divide between the field and at home. What happens to you in the field — it\u2019s just like a different world,\u201d said one respondent. Others who experienced such settings reported feeling \u201cvulnerable,\u201d \u201cpowerless,\u201d \u201cnot in control,\u201d \u201cisolated,\u201d or like \u201cprey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson sees analogies between sexual assault and harassment in the field and the recent sexual-abuse allegations faced by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and others in the United States. Field site directors can deeply affect careers by granting or denying researchers access to data that they can get only offsite. \u201cYou have to go through them,\u201d says Nelson of field directors. \u201cThey can make or break you if you don\u2019t want to play by the rules that they\u2019ve established.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several respondents said that going to a different research team can stall a career because such lateral moves often appear to be demotions.<\/p>\n

So how to combat this problem? It starts with having clear rules of conduct about what sort of behaviour is appropriate at field sites. But \u201cjust having rules isn\u2019t enough,\u201d says Nelson, who says that universities need to clarify how to report problems. This can be complicated, she adds, because researchers in the field may not know whether to report to law enforcement at the field site, law enforcement in their home state or area or officials at their home university.<\/p>\n

Nelson suggests that researchers who are planning field work evaluate the safety of a site by first asking whether rules are in place and what sort of follow-though and accountability exists for those rules. Universities also need to step up and make sure the standards for assault and abuse they enforce on campus are also in place in the field, she adds. She also believes that the culture of fieldwork needs to change, where the experience is valued as much for the training opportunities it gives the participants as for the data such activities produce.<\/p>\n

In any event, she says, change needs to happen at many levels\u2014from university sponsor to field site director to participant. \u201dIt can no longer just be business as usual,\u201d Nelson says.<\/p>\n

Paul Smaglik is a freelance writer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suggested posts<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Confront sexual harassment<\/a><\/p>\n

US National Academies study<\/a><\/p>\n

How sexual harassment changed the way I work<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The attitude means that workplace regulations around assault or harassment either don\u2019t exist in the field or aren\u2019t enforced, says Robin Nelson, an anthropologist at Santa Clara University in California. The study follows on from one conducted in 2013 that found that about two-thirds of the 666 women who were surveyed experienced some sort of assault or harassment in the field during their career.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88283,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,191,186,195,188,1],"tags":[8505791,2626127,163,6348619,6348627,6348617,213],"class_list":["post-15453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia-2","category-admin-2","category-communication-2","category-faculty-2","category-relationships","category-uncategorized","tag-female-scientist","tag-fieldwork","tag-gender","tag-gender-bias","tag-sexual-assault","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/naturejobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}