girls' night out

I love girls' nights out!  After a long week of working hard (or hardly working, depending on the week), it's a real treat to put on a cute top, some makeup, and high heels and gab away with the girls over martinis.  When I was a grad student, most of my girlfriends were non-scientists.  Now that I'm a postdoc, most of my friends are in my field. (Maybe one day I'll write about the hostile environment in my grad department, which led me to look elsewhere for friends.)

Having a girls' night out with scientists in my field is a very different experience from my old girls' nights out.  Don't get me wrong - I have tons of fun!  It's just that some things that come up are pretty depressing.  The stories of sexual harassment and discrimination we tell are so sad.  We're lucky we have each other to talk to about it, but it's not fair that we have to experience them in the first place!

One friend was at a luncheon sitting next to another female postdoc.  That female postdoc was sitting next to an older, more prominent male scientist.  The male scientist had his hand on the female postdoc's lap and it was clear the female postdoc was very uncomfortable.  However, she didn't do or say anything.  My friend didn't know what to do either.  So nothing was said or done.  I would like to think that if that happened to me I would have slapped the male scientist's hand off and told everyone at my table what he had done.  But it's easy to think one thing but do another.  For example, one time I was out at a bar and this guy just came up behind me and squeezed my ass.  I was in shock. I would have liked to have cursed him out and I like to think that's what I would do if it ever happened again, but in the actual situation I just panicked and froze.  So what would I do if some slimy male scientist put his hands on me?  I hope I never have to find out...

There were a handful of other sexual harassment stories like this that we exchanged (like being asked point blank by a male colleague to have sex!) as well as general frustrations about being not being taken seriously, etc.  We all agreed it sucked.  There was one issue though on which we were divided.  There is this married tenured male professor (TMP) in our department.  He's just an all around perve, flirting with any woman that crosses his path: postdoc (gross), grad (double gross), undergrad (OMFG gross).  Well, supposedly a single female postdoc (FP) is reciprocating his affections.  The number of FP's talks has increased recently and many suspect that TMP is helping FP get these talks by pulling some strings.  Everyone else thought that FP was such a slut for engaging in this kind of behavior period.  The fact that she was getting talks as a result of it was even more enraging to them.  My opinion was that first there is no way to know that TMP is getting FP talks.  I mean, she's good, damn good at doing science.  I think it's more likely she got them on her merit.  Most important of all, why was everyone ganging up on her?  Everyone would preface their statements by "TMP is a bastard, but FP is XYZ"  And the XYZ was a pretty long list!  I just didn't think it was fair.  All of this gossiping about the personal life of a fellow female postdoc is toxic and not really any of our business if she really does like him.  What I want to know is if she really likes him or if she's just playing along out of fear of retribution from TMP and people blow it out of proportion.  Going back to my previous story about the guy in the club grabbing me, I just stood there.  What if she is just smiling back, thinking "holy shit, what do I do?"  I feel it's not my place to talk to her about it, but it makes me so angry that she just can't win in this situation because people have already made up their minds about her.   I wish I had said what I wrote here aloud but whenever I tried to disagree with what people were saying, they were quick to say things like "oh no she definitely knows what she is doing and likes it."  Besides, they saw them interacting, not me, so I gave in but I felt guilty for doing so.  If this ever comes up again, maybe I'll say some of what I wrote here.

So like I was saying, I love girls' nights out!  But from time to time a girl scientists' night out reminds me of the uncontrollable circumstances that we face and it makes me pretty mad.