Sexism and science

I am a white male, born in the UK, and therefore I know as much about being oppressed, excluded or prejudiced against as David Cameron knows about struggling to make rent. There are, though, some things I feel I can say about sexism at Imperial, particularly in light of some recent Felix Comment articles.

The idea proposed last week by Ms. Skett that whining, complaining or being offended is weak and plays into the hands of a sexist culture, is problematic. Women are people. That’s the general idea here, right? And people, as we all know, are a mixed bunch. Some are fairly extroverted and self-confident, while other people are shy and find it hard to stand their ground. We come up with ideas like human rights, or equality acts, not simply because there are rotten cultures out there. It’s because they help defend the very large proportion of any population who aren’t good at defending themselves. Not everyone can stand and fight in the face of this sort of treatment. I know I couldn’t. The presence of a feminist society is encouraging, not least because it makes it clear that the problem exists and that there are people who perhaps can be sought out if students feel uncomfortable bringing their issues

Imperial has a very real undercurrent of sexism flowing through it

anywhere else.

Imperial has a very real undercurrent of sexism running through it. This operates both at the level of students, where male-dominated departments often ostracise female students, right through to the level of academics and administrators.

There are studies that show that scientists, the people who are stereotypically rational, will easily pick a student who is male over a student who is female, when shown identical application forms. Even female scientists demonstrate this tendency. Sexism is a problem at any institution, then, but particularly at Imperial which caters to subjects where a serious imbalance already exists before UCAS even get involved.

The article went on to say that only a minority are responsible for ‘true’ sexism, while the rest are just unfortunately swept up in the culture, like tiny prejudiced turds whirling around a big sexist toilet. There’s a difference, though, between unintentional sexism from misconceptions, and 24% of male students responding to Felix’s survey agreeing that female students have an advantage at Imperial. A quarter of men said that. I am almost certain that this logic is based on the idea that female students are somehow masters of seduction and enchantment, thereby enabling them to succeed through copying the work off helpless male students, or getting preferential treatment from equally helpless male staff members. Things like this are not just warning signs that sexism and gender imbalance is misunderstood by large portions of the student population –they are themselves acts of sexism. A quarter of men think that women couldn’t possibly be as good as they seem to be, and must be getting some kind of hidden advantage that men are stopped from obtaining. This is ludicrous, and belittling, and the tiniest, tiniest example of the problems Imperial faces.

We are missing out. We are missing out as a university, as a global population of scientists and engineers, by discouraging female applications, dissuading women from staying with science as a long-term career, and producing an environment that is at the very least uninviting, when it isn’t being outright hostile. The problem doesn’t start and end with Imperial, it’s true. We don’t do enough as a society to present science, technology or engineering as equal-opportunity disciplines, right from the start of a child’s life. But we can help push against this problem from the top-down, by making the finest institution of its kind in the UK an example of equality. Andit all starts with admitting that we have a problem.

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