It is unfortunate that Ms. Lahey generalizes from her own very negative personal experiences to the whole field of fisheries, and she is not the only one who has done so in this thread. Do I think that there are sexist individuals in science who will use whatever power they have to enforce their distorted views (like her undergraduate advisor), certainly. Do I think that fish ecology or fisheries as a field is full of gender bias -- well consider this fact, both the president elect and current president of the American Fisheries Society are female as was the president two years ago (that's 3 out of 4 for you non-quantitative folks <g>). Frankly, if one took the general population of AFS members and calculated the percentage that are women you certainly would conclude that AFS is doing a great job combating gender bias by electing women to the highest office in the society, way out of proportion to their frequency in the society. Similarly, I have had only four female PhD students, less than half as many as my male PhD students - evidence of gender bias - I doubt it.
Are there fewer fisheries female faculty than are represented in the grad student population as a whole -- I don't know but I will agree with Ms. Lahey that there are not enough female role models in most of the "applied sciences"? What can we do about this, well we can seek out well qualified female/minority/gay/group of your choice students and provide them with a supportive and stimulating atmosphere so that they can reach their potential. Frankly, that's what most of my colleagues and collaborators are doing. Ms. Lahey is right that we need to start doing this at the undergraduate level, rather than at the graduate school level. I have to admit though, that the description of fisheries that Ms. Lahey provides is quite foreign to the one that I work in. As for the general topic, I guess that at this point in my career I'm more interested in what I can do as an individual, or how we can help each other solve these problems via our professional activities rather than make general accusations regarding "discrimination of your choice" in science, with frankly, little evidence other than our own personal experiences. These are difficult and complex issues, but they're not ones that I'm really interested in researching. Instead, I'd rather make my own personal contributions to combating these ills, which includes intervention in cases where discrimination is occurring within my sphere of influence. Sign a petition, sure, go to a demonstration, maybe, but I just feel that I'm having more of an impact by trying to train students from under-represented groups, which actually is quite difficult given the level of competition for these students if they're well qualified (and that includes women). Frankly, if a faculty member at our university displayed the behavior that Ms. Lahey's advisor did, then they would be in big trouble very quickly, and I can't really imagine this being a pattern and other faculty standing by and doing nothing. In addition, I've never been on a search committee in which "under-represented groups" wasn't brought up as a point of consideration, even though it is now illegal. Of course here I am just using my own personal experiences, but the point is to show students that Ms. Lahey's description of the field,while apparently accurate for her, is not accurate for many of us. Oh, and yes I had a letter writer who sabotoged me on a few graduate school letters, but my advisor apparently saw through the letter writer's attempts (as did someone in another program) because I got in. In fact anyone who's been in the field for awhile has some sort of similar story to tell - i.e., getting screwed on reviews, promotions, etc. Frankly, not everyone is nice in academia, nor even ethical, but I doubt that the frequency of this behavior is any different from behavior found in many professions. I am writing this response so that people, especially female undergrads, who are not familiar with fisheries will not be left with only one point of view on the field. I don't really want to debate the subject, and as one recent poster said -- let's work to solve these things not just complain about them. cheers, g2 -- Gary D. Grossman Distinguished Research Professor - Animal Ecology Warnell School of Forest and Natural Resources University of Georgia Athens, GA, USA 30602 http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman Board of Editors - Animal Biodiversity and Conservation Editorial Board - Freshwater Biology Editorial Board - Ecology Freshwater Fish
