Stigma?

[Linnea Ista]

On 14 Oct 1997, S L Forsburg wrote:

> > From: junekk at aol.com (JuneKK)
> > Would anyone like to comment why it seems on many occasions, that to
> > comment
> > about the need for organizations like AWIS (or "worse" to be active in
> > one),
> > seems to infer to so many people (including many women scientists)
> > that then
> > you must NOT be necessarily so committed to SCIENCE itself??
> > 
> > Why the stigma?
> 
> Well, there's CERTAINLY a stigma from the men if one is
> concerned about women's issues.  I get that signal very
> clearly.  Makes the dear old things quite uncomfortable.
> They think we are asking them to reduce the standards, or
> we are all planning to sue them, or something.  No gentlemen,
> we're just out to take over your jobs.  :-)  
> But if one is identified with women's issues.  
> I think one gets labelled "potential troublemaker".
This reminds me of something someone related to me when I was teaching a
an engineering university a few years back. This institution had been all
male until about 1975 or so and has quite a long way to go in terms of,
shall we say, enlightenment, about women's issues. A group of the few
female faculty were together and I had expressed some outrage that an
announcement for a meeting of SWE (Society of Women Engineers) had been
defaced in a rather crude manner. The faculty member who had started SWE
on that campus then related that when she had brought up the idea of
starting a chapter to her dean, he had told her that it would be a really
bad idea if she was planning on getting tenure there. It was seen as a
"separtist" organization. She went ahead and started one anyway and is
still waiting for tenure..... Grrr.

Linnea