In article <Pine.OSF.3.96.971009103419.13591F-100000 at saul3.u.washington.edu>,
E. Wijsman <wijsman at u.washington.edu> wrote:
>I will second Kirsten's comments here. I spent a summer in Europe in
>1975, and ran into exactly the same behavior, and not just in one place.
>However, it was unique to Germany. I spent time also in both Denmark and
>the Netherlands on the same trip, and ran into no particular problems (so
>I don't think it was just my age at the time). I was also totally shocked
>at the behavior of the German males, which took me completely by surprise.
My husband is German, and so I'd just like to say that there is at
least ONE German male who isn't like this.
I also spent a summer 10 years ago (in college) working in a
lab in Germany, and wasn't harassed at all.
On the other hand, my husband and I have decided to settle in the U.S.,
not Germany, and he is planning on eventually applying for his Green
Card. My perception is that women there have to deal with issues that
women in the U.S. had to deal with 10 to 20 years ago.
I believe that even Christiane Nusslein-Vollhard, Germany's most
famous (and deservedly so) woman-in-bio, has expressed frustration with
how difficult it is for woman scientists in Germany. I think she is
either the only, or one of two, female Max-Planck-Institute directors.
There was an issue in _Science_ a couple of years ago about women
scientists in Europe. One of the reasons it was so hard for woman
scientists in Germany was the cultural bias against day care. Countries
like Italy with government-sponsored day care did better in providing
a better work environment for woman scientists (although I personally
found Italy to be the country where I experienced the most casual sexual
harassment while travelling--these things don't apparently correlate).
Karen
