Bullying and harassment are rampant in astronomy, reports Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) has released a report stating that 'insidious bullying is widespread in both astronomy and geophysics' and has warned that urgent action is needed to address the problem.
A bullying problem reveals an astronomy and geophysics community in crisis | Nature Astronomy
'Urgent' change needed to tackle bullying in astronomy and geophysics | The Royal Astronomical Society
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/urgent-change-needed-tackle-bullying-astronomy-and-geophysics
The RAS commissioned an independent study to look at bullying and harassment in both astronomy and geophysics, which found that 57% of respondents had experienced bullying or harassment.
The chart below shows the difference in experiences of harassment by gender. 56% of 'non-binary and other genders,' 24% of 'men,' and 44% of 'women' have experienced harassment more than twice. RAS points out that 'women and non-binary people are 50% more likely to have experienced harassment than men.'
When respondents were categorised by whether they had a disability, it was found that 52% of people with disabilities had experienced harassment, a higher proportion than those without a disability (32%).
When broken down by race, 41% of 'black and others,' 33% of 'Asian,' and 32% of 'white' had experienced harassment two or more times.
According to the RAS, other analysis results include '50% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer researchers have been harassed in the 24 months prior to the survey, and 12% of bisexual astronomers have been harassed at least once a week,' and 'People with unstable careers, such as students and non-regularly employed researchers, are more likely to be harassed.' However, this survey did not ask about the details of the harassment, so it is unclear what type of harassment the victims are experiencing.
Additionally, a third of respondents reported that their employers do not take sufficient measures to prevent harassment in the workplace, and many believe that people with power and influence are 'invincible' and cannot be punished for reporting harassment.
RAS calls for urgent action to change the widespread and ineffective treatment of bullying and harassment in astronomy and geophysics.
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