Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site amdcad.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!amdcad!linda From: linda@amdcad.UUCP (Linda Seltzer) Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles Subject: Re: Re: Prejudice in graduate school Message-ID: <10677@amdcad.UUCP> Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 23:04:51 EST Article-I.D.: amdcad.10677 Posted: Fri Mar 14 23:04:51 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 21:03:25 EST References: <1220@oddjob.UUCP> <145@rtech.UUCP> <1228@oddjob.UUCP> Organization: AMDCAD, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 55 Xref: watmath net.women:9733 net.singles:10967 Summary: physics grad schools > > >I spent 15 years as a physicist (grad student, post-doc, and faculty) at > >three different institutions and I have NEVER heard any physicist, male > >or female, make any of the comments Adrian describes or anything > >remotely similar. Anyone who did > >so would have been (correctly) censured. I'm sure there are some > >Neanderthals out there, but "the norm". Come on. How about some names > >and places. I don't believe you. > I once knew a woman who came to the U.S. and who was a physics graduate student at a university other than Berkeley. One of the professors used to follow her around campus and was pestering her to marry him. Being foreign, and speaking very little English, she had know knowledge of legal procedures for handling this, and she had no desire to start trouble, which would only cause her to have to return home, embarrassed and without a Ph.D. The situation worsened, because his professor became hostile and told lies about her to her adviser/ employer. She was almost driven out of the department until one professor came to her aid and got her an R.A. to complete her work at a military facility far away. The environment there was more professional, and it seems likely that this woman will complete her degree. Now I will tell you a music story. A woman who is currently a professor in the U.S. had passed all of her courses and composition juries, but was told by the faculty that she was not good enough, and that she could not major in composition. After some complaints on her part the faculty then said that she could stay in the major if she put on a concert of her works - something noone else was required to do. So she went through all of this extra grief, in addition to classes - getting performers, having rehearsals, etc., but after the concert it wasn't good enough, and they threw her out of the major anyway, so her Ph.D. wasn't in composition. And now a MED SCHOOL story - back in the early 70's a woman was one of 3 women in her entire med school class. This woman had overcome a history of being an abused child, and she excelled in school and was admitted to med school. She won prizes in several areas, and chose psychiarty as her specialization. She finished all four years, but there was one quirk. Her advisor was also her psychiatrist. All along, he told her how much he supported her goals. But at the last minute (3 weeks before graduation, already accepted for residency), they told her she would not graduate. She had a beer at lunch and it smelled on her breath at a rotation (she was not an alcholic or heavy drinker). She appealed to the dean. Unfortunately this woman was also very beautiful and well dressed. The dean pulled down his pants, but the woman wouldn't cooperate. She did not graduate. This woman has been on Social Security for more than 13 years now as a mentally disabled person because this experience was too much for her. If the medical school thought she was not qualified emotionally to be a doctor, they could have steered her into a research career, or addressed the problem at an earlier stage.