[quaz4r]

When I was an undergraduate, about 10% of my cohort were women. I worked for a professor in his lab who called me a cheerleader and would tell me how much he wished he was younger so he could date me and my friends. I presented at a conference when I was 19 and after my talk, a prof came up to me in the hallway and asked if I wanted to go up to his room. One time after sitting a graduate course, I got to overhear some of the senior faculty at my department talk about how they love summer because the freshman women sun bathe in tiny bikinis outside of their office. I worked my ass off to publish a first author paper as an undergrad and get great GRE scores. I collected my letters of rec. One focused on my personality as a young woman (that I wasn't going to be a 'fuss') and my appearance ("fit and modest with natural hair"). I was able to get into a top 5 gradschool in my field with the help of a major grant backing my studies.

When I was a graduate student about 5% of my class were women. I was able to find an advisor my first year. He added an entire section to his NSF proposal patting himself on the back for supporting women in the field and how he is increasing diversity by mentoring me, and sent it to me to read. Later that year, I was sexually assaulted multiple times by graduates in the program. The uni did nothing and I fell behind on course work. My advisor stopped meeting with me. I wasn't invited to study sessions with the other grads. I went to conferences and summer schools to try to make research connections but the conferences were always 99% male dominated and it was really hard to make a connection with anyone, especially with all of my fear. The ones who did want to talk about my work always wanted to do it over dinner. After dinner, one of them told me "I'd really like to fuck you". Another one stalked me near my house for the week he was in town. I found a new advisor. He basically ignored me the rest of graduate school and I did my best to work alone. I was not able to publish first author papers in total isolation. I managed to get second and third author contributions while retooling and applying for grants in a totally unrelated field of science in an attempt to self-rescue.

I was the only woman in my year to graduate from the program with a PhD. Most other PhD holding women in my field have similar experiences, especially if they were single through most of graduate school.

I did not go on to do a postdoc.

All of this is context so I can say: No shit if you look at metrics like hiring after obtaining the PhD it looks biased towards women. At least in my field there are about 2 women per year on the market, who made it through all of the above. This is called the "leaky pipeline" and is unaddressed in the paper. These women will be given extra consideration because they are only 5% represented in department faculty, and maybe 2% in the subdiscipline. And yes, they will likey have fewer papers and less support and less mentorship along the way, making their applications look weaker based on (arbitrary -- and I mean that!) metrics. Those metrics don't relatively measure tenacity and the ability to hunker down and push through adversity; the skills to seek out and find the right mentors; the ability to remain laser focused on a goal. I am just depressed by some of the comments in this section. Lots of people crying bias about hiring in academic departments ...that are still only 5% women.