Gender Discrimination in Security Studies

 Yesterday, I participated in a roundtable on gender discrimination in security studies at the annual conference of the European Initiative on Security Studies [EISS].  EISS is a relatively new network of European security scholars.  This is, I believe, my third time attending, as I have been seeking to build connections between the CDSN and Europe.  It doesn't hurt, of course, that the EISS conferences have been in Paris, Berlin, and now Barcelona.  I presented my very preliminary work on the next project--variations in what Defense Agencies (DoD, MoD, etc) do, receiving lots of very helpful comments during that panel and the lunch that preceded it.  

A couple of months ago, Hugo Meijer, the Director of EISS, asked me if I would be willing to join a panel on gender discrimination.  I had some hesistancy as I am not an expert--as I told the room yesterday, I am a feminist but my work does not take feminist approach to international relations and I don't study gender.  That last bit is not as true as it used to be, as I am involved in a project that has surveyed Canadian security scholars about their experiences, focusing on gender discrimination.  But I agreed to speak since I have seen a lot of problems over the years and was going to be the most experienced (oldest) person on the panel.  Plus I was the only one to give a North American perspective.  I was joined by fellow civ-mil scholar and super kind Chiara Ruffa of Science Po as well as two feminist scholars who were online: Annick Wibben of Swedish Defence University, and Vanessa Newby, Leiden University.

We were asked two questions: when did we first notice gender problems in the field and what is some advice we have for handling this stuff?  The first question was pretty easy: almost immediately as there was a case of sexual harassment in my grad program.  I then discussed that two of the places that I worked had toxic environments thanks to male profs preying upon grad students, as well as citation patterns and hiring stuff.  That men have often reported that women get all of the jobs, which is strange since there are still plenty of men in the discipline.  I didn't have time to get into the love of old boys networks by some senior scholars or how some post-doc funders tended to only give to men back in the day.  In short, lots of problems which I have discussed here from time to time.  Chiara, Annick, and Vanessa had much more to say on this, alas.  

For the second question, I cautioned that I can't really tell women how to behave--not my role--but I had some ideas for making some improvements--building from my CDSN experience--to be deliberate about panel organization--no manels, deny platforms to those who are known to be predators or otherwise assholes, find or found organizations that seek to elevate and mentor women and work with them, as we have with WIIS-Canada, WCAPS-Canada, as well as Out in National Security such as WIIS Europe.  

In the following Q&A, folks raised questions about the pace of change and what can we do in the face of structural problems.  I mentioned this meme: 

 But then I noted an earlier presentation that day invoked structuration theory (something I wrote about in my very first IR theory class in grad school, taught be the gone too soon John Ruggie)--that agent and structure shape each other.   So, we need to act individually and collectively to change the norms, the institutions, and the social structures that, well, maintain patriarchy.  I pointed out that when I started, the room would have been almost entirely male, and that EISS and CDSN are efforts to foster more diverse defence/security communities.  These folks have a right to be impatient, but we ought not be too pessimistic or deterred--we can make a difference and improve things.  

It was a good and important conversation to have, and I hope it spurs further conversations.  It was strange to be discussing this stuff on a day where the US Supreme Court made things worse for women, for LGBTQ2S+, and for other historically excluded groups... but definitely much needed.

International Women's Day 2020: A Weekend With Badasses

To celebrate International Women's Day, I am posting pics and slides from yesterday's Women in International Security-Queens conference, and discussing what I learned and what I presented.  This event is largely run by female undergrads at Queens, yet it was a pretty high power event.  They got the Deputy Minister, Jody Thomas, Mercedes Stephenson, the Ottawa bureau chief for Global, and Senator Marilou McPhedran as the keynote speakers--all were most impressive and interesting.  I live tweeted at #WIISQ, so I will not repeat all of what they said, but I will hit a few highlights before summarizing what I said during my presentation.

Gender Violence and the CAF

I went to an event today on Gender Violence and the Canadian Armed Forces.  Why?  Because it was co-run by two organizations--Women in International Security Canada and the Conference of Defence Associations Institute--that are key partners in the Canadian Defence and Security Network and because personnel issues are one of five key themes that the CDSN will focus on (if we manage to get funding).  Going to events like this allow me to catch up a bit with the stuff in an area that is relevant but mostly adjacent to my research.  That is, stuff I am interested in, but don't have time to read.  Like the IUS-Canada conference in October (another partner), I am struck by the intelligence of the folks in the room AND the challenge facing the CAF, DND and pretty much everyone else.

I was also struck by how few men were there.  A room of about 30 folks had four men plus one of the organizers.  A male speaker dropped out due to illness.  My tweeting of this led to much conversing online.  Yeah, men tend to see gender as a woman's issue for which they have little time.  However, toxic masculinity is toxic for men, too, as the raw numbers show more men being sexually assaulted in the CAF than women.  That might be an artifact of the percentages--that there are far more men than women in the military--but the reality is that men pay a price for this.  Also, much sexual harassment may be aimed not so much at the immediate target--a woman--but towards the other men, that men prove their manliness to other men by picking on women.

The first speaker was Dr. Manon Leblanc, a scientist at the Director General Military Personnel Research and Analysis (yes, another CDSN partner).  Her focus was on the effort to gather data--what the various surveys caught, what they missed, and the next wave of research.  The findings were largely unsurprising: LGB face more discrimination/assault/harassment (no T in this due to small number of trans gender personnel filling out the surveys).  More work needs to address the behavior of bystanders and more interviews with the targets of abuse.  There was some Q&A and discussion about the best way to describe those who face sexual misconduct--victim, survivor, target, affected personnel.  Which led to a larger conversation of how much of the work talks past each other due to different jargon.  People preferred not to use victim as that is problematic, with target fitting in with military language better.

The next speaker was Lieutenant Commander (retired) Rosemary Park, Director of Servicewomen's Salute. This is perhaps the only organization that represents female veterans as a group in Canada.  She pointed out that we have had repeated crises and not much apparent improvement.  That there has been no little change in the organizational culture.  She did refer to a new documentary coming out next year, Invisible Force, that presents the women who have come out and reported their experiences as targets of sexual assault. (here's the trailer) I will definitely be considering that doc for my Civ-Mil class next fall.

After lunch, which was nicely designed to facilitate some good follow-up discussions/networking, Commodore Rebecca Patterson, Director-General of the CAF Strategic Response Team-Sexual Misconduct discussed her job, her office and her background.  I met her during lunch--she is quite impressive.  She articulated quite well the challenge facing her and what the role of the chain of command is in all of this.  She indicated that they welcomed the Auditor Gener  al's report.  One of the key problems is that there are services for those harmed by se

xual misconduct, but people don't know how to access them--that there are still too many barriers and silos.  She said that the CAF will have a strategic plan in October 2019.  This might seem slow since this stuff got priority after the Deschamps Report in 2015, but she did hit one of my favorite notes--that we need to focus on outcomes, not just outputs. 

The last speaker, Dr. Chantal Ruel of the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre, presented the new efforts--more bilingual staff available 24/7.  Many of the calls they receive are from officers asking how to handle complaints they receive.  The hard part is that attitudes about the CAF haven't changed--that those in the military don't yet trust the CAF chain of command to handle these problems well.  So, that might depress reporting.

There was much expertise in the audience, so the questions and comments were quite good.  I didn't get a chance to ask my question as I had to go: while not all misogynists are racists or homophobes, those folks who self-identify as racists are likely to be misogynists and homophobes.  So, wouldn't getting rid of these people and sending messages that this is not to be tolerated work on multiple problems at once?  I guess what is on my mind has been stories of white supremacists in the CAF being identified but not punished and kicked out.  If that stuff is not driven out of the force, how can anyone expect progress on gender?

I did develop some sympathy with the folks on the panels doing the hard work in and around DND/CAF: that much of the effort started only in 2015.  It is unrealistic to explain cultural change quickly.  In the classic argument between my daughter and myself, the question is whether some progress should make us feel better or should we be impatient and demand more progress faster?  I guess at this point, given what is happening in the US, as long as the trend line is still positive, I can't criticize too much.  Still, the folks today all indicated that outside criticism, feedback, insights are welcome, so join in and tell me and them what the CAF and DND should be doing to make bigger, faster, more enduring improvements.

And if you want a more complete version of the conversation, check out  the live tweeting of the event on the WIIS-Canada feed. 

Diversity and Gender: Catching Up with the Armed Forces and Society Folks

As I have blogged here on occasion, I have been working with a team of sharp folks to build the Canadian Defence and Security Network.  The latest grant effort is due this week, so the timing of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society-Canada could not be better timed.  The IUS-C is a partner of the CDSN, so I not only interested in their stuff, but semi-obligated.  I learned a great deal, and it made me feel pretty great about what we are trying to do.

The IUS, US version or Canadian version, is a multidisciplinary group of scholars from both civilian and military universities and research centres that focus on the relationships between militaries and their societies.  Armed Forces and Society is the journal that is attached to this organization, and is the leading journal that is focused on civil-military relations.  The group is far more inter-disciplinary than damn near any association I have experienced.  This weekend, I was surrounded by sociologists, psychologists, and a variety of others plus a sprinkling of political scientists. 

The theme this year was Diversity for a variety of reasons, but to be clear this meant not just focusing on gender, race, ethnicity and the like but also cognitive diversity (more on that below).  This meant largely focusing on personnel issues--how to recruit, train, and retain a diverse (whatever that means) force.  Given that personnel is one of the five key CDSN themes but perhaps the one that is least familiar to me, this was an excellent way for me to drink from the fire-hose (an expression I learned in the Pentagon) and get a better grasp of what I have been editing (the personnel theme folks wrote the relevant parts of the application). 

So, what did I learn?  First, I found it interesting that the program itself did not mention affiliations, so status hierarchies, which can exist, could not really shape what panels one attends.  I don't know if it was deliberate or not.  Second, I learned that "science advances one funeral at a time" as change happens when the oldest stubborn folks are replaced by younger ones.  Given that I am older than most people in the room, um, swell. 

Third, I learned about cognitive diversity.  This is a contested idea, as the speakers were wary about the possibility that folks who want more cognitive diversity might be seen as or actually trying to substitute more different thinking white dudes rather than having more different people (women, people of color) which is what we usually think.  Cognitive diversity seemed to mean actually people who think differently, which is a challenge for organizations that want everyone on the same page.  But there seem to be benefits for having some people be more risk acceptant, some to think outside of the box, more "Enders" as one put it, referencing Ender's Game.  Lots of pushback from the military as they don't want too much questioning of orders.  But how to do you get good strategists? Probably not by having everybody think the same.  How do you get change?  Ditto.  One way to focus on diversity of thought and diversity of people is that people with different lived experiences are likely to think differently, so seeking people who think differently need not be a way to dodge making the force look more like Canada.  And, of course, my self-centered take on cognitive diversity is that if the military is not great at fostering people thinking differently, maybe they can hang out with those who are trained to think differently and inclined to do so--the shaggy academics. That is, a partnership with academics, such as the CDSN, may not be a solution to the problem of cognitive diversity in the CAF, but it can be a way to ameliorate the problem.

Fourth, via a panel on integrating gender perspectives into defence and security, I got a better grasp of what has been going on over the past couple of decades--what the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 means, what is the Women, Peace and Security agenda is and what are GENADS (gender advisors) and other new roles in the military.  Given that our grant application needed better citation of this stuff, it was great that my RA happened to be at this panel.  Also, since I just included a week on gender and civ-mil for the first time, it was nice to see how the latest stuff fed off of and reacted to some of the stuff I had talked about in class last week.  One consistent them--GBA+ means not gender-based analysis but much attention to other identities/dimensions and heaps of intersectionality.  A good reminder that identity is complex.  A big question is whether progress was actually getting made--lots of division in the room about that.  A trans-gender CAF officer corrected the panel on how they referred to male/female and men/women, and that was most instructive. 

Fifth, military sexual trauma is something the CAF has a huge problem dealing with--yes, the CAF is trying, but so many aspects of the process are still pretty broken.  For instance, it is the case that at some places, the officers and NCO's responsible for handling reports of sexual harassment are people who engage in sexual harassment.  Not great. There have been some improvements--that it used to be the case that reporting some kind of mental trauma from being sexually assaulted was sufficient grounds to be pushed out of the military--that one was no longer fit to be deployed.  That stopped recently apparently, but talk about retention problems!  If a significant hunk of the women are assaulted and they all get pushed out, then it is not hard to figure out a key problem retaining women. Oh, and the various services and groups for veterans need to be reformed in order to make women and especially those who have survived MST to feel welcome and give them support.

A big move has already taken place--the military used to be gender-blind, thinking that was the best way not to discriminate.  But it is kind of like Stephen Colbert not seeing race. It allows one to ignore all kinds of distinctions and challenges, such as needing different armor for people with hips and breasts that are not the typical male shapes.  

I am reminded when I hear this stuff of many conversations I used to have with my daughter.  I would say there is progress (this is Pre-Trump, obviously), and she would say it was not happening fast enough.  And eventually I would realize she was and is right.  The changes that are happening are not happening fast enough.  And it is not clear if the initiatives of today will endure and be sustained.

On the other hand, I learned a lot and am glad that IUS-C is a partner of the larger CDSN effort.  I have a clearer idea of what our personnel-related projects will be, if we can get funded. And, again, I am reminded that the effort to get money to build a network is actually leading to us folks being better networked. The money would be handy to do stuff, but at least the enterprise is already creating connections and helping to exchange perspectives.  So, woot for #TeamCDSN.

Gender and Syllabi: A Progress Report.

Many threads in the past two days on gender and race and citations.  That what ends up being cited and being on syllabi tends to be the product of not so much merit but merit plus path dependence plus other stuff going on, which means women and minorities are under-represented (see this storify that has the threads by Paul Musgrave and Dan Nexon).  Similar dynamics tend to apply regarding syllabi--women are under-represented.*

*  I focus on women here, because I am not sure how to do a better job of adding minorities to my syllabi.  Simply put, it is far easier to identify women (although not always) than minorities via names if I don't know the people. 

I focus on this rather than citations since I just finished the syllabus to one of my classes: Civil-Military Relations.  For the past couple of years, I have been more aware of this stuff, so I have tried to improve the gender balance on my syllabi.  Unlike journal articles where the editors might extend the word count to improve the gender balance (h/t to Dan Nexon, see the storify), a syllabus is more or less a zero-sum game.  I can't add tons of new readings and expect the students to read them all (the iron law of reading assignments--the more you assign, the less they read).  So, some folks do get dropped from required to recommended as I seek to improve the gender balance.  I don't aim for 50%--I just aim for more.

For the stuff I teach, it tends to be not that hard to find stuff written by women.  For some aspects/weeks, it is easier than others right now.  Alliances?  Not a problem with folks like Patricia Weitsman, Sarah Kreps, and others.  For Canadian defence, tis harder.  Counting pieces of required reading by whether is one or more women involved (solo or co-author), my syllabus is 37% women.  I used Jane Summer's tool to see how this syllabus does: it says the authors are 28% women, 1.5% Asian, 9.2% Black, 4.2% Hispanic and 83% White.  I have to get the syllabus into the library so I will send it as is, but in the next year, I will keep an eye out for work that is in this area from groups that are less represented.
Update: Using http://womenalsoknowstuff.com/experts-by-area/, I have found a bunch of women doing civil-military stuff--mostly junior profs and grad students, so I will be revising my syllabus a bit.


Why? Because it is the least I can do.  It does not involve much work--mostly awareness and a smidge of self-awareness.  Students are less likely to model themselves after people who are dissimilar to them, so I think it is a good thing to try.  Also, when it comes to syllabi, some folks are more likely to get promoted if they can prove that their work is used in syllabi around the world.  Tis harder now as many syllabi are on gated coursework sites (blackboard, webct), but not impossible.  Anyhow, it seems like the right thing to do.  And yes, working on this is a good way to procrastinate on the article I need to finish for the APSA meeting in late August.* 

* The deadline for that (August 14th) is silly and according to this survey likely to be disrespected. 

Loser's Lurgy

I have written before about how much I hate folks using Social Justice Warrior as an insult.  A friend of mine was called one today and she accepted it with pride:

That moment when someone tries to insult you by calling you a lefty Social Justice Warrior- and it makes your day! https://t.co/M8Ic2jRnnp

— Megan H. MacKenzie (@MeganhMackenzie) December 1, 2015

This led to a conversation back and forth about what it all means.  That it is ironic that these folks are so upset that the SJW's are winning, including via the inclusion of women in more and more parts of the US military. 

I became familiar with this SJW insult via the gamergate controversy.  I cannot help but note the irony that those who play games get so upset when they lose in the field of gender politics.  Why?  Because if one plays enough games, one has to get used to losing.  Unless one possesses a cheat code, of course.  I play heaps of poker, and the reality is that even when one wins much of the time (I was on a roll a few years ago), one loses much of the time.  Even the best poker players lose far more often than they win (thinking tournaments here, not fleecing amateurs).  In all games, losing is an ongoing reality.

Well, the folks who are upset at social justice warriors are upset because they have been losing.  Oh how they have been losing.  Sure, patriarchy still exists and they can still take some comfort in that, women are doing far better than they were twenty or thirty or forty years ago.  Yes, they still don't get paid enough, but they are doing very well in school, leading most of the organizations and outcompeting the men in getting the top grades.  The opponents of the SJWs are upset that women and their allies are becoming a threat with their increased power and influence.

Sucks to be them.  All I know is that when people hurl around SJW as an insult, I then devalue anything else they say.  They lose credibility instantly.  Sure, one can find various policy stances to be problematic, but if you want to diminish someone for fighting for social justice, that makes you a social injustice warrior, right?
 

All Male Panels and the Least One Can Do

The movement to reduce/end all male panels continues.  I saw this post a day after a friend asked me for a list of potential women's names to go with awards of a major association.  That is, the association would like to have more of its awards named after women, and it was not impossible but not easy to come up with a handful of senior women who had influenced the field before the 1990s (I kind of assumed they wanted people who had retired rather than currently active folks). 

But the leaky pipeline problem tends to mean that there are fewer women who can be nominated for all kinds of things than men.  The good news is that as long as one is not ageist or too beholden to titles, one can find suitable women for panels quite easily since there are many, many sharp women in most fields and especially IR at the junior/associate levels. 

My work, in the general area of international security, was once viewed as a male-dominated field.  However, as my favorite books list indicates, there are plenty of women doing excellent work in this area (and I am not well-read so there are certainly many sharp women whose work I would admire if was up on my reading).  So, it should not be that hard to organize panels that include women.

And, indeed, it is not.  The focus of the post at the top is on agreeing only to serve on panels where there is at least one woman, but many of us end up not just being invitees but organizers.  I have organized a speaker series at my previous job, and I have organized many panels for various events, including sections of annual meetings of professional associations.  Sometimes, the effort to have women involved is deliberate/intentional, such as when the aforementioned speaker series had traditionally been very much a male-dominated one.  But most of the time, it is actually pretty much a byproduct of including the most interesting people.*

* One complication is when organizing an international conference: the gender of individuals may not be clear from the names of those submitting proposals, and these events are big enough that organizers may not know anything about these people.  Given finite time, searching for the genders of all those submitting to such fora may be a challenge.  Something to think about.

It is true that the effort to produce mixed panels may be harder as more people make the effort, as people may have limited ideas of who the right people are, and those women cannot meet every request.  But as the Washpo piece suggests, then a little more effort is required.  The really good news is that there are more sharp, articulate women at all levels than there once was, so the all male panel should die off .... unless organizers remain/become deliberately obtuse about this. 

Anyhow, more attentiveness by males to the composition of the panels upon which they are invited to appear is, again, the least one can expect to do.

Pondering Sexism in Syllabi

After a duck of minerva piece (and associated published article) that documents some sexist patterns in what appears on IR syllabi, there has been some pushback, suggesting that choosing women's work over men's might be sexist as well.  Damn. What to do?

Well, I had several reactions:

• um, guilty?  I tend to promote women's stuff here, as their stuff tends to get omitted from favorite book lists (which might just shape and be shaped by syllabi), and given the quality of this stuff, their work is not being omitted due to being inferior.  I tend to assume sexism is in play in ways that work against women because I have seen a heap of sexism in the field.  It is not like men are not being cited and not being listed on syllabi, so I don't fear that they (we) face discrimination. 
• Any view that women's work might be cited less/used less on syllabi because it is inferior needs to have a theory of inferiority.  What would make women, on average, do worse work than men?  I have no idea.  
• I do have a theory of male inferiority: that some men have been able to succeed due to privilege and even have reinforced existing patterns of discrimination that they can publish inferior work in top outlets and appear on heaps of syllabi.  I call such folks IR trolls.  That I might discriminate against using the work of big name males because I am not sure their work is as good whereas women's work had to be better to get published/cited/become canonical.  
• Seriously, women and men, on average, do equally good work, so if I find a syllabus having many more work by males than by women, I swap out some of the male work and replace with work written by women.  It does no harm since the work is basically equivalent, yet helps to remind students that there are sharp women doing work in this area.  

Measuring Progress is Difficult

It is often very hard to figure out what an event means.  Today, there is a report of Canadian Lt. Colonel being prosecuted for sexual assault.  But the assaults took place from 1998-2007.  So, is this delayed justice showing how slow, bureaucratic and broken the process is?  Or is it a sign of new times?  That the decision (or the announcement) happened very shortly after a new Chief of Defence Staff took over?   With a message of taking this stuff seriously?

The reality is it is probably a mix--something should have happened long before now, but a new boss with a clear priority on this might be pushing the case forward.  And yes, the CDS has a role in this because he has the job of enforcing discipline with the Canadian Armed Forces, not the Deputy Minister and not the Minister of Defence.  This is squarely in General Vance's area of responsibility. 

If we see more prosecutions in the next month or two (and announced via David Pugliese), then it will be clearly a sign that a change is underway.  

Sexism in Political Science: Fact or Fact?

There is a discussion on PSR about sexism in political science, with most folks concurring that it is still an issue with some deniers pointing out that support groups for women are exclusive, too.  Um, yeah.  How to address such discussions?  I go to my standard operating procedure: what have I seen over the years?  The answer: a heap of sexism which has not gone away.

First, there is the repeated myth that jobs are gamed for women and minorities, which explains why white men don't get jobs.  Of course, this defines all women and minorities who do get jobs as less qualified.  The problem with this myth is that it is not true.  I cannot speak for the other subfields, but my work with the TRIP data indicates that IR scholars are mostly white (80*%) and mostly male (70%), and that these numbers have only changed modestly since they started doing TRIP surveys ten years ago.  You would think that if most of the jobs were going to women and minorities, the numbers would have swung.  I also would not have much in the way of male friends in the business that are my age or younger if women were always or mostly beating the men.
      In my career, I have lost many job competitions and I cannot think of one where an inferior woman beat me out.  I have mostly lost to males, including some I consider superior to me, some that are my equals and a few that I would consider to have inferior records at the time.   Indeed, most of the job searches I remember, I was competing against other men, including my first and second tenure-track/tenured jobs.
     The repetition of this myth helps to foster sexism by allowing the men who share it to consider the women (and minorities) as inferiors who did not earn their jobs.  Indeed, I originally came out on PSR as myself to de-myth a job search my department was running--that we were only looking for females for a particular job search. 

Second, while sitting in various departments, I have seen plenty of sexism.  At my first tenure track job:

• one faculty member was sleeping with multiple female grad students, creating a very hostile work environment for all;  I was told  that one of the perks of the job was "they let you screw the students here." 
• one faculty member said at a job search meeting that a female candidate did not need the job because her husband had a job;
• every sexual harassment workshop for the department was trivialized by some of the older males.  

      At my next job, there was a serial sexual harasser.  I had heard about him before I got there, and then another incident happened.  Because it was all covered in confidentiality, only a few faculty (and all of the grad students at the time) learned of it.  There was a concerted effort to make sure this guy would not serve as adviser to any grad students and especially females.  That effort has apparently dissipated as I recently learned that he is serving as an adviser to female grad students again.  Somewhat less problematic was that we had a speaker series that seemed to invite only males with the occasional token female sprinkled in.  The one year I ran it, I found several female scholars who presented excellent talks and one token male who did great as well.

Third, almost always when I see a list of a person's favorite books recommended on some blog, it has somewhere between zero and one females.  Which is why I wrote this post a while back which took little time to write since most of my favorite books are by women.  Similarly, we see plenty of panels and workshops that have few, if any, women, such as the most recent Aspen Forum.

Fourth, we actually have some IR scholars lamenting the end of the Old Boy's Network.  Note Boy's and not Girls or Kids or whatever.  These folks sit in powerful positions.

Fifth, I also see my female friends be far more burdened by service (there was a recent graph flying around the internet demonstrating that women and minorities do far more service than white men).  Since there are relatively fewer women and minorities who are tenured or Full, they tend to get hit with lots of requests as people want a balance or representation on committees, among letter-writers, whatever.  Good intentions that lead to bad outcomes since service goes unrewarded.

Sixth, I have seen far more attacks at PSR on women for their looks, for their relationships, for daring to beat a man out in a job competition and more.  I don't think that PSR is representative of the discipline, but it does shape attitudes and perceptions.  I don't think the profession is as hostile to women as it used to be, but PSR often makes the case that not much has changed (the evidence would be more obvious if the moderators didn't delete many of the offending posts and threads).

Seventh, women get paid less, promoted less despite/because of doing more service, and get less research money.  Thanks to Page Fortna for reminding me of this (in the comments). 

I am sure there is plenty of sexism that I didn't observe as it did not affect me directly, and I tend to be oblivious.  The reality is that path dependence is a bastard--making it harder to compensate for the sins of the past.  Of course, there are still plenty of sinners still around as I have discovered in my academic travels.  There has been progress, as there are more women who are successful and have gotten tenure, but there are still plenty of impediments and enough men with lousy attitudes/beliefs.  Which is why we need some vigilance when people put forth the old BS.

The Next Fights

My previous post was on focusing on the policy victory and not the games down the road.  But there are other fights to be had.  This map from the NYT illustrates the challenge:




It did not translate that well, but the idea here is where there are "laws protecting against sexual orientation- and gender-identity based discrimination" in public sector employment, private sector employment, housing and public accommodations  respectively.  The pattern is obvious--best to be in the Northeast or West or mid-midwest (Min, Wis, Iowa, Illinois).

Much room to perfect the union.... alas.

Some Thoughts on Canadian Forces Sexual Misconduct Report

There is much to think about in the aftermath of the report on the challenges women encounter in the Canadian Forces.  The striking piece, of course, is the finding that there is a culture of misogyny in the CF--not because we are surprised it exists but because it so completely wipes away the denials of the past year or two.

Still, the military is resisting: that most of the report's recommendations were met with "accept in principle" which really means: "we don't want to do it, and perhaps will find a way to evade as the spotlight shifts elsewhere."  That might be a smidge unfair, but there really has been an incredible lack of leadership here.  As Stefanie Von Hlatky asked, where are the defence minister and prime minister on this?   The Prime Minister is Iraq!  Well, isn't that convenient?  The defence minister deferred to the military: "Kenney’s spokeswoman said the issue was better left to military leaders to deal with."  Yeah, because that has worked so far.

The timing was not just convenient for Harper, but for the military.  The outgoing Chief of Defence Staff Tom Lawson has handled this problem poorly, but he is going away.  The new CDS, Jon Vance, can point to this report and the problems as being something that he inherited.  Which suggests something else about timing--there was a long gap between when the decision to pick Vance was leaked and when it was announced.  Which might be due to many things, but having this report come out before he takes the job is probably very much a blessing for the new CDS.

Anyway, back to the response with the typical first Canadian instinct--don't compare us to the Americans:

“Additionally, the American and Canadian processes are not parallel or identical,” Armstrong [DND spokesperson] said. “Canada’s military has taken an independent approach to investigating sexual misconduct within its ranks and is now implementing its action plan in response. The government supports that effort.”

How about Australia instead:


Instead,

"I was struck by the lack of comment from the prime minister and defence minister,” said Stefanie von Hlatky, who specializes on gender in the military at Queen’s University. “It signals that it’s not a priority, and it would feed some doubts in my mind about the government’s seriousness.”

In the days, weeks, and months ahead, we need to keep a focus on this.  How to do that?  Follow @svhlatky.

How Security Studies is Like Casablanca

There is gambling at Rick's?  Shocking.  There is sexism in security studies equally not so shocking.  I have been in this business for more than twenty years and you can add grad school to that.  Ever since I have been in it, I have heard stories and also witnessed a significant degree of sexism in this area (I am not as attuned to the sexism in other parts of IR or other parts of poli sci).

So, I found it particularly frustrating last night to be involved in one thread at PSR and another on twitter addressing the issue of women in poli sci and IR in very different ways.  At PSR, there are a bunch of folks repeating the same myths that women get heaps of jobs because of affirmative action.  On twitter, folks got riled up because there was not a single woman listed on the program of the next Aspen Security Forum.  A nice juxtaposition of myth and reality.

The reality is that both men and women are getting jobs and both men and women are not being placed and are frustrated about the academic job market.  In all of the searches I have been involved in at universities in the US and Canada, I have seen it happen one time that a women was offered a job because of her gender ... maybe.  That it was a situation where two candidates were quite good and the tie went to the woman.  Otherwise, my anecdata goes the other way--that I have seen colleagues say things like: "well, her husband has a job, so she doesn't need this one."

In security studies, there has always been a perception that there was an old boys network that favored men and the misogynists.  Perhaps feeling free to express nostalgia for the old boys network is some evidence of this.

I posted a list of books written by women about 18 months ago, mostly in the security area, as a list of my favorite books both to prove a point and because it was largely true. I was responding to a post somewhere (I forget) that listed the best books and omitted female authors.  It didn't take more than five minutes of thinking to come up with a list of ten (or more) books written by women that are among my very favorites.  I didn't label it as a list of ten great books written by women, just my ten favorite books.

As Aspen Security Forum proved, perhaps inadvertently, sexism is quite alive and well in the field of security despite the fact that women are doing excellent work in academic and making a difference in policy positions.  Getting the best speaker or the best person for the job should mean that women are among those chosen--not because they are women but because they are among the best.

Need a conference on private military contracting?  You better invite Deborah Avant.  Working on non-violence?  You better read and cite Erica Chenoweth.  Terrorism?  Chenoweth again, Mia Bloom, etc.  Pakistan?  Christine Fair.  Identity and violence?  Stacie Goddard, Erin Jenne, Monica Toft.  Alliances?  Invite Sarah Kreps and Stefanie Von Hlatky and read Patricia Weitsman. The US national security apparatus?  Amy Zegart. Civil-military relations?  Avant again.  Crime and international security?  Louise Shelley.  Nuclear taboo?  Nina Tannenwald.  Canadian defence?  Elinor Sloan and the aforementioned Von Hlatky.  Quantitative work on war?  Sara Mitchell.

I could go on and on.  It really is not that hard.  Indeed, as others have noted, leaving women out might actually require some work. 

I do think there has been a hell of a lot of progress made, but dammit, it is clear that there is still so much room for improvement.  Thanks to the Aspen Security Forum for reminding us not to take for granted that we need to more and better.

Rape Culture Close to Home

Sometimes, the phrase rape culture seems confusing.  Other times?  Not so much.  Carleton University is in the news because of these shirts:





These Carleton students were not random kids, but "Facilitators" whose job it was/is to help new students adjust to university life at Carleton.  The shirts were meant, apparently, as protests--of new Carleton guidelines to create a safe space.  What does that mean?  The news focuses on swearing but the idea is not to use misogynist or homophobic language.  That Carleton should be a safe space for people--where there is tolerance for diversity, where women can feel like they are like something other than objects, where LGBT students don't have to worry about being beaten, and so on.  Given the news over the past year about campus rape, one has to be pretty oblivious to think that saying "Fuck safe space" might not have a meaning beyond "I would like to swear."

I sure hope Carleton can force these kids to drop out of their roles as facilitators.  Why?  Because they are supposed to be leaders, and when you choose to accept leadership, you are choosing to accept responsibility.  If you don't want to follow the school's rules, then don't apply to these positions.  Pretty simple.  And if you do accept the spot, think for just five minutes how others might see the shirts.  They might not see it as a protest of a restriction of free speech, but they might instead see it as saying--we want a campus to be a place where rape is tolerated.  Is that what they want to say?  That they are pro-rape?  Because that is how this comes off.


And if they say that they did not understand the consequences of what they were doing, well, fine.  Folks without judgment should not be in leadership roles.  So, quit and accept your lesson.  I am not asking for the students to be kicked off campus/suspended/expelled.  I am just asking that they be deprived of leadership positions for which they are obviously unqualified.

UPDATE:
The President's letter to the Carleton Community:

Sept. 8, 2014

 

To All Members of the Carleton Community:

 

Carleton University has investigated an off-campus gathering on Sept. 7, 2014 involving Carleton students who wore T-shirts with offensive wording. The event took place after Orientation Week officially concluded. The event was not an officially-sanctioned Orientation Week activity. 

 

Some of the students wearing the shirts with offensive wording were orientation facilitators. Such behaviour is not acceptable and extremely disappointing to the broader Carleton community. Those involved have indicated that they will issue a sincere public apology and work with the university to ensure that such behaviour does not occur again in the future. 

Sanctions will be issued subsequent to individual meetings. 

 

The Safe Spaces initiative is part of the university’s broader Human Rights policy. It has been in place at Carleton for over 10 years and has been supported by the Department of Equity Services. The program has been a success, with training delivered to thousands of students, as well as faculty and staff. 

 

The inappropriate action did not undermine the overall effectiveness of Carleton’s Orientation programming and the university remains committed to carrying on with its education and outreach to ensure safe spaces for all and an inclusive educational environment. 

 

Similar to other campuses in North America, we will continue the discussion about inclusivity, safe spaces and maintaining a safe campus. 

 

The university takes this incident seriously and will work with utmost diligence to continue the efforts already made to reinforce a culture which promotes and respects safe spaces.

 

 

Roseann O’Reilly Runte

President

Alt WashPo

The Washington Post is really doing incredible things to inform the public about rape culture -- by exemplifying it.  Yesterday, George Will argued women in universities wear their rapes as badges, something they covet.  Today, a post using data on violence against women to argue that women should get hitched since the most targeted category are single mothers.*  Oy.

*WashPo changed the title of the piece but you can see the original one if you mouse over the link above.

How about a little experiment--take the same chart and think about it some more?  Here we go:

WashPo

Wow, single mothers get attacked more than other women!  However, there is good news: the trend is heading down.  This raises two questions: why are single mothers attacked?  And why is this going down?

Perhaps single mothers are being attacked because they are ex-wives, and we know that violence against women tends to increase as they try to separate from their abuser.  Perhaps this might have something to do with poverty since single mothers tend to be poor.  Single mothers are clearly vulnerable for a variety of reasons, so we should not be surprised at all that single mothers face more violence than other women.

How about the trend downwards?  Is this because society is increasingly intolerant of those that abuse women?  That would have the biggest impact on single mothers since they are the ones at greatest risk.  Perhaps laws have changed so that penalties are harsher?  Perhaps the courts are better at ruling in favor of the beaten rather than the beaters, serving as both deterrent (folks may not beat as much) and prevention of repetition (the beaters are in prison).  Perhaps being a single mom is less taboo and thus violence against them is more taboo?

We sure could use more social science to figure out why single mothers are so vulnerable and what has reduced the frequency of violence against especially these women.

Here's hoping a national newspaper does some serious investigation.

Sunday Silliness: Entitlement in the 21st Century

Brian MacFadden brings the heat in a big way this week, taking on the Men's Rights and Open Carry entitlement folks:

I hadn't thought of putting the two together, but it works so very, very well.  I must admit that when I heard about the frustration that the SB killer had with pickup artists, I was shocked.  My first thought was that only 14 year olds believe in pickup artists and their magic ways to score with the ladies.  Apparently not.  I guess somebody does indeed buy the books and the other merch of the avowed artists.  I could understand the resentment against these hucksters except the onus is on the fools who believe them.  I mean, if you send money off to Nigerian princes, shame on you.

The Open Carry folks have a similar sense of entitlement via a bad reading of the 2nd Amendment.  I do wonder how male that movement is.  My guess: very.  I would have some sympathy for the argument that folks need guns for self-protection if it were not for the years and years of statistics showing that owning a gun is far more likely to lead to someone in the house getting killed by it than it being used for protection. 

The combination of ignorance and entitlement in both of these groups is breathtaking.  Anyhow, the next time anyone complains about how entitled the Millennials are, I will point them to two real groups of people that are super-entitled rather than the imaginary characteristics of folks who were all born in the same big time frame.