In December, Nature published an editorial reporting on the results of their effort to broaden diversity in their pagest to increase the number of women contributing to their content. Some of the news is good (an increase in female authors) and some isn’t (a decrease in referees). Overall, though, it seemed like a nice bit of accountability, showing the actual effort being made to move away from the Old Boys Club of science.
Which they then went and undid completely this month, by publishing the following letter (right) from Lukas Koube, titled Research: Publish on the Basis of Quality, Not Gender.
Where do you even start with something like this? Do you start with the blatant misogyny? The barely-veiled Men’s Rights Activist language? The false idea that women aren’t represented in the sciences because they have babies? Do you just pound your head against the desk until you feel better? Maybe you ask Nature WTF they were thinking. Unfortunately, you won’t like that answer, either:
Oh.
Well, I guess you could talk about “whatever his provenance”: a bit of quick sleuthing from Anna Goldstein yesterday found this wonderful anti-feminist, misogynistic screed from Koube; not exactly the sort of thing you’d think Nature would want to give any legitimacy to (and yet). We could talk about the ‘author’ (a term I use loosely) having just received his BA in political science, not exactly the sort of person you’d look to for authority on scientific research and publishing. We could continue having a conversation about what it means to confer authority on a letter, or blog, by publishing it under the auspices of a respected organization, regardless of the fact that correspondence is not supposed to reflect the views of anyone but the person writing it (at least in typical magazine disclaimer).
But all of that continues to dance around the single, central issue revealed in both Koube’s letter and Nature’s explanation/defense of publication: multiple people wrote in expressing misogynistic beliefs, and Nature chose one letter out of those many as representative and published it.
As Janet D. Stemwedel asked, “If they had a lot of Flat-Earth letters, would they feel compelled to publish one? If so, they might want to rethink their editorial judgement.”
Women know that there is misogyny in science, academia, humanities, the work space, the world. We face it every single day. Many of us can’t get out of the house without facing it, let alone get through a work day without being reminded that people think we are less than, not as smart, not as capable, all because our reproductive organs happen to be on the inside.
And we have the research that shows the bias against women is real. We have so much research on it, Nature took the steps mentioned in their December editorial to try to combat the under-representation of women in their pages. For well over four years, people have been discussing The Feminist Philosophers’ Gendered Conference Campaign and the idea of boycotting conferences that have all-male (or all white male) conference panels.
We get it.
Really, truly, and honestly, women know this.
I understand the dilemma of letters to the editor and correspondence pages—remember, I used to work for an academic bioethics journal! If you want to see letters, angry letters that can span the range of opinions of valid to “did we remember to lock all the doors?”, try reading those for a month.
But at the same time, I understand that at some point, you have to drop the idea that you are going to give fair airing to “all sides.” False balance is a plague upon publishing, and there needs to come a point where you—in this case, the editors of the correspondence section of Nature—draw a line in the sand and simply refuse to give ink to ideas that have been soundly refuted with science.
Not doing so doesn’t just reflect badly on the ‘author’ of the correspondence, but the organization doing the publishing. If you communicate about science, and you do so with authority, you have a responsibility for what you produce. Shirk that responsibility often enough, or continue to promote via publication ideas that are anathema and offensive to a section of your audience that you are trying to improve your outreach to, and you’re going to lose that audience permanently.
Edited to add:
Nature apologized for publishing the commentary on Friday. My response to that apology is here.
“Life as an Extreme Sport » Blog Archive » How Many Times Does “Don’t Promote Misogyny” Need to Be Discussed?” http://t.co/n1pYZEkl5Y
Nature, science’s most prestigious journal, published a ridiculously sexist letter: http://t.co/LaXKqUQ1sl
RT @alexantra: Nature, science’s most prestigious journal, published a ridiculously sexist letter: http://t.co/LaXKqUQ1sl
How Many Times Does “Don’t Promote Misogyny” Need to Be Discussed? by @rocza http://t.co/aNsOiiVmlI
Good follow up on Nature debacle: http://t.co/U4Rw0gZFeU Still think their twitter apology is unacceptable, check on ur sources before pub!
How Many Times Does “Don’t Promote Misogyny” Need to Be Discussed? by @rocza http://t.co/RLPcnU0noh
I’m afraid I’ll be accused of being an MRA and misogynist for this, but I have to ask…
What exactly is the “blatant misogyny” in Koube’s letter? How is it considered “Men’s Rights language” to mention things that are true?
It seems as if you read his letter to say “women SHOULD stay home with their children” and “all women with children are unable to accomplish much, because child care takes up all of their time”.
But he didn’t say that. He called for equality – for papers to be published on merit, for there to be no discrimination or bias at all. Isn’t that a good thing?
Then he mentioned the fact that a higher percentage of women than men take significant time off from pursuing their career, for reasons of having and raising young children. Is this not the truth? Is this not one part of the reason why women are underrepresented?
And no one denied that other reasons that exist – the unfair bias of which Kelly provides proof of, the fact that boys are encouraged to enter scientific fields while girls are steered away, and so on.
I just don’t understand the outrage over Koube’s letter, and don’t see how Nature did anything wrong here. Please enlighten me.
Hi Bob,
I didn’t reply to this when it was originally posted because, frankly, it irritated the fuck out of me. These are the standard excuses men trot out when they don’t want to do the time or work to see how a patriarchal system benefits them to the detriment of others. While you’re not an MRA (at least in my mind, from the information you posted here), you certainly are embracing sexist tropes happily, and it’s not really my JOB to enlighten you. That’s why you have Google. And with Google, you can quickly find out that there is significant bias in publication and hiring based on gender and race. People insist they’re hiring on merit alone, yet they see more merit in a male applicant with the same CV as a female applicant—just changing the name causes there to suddenly be more merit. This? Is sexism.
As for “oh but women take time off” – nope. Again, false conclusion based on sexist attitude. In the leaky pipeline, women are being chased out well before maternity leave is an issue. And as many scholars note, if women received equal pay to men (something that is unequal long before children/time off becomes a factor), many women wouldn’t have to leave the work force because they would be able to care for children. I trust that, having demonstrated how you can find this information on Google in the previous paragraph, you are competent to do so yourself for information in this paragraph. Give it a go – it should be illuminating. Or you can contact me and we can work out hourly teaching rates for you to literally learn more on my dime.
To the letter on gender in Nature:“If they had a lot of Flat-Earth letters, would they feel compelled to publish one?”http://t.co/b09W4gq8AR
re “reproductive organs happen to be on the inside”
I realise that this is a Stargate quote, but I’d like to remind you that not all women have their reproductive organs on the inside, and those who don’t still face misogyny.
In other words, trans women exist!
Hi Gabrielle,
Yes, you’re correct, this is a quote from Stargate. I frequently utilize pop culture when teaching to make a point, and follow best editorial guidelines to not change quotes.
Thanks for the comment.