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#astrosh
For three years, my colleague @SyksyRasanen and I have defended ourselves against allegations of aggravated defamation, after we spoke out against the appointment of Christian Ott, whom Caltech had found to have harassed two students. Today, we were acquitted. 1/8
For three years, my colleague @SyksyRasanen and I have defended ourselves against allegations of aggravated defamation, after we spoke out against the appointment of Christian Ott, whom Caltech had found to have harassed two students. Today, we were acquitted. 1/8
Ott had demanded over €60,000 and the prosecutor asked for "hefty fines" or suspended prison sentences. According to the prosecutor, Ott's conduct at Caltech concerned his private life, because Caltech is a private institution. According to Ott, we damaged his reputation. 2/8
Before Ott came to Turku, he had been offered a job in Stockholm, but that offer was withdrawn after staff protests. The director of the Turku observatory, whose spouse had made the Stockholm offer, saw a chance to bring Ott to Turku, with Stockholm paying most of his salary. 3/8
Let's talk the so-called need to "get women interested in science". The thing is: we *are* interested (HELLO 🙋♀️). We're everywhere. That isn't the problem. The problem is *keeping us here*. Creating a safe environment for women, esp. women of color, is the problem.
Now that we're (very slowly) moving away from the "women can't do science" narrative, it's become "we need to get women interested in science". There's *always* an excuse other than the truth, which is that the climate makes it difficult to keep women here.
Brilliant women have left the field, because this field (physics and astronomy specifically) won't get its shit together with sexual harassment. I know of many instances in physics and astronomy as well as engineering, but this is true for all STEM fields (feel free to share any)
