This essay by @HeidiRehm is thoughtful and I appreciate that it was difficult to write. But there are several statements in it that are problematic, some are harmful, and since it's being widely circulated I have a few counterpoints. Let's start with the discussion about crying:
https://twitter.com/HeidiRehm/status/1492555935843328000
@HeidiRehm writes that in her office "no single male has been in tears, they have all been female" and she explains that by suggesting that women are not "in control of [their] emotions", yet men "get angry, raise [their] voices, and become argumentative" in "these situations".
I honestly don't know what she is talking about. I've been a professor for 20+ years. In that role, the first time I saw anyone cry was a woman in a group meeting of a famous PI (I was invited as a guest). She was a postdoc, and presented work she had been doing for >2 months.
The PI started screaming at her at the end of her talk, insulting her results, telling her that she was lazy, and that her work would never land her a Cell, Science or Nature paper. He literally screamed at her to leave the room and get out of his sight.
Yes, she cried, but she had good reason to. I would have cried too if I'd been yelled at like that but that hasn't happened to me, because like most men in academia, I've given hundreds of talks and haven't been yelled at a single time.
But I've seen men cry in front of profs. Once in a qualifying exam on which I was a member, a student did very poorly and failed. He then cried and explained that the father of his fiancee would not allow him to marry her unless he got a Ph.D. He begged us to pass him, in tears.
You know why so many women are crying in academia? Because women are being sexually harassed, verbally harassed, yelled at in groups meetings, told they are stupid, told they are not fit to be scientist, and all this by men in positions of power of them.
They cry because they see their dreams of being scientists fade in moments of abuse that shatter idyllic beliefs science as a search for the beauty and truths of nature.
Not all women experience abuses during their training. Some are lucky- maybe they worked with a good mentor. Maybe they just got lucky. But just look up how many men have been sexually harassed vs. women in the academic sexual misconduct database: …ademic-sexual-misconduct-database.org
Separately, the Broad is an amazing place, but while it may "offer an environment to work together with colleagues on the most challenging issues in science, technology and medicine" I'm not sure it "breaks down the many barriers of individual competition" in the field.
The Broad is *fiercely* competitive; I'm not talking about researchers there, but about the Institute. When the director "reviews" a field writing two founders of it out of history in a case where the Broad has a major COI that's not breaking down barriers liorpachter.wordpress.com/2016/01/18/the…
And frankly, it's not just this aspect of the Broad culture has led to negative competitive issues in several fields. This is not the thread or place to air grievances, but many Broad initiatives are antithetical to collaboration.
Maybe I will, actually, write something soon about Terra. Have you tried downloading data from there recently?
I do agree that Eric's departure is sad.
https://twitter.com/lpachter/status/1490922153687928836
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