
Max Planck Society conducts bullying survey - pseudolus
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02052-2
======
edna314
I think bullying and gender issues are just a symptoms of a deeper problem
nobody of the responsible likes to admit: academia has a strong hierarchical
structure of power which necessarily leads to abuses of this power. We already
solved this problem for politics long time ago by inventing democracy.

~~~
rndgermandude
You really think democracy solved these? The Greeks had their demagogues, and
today we still have political elites. Even a "perfect" democracy would still
be majority rule (as benevolent it voluntarily might act towards the
minorities).

Hierarchies save us from chaos and anarchy. And at the same time they open us
up for abuse and make everything less democratic.

In practice, we seem to strive to find a balance where we allow some hierarchy
to avoid chaos (representatives in our democracy, chain of command in
governments) while we simultaneously try to cap the powers of such hierarchies
and also establish competing hierarchies so they can check each other (e.g.
separation of powers in most democracies).

However, we did not really solve anything, but created a system we constantly
try to re-adjust once it tilts too much to either direction, and from which we
try to eliminate bad actors.

~~~
edna314
I think there are pro's and con's when it comes to democracy. All I tried to
point out that we theoretically have a solution to the problem that people
have personal biases which potentially makes them abuse their power. And this
solution is simply a majority vote where personal biases average out.

~~~
rndgermandude
If only it was so easy. History is chock-full of examples where the majority
made minorities or individuals suffer for no apparent reason other than
ideology, bias and/or outright moronic beliefs.

~~~
metalchianti
It's shocking to me that more people aren't aware of this fundamental concept
when democracy is discussed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority)

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prvc
>But unexpected, says Stratmann, was that women in leadership positions
reported experiencing sexist behaviour at a higher rate than others

If making such reports is rewarded in a way that can help career advancement,
then it should not be surprising to observe such a trend.

~~~
ajross
That's not what the study said. Successful women reported more discrimination
_to the study authors_. There's no assertion that they made accusations
against specific men, and absolutely no evidence that this "helps career
advancement". Care to cite your source on that?

In practice virtually every such accusation I've seen reported ends up with
the woman leaving the employer, not the reverse.

The counter hypothesis is that women who don't want to deal with the sexist
bullshit just give up on careers like this. This has the notable advantage of
explaining the gender balance and the inversion of accusation rates.

~~~
prvc
To clarify: I do not mean that making reports per se is the putative mechanism
for this advancement. Perhaps there is some more fundamental quality that
causes both. Also, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and that creates an
incentive, like it or not. And don't disregard the first word, "if"!

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stakhanov
In large parts of the publicly-funded science ecosystem in the STEM fields, I
have a very strong impression that the pendulum has swung so far that women
are now at a significant advantage over men as a result of affirmative action
policies. They should really not be complaining about discrimination.

For example, the DOC fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences which
funded my PhD was structured in such a way that the grant was split into two
equal pots. One pot took applications ONLY from women. The other pot was
enforcing 50% of the fellowships going to women. That means: The rules
stipulated that there was 3x as much funding available for women as there was
for men, despite the fact that there were much fewer female applicants, so
chances for a female to get funding were, by design, at least an order of
magnitude higher than for a man. -- This was the only publicly funded
scholarship program in Austria that pays enough to study at, say, an ivy leage
in the U.S. or something like that. -- On top of that they had great mentoring
programmes and networking opportunities that were open ONLY to women, and
nothing of the sort that men were welcome for.

Similar story told to me by my male cousin, working for a solar technology
startup with close ties to an Austrian university and the Austrian science
funding ecosystem: They had received public funding to hire some physicists,
but some of the funding was earmarked so it could be used only for hiring
women. Hiring a woman proved to be a thing of impossibility, since they
couldn't find a single one that wanted to apply. They ended up having to give
back the funding. An applicant could have had a job there, and all it would
have taken was to (a) be vaguely a physicist (b) be female. She didn't need to
be _good_ or anything. She just needed to show up, and the job would have been
guaranteed to her, since, from the company's POV, it was free money being left
on the table to do anything else.

I know _a lot_ of people working for research institutions being funded by the
Austrian taxpayer. They tend to all have really shitty careers, with one
exception. Guess what that exception was. You guessed right: The one woman I
know that travels in those circles.

I don't know if things are as bad in Germany yet as they are in Austria, but
women in the publicly-funded science ecosystem in the STEM fields complaining
about discrimination at this point in history is simply outrageous. If
anything, men should be the ones complaining.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
You can take a look at
[https://bmbwf.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/gender/2019/EN_KV_...](https://bmbwf.gv.at/fileadmin/user_upload/gender/2019/EN_KV_BMBWF-
GSD_BFREI_FINAL.pdf) Women are still fairly underrepresented in the pipeline
converting undergrads to phds->postdocs->profs, with numbers dropping most of
the way. I am pretty okay with affirmative action happening till those numbers
are closer to 50% and then slowly phasing them out.

As far as your cousin story goes, that exactly illustrates the problem. There
is no reason a women could not have become a solar tech physicist. But the
persistent misogyny that permeates academia, despite all these financial
incentives from the top, stopped most women from taking that particular line.
We need to fix the problem. You can argue that throwing money at women is
perhaps not the best way, but then you have to present a method that works
better at righting the wrongs in academia.

~~~
stakhanov
You could also argue this: The part you stated before the "BUT" is a statement
of fact. The part you stated after the "BUT" is complete speculation. I've
never seen misogyny actually happen at any company I worked for, ever. Another
piece of speculation: Women don't get those jobs because they DON'T WANT those
jobs. So why throw these jobs at them, against their will? Why engage in some
weird social engineering projects to make little girls want to build robots
when, clearly, they don't?

~~~
vertex-four
I’ve seen plenty of misogyny at nearly every tech event and gathering I’ve
ever been to, as well as within the occasional work I’ve had, so either I’m
going to the wrong places or you’re not looking very hard.

~~~
Frondo
Agreed.

If you follow any high-profile women in tech on Twitter, wade into their
mentions to see sex-based harassment directed at them. It's consistent and
ongoing and must be exhausting for them to deal with. (I know it would be for
me.)

If one's answer is that that's somehow not representative, I'd like to know
why one thinks that shows up on a public forum but doesn't translate to any
other parts of the industry.

~~~
malvosenior
You really shouldn't believe anything someone (male or female) with a high
profile on Twitter says. The more someone is driven by attention, the less
trustworthy they are.

They are outliers and not representative of the actual community or workforce.

~~~
Frondo
I'm not talking about anything they said. I said to look at the people
responding to them with sexist harassment.

~~~
malvosenior
I follow many tech leaders (men and women) on Twitter and have never seen
this. If anything there's usually an massive wave of support in the replies.

~~~
Frondo
I'm not sure how much time I'm willing to spend scrolling through and
screencapping this stuff, but what you're saying doesn't match what I see at
all. I also have all the quality filters off and often click the "show more"
filter, though, and I seldom block people (and don't use any blocklists).

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leptoniscool
This reminds me of the "super chicken" story as described Margaret Heffernan:
[https://youtu.be/Vyn_xLrtZaY](https://youtu.be/Vyn_xLrtZaY)

Bullies may seem super productive, but they will bring down the organizations
productivity as a whole.

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adolph
I wonder how much of bullying is just descended-from-apes social dominance
behaviors that cross an ambiguous line representing what is and is not
socially acceptable for a particular group. Some behavior is maladaptive in
certain contexts [0] but given its persistence obviously advantageous from an
evolutionary standpoint.

0\.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm-
gladwells-cockpit-culture-theory-everywhere-after-asiana-crash/313442/)

~~~
terminalhealth
The advantage is likely mainly an eugenetic one, but also one of sortation:
Decision about power should be based on competence. A means of removing
incompetent people is bullying them out. This is unlikely to be very effective
though because mostly it's not the most competent who bully the most, but it
selects for criteria like resilience, disagreeableness. Though conversely,
means of avoiding bullying could also result in poorer sortation as people can
strategically pull the bullying card to get ahead. For this reason such
measures should be treated with caution, I think. Especially when it is about
jobs concerning critical infrastructure.

~~~
adolph
Ok, lets say that humans in groups are typically more effective than
individual humans even if the humans in the group are individually less
effective (Mythical Man-Month, etc.). Even if a group makes every group effort
decision based on consensus, the decisions may be influenced by factors other
than an evaluation of competence. What wins, competence or influence?

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collyw
such as having opinions ignored or being unfairly blamed, publicly humiliated
or shouted at.

I have experienced 3 out of 4 of these and never considered it bullying.
Arsehole / incompetent behavior from my superiors, yes, but not bullying.

~~~
nerdponx
Intent probably has something to do with it. In my mind, bullying is
"targeted" and persistent over time. Not sure if that is their definition as
well.

~~~
collyw
I agree, but the article doesn't seem to mention anything like that.

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leptoniscool
Related: [https://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2019/06/03/dont-hire-
assho...](https://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2019/06/03/dont-hire-assholes/)

------
hexadecimalMind
Research institutions are bravely fighting with "sexual discrimination" and at
the same time:

\- they implicitly discourage men to apply for job by adding "We especially
encourage women to apply." to job ads,

\- they understand "equality" as equal number men and women working at some
institute/position/area instead of equal rights and opportunities and
promoting best minds,

\- they have plenty of grants and awards considered only for women.

And all above is coming from so called "smart people" that should give
education for the next generations.

~~~
Balgair
> they implicitly discourage men to apply for job by adding "We especially
> encourage women to apply." to job ads,

Wait, how does that implicitly discourage men to apply? Sure, it is a direct
encouragement to women to apply, but that is not therefore an implicit
discouragement to men. An implicit discouragement to men would say something
like: "We encourage women to apply above others" or "We encourage men to also
look for other opportunities".

~~~
hexadecimalMind
So according to your logic adding to job ad such a sentence:

"We especially encourage white, heterosexual men"

would be completely OK? Because nothing here is "therefore an implicit
discouragement to" other ethnicity/sexuality/gender.

~~~
Balgair
Yeah, if you also encouraged other types of people too. But, like, listing out
all the types would be a little much.

Like, women are obviously under represented in tech, despite many efforts by
the Big 4 to increase representation [0]. The Big 4 are doing better at
getting women into tech, but they still have a ways to go. The survey details
some of those struggles. So, logically, you'd like to continue to encourage
women to apply. WASPy men don't seem to need this encouragement thus far, but
times may change.

[0] [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/diversity-
report/](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/diversity-report/)

------
kodz4
Bullies on the team are useful. And experienced managers and administrators
know this. Managers protect people from bullies, when the value of the person
to the team is greater than the value of the bully to the team. #FactOfLife

Look at the way society is handling Prime Bully Trump. He has written the text
book for all other bullies to follow. And they happily will, taking a piss on
whatever social norm or code of conduct, everyone else is obediently
following. If he can climb to the top of the hill, they know they can too.

You don't want Bullies in an org, you have to be better than them and more
useful than them. It's that simple.

~~~
frereubu
Counterpoint: bullies are poisonous to teams. They drain morale, make people
spend emotional energy resisting their bullying rather than working, and often
shout down people with better ideas.

~~~
mieseratte
> and often shout down people with better ideas.

Interesting. In my experience bullies tend to play politics rather than out-
and-out shouting matches.

~~~
frereubu
I'm sure that happens too. I didn't really mean "shouting" to me taken
literally, but it's out in the open rather than subtle behind-the-scenes
manoeuvring. My experience is from academia where it's pretty difficult to
fire someone without going through a long drawn-out process which is often
more draining than trying to ignore the bullying, at least in the short term,
and with an uncertain end. This means that pretty undisguised derision can be
let slip if that person is relatively powerful.

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tannhaeuser
Link to original article: [https://www.mpg.de/13630963/max-planck-
gesellschaft-veroeffe...](https://www.mpg.de/13630963/max-planck-gesellschaft-
veroeffentlicht-umfrage-zu-arbeitskultur-und-atmosphaere)

I'm hesitant to include "in German" as the summary is chock full of anglicisms
such as "mobbing", "dual career", "work-life balance", or "code of conduct"
which mean exactly nothing in a scientific context. I'm not trying to downplay
any results the survey may be showing, but what is "mobbing" anyway? If you
can't think of a satisfactory definition in English, think about the even more
diluted meaning of this term in German where there's a habit of brainlessly
using anglicisms to hide lack of clarity of thought, and even to make up
pseudo-English words.

