Male professor forcing emotional intimacy while staling academic progression.
Hello,
I think as fellow women in science we face significant problems in academia and university where we experience discrimination or undermining. Moreso women are expected to be nurturing and empathetic which is not supposed to be part of the job. I wanted to share some of my experiences that I think are problematic but are not reported or not visible enough to be taken seriously. It's particularly lonely because it doesn't reach the boundary of se****al harassment but forces onto you a position of confidant or emotional partner, with a person who has significant power over your grades thus your future. Since it's never spoken outloud, you don't give your consent and if you distance yourself you experience retaliation.
I have noticed a pattern where professors or supervisors who are culturally displaced, class defectors or just stressed-out feel some sort of loneliness, exhaustion or marginalisation in their community, forced onto me a position of confidant. They were in their 40s and I was in my early 20s.
I am a women with multiple disadvantages and I have joined elite institutions. I was always noticed by professors for standing out a bit.
The first time I have experienced this it was with a professor of color who claimed to be a class defector. So at multiple time he came to me talking about his life experience for being a class defector, as if he was sharing with me common life experience, with sadness whereas I was just a 19 year old, I didn't experience any of the things he was talking about. I didn't understand the concept of class defector at that time as I was not accustomed to sociology, it forced me to think about it. I was in a very fast-paced program where I needed to work a lot. He also said out loud, in front of other classmates, the private informations I gave to institutions for enrollment, he went to check it on the institution database. During that time, he would come to talk to me with a overtly friendly demanour as if he was mentoring me or helping me while he was projecting his own life and stereotypes on to me and he was also pushing me toward the less competitive programs without taking the time to know me, to let me proove myself or my abilities. Moreover I didn't share his feelings or his experience of life so I couldn't understand what he was saying, to me it seemed illogical and intrusive. He looked relieved to find an outlet and behaving like a mentor while giving me unsolicited advices. I felt really uncomfortable because at that time to me he looked like he was falling in love, probably a sort of savior complex. I had to shout at him for him to leave and it put me in a very uncomfortable position in the institution and I was breaking one of the social codes.
This exact same pattern of behaviour happened to me thrice. The worst part is I was always seen as the bad person who was refusing the kindness of a well-meaning benevolent professor.
It really makes my skin crawl when I think about it, it took a lot of my energy to manage those men, the energy I could have used in the program. It aslo creeps me out to have been forced into a wife/mother/therapist like position where I didn't wanted to share my emotional or private life with those men but they were coercing me to do so. I don't know if this testimony could help or make people realise that this is not an acceptable behaviour or improve academia because I feel like the changes are not significant enough. Implementing a quota for having more women in science is not enough, the system need to change.
One of those professor, after a six months internship, where he was constantly using me as a therapist, told me multiple times at the end of the internship,"you are talented I see students" after stalling my progress.