Plus ca change…

It is quite depressing to read these stories. I’m nearing retirement age, and when I was a graduate student in philosophy (at a top-ranked university), most of the women had stories like the ones I’m reading now. Male professors and TAs often exchanged crude comments about female undergraduates. Male students could go out with professors for beers, and had the benefit of informal conversation. If we did that, we got hit on. When the women students bonded through a discussion group, the men were terribly threatened. I had hoped that things were better now. Don’t get me wrong. I have had a great career in a department that developed into one that is non-sexist and very supportive. But it is depressing to think that today’s female grad students are still going through what we went through in the late 60’s and early 70’s.