There is a huge hullabaloo about a column on sexual harassment in Science:
“His attention on your chest may be unwelcome, but you need his attention on your science and his best advice.”
With those words, Alice S. Huang, a senior faculty associate in biology at California Institute of Technology known for her pioneering research in molecular animal virology, and a regular columnist for Science, launched a wave of criticism Monday that resulted in the disappearance and subsequent retraction of her advice piece.
Everyone is piling on Huang but nobody is paying attention to the letter she was responding to. Here it is:
Dear Alice,
I just joined a new lab for my second postdoc. It’s a good lab. I’m happy with my project. I think it could really lead to some good results. My adviser is a good scientist, and he seems like a nice guy. Here’s the problem: whenever we meet in his office, I catch him trying to look down my shirt. Not that this matters, but he’s married. What should I do?
— Bothered
Got it? The only reason why Bothered is bothered is that the “nice guy” in question is married. This turns the situation around 180°. This is not a victim. This is somebody who is trying to sell the view of her chest for a marriage licence. “You are welcome to ogle unless you are married” is not a position that provokes a whole lot of respect for this budding scholar.
Huang did not take Bothered’s plight very seriously because Bothered is not that serious about it either. Huang responded in the same spirit and tone as the letter she was responding to, which is the most reasonable way of answering correspondence.
And by God, am I tired of these constant waves of outrage about nothing in particular. When a colleague of mine expressed shock at how impassioned the discussion of the campus grill’s name became, she was told that “we feel impotent to change anything that really matters, but at least we can effectuate tangible change when we change the grill name.” The truth, however, is that we are only impotent because we have convinced ourselves that we are. There are things to be done other than renaming grills and hunting for husbands in the lab. Let’s stop clucking like a bunch of stupid hens and just do something of use already.
Clarissa's Blog 
I think you have misunderstood the letter. The marital status of the adviser doesn’t matter to her, what matters to her is the looking.
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If it doesn’t matter, then why did she mention it?
Remember, our analysis has to be based on the totality of textual evidence. 🙂
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It could also be read as a cherry to her indignance.
She doesn’t seem to be into the game of peek-a-booby. Anyways, although it’s easy to assume she’s unmarried, there is no textual evidence to support an assumption of her marital state.
FYI, advice seeker: if you are at all short, your shirts are boobier than they appear to you looking head on in a mirror.
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If the degree of indignation hinges over the marital status of the staring fellow, it’s kind of hard to take that kind of indignation seriously.
Besides, she could have written “and to make matters worse, he’s married.” But that’s not what she said. She said, “Not that this matters, but.” So the only reason why this matters is what happens after the “but.”
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I obviously don’t know the letter writer and can’t speak to her specific situation. But I will say that I have known countless women who insist that men are staring at their chests while I have been present and I can most emphatically say that no chest staring was happening.
I myself have a very noticeable chest and, in all my 41 years, I have never noticed anybody staring at my chest at inappropriate times (i.e. in the work place, at school etc.) And I don’t think it’s because I am oblivious to surreptitious stares and I don’t dress particularly conservatively. I truly don’t think men stare at women’s chests nearly as much as women think they do. I don’t know if women are making honest mistakes or have repressed desires to be femme fatales (judging by the women I have known who make the chest staring accusation, I suspect it’s the latter) but this is simply a false cultural narrative.
I assume the scientist in question is probably a bit socially awkward (as many scientist types are), doesn’t usually look at people in the eyes, and probably has a habit of looking down (at his feet– not at her chest) when he’s speaking. And the letter writer is interpreting his social awkwardness as sexual lasciviousness. (I honestly have seen this exact scenario play out before.)
I think Huang gave the right advice. No need to torpedo either the letter writer’s or the scientist’s career over something as hazy as a stare. The letter writer may not be looking for a husband but I think she probably overestimates the magnetic power of her chest.
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“I truly don’t think men stare at women’s chests nearly as much as women think they do. I don’t know if women are making honest mistakes or have repressed desires to be femme fatales (judging by the women I have known who make the chest staring accusation, I suspect it’s the latter) but this is simply a false cultural narrative.”
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