[INDOLOGY] Sexism and Bias on INDOLOGY governing committee

Wed Apr 3 18:08:44 UTC 2019

I know I'm throwing myself into the lion's den, but I say this because I am
someone in a position of (relative) power and it makes sense for me to say
it: Camillo is dead wrong. The problem is one of power, and power between a
teacher and student is always and inherently unequal. It's just a simple as
that. What the teacher may think or feel (or think he/she feels) is
something he/she has to deal with privately (or with a therapist or
friend): there is never any possible way that that can ever under any
circumstances be correctly conveyed to the student. This is gender neutral:
male-female, female-male, f-f, m-m, it does not matter. It is not the
gender that is the issue, it is the power. This is not the same as between
colleagues, although even there I would say one must be extremely careful,
because there is likely also there to be an imbalance of power. I am sure
that there are grey areas; students become ex-students, etc., and I'm sure
all of us know or know of a teacher who married an ex-student and had a
long and happy life together. I do not dispute that. What I would say is
that the circumstance of ignoring the imbalance of power is absolutely
fatal*; there is no way this comes out well as long as this imbalance
exists, and I dare say (here I may be going too far, I don't know) --here I
dare to say, if you don't understand this, then just trust me on it without
understanding it, and just keep your thoughts to yourself.
Jonathan Silk

PS: I've taught both in North America and in Europe, and this is not an
issue that applies more in the former than the latter; it's a question of
social tolerance, but that is changing everywhere (I hope), and I certainly
don't mean to suggest that there are no excesses in political correctness
in any domain, but this (discussed above) is not an example of that.
*I see that this may be unclear: what I mean is that once the relationship
no longer exists of teacher-student, in theory two persons could discuss
openly their mutual attraction, but while the educational (etc) unequal
relationship exists, this is almost certainly not possible.

On Wed, Apr 3, 2019 at 7:19 PM Camillo Formigatti via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
>
>
> Sorry for intervening again in this discussion, but I’d like to comment on
> a point raised by Dr Sauthoff and taken up again by Prof. Keating. I refer
> to this episode:
>
>
>
> Just last week a student came to me after her professor unburdened himself
> by professing his feelings to her -- two weeks before the end of class and
> placing her in a position where she was not sure if she would graduate
> because she rebuffed his (totally inappropriate) advances.
>
>
>
> I wonder whether is a cultural difference between North Americans and
> Europeans regarding what is considered inappropriate behaviour bordering or
> being sexual harassment. I hope I can explain what I mean in a clear way. I
> personally believe that this professor’s advances where not totally
> inappropriate, only the timing was inappropriate. His feelings towards this
> student were there anyway, regardless of the fact that he expressed them or
> not. He should only have waited the end of the classes, that’s it. Or maybe
> not even, because even if he had waited, he might have unconsciously
> favoured this student, in the hope that she would have returned his
> advances afterwards. Either way, he was trapped, in the sense that it
> wouldn’t have mattered whether he’d had chosen to express his feelings or
> not, by the moment he started to have feelings towards his student, his
> judgment as a mentor was clouded anyway. Now, I don’t see why having
> feelings towards another adult human being should be considered totally
> inappropriate. Obviously, all these considerations are moot if the advance
> was done in a pushing way with overt sexual behaviour, but since Dr
> Sauthoff did not describe the advance in detail, I don’t have any means to
> know. I’m making a general point here and I hope it is clear.
>
>
>
> Believe, I’m not kidding when I say that now I feel I can’t even make a
> compliment to a colleague about a new haircut or a nice dress—and I mean
> both a male or a female colleague—without the fear that he or she would
> feel harassed. This is how far political correctness has gone.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Camillo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Malcolm Keating <c.malcolm.keating at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* 03 April 2019 07:08
> *To:* indology at list.indology.info
> *Subject:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Sexism and Bias on INDOLOGY governing committee
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> 1. Regarding Dr. Truschke's concerns about gender parity, I would draw
> attention to an analogous effort being made in philosophy, which is a field
> that is also heavily male-dominated and has its share of problems with
> sexism, from egregious cases of harassment to pernicious and persistent
> cases of stereotyping. The idea of aiming toward gender parity in
> conferences has been present there for a decade now (see the "Gendered
> Conference Campaign" post at the Feminist Philosophers Blog:
> https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/gendered-conference-campaign/).
> This post includes links to some discussion about implicit bias, stereotype
> threat, etc. I raise the question of whether analogous efforts within
> Indology more broadly might not also have salutary effects.
>
> 2. I would like to echo Dr. Sauthoff's concerns about the experiences of
> women in academia. As another junior academic, I post to this list with
> trepidation, aware of its public nature and wide reach. At the same time, I
> have enough evidence, testimonial, perceptual, and inferential, to believe
> that there persist widespread problems in academia more generally, and
> Indian philosophy (my own subfield) more specifically. I also agree that
> the problems are more entrenched than what might be visible from the
> vantage point of most men, myself included. Perhaps these may be mostly
> structural, and not a matter of individual bad intentions. That possibility
> does not mean those of us within these structures aren't responsible for
> seeking solutions. And finally, if my female colleagues are speaking out at
> the risk of their reputations--at least in the sense of reputations for not
> stirring things up--I cannot simply watch. What the implications are for
> this list, I am in no position to say. However, I would like to add my
> voice to those who would like to see more discussion of how to create a
> more humane and equitable environment for scholars.
>
> Best,
>
> Malcolm
>
> --
> *Malcolm Keating*
> Yale-NUS College | Assistant Professor | Humanities Division (Philosophy)
> | malcolm.keating at yale-nus.edu.sg
>
> Office hours may be scheduled here: https://malcolmkeating.youcanbook.me
> Academic website: http://www.malcolmkeating.com/
>
>
>
> Subject:
>
> Re: [INDOLOGY] Sexism and Bias on INDOLOGY governing committee
>
> From:
>
> Audrey Truschke <audrey.truschke at gmail.com> <audrey.truschke at gmail.com>
>
> Date:
>
> 2/4/19, 8:11 pm
>
> CC:
>
> "Indology List (indology at list.indology.info)"
> <indology at list.indology.info> <indology at list.indology.info>
>
>
> Dear Friends and Colleagues,
>
>
>
> Dr. Silk raises a valid point, which is that I am slightly vague in my
> account of what has happened. I would encourage everyone to be sensitive to
> the fact that other committee members have repeatedly told me, often
> angrily, to not share their emails and to not discuss any of this with the
> list at large. There are real risks for women who choose to come forward
> with these sorts of concerns.
>
>
>
> That said, I do point to some specific things, such as an attempt to
> encourage me to resign when I pointed out bias (March 2019; in an e-mail),
> refusals to talk about possible bias (numerous e-mails; fall 2018), and
> persistent demands that I keep silent about what I experience as abuse and
> intimidation (repeated over the past year or so). To add another specific
> case, last week a committee member wrote to Dr. Paturi and chastised him
> for writing 'thank you' to the entire list regarding the post I sent around
> sharing Anand Venkatkrishnan's excellent blog post on female Sanskritists
> and sexism. Indology members say thank you to the list all the time without
> complaint, and so this was a targeted silencing of a discussion about
> discrimination against women in our profession (and it worked). I think
> this is a fair amount of precision and several discrete instances. I do not
> know whether the intent was sexist or biased in any specific case, but the
> effects were.
>
>
>
> So far as how to move forward, I recommend a few concrete steps. All are
> aimed to redirecting the committee's energy toward making both the
> committee and the list a more equitable, welcoming place. (1) I want gender
> parity, or at least approaching gender parity, on the INDOLOGY governing
> committee by adding female members. I think everyone on this list should
> value and want gender parity. (2) I want the committee to take further
> steps to address bias issues, whether that is bias training, a system for
> adjudicating complaints, shaking up committee membership, or something
> else. Whatever we decide, I would like those steps announced to the list at
> large. (3) Personally, I think that the individual who suggested that I
> resign after pointing out bias should instead, himself, consider stepping
> down. But I will not press this particular point.
>
>
>
> Another thing that I wish to achieve here is awareness and space for
> conversation. Indology as a discipline may be focused on classical India,
> but we exist in the modern world, and modern issues of bias are a
> legitimate topic for scholars to discuss on INDOLOGY (preferably without
> declarations by list members that a given discussion of bias and
> discrimination is inappropriate on INDOLOGY). I would like issues of bias
> and discrimination treated seriously on this list and on the governing
> committee going forward.
>
>
>
> Thank you for your time and consideration.
>
>
>
> All the Best,
>
>
> Audrey Truschke
>
> Assistant Professor
>
> Department of History
> Rutgers University-Newark
>
> Audrey Truschke
>
> Assistant Professor
>
> Department of History
> Rutgers University-Newark
>
> Subject:
>
> Re: [INDOLOGY] Sexism and Bias on INDOLOGY governing committee
>
> From:
>
> Audrey Truschke <audrey.truschke at gmail.com> <audrey.truschke at gmail.com>
>
> Date:
>
> 2/4/19, 8:11 pm
>
>
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>

-- 
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands

copies of my publications may be found at
https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/JASilk

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