[INDOLOGY] Sexism and Bias on INDOLOGY governing committee

Wed Apr 3 23:15:00 UTC 2019

Dear Dr Sauthoff,

this is what I have written in my first email regarding the topic of sexism in academia: "I believe that we all agree about the fact the equal opportunities for women and minorities are very rare indeed across the world and it is rather obvious to me that our small Indological garden cannot and in fact is not different. [...] In my opinion, the misogyny in this mailing list is so evident that it doesn’t need to be discussed, it is there as a fact."

You write: "If you find it impossible to compliment a colleague, that's on you. Perhaps reconsidering your approach and relationship to the women whom you would like to compliment would help."
I take your suggestion to heart. By the way, rest assured that I already make compliments about my colleagues' appearance, because as I said in my first message, I don't care about political correctness. I make compliments to younger female colleagues, older female colleagues, older male colleagues and so on so fort. When I wrote about your student's experience, I was making a general point. It seems to me that before writing anything, one should carefully read the other's opinion: "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." I thought that this was a clear enough sentence in the English language, but I apologise if it wasn't.

I'll continue to be convinced that not only academia, but the whole world is still terribly patriarcal. (Maybe the only exception now is the Rojava and the new Kurdish Democratic System, who really the equal opportunities, but since they are a bunch of socialists or even worse, they are not on the first page of major newspapers.) I'll also continue to actively support all initiatives for equal opportunities. Funny, isn't it? It seems almost as if I have a split personality, if you read my first email and my second one. Or maybe the reality is more nuanced than we are ready to admit. I leave it to you to decide.

Now, do we really want to get personal on this list? I'm not itching for it, to be honest.

Best wishes,

Camillo

________________________________
From: Georges PINAULT <georges.pinault at wanadoo.fr>
Sent: Wednesday, April 3, 2019 7:54:05 PM
To: OlivelleJP; JonathanSilk
Cc: indologylist.indology.info; Camillo Formigatti
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Sexism and Bias on INDOLOGY governing committee

Dear Colleagues,  I agree totally with the comments of Jonathan Silk, joined by Patrick Olivelle. The whole issue is about power and unequality of relationships in given social units or circles. This is actually not proper to academic institutions. I may mention what has happened in the Catholic church (just to take a spectacular recent case, without omitting other religions), in several political organizations (whichever orientation), in artistic teams (movie, theater, music, dance), in scientific laboratories, etc. In every case, the imbalance of power is the point. Every teacher or scholar should be aware of that. Best regards,    Georges-Jean Pinault

> Message du 03/04/19 20:14
> De : "Olivelle, J P via INDOLOGY" <indology at list.indology.info>
> A : "Jonathan Silk" <kauzeya at gmail.com>
> Copie à : "indology at list.indology.info" <indology at list.indology.info>, "Camillo Formigatti" <camillo.formigatti at bodleian.ox.ac.uk>
> Objet : Re: [INDOLOGY] Sexism and Bias on INDOLOGY governing committee
>
>
Thank you, Jonathan. You took the words out of mouth. Actually, what Camillo should have said is that if that professor had such feeling, he should resign from his job and then, freed from the power relationship, perhaps approach that person to see whether she is interested in a relationship. Well, if she is not, then he would have lost on both counts!!

Patrick

On Apr 3, 2019, at 1:08 PM, Jonathan Silk via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:

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<mailto: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<mailto:c.malcolm.keating at gmail.com>>
Sent: 03 April 2019 07:08
To: indology at list.indology.info<mailto: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<mailto:malcolm.keating at yale-nus.edu.sg>

Office hours may be scheduled here: https://malcolmkeating.youcanbook.me<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><mailto:audrey.truschke at gmail.com>

Date:

2/4/19, 8:11 pm

CC:

"Indology List (indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>)" <indology at list.indology.info><mailto: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><mailto:audrey.truschke at gmail.com>

Date:

2/4/19, 8:11 pm

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--
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Leiden University
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