A controversy was already raging in herpetology when a former president of the field’s major association tossed in a match. At conferences, wrote C. Kenneth Dodd Jr., there should be no midriffs, no flip-flops, no “crotch-hugging short shorts.”
His letter, and the immediate backlash, broadened a conversation about one scientist’s alleged misconduct to the larger issue of everyday discrimination against female scientists.
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A controversy was already raging in herpetology when a former president of the field’s major association tossed in a match. At conferences, wrote C. Kenneth Dodd Jr., there should be no midriffs, no flip-flops, no “crotch-hugging short shorts.”
His letter, and the immediate backlash, broadened a conversation about one scientist’s alleged misconduct to the larger issue of everyday discrimination against female scientists.
It began when a turtle scientist, Richard Vogt, was picked to receive an award at a conference on fish, reptiles, and amphibians in mid-July in Rochester, N.Y. Complaints arose during Vogt’s lecture, which included photos of women in the field wearing little clothing with parts of their bodies censored, according to news reports.
Vogt toldThe New York Times in an email there was “nothing sexual or indecent about the photos.” He also said someone had edited his slides.
The Herpetologists’ League rescinded the award. Not only did Vogt display “unacceptable images,” but he has a “long pattern” of unprofessional behavior, said the league’s new president, Willem M. Roosenburg, in a statement.
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But Dodd, a past president, had some thoughts of his own. On Monday he sent association members an open letter that upbraided the “social-media campaign” against Vogt.
After dismissing the allegedly lewd images — “Neither photo was titillating” — Dodd offered a solution. Along with a formal code of conduct, he wrote, some colleagues — particularly young women — need to rethink how they dress.
Dodd wrote that he saw women at the conference wearing “crotch-hugging short shorts” and exposing their midriffs, neither of which he found appropriate. Same goes for flip-flops. The event was not “a pool party or backyard BBQ,” he wrote.
“If you want to be treated like a professional scientist,” Dodd wrote, “act like one.”
The backlash was quick and quippy. If there is a dress code, one scientist tweeted, “can we add that ratty old field shirts from 1976 that still smell of stale urates be banned, too?”
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For Helen B. Plylar, a Ph.D. student at the Florida Institute of Technology who attended the conference, women’s bodies aren’t the problem. Arguing as much detracts from the very real problem of sexism in science, she said.
It’s 2018, Plylar said, so “we’re just not going to take the crap anymore.”
Dodd’s suggestions rang hypocritical to Max Lambert, who recently finished a Ph.D. at Yale University. The letter seemed “myopically focused” on what women were wearing, Lambert said, even though conference attendees, men and women alike, dress casually.
When Kirsten Hecht read Dodd’s letter, she said, she was “horrified” but considered it a symptom of a larger sickness. Hecht, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida, said most of her male peers are welcoming. Still, some men with little expertise in her area of study have nonetheless tried to explain it to her. Or they’ve expressed concern about her productivity because she’s a mother, she said.
The widespread rebuff of Dodd’s letter was encouraging, Hecht said, especially to female herpetologists who have built a community online. That network “shows you what can happen when people feel safe,” she said.
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‘Cronyism and Harassment’
As for a dress code, Roosenburg said, there’s a long list of issues the league wants to take up first. After Vogt’s award was rescinded and his behavior rebuked, women called and emailed Roosenburg, grateful that something was being finally done, he said.
The larger problem is “cronyism and harassment of those that are not the usual members of the good ol’ turtle-boy club, or to take it further the good ol’ boy herpetology club,” he wrote in an email to members of the Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group.
“Women in particular,” Roosenburg wrote, “have come forward expressing reluctance to attend and abandonment of the field of herpetology because of the treatment they experienced.”
Efforts to disband that club are underway. The Herpetologists’ League will adopt a professional code of conduct. Committees have been formed to pursue issues of conduct and diversity and inclusion.
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Lori Neuman-Lee, an assistant professor at Arkansas State University who leads the diversity committee, said there’s no reason to dictate what people wear to conferences. The panel wants to attract more women and minorities into herpetology and keep them there. She is hopeful, she said, but right now “the pipeline is extremely leaky.”
Pamela Plotkin, too, has hope. Twenty-five years ago, Plotkin, now a research professor at Texas A&M University at College Station, attended the herpetologists’ annual conference. Vogt’s presentation back then included picture after picture of women in tiny bikinis who were holding turtles, she said. (Attempts by The Chronicle to contact Vogt were unsuccessful.)
“The message I got was, this is acceptable,” said Plotkin.
It was the last time she attended the conference. As a sea-turtle scientist, Plotkin said, she’s got “a pretty thick shell,” she said. But “some women leave the field. That’s unfortunate. And that’s what we need to try and prevent.”
EmmaPettit is a senior reporter at The Chronicle who covers the ways people within higher ed work and live — whether strange, funny, harmful, or hopeful. She’s also interested in political interference on campus, as well as overlooked crevices of academe, such as a scrappy puppetry program at an R1 university and a charmed football team at a Kansas community college. Follow her on Twitter at @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.