Beyond POSH: Gender Harassment in the WorkPlace
Picture a Scientist, released in April 2020 on Netflix, is a movie that explores sexual harassment and gender bias in the scientific community through the narratives of three women scientists - biologist Nancy Hopkins, chemist Raychelle Burks, and geologist Jane Willenbring. In this episode, Sujatha and Deepak speak to Sharon Shattuck - one of the directors of the movie about the film, the making of the film and the explicit and subtle harassment faced by women at the workplace.
Source: Pictureascientist.com
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About Sharon Shattuck
Pic: Sharon Shattuck
SHARON SHATTUCK is an Emmy-nominated independent documentary film maker, television producer and podcast host. Her films include the 2022 News & Documentary EMMY nominated Picture A Scientist, From This Day Forward (2016) and EMMY nominated New York Times Op Docs science series ANIMATED LIFE. She is the co-host of the Gimlet/Spotify podcast CONVICTION: AMERICAN PANIC.
Her work has appeared on PBS, Netflix, National Geographic Channel, The New York Times Op Docs, Slate, Vice, Vox, The Atlantic, ProPublica, Spotify, and Radiolab.
Sharon has degrees in forest ecology and journalism.
Resources
Picture a Scientist, Official Website
Review of the Picture a Scientist Documentary
POSH ACT- The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Act, 2013
Transcript
Sowmya 0:06
Hello everyone and welcome back to a brand new season of the workwise pod. In this first episode of season two of the workwise pod your hosts, Deepak and Sujatha are speaking with Sharon Shattuck, an Emmy nominated documentary film director and podcast host about her film Picture a Scientist. The movie Picture a Scientist released in April 2020 on Netflix, and explores the issues of gender discrimination and harassment in the scientific community through the narratives of three extraordinary scientists. Sharon's work has appeared on PBS, National Geographic channel, Slate, Vice, New York Times, The Atlantic. She's also the co host of the podcast Conviction:American panic from gimlet Spotify. While discussing the movie Picture a Scientist, Deepak Sujatha and Sharon also examined frameworks and perspectives that we can all use to understand the extent of harassment that occurs in all workplaces, and what we can do to create more inclusive and safe workplaces for women. Stay tuned.
Sujatha Rao 1:10
Dear listeners, welcome to the first podcast of season two. This is a particularly exciting podcast for Deepak and I, because we have been wanting to talk about the issue of gender and discrimination and harassment in the workplace for some time now. But we've been thinking about how to present this. And serendipitously we came across this documentary on Netflix, called Picture a scientist. Now, this film by Sharon Shattuck, and Ian Cheney about gender discrimination in the scientific community really struck a chord with. The three main protagonists of that documentary biologist Nancy Hopkins, chemist Racial Burks, and Geologist Jane Willenbring share stories of harrassment ranging from subtle slights and insults to brutal experiences and their fight to correct this.
Deepak Menon 2:11
Also Sujatha, the film presents support frameworks and perspectives that we can use to better understand the range of harassment that occurs in the workplace, and how to create more inclusive and save workplaces for women.
So we decided to decode the picture to really understand what harrassment means, how it plays out in the world of Science, and then look at how this applies to all workplaces. And to help us do that we have on the podcast, Sharon Shattuck, one of the directors of the documentary. Welcome to the show, Sharon,
Sharon 2:46
thank you so much for having me.
Deepak 2:48
So tell us something about yourself, Sharon. So how did you come to make this movie?
Sharon 2:54
I came to make this film. So my, one of my collaborators Ian Cheney and I were approached actually by somebody at MIT, at MIT Press, a woman named Amy Brand, who runs MIT Press, and she was like, You got to check out this, the story of this woman, Nancy Hopkins, it's so you know, she's just such an incredible woman, and nobody's heard of her, and should be a movie, just the story of the person who like, proved that there was discrimination at MIT, and then was able to change the whole system, just because she collected data, and she found her people and she banded together with all these other women in the School of Science, and, you know, proved it. And so that was our starting place. And we were at first we were like, oh, maybe we'll just make a film about Nancy and the MIT 16. Like, that's a great story. It's, you know, kind of a Hidden Figures type story. Um, but then as we were looking into it and doing research about women in science and what's going on now, we really sit there's just a lot more out there. There's still a lot of issues that obviously haven't been resolved and kind of more subtle, we realized how important this stuff like we'll talk later about the iceberg metaphor, but we realized how important the the sort of micro aggressions really are to a woman's career and her decision whether to stay or go and science. And we wanted to like focus more on that the film so that we had to kind of reevaluate and look for other people to feature in the project. And eventually, we found Jane Willenbring and Racial Burks
Sujatha Rao 4:37
I think the three protagonists, three very powerful stories and narratives in their own right, and each of them partly representing different eras. I mean, from when Nancy started to Jane's story of working with eminent scientists to you know, Rachel's story of representation as well you know, a minority women in science. So it seems to be I mean, just the documentary itself shows evidence of, in a sense, the systematic discrimination of women in science through the ages, right? It's not it's not a sort of snapshot, right. It's really this. It's been there for a long time, but hasn't perhaps been spoken about as much as it's starting to now.
Sharon 5:30
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Like it's, I mean, we wanted to feature a lot more of that backstory in the history of women in science, because we found, for instance, there was this amazing astronomer, back in the, I think it was the 1700s, who she was married to a man who ran an observatory in in his notebook, he wrote, like, while I was sleeping, my wife discovered a comet. And, you know, she, she like, after he passed away, she campaigned for years to try to take over the observatory. And ultimately, the men in charge decided not to let her because they worried that people would laugh. And so this has been like a thing. And, you know, for centuries, women have been kept out of science, because people might laugh, or, you know, because it wasn't deemed appropriate. I do know that there are like eminent women from the early 1900s, who did win, or who got accolades, and then they weren't allowed to teach they have, they still struggle just the same afterwards. And it was so rare to even get to that point. So this has been like a an issue for a long time. And we just, I think it's just something that nobody had talked about, honestly, like, We've recently been, you know, hearing a lot of me too stories and about Harvey Weinstein and all these things in America. But nobody has talked about scientists in particular. Until very recently, there have been some some kind of explosive cases in the news of, of scientists harassing students and stuff. But we wanted to make a movie that that just like asked, why are there still so few women in science? So that's kind of the basic premise. And then there's a lot of reasons why we found out, but the most important one is the culture.
Sujatha Rao 7:16
Deepak and I were talking about this Sharon, see that when, when we talk to girls about work, and about profession and career, our conversations are around things like what are you good at, right? And what's sort of the world going to be tomorrow in terms of job opportunities, and how important it is, as a girl, you know, to be independent, and, you know, stand on your own two feet and work. Rarely, very rarely do parents sit and talk to girls and say, You know what, apart from studying really hard, and working really hard and doing well in school and college, you have to start recognizing that when you go into the workplace, you have to deal with harassment. We never have that conversation, because we always make the assumption that the workplace is whether it's science, whether it's not science, is an equal arena for everyone. And girls don't grow up thinking that they have to build this additional skill of learning to recognize harrassment. Right. I mean, you're so busy playing sports and learning to you know, sort of study that for me, seeing the documentary, sort of brought to the fore, the fact that something that should should not be tolerated at all, is so normalized, that we don't even recognize it.
Sharon 8:54
Yeah, that's a great. It's a great point. Yeah, the girls like, I mean, it's the same thing in America, like, we don't really talk about what, what you're going to have to go through. And I think part of it is like maybe we're sort of being naive, and we're like, hopefully, it's not this bad anymore. But then we hear the stories that it is still really bad and or it's bad. It's just, you know, maybe it's gotten better, but it's still not great. But yeah, so in the film, we use this metaphor, we actually lifted the metaphor from the there was a report by the National Academy of Sciences, about sexual harassment in the sciences. And they, they came up with this great metaphor of an iceberg, where basically the, you know, above the waterline, you know, on an iceberg, there's like, maybe 10% of the volume, approximately, and then there's like, under the waterline, there's the other 90%, which is so much bigger. And so in this metaphor, that 10% are like those really over visual, obvious forms of harassment. So that could be like, Come ons, you know, groping, like assaults like these kinds of things. And then under the waterline is more like, just these little micro aggressions, you know, not being invited to collaborate, even though you're the expert in your field, you know, even things just like not being invited out to lunch with all of your colleagues every day, all these little things can make you just feel over time, like you're just sort of an outcast, like, why bother? Why am I here? And they can make you you know, those add up. And we've heard from, we talked to a lot of women who were making the film who chose to leave science, and they had a lot of reasons why, and some of them were like, or they would choose to leave academia, and they'd go on and, you know, have a career in the private sector or something where there were like, some more guards against that kind of those microaggressions. But yeah, it just it really hit home, to me that those little things is actions that we all take every day, whether to make our workplace more inviting, or less, on an individual level, those really make a huge difference in retention. And then ultimately, it's like, your team benefits when you have this diversity of opinion. And so when you're when people are leaving, like because they're being told that they don't belong, culturally, or whatever, what are you losing?
Sujatha Rao 11:29
So these three things that I think comes out really sharpening in the film itself? One is the leaky pipeline problem, right? So you do have, you know, at undergraduate levels, you know, almost 50% of the classes consists of men and women. But by the time that you start looking at employment in science, I think the number comes down to maybe 29 - 27 28 - 29%, something like that, right? So certainly, something's happening between the time that women say I want to get into science and start studying science, and then continuing to work in science, right, particularly in academia and institutions. So there's, there's that problem, the leaky pipeline problem, this the second problem that you were referring to, which is the problem of culture, in academia and institutions of science, but I would say, culture in all workplaces, that, that somehow either accepts and tolerates, you know, life being harder for women? Because that's one thing you see. So clearly, in the film, right. So that the culture that makes it difficult, and the third that you were saying, which I thought was, again, really interesting, is micro aggressions, right, the things that are happening beneath the iceberg, because everything that is explicit, to some extent, do get covered under policies and acts. Right. So we have prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace act in India, which really looks at these explicit acts of harassment, but what you call micro aggressions the one beneath the surface, right, these insidious ones that happen all the time. So there are these three things, right. One is the pipeline that builds and supports women into careers of choices, whether it's science or elsewhere, the culture, as well as these micro aggressions. I think those three are really interesting, because I see them in workplaces outside of Sciences.
Sharon 13:47
Yeah, yeah. So it's, in our experience making the film it was, we found that there are equal, not, you know, an equal number of women that are interested in science. So it's not an issue of women not being interested in science, it's an issue of women being driven out of science at different points on that pipeline. And part of that might also be there could be other things besides cultural, like little cultural microaggressions driving women out, it could also be an issue of who's doing the hiring at these institutions. And whether they have some sort of implicit bias when they're looking at resumes. Or kind of choosing one candidate over another consistently like those things can also lead to numbers that you see like over time on those points on the pipeline, but But yeah, culture does seem to be a part of it, too.
Deepak 14:42
I think in India its saddly similar Sujatha. I mean we hardly see a lot of people, a lot of women in science, in technology I think there are a lot more women than in science. IT companies, for example, And I think Sharon made the point earlier, is the work culture, corporate work culture better geared for accepting women at work, although they might the base level may still be very poor. But is it better than insights in India? I think.
Sujatha Rao 15:16
So I think thepoint that Sharon was making about, let's look beneath the iceberg might be better indicators for us to answer that question. Right. So I'm going to read out some of the, above the iceberg and below the iceberg indicators of harrassment. Sharon, and maybe we could look at how much of this exists, you know, to help answer Deepak's question. So the above the iceberg issues are unwanted, you know, things like unwanted sexual attention and assault, and, you know, question and things like that. The below the iceberg ones are the ones that are more difficult to identify immediately, right. So one of it is subtle exclusions, I'll read these out. And then we can sort of look at some of them, right, subtle exclusions, questioning competence, being left out of conversations, either male or otherwise, not being invited to collaborate or join projects or meetings, name calling that often, you know, could be could be vulgar, or obscene, or slight jokes, right, that are sexist and insider jokes that women sometimes don't get, but a group of men can laugh about it. In a meeting with others present passed over for promotions, more difficult performance appraisal interviews, being compared to, you know, men who might not have the family responsibilities that women have, I'm being told, Well, you know, the man's working 80 hours, you're working only 60. These remarks about bodies as well, in Sly and subtle jokes. These are representative of below the iceberg. And I would suggest that these happen, occur more commonly than perhaps these recognize the everyday nests, these microaggressions rarely get reported as sexual harassment issues to committees. And I think to a large extent they go uncalled out you don't call them out consistently. And that could be a variety of reasons. Sharon, did you find something similar happening when you were speaking with with women in science?
Sharon 17:35
Yeah, it is something that we heard a lot was that people didn't report. The anecdotally. I mean, I know that that was the case with a lot of the people that we talked to, because they didn't want to be seen as a troublemaker, they didn't want to be seen as not a team player, you know, somebody without a sense of humor, or whatever. Um, it was really common, unfortunately. And also, like, I don't know how it is in India, but in America, like the process of, of actually like doing a title nine lawsuit or, you know, filing a claim and a complaint and everything. And going through that investigative process is really hard. And it's emotionally taxing. And you know, you're questioned by like a whole group of people who are very skeptical, and they're kind of questioning your morals and everything. So like, there are so many gates to reporting these things that the people who study this stuff, including Dr. Kate Clancy, they Yeah, they do see that there's under reporting.
Deepak 18:38
I think the same thing in India as well Sujatha, under reporting is the norm, very, very few women report, even on what is about the iceberg. So for them to report what is below the iceberg would be rarely seen in India as what all Sharon was saying not being a team player, not able to take a joke being too sensitive. And then the stereotypical thing, oh, women are too sensitive women can't do this. It's, you know, we should not have hired women. So this kind of conversations will keep happening. So it's very troubling for us to be able to create workspaces where half the population is facing this kind of discrimination. And for me, meaning obviously, as a man I was cringing throughout the movie, but also, the story of Adam was really and Sujatha and I were speaking about it yesterday. I have very mixed feelings one thing about about he not, not first of all, reporting what he was seeing, but also not even seeing what was being done. You know, a lot of things were happening that he was not even aware of, and I feel that maybe it's a man maybe we don't see it, itself as men we are just unconsciously part of the process of harassment. Even though we are not active participants ourselves So, so that's one And the second thing towards the, towards the end of the movie where Noah Adams story also came up at some level it was very heartwarming at some level, you know, although he said that I should have done more felt a bit too late, you know, and that he responded only after he was asked by I forgot the protagonists name but who asked Jane? And you know, why did you have to wait for so long?
Sujatha Rao 20:25
That just before Sharon comments, we just want to clarify that Adam is a colleague of one of the protagonists Jane, who goes through a really horrible experience with an eminent scientist in the Antarctic with I mean, I could just imagine the terrain and the environment in which she's she's struggling and Adams, her colleague and seems oblivious to what's happening, just to point out who Adam is. But there is this thing that pointed out about adjacent colleagues, right, people who are colleagues with you in your workplace, who may not even know that you are feeling emotionally, physically vulnerable in the workplace, because what they think of as that's okay, or normal, or I don't even hear it affects another person so deeply. It's I just want Yeah, I think adding to what Deepak's comment was this notion of adjacent colleagues, right, or men or women, and what was your experience with Adam story, strike a chord with others? And how did you guys think about that?
Sharon 21:32
Oh, man, Adams story really strikes a chord. It's really interesting. Like, in all of our tests, screenings when we were doing Rough Cut screenings, people really feel strongly about Adam. And I think women tend to be really annoyed with Adam, for not seeing the you know, not recognizing that his friend, you know, they're not just colleagues, they're good friends, that she was experiencing this horrible harassment right in front of him. And he didn't see it. He just, he thought that the guy was being a jerk, you know, but he didn't, you just didn't see it. And but, you know, at the same time, I'm really glad. I'm really happy that Adam talked to us, I'm really grateful that he was, you know, willing to be on camera and talk about his experience. Because there are so many of us who have been in his situation, I think everybody has been an Adam in some, you know, some situation where you just didn't see something that your friend or your colleague was going through, you just didn't recognize that it was really hard. And I love that he learned from it. And he did. It's true. He only really figured it out when he was actually who's talking with Jane's brother. And, and he was like, oh, oh, she was really mad. Like, she was really upset about what happened in in the Antarctic. And it wasn't until he realized that, that he kind of saw everything completely differently. I think one thing that like, when I think about Adam, and like, being a person, you know, being a bystander, one thing that like, when I've been talking with the subjects of the film with Jane Willenbring, Rachel Burke's, Nancy Hopkins, Rachel has a great point. She says, you know, you should just check in with your colleagues and just ask them how they're doing. Sometimes. And I know that sometimes that can be, it's like, you're then you're assuming that the person recognizes that something happened, that wasn't okay. And maybe they're just maybe it's just completely oblivious, and they don't even think about it. But maybe it's just a good habit to be like, how are you doing? Like, is everything okay? You know, how are you feeling? And then do you need any help? Do you want my help? With anything? Can I do anything? Not just assuming that you're going to step into that Savior role without asking them, but I don't know. Maybe that's a nice way to just kind of keep your check. Check how everything's going in the office. It seems like a good first step.
Sujatha Rao 24:00
But there's also this statement in the movie by the psychologist. Banaji
Sharon 24:06
Dr. Mazur? Mahzarin Banaji. Yeah.
Sujatha Rao 24:09
And she said something about institutions having to recognize what are the social consequences of unconscious biases, right, and prejudices and mindsets that we all have. Right so going back to what you just said, Sharon, about colleagues, checking in with each other, in some sense is maybe also a flag to organizations and institutions to say should we be constantly checking our own biases because not only is it bad for our workplace and for our employees and you know, our people, but it's bad for society, right? It goes back. It has really terrible social consequences. Like I found that thought that she put in really useful for Organisation as well.
Sharon 25:02
She was so great. I love I love her so much. She was so smart. She is so smart. Yeah, I mean, she. So she's, she, she thinks a lot about like, obviously her workers on implicit bias, which is really like this unconscious bias that we all carry with us. And she does these talks where she'll, she'll go to like a corporation and she'll give the ai t, which you can watch in our film, it's this thing called the implicit association test where you can have a roomful of people, and then you shout out the answers. And it's very clear that there's a difference in how people perceive like in the test that she ran for us was women as scientists versus men as scientists, and it was very interesting how easily it was to associate men with science and how hard it was to associate women with science. But you can even you can take them on her website, they have, it's called Project that Project Implicit. It's like, if you have a bias for dogs versus cats, or whatever, um, it's, it's a really interesting exercise. But she's got, I mean, in her personal life, like She even does this for herself, she tries to change her own implicit biases. And she does that in interesting ways. Like, even just changing the posters in her office. So she has this rotating these posters of women doing stereotypically male jobs, and she just hangs them all over the place. So she has like a black woman who's a construction worker. And, you know, obviously women as scientists and kind of just doing all these different activities that maybe unconsciously wouldn't expect them to do. And so that's like, one thing that she recommends is is just even like the imagery that greets you when you're in an office. We also talked with a few other people who were really fascinating, who didn't, unfortunately, make it in the film, but one of them was Dr. Sapna cheryan, who's out at the University of Washington, and she has a jar in on her conference table. And so whenever they have a group meeting, if somebody interrupts somebody else, they have to put money in the jar. And that says, it's a fun way of kind of, oh, you interrupted her, or like, oh, you said this, you know, she just said that, the exact same thing, just kind of making everybody a little more aware of what they're saying and how they're saying it, because research shows that men tend to interrupt more, and not let women finish their sentences, you know, so just, there are little things that you can do on the sort of micro level cultural wise.
Sujatha Rao 27:48
When somebody like Nancy Hopkins, a senior scientist, begins to think about systemic discrimination in an institute, like, you know, the MIT she talks about, right, she tries to make it, you know, sort of raise awareness about it, but it's, she's just ignored. And so she takes this measuring dish. And in, you know, sort of middle of the night, or whatever she is out there, measuring physically measuring labs, with measuring tapes, to prove that her lab has x square foot less than that of a colleague who's doing exactly the same work, right. So the amount of energy at sometimes goes into women having to just show an equal treatment just takes away from the very, very positive productivity that they can otherwise put into their work. Right. It was so visceral for me when she was saying here I am was that again, something that more women spoke about in the movie, this difficulty of having to show that
Sharon 29:07
Oh, my God, yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, it's, it seemed like every I mean, everybody we talked to was like, of course, this is anecdotal. But people said, I felt like I had to work twice as hard to get the same amount of respect or the same promotion. I mean, the women from MIT, so that that story is this, there's sort of this older generation of women, they, most of them didn't have kids, they chose not to have families, because they were from a generation where they felt like they couldn't, and they had to choose and it was either being a scientist or being a mother. I mean, they really like they threw themselves into their science, and they were they're very good scientists. But yeah, so part of me is like, I wonder how much more you would have been rewarded if you had been a white man. But yeah, it was it was very common and that was part of the story that we really wanted to emphasize is just the fact that Nancy spent so much time like, at the end of the film, she's sitting there, she's got all these binders. She's like, look at all this work like all of these. And I went through those binders because I was scanning papers for the film. And I was like, Oh, my God, there's like, numbers, you know, highlighted floor plans, of the lab spaces. And like, just all these stats, like she ran all these numbers through statistical programs, and it's just like, Wow, what a ton of work. And this is outside of her science, which she's also a cancer researcher. And she's done a lot of amazing work. That's, that's world renowned. So it's just like, oh, my god, she has a second job here. It's just, it's exhausting even thinking about it. And so I don't blame her when she says, I don't know if I'd want to do it again. But I hope that she can kind of rest now I'd say, you know, at least I feel like I've moved things along, move the needle for women in science.
Deepak 31:00
So Sharon, in the film, it was so heart wrenching to witness what Nancy had to go through but the fight, and the tenacity that she showed, was so so inspirational, for frankly, really shouldn't be left for an individual to fight this on our own. This is just not an individual battle, but a societal one. What can be done so that these issues are tackled at a systemic level? Now, what do you think, Sharon?
Sharon 31:32
I'm a filmmaker. So for me, when when I'm asked to like, what can we do, I'm like, raise awareness. Like, that's what that's my primary goal is to, you know, make movies that, that people can see what the issue is, and then want to change it, some of the things that we've seen, I mean, they're so at MIT, they implemented, they implemented a policy where it's just everybody, their salaries are tracked. And they're just like, checked periodically to make sure that the women are getting the same promotions as the men because typically men, you probably know this already but um, they tend to advocate more for themselves. And so they're, you know, negotiating more, and they get these pay bumps more frequently. And over time, those can really add up. So now there's sort of this more equal way of analyzing salaries. They also put in daycares on campus at MIT, so that women who have families can also just continue to do their work and not worry about child care, which has been huge. And there has been a huge difference in like, the younger women having families and not feeling like they have to wait or like choose between being a scientist or being a mother. You know, another thing that I don't know if it's really been implemented yet, but there are so Jane Willenbring talks a lot, like whenever we do q&a is about kind of moving away from the model of having a one mentor, or like one advisor, and kind of moving more towards a model of like a constellation of advisers, that's what she calls it a constellation, like a few key people, rather than just one person who kind of makes or breaks your career. Because if you don't get along with that one person, or if they sexually harass you or something, and you have to leave, your careers over. So I really liked that idea of like, if it's possible to implement that in a more kind of concrete, official way, I think that would be a really good idea so those are a few in academia,
Sujatha Rao 33:36
There's also the sense that if you improve the diversity of people in power, or you know, people may be giving funds, you know, funding agencies or directors of labs, and, you know, have maybe minorities, you know, women, people of color, etc, in those roles, that could also have a beneficial sort of follow on effect in terms of raising awareness of some of these issues, but also in policies that, you know, they might become more transparent, more open, you know, it's not sort of it doesn't benefit a particular constituency more than the other. So is that also playing? Or are people talking about that in science, this diversity of people in positions of power?
Sharon 34:25
Definitely,yeah. That's that. Thanks for bringing that up. That's when I completely forgot. When you're absolutely right. That's a big, it's a huge deal. And there are like so now hiring committees, it depends on the institution, again, because it does depend on the people in power, there is really the people at the top, determine the culture of your institution. And there's really no way around it like you can do as much as you can on your local in your lab or in your office. But really, when you have these people at the top, who care about this stuff, you can get a lot more done. And so at MIT for a long time, there was a man named Bob Birgeneau who was the Dean of the School of Science. And he really cared about these issues. So he made sure he implemented hiring policies where it was like, okay, so you ask around for some people you should look at if you're looking for a new professor of engineering or something. And they give you all these candidates, and you're like, Well, this is great, but what about women? What about? What about women of color, in particular? And they're like, Oh, I didn't, I didn't know you wanted women of color? Oh, yeah, I've got a couple over here, you should look at these people. So it's sort of like being more targeted about who you're looking for, and making sure that you have a diversity of people that you're, you know, considering and hiring, not just considering, yeah, that doesn't make a huge difference. And that's something but then, once Bob Virgina left MIT, there was another plateau, in terms of diversity of hires. So it really does matter who's in charge, and that we keep pressure on the people in charge, so that they continue to look at this and prioritize this.
Sujatha Rao 36:05
I think it's going to be a key leadership characteristic or trait moving forward. The sensitivity that you bring this awareness that you bring, adding something that Sharon said was really interesting is because when you had a change of leadership at MIT, what was progressive sort of plateaued for a little bit until maybe, you know, so therefore, what can organizations do that ensures continuity of this culture that gets built, and because it's so easy to let it slide,
Deepak 36:36
a couple of things that come to me, one is maybe some of this salary begging should be made public by law. You know, so like, you have SEC filings, some things around gender, around race around caste in India should be made public, so that people know what's happening in. These are public documents so that will a) create unnecessary momentum to all these things, otherwise, it will still remain at a few leaders and a few organizations doing that. The second one I would say is to do is that there's tremendous opportunity for organizations to position themselves as a great place for women to work. So by conscious or unconscious discrimination, you're actually losing a lot of stuff. One thing is the ethical wrong, the moral wrong, that's happening. But the other thing is that you are getting overtime, much weaker, because you're not able to retain good talent. And you know, Sujatha Rao, right now, in India, attrition is a huge issue, especially in technology companies, and globally as well. And if you could provide that kind of framework, and then go out to get the best women who can work for you in your organization. And if you market yourself like that, then you will have to create those systems in place that ensure that your positioning and your marketing is consistent with what's happening in your organization.
Sujatha Rao 38:13
I think what you're saying is a really valid point. But one of the things that has to be looked at carefully, is how men understand or react to conversations about harassment in the workplace, and how open they would be for such a positioning. So I've just been thinking about this, Sharon, and as a follow up Ian Cheney was your co director for the movie. Now as a male, did he react differently to the data that was coming up in the research around gender and around harassment? Were the things that surprised him, but not you?
Sharon 38:54
I think it was, what was interesting was that I wasn't surprised by much of the data. I was like, yep, that's about right. I think Ian was really, he has sort of gone through this transformation. And he's almost like an activist now like, and very much an advocate for women and people of color in a way that I don't think he was. I mean, he was always supportive and everything. But I think this is like really changed something in him. And he's doing a project now that's like the future of science. And it's a scholarship. Basically, they're launching a scholarship, where they're trying to find directors of color, to make a series of films that are kind of about looking forward into the future of what we can, like, what are the solution? So it's basically like a companion piece to picture scientists. And he's not going to be directing it and I'm not going to be directing it. We're actually hiring you know, we're going to be going on trying to find other people, directors of color who are interested in making those stories. So it's cool. It's cool to see that this process in this project has, you know, on an individual level, it's changed us, that's cool.
Sujatha Rao 38:54
I think the advocacy that you were talking about Sharon, so there's this advocacy that women have to do for themselves, and an understanding of what's happening to them. There's an advocacy that men have to do for themselves, and with the recognition of what's happening to women in the workplaces. And then there is advocacy that organizations and institutions have to do for themselves, but also for broader society. So I think this, if we can get the if we can get the conversation going, and if we can show that, along with the conversation, there are steps that you can take, then I guess, you're the momentum for change is a little bit faster than when you have sort of these compliance based policies. People don't understand why these policies exist. So it's there. But it's still handled the tip of the iceberg, whereas all of the beneath the iceberg continues to go on. So I think that's, I mean, for me, that is a very powerful message from the movie itself is, how can organizations pay attention to below the iceberg?
Deepak Menon 41:18
Sharon, this has been such a fascinating conversation. First, I really enjoyed watching the movie, and some of the things that we uncovered today with you, and Sujatha. And this conversation was equally fascinating. Sharon where can people watch the film, and access other resources that are related to the film.
Sharon 41:36
Thank you so much for having me, first of all, and Picture a Scientist is on Netflix worldwide. So please watch it if you are at all interested after this conversation. And then our website, I think, would probably be the other resource. And I think that's just pictureascientist.com. We do have a discussion guide that has some statistics in it. And I think some of the studies on it, but I'm not sure if that guide is on our website or not. So take a look at the website. And if it's not you, you know if anybody wants the discussion guide, I think just send us a message and we can send it to you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.
Sujatha Rao 42:19
Thank you, Sharon, for the information about the website and for the resources. And thank you so much for being on the show today. It was really informative.
Deepak Menon 42:28
Thank you, Sharon,
Sharon 42:29
Thank you so fun to meet you both and talk to you know, take the time to talk to you. I really appreciate it. And yeah, like why is this such a pleasure?
Sujatha Rao 42:37
Thank you, Sharon.
Sowmya 42:38
Thank you for listening. That was Deepak and Sujatha talking to Sharon Shattuck. You can watch Sharon's movie Picture a scientist on Netflix. You'll also find the resources referred to in the episode in the show notes with more information on our website, www.workwisepod.com We'd love to hear from you. Comment on the website or write to us at Hello@workwisepod.com. Credits go to Sanjali Ranjan for the cover art and Derek Clegg for the intro and outro music. Today's episode was mixed and edited by Prashant Venkateshan with production support from me Sowmya Karun. Don't forget to subscribe to the workwise pod on your favorite podcasting platform.
