For anybody having difficulty reading the text:
Anti Acknowledgements
There have unfortunately also been people who have been less than helpful in my journey here. I wanted to acknowledge those too, because I know I am not unique in this experience.
No thank you to the physics study association that made me sing songs about how women couldn't study physics without sleeping with the professor, the day I stepped into university life. No thank you to the 5th year physics student that decided to assign me a 'stripper name' within the first minute of meeting me in the physics coffee corner in my first year. No thank you to the technician that was responsible for onboarding me on the use of the cluster in my third year who raised his eyebrows and asked me if that meant I was some sort of "computer girl". No thank you to the senior researcher that sent me utterly inappropriate texts after a conference, then proceeded to 'apologise' months later by telling me they had not been meant for me anyway so "no hard feelings remain hopefully". And no thank you to him for attending every conference I've been to since. No thank you to the people who told me that it was "surprising" that I was doing a PhD since I was a girl. No thank you to the man who mistook me for a coffee lady at a conference, and after having to correct him two times that I did not work there, responded with "you should consider it". No thank you to the researcher that asked me what I was wearing underneath my outfit during a conference. No thank you to the physicist who declared to a room full of other physicists that biologists "don't know how to design an experiment". No thank you to the people who have called me scary instead of strong and intimidating instead of intelligent. And finally, no thank you to the executive board of the TU Delft, whose knee-jerk reaction to being held up to a mirror about the social safety at the university, was to sue the party holding up the mirror instead of looking at the problems they highlighted.
I wish I could tell you this has all made me stronger somehow but in reality it has only shattered my confidence. You have made me feel like I do not belong in science and I cannot forgive you for that.
-Rachel
Bravo to the exceptional bravery on display here. I'm sure the majority of PhD graduates, including myself, wish they'd had the gumption to name and shame the suppressing factors contributing to a toxic academic environment. Reading this makes me kind of appreciative that my troubles were only administrative mismanagement and an inexperienced supervisor.
Also what the hell is up with TU Delft? It's only partway through March and this is the second time this year that I've seen a PhD candidate publicly call out the institute.
Unfathomably based.
This sounds like the University of Ottawa. Watching physics professors sexually harass the few women in our class was disgusting.
Does anyone have info about the lawsuit
can't wait to experience that myself!! 🥰
What she has been through is awful.
I wish though that more people knew the difference between an Acknowledgements page and a Thank You page.
This should properly be titled Anti Thanks.
Acknowledgements should only cover individuals and institutions whose contributions are a direct factor in the material body of the text.
Edit: I see a surprisingly large number of you have, or plan to, amateurishly shoehorn your parents, best friends, favourite barista, and pet cat into your phD Acknowledgements.
Spend the 10 cents on having an extra page of front matter; your future publisher will thank me.
Reminds me of Sabine Hossfelder, a physicist, who had made some similar experiences.
Proof that educated people can still be immensely stupid and be utter human trash.
Not a physicist but fuck it is so relatable.
Fuck these misogynistic pigs, idiots like these need to be called out more often. It's too bad she couldn't give names out and completely humiliate and ruin them.
I appreciate her telling it like it is and not bowing to a pressure to please.
Found an article speaking more about it, if anyone is curious about the context/her work.
Fucking relatable.
No thank you to the hundreds of years of chemist men taking credit for women's discoveries.
No thank you to the old white Persian man gate keeping chemistry from Ukranians and older women in my class.
No thank you to the sexist math book author who used shoeless women in a kitchen as a word problem example.
No thank you to Amazon for banning my 15 year account for calling the sexist math book author out in reviews.
Name dropping TU Delft is surprising to me! ETA: found more info here, but not about the lawsuit piece.
https://delta.tudelft.nl/en/article/a-no-thank-you-to-the-person-who-assumed-i-was-the-coffee-lady
There is an excellent Science channel on Youtube and Nebula with a Physics PHD who's made some eye-opening content about harassment and misogyny in STEM and Academia.
This just makes me sad. How can science advance, if we gatekeep one half of human population? In my academic career I have consistently found women to be smarter and better than men. Yet, these misogynistic ideas seem to persist. We deserve better than old farts with even older bias heading the institutions that make up our society.
I read the first sentence in that big paragraph and thought "wow, going straight to the biggest problem right out of the gate instead of building up to it, huh?" Then I kept reading and realized the entire paragraph was about that same thing. Holy shit, that's a lot of sexism!
Now I want an anti-acknowledgment section in my dissertation too
Beautifully spoken
Acknowledgmen't
Sucks.
Live and let live, man! And preferably with no sexism!
