Isn't Blake a bit young to be called powerful? I mean I love him and he should be powerful. But is he already perceived as such?
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I've had to leave a couple of toxic academic environments. They shared the characteristic that any discussion would devolve into a small group of male professors literally yelling at each other. If you're in that group or can imagine joining it, that can be a lot of fun, I gather
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Once, when I tried to bring up some of the more heinous aspects of their culture, I was literally asked to leave, essentially for not assimilating. Basically 'play by our rules or gtfo'
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Yeah, as you surmised, it *can* be fun if you're comfortable with aggression and willing to muscle your way in. So, I bet the reaction to you was, "we're having fun, back off". But, science needs to be a professional place that is welcoming to all - a culture change is required.
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Yep, their reaction was indeed "you're ruining our fun". But for the record, I wasn't even trying to bring up their combative discussions. I was trying to get them to stop encouraging sexual harassment!
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Oh, JFC, that was just completely inexcusable of them then!!! They should have listened to you either way, but "we're having fun fighting each other" is a far, far more acceptable infringement of professional conduct than, "we're having fun encouraging sexual harassment"!
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Why is it exclusionary communities like these end up being all like this? If you only have "white dudes", you end up doing "locker room talk" apparently.

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As someone who spent many formative years in hockey locker rooms, it's easy to explain: all humans (not just white dudes) enjoy signalling group membership and status. But, for white dudes engaged in a high aggression activity, group status is signalled by being hard, mean, etc.
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As someone who spent many formative years being an immigrant, I can assure you women do not descend into sexual language about men (anybody) anywhere near as often (i.e., basically never) as men seem to based on what men tell me.
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But calling out stuff properly takes time. And effort. Hence why I wanted to quit. Back then it was really bad and nobody else really was listening or calling stuff out. Things really have, in some respects , improved.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Really selfish of me to say this then but by all means stay and continue the good work! Initially I planned to keep twitter mostly professional and purely sciencey but you all have pulled me in with all the stuff around it! Hope my positivity strategy supplements the efforts!
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Part of my reasoning is that I'm expecting to lose much of the positivity if I enter academia again

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Awwww. I really appreciate your supportive messages.
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But, more generally, even if I were a big wig, I’m having trouble seeing the issue with my participation in the thread... regardless of status, what’s wrong with having strong positions and stating them in a respectful manner?