BIRCWH scholar Julienne Rutherford, along with colleagues Kate Clancy (University of Illinois Urbana Champaign), Katie Hinde (Harvard University), Robin Nelson (University of California, Riverside), was featured in Science for her recent survey of fieldwork experiences in biological anthropology. The article describes a distressing status quo- more than 20% of female bioanthropologists who took part in the survey said that they had experienced "physical sexual harassment or unwanted sexual contact."
Dr. Rutherford and her colleagues found that most abuse happened within the team of researchers, and was usually perpetrated by someone higher in the professional hierarchy. Some researchers had even been victimized but their own fieldwork mentors. Sexual harassment in bioanthropology has yet to be addressed by any significant efforts, but hopefully this article will bring some much needed attention to the topic.
