''Picture a Scientist'' is a 2020 documentary highlighting gender inequality in science. The movie tells the stories of several prominent female researchers, and brings to light the barriers they encountered, including cases of

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

and

harassment Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...

. The movie features MIT's professor of biology Nancy Hopkins, the chemist Raychelle Burks and the geoscientist

Jane Willenbring Jane Kathryn Willenbring is an American geomorphologist and professor at Stanford University. She is best known for using cosmogenic nuclides to investigate landscape changes and dynamics. She has won multiple awards including the Antarctica Ser ...

, among other scientists. The film took part in the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2020. A number of research institutions have held screenings of the movie as parts of efforts to increase awareness of gender issues within

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

Overview

The documentary follows Hopkins, Burks and Willenbring through discussions of their respective careers and the barriers they faced as women in STEM. Among notable aspects of the documentary, Hopkins describes sexual harassment during her career and the fact that she was refused the same sized office space in comparison to her male counterparts. Burks discusses similar issues of discrimination, including being confused with the janitor at her place of work solely based on her appearance, as well as her added experiences of racism as a black woman in science. Willenbring describes the harassment she faced as a young scientist on a trip to Antarctica with an all male cohort, including being called sexist names, having her abilities diminished due to being a woman, and being physically harassed as a woman, most prominently by the trip leader, David Marchant. Willenbring did not bring these allegations to light for fear of further harassment, not being believed, and the potential detrimental effects on her career. After achieving tenure 16 years later, Willenbring formally complained against Marchant's treatment of her and following an investigation, what was previously named Marchant Glacier in Antarctica became renamed

Matataua Glacier Matataua Glacier, formerly Marchant Glacier () is a glacier, about long, which drains the slopes of Rampart Ridge between Mount Bishop and Mount Potter and flows northwest to the vicinity of Mount Bockheim, in the Royal Society Range, Victori ...

instead to acknowledge Marchant's abhorrent behaviour. Marchant was fired by Boston University in 2019, where he was a faculty member in the Department of Earth & Environment in the College of Arts & Sciences. While a five-member BU faculty panel recommended that Marchant be suspended for three years without pay, the university president,

Robert A. Brown Robert A. Brown (born July 22, 1951) is the 10th president of Boston University. He was formerly the provost of MIT. In 1991, Brown was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering for the application of computing techniques to ...

made the determination to fire Marchant.

References

External links

Official website
2020 films 2020s English-language films {{sci-documentary-film-stub