I’m currently at an academic conference and I’d like to share a snapshot of my experiences with my advisor from yesterday that make me feel like I am not taken seriously as scientist. I was told that my poster was “cute” (rather than professional and informative), and that I was “a busy girl” during the presentation period (rather than stating people were very engaged in my work). When asked for a picture near my poster I was told to smile more (which I probably would not have been told to do if I were male). I’m sure many would say that I’m overreacting but word choice is important and an atmosphere of implicit gender bias can be just as harmful as blatantly sexist remarks.
