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It’s time to talk about scholarly harassment

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 2, pages 326–327 (2023)Cite this article

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Scholarly harassment, or repeated mistreatment or threats towards one’s scholarly work, conduct or capabilities, poses a threat to scholars and might disproportionately impact women. The field must acknowledge and challenge the routine practices that stifle scholars’ voices and contributions.

Women represent a growing and vital part of the scholarly community, but they remain under-represented among higher ranks of academia and face compounded barriers to entry and success1. It is now more widely acknowledged that women are frequently and disproportionately affected by sexual harassment2 and other forms of professional misconduct (such as workplace bullying or intimidation). However, other, less widely discussed, forms of workplace harassment exist that stifle women’s creativity, harm their sense of self and worth, allow their contributions to go unrecognized and stop them from taking on positions of leadership and influence1. Specifically, academia is overdue in recognizing scholarly harassment: repeated mistreatment relating to one’s scholarly work, conduct or capabilities that is threatening, humiliating or intimidating.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    June Gruber & Eliana Colunga

  2. School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    A. Susan Jurow

  3. Center for Systems Biology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Pardis Sabeti

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

    Laura A. King

Authors
  1. June Gruber
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  2. A. Susan Jurow
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  3. Eliana Colunga
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  4. Pardis Sabeti
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  5. Laura A. King
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Contributions

J.G., A.S.J., E.C., L.A.K. and P.S. contributed to the conception and ideas behind the commentary. J.G. and A.S.J. wrote the first draft. E.C., L.A.K. and P.S. modified and contributed to subsequent drafts. All authors approved the submitted version.

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Correspondence to June Gruber.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Gruber, J., Jurow, A.S., Colunga, E. et al. It’s time to talk about scholarly harassment. Nat Rev Psychol 2, 326–327 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00191-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00191-y

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