Scientist Agony Aunt Alice Huang Tells Reader To 'Put Up' With Colleague Staring At Her Chest | HuffPost Life

Scientist Agony Aunt Tells Reader To 'Put Up' With Colleague Ogling Her Chest

Natasha Hinde— The Huffington Post UK

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And the award for most inappropriate piece of advice ever goes to...

Science magazine's career advice columnist, Alice Huang (aka Ask Alice), who responded to a woman's query about sexual harassment at work by telling her to "put up with it".

Sorry, what?

A reader wrote into the magazine with the following query: "My adviser is a good scientist, and he seems like a nice guy.

"Here’s the problem: Whenever we meet in his office, I catch him trying to look down my shirt. Not that this matters, but he’s married. What should I do?"

Huang told the reader to "put up with it, with good humour".

She added: "Just make sure that he is listening to you and your ideas, taking in the results you are presenting, and taking your science seriously.

"His attention on your chest may be unwelcome, but you need his attention on your science and his best advice."

According to Mashable, Huang's advice column was promptly taken down, lasting less than 24 hours online. The advice column has been replaced with an Editor's Note, which explains the piece was "inconsistent" with the magazine's efforts to promote the role of women in science.

SEE ALSO:
Science Should NOT Be Perceived as a Man's World
Don't Forget the Girls: Breaking Down the Gender Barrier Starts at Home
Sexism in Science 101: Mythbusting

The columnist also said that she didn't believe this kind of behaviour was classed as "unlawful sexual harrassment" under the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Huang added: "I don’t mean to suggest that leering is appropriate workplace behaviour — it isn’t — but it is human and up to a point, I think, forgivable."

Many have since taken to Twitter to protest the advice column.

The advice was posted on 1 June and has since been taken down for not meeting editorial standards.

Science Magazine added that Huang's advice: "had not been reviewed by experts knowledgeable about laws regarding sexual harassment in the workplace".

10 Female Scientists That Changed Society

Caroline Herschel (1750-1848)(01 of10)

The sister of astronomer William Herschel, Caroline Herschel worked as his apprentice and helped him develop the modern mathematical approach to astronomy. In 1783, she discovered three new nebulae and between 1786 and 1797, she also found eight comets. The Royal Astronomical Society awarded Caroline its gold medal in 1828. (credit:Kean Collection via Getty Images)

Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)(02 of10)

According to the Natural History Museum, Anning had a long career as a fossil hunter, finding the ichthyosaurs, the long-necked plesiosaurs, a pterodactyl and hundreds, possibly thousands, of other fossils that helped scientists to draw a picture of the marine world during the Jurassic. Scientists of the time traveled from as far away as New York City to Lyme Regis to consult and hunt for fossils with Anning.

Maria Mitchell (1818 – 1889)(03 of10)

In 1847 Mitchell spotted a comet through her telescope and was soon honored around the world, earning a medal from the king of Denmark.She became the first woman to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and he first female astronomy professor in the United States, when she was hired by Vassar College in 1865. (credit:Interim Archives via Getty Images)

Marie Curie (1867-1934)(04 of10)

Marie Curie is famous for her work on radioactivity.She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to win this award in two categories: Physics and Chemistry. She discovered polonium and radium and her work helped with the creation of X-rays. (credit:Forum via Getty Images)

Lise Meitner (1878 – 1968)(05 of10)

Meitner collaborated with Otto Hahn on the study of radioactive elements. After Hahn discovered that uranium atoms were split when bombarded with neutrons, she calculated the energy released in the reaction and named the phenomenon “nuclear fission.” The discovery - which eventually led to the atomic bomb - won Hahn the Nobel Prize in 1944.“You must not blame scientists for the use to which war technicians have put our discoveries,” Meitner said in 1945. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956)(06 of10)

Daughter of famed Marie Curie, Irene Joliot Curie should be famous for the study of radiation in her own right. She won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for the finding of artificial radioactivity. Along with her husband Frederic, Joliot-Curie also turned boron into radioactive nitrogen as well as aluminim into phosphorus and magnesium into silicon.Source: totallyhistory.com (credit:AFP via Getty Images)

Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958)(07 of10)

Rosalind Franklin made crucial contributions to the solution of the structure of DNA.Speaking about her in 1968, Sir Aaron Klug said: "She discovered the B form, recognized that two states of the DNA molecule existed and defined conditions for the transition. From early on, she realized that any correct model must have the phosphate groups on the outside of the molecule. She laid the basis for the quantitative study of the diffraction patterns, and after the formation of the Watson - Crick model she demonstrated that a double helix was consistent with the X-ray patterns of both the A and B form." (credit:SCIENCE SOURCE via Getty Images)

Gertrude B. Elion (1918-1999)(08 of10)

Gertrude B. Elion is famous for helping the development of new drugs.She was a joint-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988 “for discoveries of important principles for drug treatment.” One of her most notable creations was the development of the AIDS drug AZT.Writing after she received the Nobel Prize, Elion said: "Over the years, my work became both my vocation and avocation. Since I enjoyed it so much, I never felt a great need to go outside for relaxation." (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Elizabeth Blackburn (1948-present)(09 of10)

Known for her work with telomere, Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize along with her work partners Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak in the category of Physiology or Medicine in 2009.The prize was awarded "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase". (credit:ALEXANDER KLEIN via Getty Images)

Melissa Franklin (1957-)(10 of10)

Melissa Franklin is an an experimental particle physicists at Harvard University where she is Department Chair. She headed a team at the Fermi National Acceleration Lab in Chicago where they found the first signs that top quarks exist. Franklin was also the first woman to get tenure at the Harvard Physics department.source: totallyhistory.com/

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