This was posted in another thread in response to the Weinstein allegations.
Let me tell you my story. Young female PhD student, presents her work at international conference for the first time. Senior professor takes an interest in her work (or, at least appears to do so). Introduces her to other senior figures in her field at the conference. Continues to stay in touch after the conference, always research related but also pushy. One day, emails her to ask whether she can come and see him to talk about work. She goes to see him, and bang, Weinstein scenario. Has evaded her ever since "the incident."
Was I naive? In hindsight, yes. But, paraphrasing the Bible, let him who has never been naive cast the first stone.
And, no, there are no favors. Perhaps initially, as bait. But, as a homo economicus, he knows damn well he doesn't need to do me any favors now that he has gotten what he wants. His optimal strategy is to pretend that he barely knows me, and he knows it.
Would these young attractive actresses be less naive (and more cynical) than I was? Perhaps. But I cannot imagine anyone choosing to be in that kind of situation. It has been 15 years, and thinking about it still makes me sick. Until you know what you're talking about, please shut the f**k up.
As a male I have never had to deal with this kind of behavior. And I didn't really wish to believe that it existed in academia. Although, I have heard from female colleagues that older men tried to hit on them (e.g. "that was a really interesting paper shall I come up to your room to discuss it after drinks?"). Call me naive. I should've known. Broettes would you be willing to speak out about this anonymously in this thread to prevent this from happening to others?
To the author of this post and perhaps others. Have you considered coming out about this? I can't imagine how hard this must be. But have you considered contacting the author of the Weinstein piece? He could write down your story and the story of others anonymously to open up the discussion and perhaps help out some people in the profession who behave and have behaved like this.
EJMR has been used to show that the economics profession is sexist. But this could be one way of showing that it can help combat sexism in the profession.