Some years ago, at the end of an evening that probably involved more alcoholic beverages than it should have, I found myself as a member of a small party of four, composed of two colleagues (and incidentally, good friends) and one PhD student (all three male). As the conversation progressed, I ended up saying things that were somewhat sexually explicit (as some readers may recall, I don’t shy away from talking about matters pertaining to sexuality – see a recent lecture of mine on the science of female orgasm). To be clear, what I said could not have been construed as ‘flirtatious’ in any way, but the next day I came to deeply regret the whole episode. My reasoning was as follows: had I been a male individual, and had the student in question been a female individual, what I said would have been undoubtedly inappropriate, by my own lights. (Similar considerations could be offered concerning interactions with colleagues, but I was particularly concerned with the asymmetry between me and the student).
This episode led me to formulate and since then apply a principle of parity to regulate my behavior in professional situations: not to say or do anything that would be construed or viewed as problematic, had I been a man dealing with (especially more junior) women, be they colleagues, students etc. Until then, I would on occasion make remarks during class (e.g. ‘here, size does matter’ when talking about some issue pertaining to model-theory) which seemed to me to be ok (and in a sense, even a ‘political statement’ in some way), but which would not have been appropriate if uttered by a man. I do not make such remarks in class anymore.
In a sense, I take this principle of parity to be a case of ‘erring on the side of caution’. Of course, there is no such parity or symmetry in the background in the first place: there is a whole power structure in place such that the power dynamics between a male senior individual and a female junior individual is simply not the same if the genders are inversed. Still, I see good reasons to endorse this principle, and in fact it guides me not only in my actions and interactions with colleagues and students, but also my own thinking on matters pertaining to gender and sexuality. For example, it is the parity ideal that makes me oppose and criticize male genital cutting as much as female genital cutting of babies and children (and of non-consenting individuals in general).
Now, the point of this post is to raise a question regarding norms for relationships between faculty and students, and how parity does or does not apply. We’ve all heard of the recent cases of senior males arguably engaging in professional misconduct towards female students (both undergraduate and graduate students). In this respect, a guideline that I endorse myself, and which I’ve discussed in detail with a prominent philosopher/friend recently, is that romantic and/or sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduates are always bad, and such relationships between faculty and graduate students are usually bad (indefeasible principle in the first case, defeasible principle in the second case).
Combining this guideline with the principle of parity I’ve been articulating, the conclusion would be that relationships between female senior individuals and male junior individuals would be problematic and potentially blameworthy to the same degree as relationships between male senior individuals and female junior individuals, ceteris paribus. (Obviously, things are not ceteris paribus given the background of established gender power dynamics, but again, I refer to my response to this objection above.) And yet, my feeling is that (successful, consensual) relationships between female faculty and male (former) students are by and large perceived differently from those between male faculty and female (former) students, i.e. normally judged as less problematic. I may be wrong in this perception, but if I’m right, this difference in evaluation between the two cases clashes with the parity principle I’ve been defending here. Now, I can see all kinds of reasons to reject the parity principle, but I also see many compelling reasons to endorse it, and at any rate the principle has been serving me quite well since I adopted it.
So here is my question for readers: does it make sense to apply the parity principle in the case of relationships between faculty and students? Does it make sense to endorse the principle, generally speaking? I’d be curious to hear what people think.
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