“The victim has no existence”: the Academy of Sciences warns of the taboo of sexist and sexual violence in the world of research

At 16, Adélaïde thought she would discover careers in research. During an internship in a hospital laboratory in Paris, she accompanied two men who showed her scientific imaging techniques. When one of them leaves the room, she is left alone with her older colleague. He rolls up the sleeves of his blouse. “I thought it was a fatherly gesture,” she remembers. Then he caresses her knee and kisses her on the cheek.

The girl runs away. She immediately warns her internship supervisor, who promises to intervene. But the next day, no explanation was given to him. “I was in a fog and she didn’t enlighten me any more than that. » Three to four months later, returning to finalize her report, Adelaide meets the man again in the corridors. She does not know whether her report gave rise to a procedure. “I told myself that in the end, my word had not been taken into account. I felt a little betrayed. »

One in two scientists have been victims of sexual harassment at work

A difficulty that associations have been denouncing for around twenty years: in research, reporting violence guarantees neither protection nor even knowledge of the follow-up given to its report...