An amateur researcher in the career advice column ‘Ask Alice’ at Science Careers asked what to do about the adviser who is a good scientist but who keeps trying to look down her shirt.

Alice Huang, a microbiologist and past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, offered an advice that was so problematic that the column was removed by Science editors within few hours of its post.

Huang advised the writer to put up with the adviser’s ogling is advice that many women in science have heard, and still continue to hear.

The amateur researcher identifies herself as having just started her second postdoc in the lab of the adviser who is trying to look down her shirt.

A post-doctoral researcher has a Ph.D., and a funding of its own, but does not have a permanent position or the institutional affiliation and job security.

Post-docs rely on the moderation of an adviser who gives them lab space (and usually some other resources), an institutional affiliation, and, one hopes, some mentoring in how to succeed as a member of their scientific community.

Huang’s column suggested that, because workplaces are an important part of one’s life, they are also places where we ought to expect people’s libido to influence their behavior. She wrote, “The kind of behavior you mention is common in the workplace”.

Furthermore, after quoting the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) definition of unlawful sexual harassment, Huang kept forward her opinion that the adviser in question had not crossed that legal line.

Therefore on that basis, Huang argued that even though ogling is inappropriate workplace behavior, and the postdoc must put up with it, with good humor. Huang said there could have been far worse things the adviser might be doing to her instead.

Suggesting the early career scientist to grin and bear unprofessional behavior from her adviser, rather than doing something to mitigate it, leaves her stuck in a professional relationship where it may never be possible to get the adviser’s scientific interest without concerns about engaging his carnal interest.