A New Study Has Found That Many Female Scientists of Color Don't Feel Safe at Work

A new study has confirmed what many women of color working in STEM fields already knew to be true: that women of color face particular challenges in the workplace that can contribute to an environment in which they feel unsafe.

Glamour reports that the study, done by the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets looked specifically at female astronomers and planetary scientists - and the results are disheartening to say the least. 40% of the 474 women surveyed said they had previously felt unsafe in the workplace because of their gender, and 28% felt the same way because of their race.

Unfortunately, these feelings end up having very real impacts on women's careers. 18% of the women of color surveyed said that they'd skipped a class, meeting, fieldwork opportunity, or professional event at least once within the past five years due to fears for their safety.

Kathryn Clancy, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois and lead author of the research, told Buzzfeed News,  "These are all current issues that women of color are facing right now. They’re feeling unsafe today. They’re skipping professional events today."

Of course, in a field that is still extremely male-dominated, it's not exactly hard to understand why many women of color feel this way - not to mention that one of Clancy's previous studies in 2014 found that 71% of 666 female scientists surveyed had experienced harassment at some point while working in the field, and that 26% had been assaulted while on the job.

While even one woman of color feeling unsafe in her workplace because of who is is is too many, numbers this high are simply not okay - and prove that we have a long way to go when it comes to supporting women, and specifically women of color, in math and science-related fields.