“A typical academic conference focuses its schedule on research talks...[but] conversations that directly discuss issues being faced by people in the fields are never part of the main narrative. [Women in Space] balanced academic research in the fields of planetary science with the complex issues that face the people who actually do the work. These conversations were not at lunch sessions, after-hours conference social events, or any other side event or forum. The panels were front-and-centre in the schedule, and thus expected your participation. In the panel discussions, we heard directly from the people who are experiencing workplace discrimination and harassment, and how they have been dealing with their experiences. In structuring the conference this way, the organizers and participants challenged the idea that work is separate from lived experience.”
Jesse Rogerson, Ingenium Canada