Female academic fired for loudness

[MogsBestestFurball]

The sex was not included in the headline, but who would fire a man for being offensively loud...
www.theguardian.com/education/2022/jan/18/loud-academic-awarded-more-than-100000-for-unfair-dismissal

@EmmaH2022 for the hour I'm visiting someone in hospital I would have to concentrate very, very hard to keep my voice within an expected parameter. Which is fine for the hour I'm making small talk in a hospital. (Although if anyone said anything funny and I laughed, that would wake someone under general anaesthetic, I'm afraid.)

To do it for 7 hours in an office when I'm dealing with work, stress, motivating others - that would be intolerable. It would take up so much of my head space that I wouldn't be able to communicate properly and therefore do my job.

[quote GoGoGretaDoll]@EmmaH2022 for the hour I'm visiting someone in hospital I would have to concentrate very, very hard to keep my voice within an expected parameter. Which is fine for the hour I'm making small talk in a hospital. (Although if anyone said anything funny and I laughed, that would wake someone under general anaesthetic, I'm afraid.)

To do it for 7 hours in an office when I'm dealing with work, stress, motivating others - that would be intolerable. It would take up so much of my head space that I wouldn't be able to communicate properly and therefore do my job. [/quote]
Have you had your hearing checked?

A lot of loud people have blocked ears, might be worth investigating if you can ever find a doctor to see you?

I was taught by Dr Plaut when I was a student at Exeter and I didn't find her voice to be too loud or grating. She spoke clearly and had a no-nonsense demeanour. She didn't present in a particularly feminine way so I suspect being a gender non-conforming female in an entirely male department with mostly male students (my year had about 60 students and 8 of them were female, down to 6 by graduation) was not easy for her. I know she wasn't a popular lecturer, but not for any good reason as far as I could see. I found her to be a good lecturer. I can't comment on her performance in research as I was only there for my BSc.

I'm glad she won the case, but I'm sorry this happened to her. I tried to continue my academic career in Physics but I found it impossible. I don't know how much was because I was female and how much was that I made a poor choice of PhD supervisor, but I do think sexism played a big part. From what I've seen, things haven't improved much, if any, for women in Physics since my day.

I can't comment on her performance in research as I was only there for my BSc.

Never underestimate how important one's research is to one's standing in an academic department. I had a look at some other roughly equivalent academics there, and came up with the following examples:

An established professor with 123 publications in 15 years.
A recently-appointed professor with 29 publications in six years.

So, those are the kind of numbers you should be aiming at; Plaut's 65 in 30 years seems rather low by comparison. It is, of course, impossible to make a direct comparison, as quality of research, and disciplinary context matter as well, but suggests a very clear reason why the University of Exeter might not have been terribly willing to retain Plaut's services.

My colleague is loud. My office shares a wall with a meeting room that he uses frequently and often on speakerphone or zoom with the volume up. It sounds like he’s sitting next to me.

I got told it was my problem.

It sounds like she is doing womaning all wrong. With the same research output but with fawning over the mens, talking breathlessly, giggling and bringing cakes to work you bet there would not be a problem. And you can bet that male colleagues have similar or worse outputs and are not at risk of losing their jobs.

I wouldn't be able to stay in a role where I had a very loud colleague. Add into that, that she seems to have a very combative style and "I can't help it" seems to be a weak defence.

There are some people who make the working environment untenable for their colleagues. When one person makes it pretty impossible for anyone else to work, it has to be addressed, whatever their sex/ehtnicity/natural style.

for the hour I'm visiting someone in hospital I would have to concentrate very, very hard to keep my voice within an expected parameter. Which is fine for the hour I'm making small talk in a hospital
To do it for 7 hours in an office when I'm dealing with work, stress, motivating others - that would be intolerable. It would take up so much of my head space that I wouldn't be able to communicate properly and therefore do my job.

I'm sorry @EmmaH2022, but the sound of your voice would take up so much of my headspace that I wouldn't be able to do my job. I get that it's something you don't seem to be able to control, but I (and I'm guessing others) wouldn't be able to control our reaction either.

It's shit all round really.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

It sounds like she is doing womaning all wrong. With the same research output but with fawning over the mens, talking breathlessly, giggling and bringing cakes to work you bet there would not be a problem. And you can bet that male colleagues have similar or worse outputs and are not at risk of losing their jobs.

I really agree with this!

There is clearly more to this than what has been reported. The university have said they will appeal because the unfair dismissal related to claims over her treatment of two PhD students. Dr Plaut herself has said that the university wanted to get rid of her for many years but I would be astonished if all her male colleagues in the department had substantially better records in terms of research outputs and successful PhD completions. How did the complaints about the way she spoke get included in the evidence presented to the tribunal if there were so many other indicators or poor performance?

Moving away from this individual case to women's experiences more generally, women's voices are scrutinised in a way that men's are not. A good example of this is the criticism faced by Alex Scott or Karen Carney, the ex footballers turned pundits. Almost every male football pundit has a regional accent, but do they get the level of comments about their voices? They do not.

The actor Brian Blessed has made money from appearing in comedy shows and advertisements featuring his loud voice. I can't think of a female equivalent.

Speaking volume can be cultural and gendered (the expectation that women will talk in quietly modulated tones). That's why it is something we should be aware of as women and show solidarity with other women who don't fit in with stereotypes about the way they should speak.

It's just shocking to me that someone be sacked so easily after 30 years and at an age so close to retirement. They could have found her an alternative role for a few years, and then pushed her to retire so it doesn't blemish her academic record when she leaves, I'm sure that is what most companies would try to do for a long standing employee. If the ruling is mainly based on the Uni not having followed the process then good. I don't think you can say being Jewish makes you loud! But if someone is good enough for 30 years you don't suddenly sling them out without so much as a Thank You Ma'am. They should at least have given her very clear warnings and support from HR to make sure she understands the serious potential of losing her job.

That's what I think too, FatLabrador. In general, I think it's been shown that judgements made by employment tribunals are generally about not employers not following procedures, not about the actual rights or wrongs of their decision.