I too get extremely annoyed by some anti-power-differential rhetoric that I see on the forum a lot and I think that any attempt to police that through norms or other means is an unacceptable violation of privacy. I agree this post has some elements of that or at least is not clear about the motivations.
However, I think many of the specific things proposed here are on the basis of conflicts of interest rather than power differentials. I see no issue dating co-workers including ones more/less senior than you but I think there is a real problem dating someone in your chain of command because then there are conflicts of interest at play. For this reason I have no issue if one partner finds another with their own money but it seems unethical to dating grantees if you are awarding grants on behalf of another person/organization without disclosing the relationship.
Would you agree that such conflict of interest is a legitimate concern rather than an element of safety culture?
I generally agree that clear, specific conflicts of interest are a bigger problem for relationships that mix professional and sexual roles, than vague ‘power differentials’ (which could include virtually any differences between partners in their wealth, status, prestige, fame, age, influence, intelligence, citation count, job seniority, etc.)
I too get extremely annoyed by some anti-power-differential rhetoric that I see on the forum a lot and I think that any attempt to police that through norms or other means is an unacceptable violation of privacy. I agree this post has some elements of that or at least is not clear about the motivations.
However, I think many of the specific things proposed here are on the basis of conflicts of interest rather than power differentials. I see no issue dating co-workers including ones more/less senior than you but I think there is a real problem dating someone in your chain of command because then there are conflicts of interest at play. For this reason I have no issue if one partner finds another with their own money but it seems unethical to dating grantees if you are awarding grants on behalf of another person/organization without disclosing the relationship.
Would you agree that such conflict of interest is a legitimate concern rather than an element of safety culture?
I generally agree that clear, specific conflicts of interest are a bigger problem for relationships that mix professional and sexual roles, than vague ‘power differentials’ (which could include virtually any differences between partners in their wealth, status, prestige, fame, age, influence, intelligence, citation count, job seniority, etc.)