What a terrible experience, yet I'm not surprised to know such things happen. I hope it's theraputic for her to get these out, and if she can turn the intimidat

What a terrible experience, yet I'm not surprised to know such things happen. I hope it's theraputic for her to get these out, and if she can turn the intimidation into some financial gains then so be it. Is there a way to discourage the behavior? It's a tough problem. As an anecdote, I just had a discussion with a female community college professor, PhD, one who had plenty of bench science experience before teaching. We are both born and raised in the US. Without naming specifics here, we both agreed that while US culture has made attempts - and is making attempts - to grow past gender subujation, there are numerous other cultures which aren't even trying. We noticed the cultural issues regarding women can be very obvious in a US educational environment. As in, for a woman to be in a position of authority, certain cultures behave in ways which do not acknowledge the earned, official status. I believe the phenomenon is real, and is a day-to-day reflection of what the violinist was exposed to in private. Also, it's one thing in person - but the internet allows for all sorts of 'border crossing' and people from all over the world are capable of reaching out and harassing someone, male, female, or otherwise. In summation, I think US culture is attentive to a lot of 'weak points' that need to be addressed (gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, handicaps), as difficult as they are for a diverse society...while some others are, well, really lacking in this arena. Like I said, I'm not going to name any one particular one or five, because it's not my place - it's up to the members of those cultures to enact their own change.