|
|
|
Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 16:18:57 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
The main stereotype in play, let’s face it, is that women are too stupid to do nontheism. Unbelieving in God is thinky work, and women don’t do thinky, because “that’s a guy thing.”
Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that during a panel discussion on the online talk-show The Point.
Shermer never said women are stupid. He didn't even imply it, as I read it. In fact he did note that the men/women ratio is closer to 50-50, and used TAM 2012 speaker list as an example. |
Is this all he said? It seems like Shermer is acknowledging a stereotype he perceives and it is being equated to Shermer taking the view.
I shouldn't really even be talking about this, I haven't read all of these things, and don't really care to, these arguments seem endless. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
 |
|
|
H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 01/24/2013 : 16:30:12 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Machi4velli
It seems like Shermer is acknowledging a stereotype... |
No, promulgating a stereotype.
|
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 18:32:49 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
If you go out of your way looking for misogeny you're bound to find something sooner or later. |
The problem is that you don't have to go out of your way at all, unconscious male privilege (not necessarily full-on misogyny) is nowhere close to rare in American society, at least.Edit:
I've re-read the article you linked to and it looks like a complaint against latent sexism that permeates the society. The thing is, I don't recognize the image she is painting. Granted, I'm obviously male and some feminists (I don't know about Benson) would say this disqualifies me from being an observer of sexism toward women. But I don't see this inequality where I live. But then, the country I live in is fairly socially developed.
Her part about Shermer was only a small part, but I still think she was misrepresenting him and used him for target practice and/or ammunition. And I still think she did it wrong.
The main stereotype in play, let’s face it, is that women are too stupid to do nontheism. Unbelieving in God is thinky work, and women don’t do thinky, because “that’s a guy thing.”
Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that during a panel discussion on the online talk-show The Point.
Shermer never said women are stupid. He didn't even imply it, as I read it. |
No, it's an unconscious stereotype. We know that Shermer didn't intend to insult women, but he did it anyway, because intent isn't a magical shield that prevents mistakes from occurring.| In fact he did note that the men/women ratio is closer to 50-50, and used TAM 2012 speaker list as an example. |
The only way to make "it's a guy thing" not an example of the unconscious bias Benson was talking about is to strip it from its context. Yes, Shermer thinks that in general there's a 50/50 split, but he wasn't asked about that, but instead about why the host had trouble finding women willing to sit the panel, so Shermer said that being an outspoken, activist, speech-maker is "more of a guy thing," which implies (intended or not) that women aren't outspoken, activists, or speech-makers.| And if Shermer is wrong, why aren't there more women on SFN? |
See, "it's a guy thing" doesn't answer the question of why "it's a guy thing." It's a little like answering "why is the sky blue" with "because it's blue." It's a tautological answer at best, and overt sexism at worst.| Does Ophelia Benson have any explanations to offer why there weren't any women in the panel at The Point? |
Yes, the host of the show called two - two - women she knew of in the Los Angeles area to see if they wanted to be on that panel, and both turned her down. The host was lazy, in other words.Well, we've probably been victims of our own unconscious biases. I don't recall anyone being called out here for using gendered slurs until two years ago, but I know that plenty of such slurs have been posted, for just one example. I (at least) think about these kinds of things now, but my efforts might be too late given how small our membership is now; women may just see how there are no other active women here and say, "not my cup of tea."
We may need to be more pro-active and reach out to women to become members and participate. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 21:54:54 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
| Does Ophelia Benson have any explanations to offer why there weren't any women in the panel at The Point? |
Yes, the host of the show called two - two - women she knew of in the Los Angeles area to see if they wanted to be on that panel, and both turned her down. The host was lazy, in other words. |
Where does this information come from, because it didn't sound like that in the video.
|
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
|
|
|
Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 22:00:46 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by Machi4velli
It seems like Shermer is acknowledging a stereotype... |
No, promulgating a stereotype. |
I don't know what you mean by promulgate: are you saying he is wrong because
1. He said publicly what he thinks people think (the stereotype) on a platform many people would hear (I can't oppose him on this basis, I can't place blame on anyone for taking such a silly view other than the actual persons taking that view, not a person mentioning that they do)
or
2. He is promoting the stereotype as accurate (I don't have enough context to know if this is true, but it seemed not from the little I have read)
or some other reason?
I have tremendously more trouble with this quote:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a guy thing.”
This seems to possibly go into an actual claim that women don't speak at conferences as much as men because they are don't want to or don't try to get spots speaking at them: the latter I guess is falsifiable if someone has the list of people who tried and made/didn't make the schedules. I'm not even sure he's not suggesting women are actually worse at these skills (surely a reason to fault Shermer highly).
But he seems to ignore the potential that the women seeking spots are less likely to get a spot unfairly or fewer women are approached to speak at them or women feel discouraged to seek a spot or turn them down because of prior experience of sexism (or some other issue) with the conferences. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 23:04:25 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by Dave W.
| Does Ophelia Benson have any explanations to offer why there weren't any women in the panel at The Point? |
Yes, the host of the show called two - two - women she knew of in the Los Angeles area to see if they wanted to be on that panel, and both turned her down. The host was lazy, in other words. |
Where does this information come from, because it didn't sound like that in the video. |
No, in the video, Cara Santa Maria says she "had a helluva time finding a woman who would be willing to sit on the panel with me to discuss her atheism," you're right. But according to Michael Shermer, Cara told him via email,In my search for panelists on the show, I did reach out to a couple of high-profile female atheists local to Los Angeles, but none were available to join. Maybe by "a couple," she actually meant "three or more," but that's not what the word means to me (nor to Benson, it seems).
Cara Santa Maria doesn't go into why they weren't available, but on the actual panel, she makes it sound like they just didn't want to sit on a panel. Maybe they already has speaking gigs scheduled for that day. Maybe they were organizing pro-atheism rallies. Maybe they just don't like her. The possibilities are nearly endless, but Cara trundles on and feeds the panel the question as if all the women she reached out to just didn't wanna speak in public (in the video, she seems shocked that atheist women didn't drop whatever they're doing and come running onto her show, which I'd never even heard of before this little to-do) and Shermer obviously cues on that with his stereotyped non-explanation. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2013 : 23:27:18 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Machi4velli
I don't know what you mean by promulgate: are you saying he is wrong... |
It's not so much about being "wrong." It's about perpetuating a negative stereotype unthinkingly.I have tremendously more trouble with this quote:
“It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it, you know, it’s more of a guy thing.”
This seems to possibly go into an actual claim that women don't speak at conferences as much as men because they are don't want to or don't try to get spots speaking at them: the latter I guess is falsifiable if someone has the list of people who tried and made/didn't make the schedules. I'm not even sure he's not suggesting women are actually worse at these skills (surely a reason to fault Shermer highly).
But he seems to ignore the potential that the women seeking spots are less likely to get a spot unfairly or fewer women are approached to speak at them or women feel discouraged to seek a spot or turn them down because of prior experience of sexism (or some other issue) with the conferences. |
For the TAM that occurred in 2011, the organizers took the advice of many, many people and actively reached out for women to speak, and they got a nearly 50-50 gender split in their speakers because of it. Kudos to the JREF for making the effort and having it pay off, but it was the result of other people making the suggestion and even publishing lists of potential women speakers.
Fast-forward a year, and the JREF's president was suggesting that the women who speak out about the harassment they've experienced at conferences were driving away other women from conferences by creating an atmosphere of fear (blaming the victims), and generally appearing to ignore calls for the creation and publication of a harassment policy for TAM 2012, and female attendance dropped rather a lot.
Now, some will say (and rightly so) that there could have been other reasons for the decline besides DJ Grothe's flubs and apparent stonewalling. For example, the first Women in Secularism conference had just been held a couple months earlier, and with the economy as it was, perhaps not a lot of people could afford to attend both WiS and TAM so close together. But publicly, women (on their own blogs and in comments on others) appeared to be much more enthusiastic about conferences that year that had public and reasonable harassment policies, and not so enthusiastic about the conferences that didn't.
It's a combination of factors. One is that when organizing a conference, the organizers first think to invite the "big guns" of secularism like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris (people almost guaranteed to draw a crowd due to publicity around their books and other efforts), and they're almost entirely men. There are only so-many time slots for speakers, and if they fill them up with guys who are willing to commit before they think of women who might want the spots, so much for the women.
And there's the fact that due to experiencing harassment on a regular basis at conventions, it makes women who want to speak at them less likely to actively seek out such gigs. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2013 : 09:25:02 [Permalink]
|
It should also be pointed out that TAM did have a harassment policy, and I have no idea why it wasn't placed in the registration materials. Also, DJ's first reaction to the drop from 40 to 18% female attendance was premature. Female attendance was down, but only to around 31%. (Male attendance was also down from the previous year.) Carol Travis was the keynote, and women and males were nearly equal in numbers as presenters, speakers and panel members.
Mistakes were made. Some were serious and hard to figure. But all in all, TAM 2012 was one of the best TAM's ever.
|
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 01/26/2013 : 09:23:02 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Kil
But all in all, TAM 2012 was one of the best TAM's ever. |
Not for Surly Amy.
|
True.
I already said that mistakes were made. Even serious ones. Amy wouldn't be an issue if that weren't the case. I was clearing up some possible misconceptions. I didn't say it was perfect.
As it stands, I still wouldn't hesitate to recommend TAM to women. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
|
On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2013 : 03:10:33 [Permalink]
|
| So how much of a drop in quality and name value should skeptics be willing to accept in order to force this artificial 50/50 split again at TAM? |
 |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2013 : 04:47:06 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by On fire for Christ
So how much of a drop in quality and name value should skeptics be willing to accept in order to force this artificial 50/50 split again at TAM? |
The question assumes that women speakers will be of lower quality, which is precisely the sort of sexist bias I'd like to see gone from these pages (and the world).
One of the most-lauded talks at TAM 2012 was given by a woman. And here in this thread, we've been talking about the drop in quality of one of the big-name male speaker's recent output (oh, his latest Scientific American column is pretty bad, too). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 01/27/2013 : 09:53:49 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by On fire for Christ
So how much of a drop in quality and name value should skeptics be willing to accept in order to force this artificial 50/50 split again at TAM?
|
The list of females who have made major contributions to science and skepticism is pretty long. There are several that I'd still like to see. Women like Susan Blackmore and her work in OBE's and NDE's would be terrific, though she has yet to make it to TAM. Mary Roach, who writes great witty journalistic science oriented books is another. And there are many others who contribute in major ways.
The speakers at the last TAM is what made it one of the best I have been to. So there is no sacrifice in the quality of the talks by having women better represented. If anything, TAM has only gotten better by including women who should have been there in the first place.
I should note that TAM has always featured female speakers. All that has changed is there is a conscious effort on the part of the organizers to bring in people who better represent the actual breakdown in our movement, and to increase female registration. To that end, a few years ago TAM was moved from winter to summer, so that many of the women who were stuck in school, either as students or teachers, could attend. Child care has also been offered to make it easier for some of them. And I know a few woman who were able to attend because of those two changes. It's not as though they didn't want to go.
The results of the outreach has only improved the TAM experience for all of us, including the overall quality of the talks.
Your premis is baloney. As a regular TAM goer, I can report that TAM has only gotten better because of increased female participation.
And look. Star power is a draw. And I love talks from people like Niel deGrasse Tyson. But if TAM or any other con became just about the stars, the quality would suffer. There have always been great talks by people who don't have television shows but deliver the goods on science and skepticism. And ultimately that's what these events are for, at least for those of us who attend. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2013 : 09:48:30 [Permalink]
|
Ophelia Benson offers a correction to some of her critics:The imperfection in what I wrote in the article was saying of the overall stereotype, “Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that…” when I would have closed that loophole by instead saying “Michael Shermer invoked exactly that stereotype…”
But that is really not a very big imperfection. Since I immediately go on to report exactly what Shermer really did say, it’s an absurd bit of pettifogging to pretend that I meant the “said exactly that” literally or that I intended it to mislead. For fuck’s sake, if I intended it to mislead why would I immediately quote exactly what he really did say?... |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2013 : 23:46:49 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
The question assumes that women speakers will be of lower quality, which is precisely the sort of sexist bias I'd like to see gone from these pages (and the world).
|
Not really. TAM has more male speakers because the skeptical and scientific communities are male dominated. Forcing a 50/50 split means choosing people because of their sex rather than credentials alone. It's the same principle as affirmative action. Rather than the best person for the job, "positive discrimination" is in place. Consequently you don't always get the best person for the job. Hence you inevitably get a drop in quality and or name value.
I would have thought that was the obvious implication of my question rather than the knee jerk "sexism" accusation. |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Fighting back
