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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13477 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2013 :  09:06:43   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ
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.

There is not a forced 50/50 split. What there is are women who do have the credentials being acknowledged for their contributions. Even if a decision was made that there needs to be more female participation at the cons, that does not mean those females who speak are less qualified and that more qualified men are being pushed aside in favor of filling a quota. What it means is that our community demographic is being better represented.

Even as a regular attendee to TAM who has seen the result of featuring more females, you just chose to ignore my earlier response in order to cling to your premise.

I guess it's just better for people to have it out who have never been to TAM than to consider what I have to say on the subject, having been to the last 7 TAM's and actually do have a point of comparison. We wouldn' want to mess with any bullshit notions we might have about what has actually happened. That would be far too inconvenient.

The assumption that qualified women were less represented because there weren't enough of them in our community might have been true at one time. But even that case is flimsy.

I'll say it again. There was an increase in the quality of each of the days talks because of female participation, not in spite of it.



Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

Why not question something for a change?

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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2013 :  09:47:55   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Well, firstly you said that after my original post. Sorry if I'm supposed to somehow telepathically pre-empt your comments, I'm not a magician, I'm not Paul McKenna. And for my follow up post, yes sorry I didn't consider your anecdote to be gospel. Rather I was relying on the numbers? It's a pretty well known fact that Math, Science and Technology are male dominated. To assume a 50/50 split as far as the top speakers are concerned is absurd. Therefore forcing a 50/50 split will result in you not necessarily getting the top speakers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_enrollment_of_women_in_Science,_Technology,_Engineering_and_Mathematics_Education_and_Careers

As far as the skeptical community goes, I strongly suspect, although I don't think there is enough data, that it is also not split evenly down the middle. So the same rule applies. Case study, this board. Even with Dave running off every new guy who comes here there's still way more men than women. If you can really make a case for the skeptical community being anywhere near 50/50 I'd like to hear something other than "from what I saw", otherwise I'll assume it follows the scientific community in general.

Edited by - On fire for Christ on 02/03/2013 09:53:53
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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13477 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2013 :  12:26:45   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Offc:
Case study, this board.

No. Women do not seem to like forums as much as men do. I can think of many reasons for that. On the other hand, I have many skeptical friends, including those who are considered leaders in our movement, and the split is much closer to 50/50 than not. There are probably more men, but it's not by a bunch.

You can assume what you like. I just know what I see. I can't quantify it and it is anicdotal. But having been active in the community for so long, having been to 7 TAMs in a row, and having so many female friends who are active skeptics, on facebook and in person, including my ex, Michelle Shires, who still contributes to this site but does not enjoy posting on the forum, I'd say my anicdotal evidence is better than yours is.

I'm in a much better position than you are to gage this stuff, like it or not.

Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2013 :  19:55:47   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

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.
Only IF men actually have better credentials, and not just better name recognition. "Male dominated" doesn't often mean "men are better at this subject." That's the sexist assumption again.
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.
Only if people of color are not as equally qualified for the jobs as white people. The reason for affirmative action is that qualified POCs get passed over for jobs and promotions because they aren't white, because of intentional, institutional and/or unconscious racism.
I would have thought that was the obvious implication of my question rather than the knee jerk "sexism" accusation.
If more women speakers means a drop in quality and (not and/or) "name value," as your question outright stated, that must mean that you think that women must be poorer speakers and be less recognizable. This isn't "knee jerk" anything, but simple logic. You simply cannot guess that there will be a drop in quality if you assume that men and women are of equal quality. You must make the sexist assumption to even ask your question.

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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2013 :  21:28:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Kil

Offc:
Case study, this board.

No. Women do not seem to like forums as much as men do. I can think of many reasons for that. On the other hand, I have many skeptical friends, including those who are considered leaders in our movement, and the split is much closer to 50/50 than not. There are probably more men, but it's not by a bunch.

You can assume what you like. I just know what I see. I can't quantify it and it is anicdotal. But having been active in the community for so long, having been to 7 TAMs in a row, and having so many female friends who are active skeptics, on facebook and in person, including my ex, Michelle Shires, who still contributes to this site but does not enjoy posting on the forum, I'd say my anicdotal evidence is better than yours is.

I'm in a much better position than you are to gage this stuff, like it or not.


I've always thought that the reason we had fewer women than men here is that most women do not care to engage in the often hostile game of forum debate. Kil, you said Michelle dislikes the "daily debate". I have always said that telling another person they are wrong is an openly hostile (not mean spirited) act.

Is it my white male privilege driven subconscious sexism talking when I say that I think women prefer to avoid confrontation rather than seek it?

Step into these, and most other skeptic forums, and you better be ready to throw down.


As for the broader scope of this topic... I think it is safe to say that the conversation is good for skepticism (in the long run) as a whole. It drives awareness of a problem that exists at every level of our society (though we don't have it as bad as, say, Saudi Arabia), and will hopefully let us improve and grow.

I also think that the current "debate" is a problem for skepticism right now. Jerry fucking Springer is not a good model for debate, but it does do one thing better than anything else, it drives ratings (web traffic in this particular) up. Everyone loves the spectacle.

Take the Shermer thing as an example. You guys are burning the guy down, boohooing about how you hate it when some one you used to like says something fucking stupid and now you don't like him anymore! Waaaa! Does the guy have any other history of being a blatant sexist asshat? Did you throw him under the bus, kick him out of the club, and discount everything else he has done for skepticism when he started in on the libertarian nonsense? No. You said WTF Shermer, that is wrong and stupidly so. But right now Dave_W wants to completely disassociate SFN from anything to do with Shermer even if that means alienating friends who have only made the horrible mistake of being associated with Shermer on a professional level.

That is some fucking Jerry Springer bullshit right there.

I am tired of the Meyers/Thunderfoot/Watson love triangle and all the sensationalist bullshit. A woman gets creeped in an elevator and suddenly we are flooded with cries of SHE COULD HAVE BEEN RAPED! Zero skepticism involved there, and that is the real danger to the skeptic movement, the abandonment of rational thinking.

From elevator guy to Shermer, have guys said/done sexist and dumbass things? No doubt. Now what people need to do is decide if they are going to use the Jerry Springer solution or if they are going to try and apply a little skepticism.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 02/03/2013 :  23:39:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dude

Take the Shermer thing as an example. You guys are burning the guy down, boohooing about how you hate it when some one you used to like says something fucking stupid and now you don't like him anymore! Waaaa! Does the guy have any other history of being a blatant sexist asshat?
No, actually he's got zero history of being a blatant sexist asshat, even after his "more of a guy thing" flub.
Did you throw him under the bus, kick him out of the club, and discount everything else he has done for skepticism when he started in on the libertarian nonsense? No.
He didn't compare the critics of his libertarianism to witch-hunters and Nazis.
But right now Dave_W wants to completely disassociate SFN from anything to do with Shermer even if that means alienating friends who have only made the horrible mistake of being associated with Shermer on a professional level.
Which is exactly why I said, "... I intended more for the question to be a jumping-off point for discussion than I intended to actually do it."
That is some fucking Jerry Springer bullshit right there.
The hyperbole appears to be entirely yours, in this instance. Ignoring the fact that I asked if not linking to Skepticality would be an over-reaction and instead claiming that I actually want to do it is exactly the sort of Springeresque nonsense you're railing against, isn't it?
I am tired of the Meyers/Thunderfoot/Watson love triangle and all the sensationalist bullshit.
Surely you mean the Slymepit/AVfM/Thunderf00t love triangle. The people who would like to see an end to harassment aren't the ones being sensationalist. They're not the ones who consider raw insults to be arguments. They're not the ones creating fake Twitter accounts. They're not the ones posting childish Photoshopped images (not work-safe) while claiming the mantel of polite dissent.
A woman gets creeped in an elevator and suddenly we are flooded with cries of SHE COULD HAVE BEEN RAPED!
Citation needed.
Zero skepticism involved there, and that is the real danger to the skeptic movement, the abandonment of rational thinking.
Where is the skepticism in the claim that anyone has been "flooded with cries of SHE COULD HAVE BEEN RAPED!"?
From elevator guy to Shermer, have guys said/done sexist and dumbass things? No doubt. Now what people need to do is decide if they are going to use the Jerry Springer solution or if they are going to try and apply a little skepticism.
A strawman combined with a false dichotomy isn't a good basis for a call for rational thinking, Dude.

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 02/04/2013 :  22:36:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Please, remind me again who is guilty of sensationalism. A consequence-free reminder to National Geographic to enforce their own terms of service is now claimed to be a "digital book-burning" perpetrated by people who magically have the ability to stifle free thought through mere criticism.

Or maybe this is just sensationalism:
Michael Shermer isn’t told every day by atheists and skeptics that he’s worth nothing aside from the sexual gratification his body could offer someone. He isn’t told by atheists and skeptics that he deserves to be raped and abused. Atheists and skeptics don’t spend hours drawing images of him in dehumanizing positions. They don’t tell him that they’re going to sexually assault him if they see him at a conference. They don’t tell him he’s too old or fat or ugly to fuck. They aren’t so terrified of what he has to say that they’ll do anything they can to silence him. And they don’t tell him that his disinterest in putting up with any of the former makes him too sensitive to be involved in the atheist or skeptic community.

Instead, they focus on his words and on his arguments and they offer an opposing viewpoint. If that’s what Shermer thinks of as a witch hunt, then a single day of the treatment I get would have him boarding up the windows at Skeptic Magazine faster than you can come up with a bigoted nickname based on his name.

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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2013 :  09:37:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The line by line response above is an example of what I think keeps women away from skeptic forums. I'm not criticizing any of your points Dave_W (yet), just saying that this kind of thing we do that (I think) turns most women away from participating. We could probably call it sexist behavior.

Dave_W said:
Which is exactly why I said, "... I intended more for the question to be a jumping-off point for discussion than I intended to actually do it."

The fact that this is where you wanted to begin the conversation sort of makes my point.

Surely you mean the Slymepit/AVfM/Thunderf00t love triangle.

No. While I may think these three are complete douchebags, my opinion of their opponents is not much better. This thing didn't get started because one person took the high road when they were criticized (and all the rest) by another. The situation exists because people who want to be (and in some cases are) visible public spokesmen for the skeptic movement decided to respond to infantile attacks with their own infantile attacks. Things have devolved since then.

Where is the skepticism in the claim that anyone has been "flooded with cries of SHE COULD HAVE BEEN RAPED!"?

Watson, Myers, and even Phil Plait were making this argument shortly after the incident was publicized by Watson herself. You and I even had an argument here about. I'm sure you remember.

A strawman combined with a false dichotomy isn't a good basis for a call for rational thinking, Dude.

So Shermer and elevator guy didn't do/say sexist/dumbass things? That is an interesting approach to this argument.... (how's that for a strawman?)

You know what my intended meaning was there, and you also know that I was pointing at a range of possible different ways this could be handled that don't involve sensationalist nonsense.

Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2013 :  09:55:47   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Please, remind me again who is guilty of sensationalism. A consequence-free reminder to National Geographic to enforce their own terms of service is now claimed to be a "digital book-burning" perpetrated by people who magically have the ability to stifle free thought through mere criticism.

Or maybe this is just sensationalism:
Michael Shermer isn’t told every day by atheists and skeptics that he’s worth nothing aside from the sexual gratification his body could offer someone. He isn’t told by atheists and skeptics that he deserves to be raped and abused. Atheists and skeptics don’t spend hours drawing images of him in dehumanizing positions. They don’t tell him that they’re going to sexually assault him if they see him at a conference. They don’t tell him he’s too old or fat or ugly to fuck. They aren’t so terrified of what he has to say that they’ll do anything they can to silence him. And they don’t tell him that his disinterest in putting up with any of the former makes him too sensitive to be involved in the atheist or skeptic community.

Instead, they focus on his words and on his arguments and they offer an opposing viewpoint. If that’s what Shermer thinks of as a witch hunt, then a single day of the treatment I get would have him boarding up the windows at Skeptic Magazine faster than you can come up with a bigoted nickname based on his name.



Yes, both of those things are sensationalist bullshit.

Does Watson really think that Shermer goes through his life without threats made against him? If we could collect all the hate mail and threats of assault/death made against both of them and stack them side by side.... who's stack would be taller? Who is using their hate mail and threats as grist for their website mill?


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2013 :  10:16:12   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dude

The line by line response above is an example of what I think keeps women away from skeptic forums. I'm not criticizing any of your points Dave_W (yet), just saying that this kind of thing we do that (I think) turns most women away from participating. We could probably call it sexist behavior.
I learned the style from women on Usenet. Go figure.
Dave_W said:
Which is exactly why I said, "... I intended more for the question to be a jumping-off point for discussion than I intended to actually do it."
The fact that this is where you wanted to begin the conversation sort of makes my point.
Not "the" conversation, a conversation: would it be over-reacting? The conclusion seems to have been, "yes." If having a thought and throwing it out for public discussion proves your point that I'm a sensationalist in the Jerry Springer style, then you must be, also.
No. While I may think these three are complete douchebags, my opinion of their opponents is not much better. This thing didn't get started because one person took the high road when they were criticized (and all the rest) by another. The situation exists because people who want to be (and in some cases are) visible public spokesmen for the skeptic movement decided to respond to infantile attacks with their own infantile attacks.
Seriously, what - exactly - was Watson's "infantile attack" in response to the barrage of hate she received for saying, "guys, don't do that."
Things have devolved since then.
"Things" haven't, the haters have.
Where is the skepticism in the claim that anyone has been "flooded with cries of SHE COULD HAVE BEEN RAPED!"?

Watson, Myers, and even Phil Plait were making this argument shortly after the incident was publicized by Watson herself. You and I even had an argument here about. I'm sure you remember.
Talking about the risk assessments women often perform with regard to strangers is not flooding anyone "with cries of SHE COULD HAVE BEEN RAPED!" To suggest that the two are equivalent is ludicrous because it so drastically misses the point of that whole earlier argument.

Hell, to suggest that people writing stuff on their own blogs (which you're not forced to read) is flooding anyone with anything is Springeresque all by itself.
A strawman combined with a false dichotomy isn't a good basis for a call for rational thinking, Dude.
So Shermer and elevator guy didn't do/say sexist/dumbass things? That is an interesting approach to this argument.... (how's that for a strawman?)
It is another strawman, yes. Your original strawman seems to be on-going, as you continue to suggest that the feminists are engaging in infantile attacks and sensationalism.
You know what my intended meaning was there...
No, I certainly didn't.
...and you also know that I was pointing at a range of possible different ways this could be handled that don't involve sensationalist nonsense.
The choice you offered was between Springer and skepticism. [Shrug]

But tell me this: in your opinion, how should Watson, Myers and/or Plait have responded differently to the hate? Show us how to apply a little skepticism to being told that you're too ugly to rape, for example.

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2013 :  10:41:07   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dude

Does Watson really think that Shermer goes through his life without threats made against him?
Another strawman. In no place does Watson claim that Shermer gets no threats (or even fewer threats). She's talking about the specific kind of abuse she gets and Shermer undoubtedly does not.
If we could collect all the hate mail and threats of assault/death made against both of them and stack them side by side.... who's stack would be taller?
Wild and irrelevant speculation.
Who is using their hate mail and threats as grist for their website mill?
Women can't win with attitudes like this around. If they remain silent about the abuse, then nothing will change, but if they mention it every couple/few months or when a noteworthy example comes along, then they're just trying to increase blog traffic.

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Machi4velli
SFN Regular

USA
854 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2013 :  11:00:13   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Machi4velli a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Dave W.

Originally posted by On fire for Christ

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.


Only IF men actually have better credentials, and not just better name recognition. "Male dominated" doesn't often mean "men are better at this subject." That's the sexist assumption again.

I would have thought that was the obvious implication of my question rather than the knee jerk "sexism" accusation.


If more women speakers means a drop in quality and (not and/or) "name value," as your question outright stated, that must mean that you think that women must be poorer speakers and be less recognizable. This isn't "knee jerk" anything, but simple logic. You simply cannot guess that there will be a drop in quality if you assume that men and women are of equal quality. You must make the sexist assumption to even ask your question.


What of this argument:

(1) More males than females hold high-level credentials in the sciences (which I believe he provided a reference for). Suppose it's a 60/40 split for the sake of argument.

(2) Males and females are equally likely to be good speakers, thus implying the same 60/40 split for male scientists who speak well vs. female scientists who speak well.

(3) Thus, taking a 50/50 split in speakers would draw half from the pool of good speaking scientists from females, when they only make up 40% of that pool, i.e. they're overrepresented.

I don't see that it's sexist, and comes to the same conclusion.

In reality, there are some implicit assumptions involved and some facts ignored that may have some bearing on the choice of speakers in a wider sense:

1. TAM is getting no where near all the good speaking scientists -- it would be easy to put together a full male roster or a full female roster from the pool of scientists who speak well.

=> other considerations may be more important than demographic representation of good speaking scientists, like

- Will we get more female (and/or total) attendance and participation if we have more female speakers?
- Will higher female participation help spread skepticism better when everyone goes home?
- What sciences are overrepresented, and how does that match our audience interest?

Being perfectly demographically representative doesn't have to harm the goodness of the speakers.

2. Name recognition matters, but TAM can't really fill the whole roster with super famous scientists anyway, you're not losing something there by having any particular demographic split after that. If you want to even out the male/female demographics after that, there's no real loss since there are so many interesting scientists from whom to choose of either gender.

"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."
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Edited by - Machi4velli on 02/05/2013 11:01:39
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Kil
Evil Skeptic

USA
13477 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2013 :  11:09:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Kil's Homepage  Send Kil an AOL message  Send Kil a Yahoo! Message Send Kil a Private Message  Reply with Quote
There are feminists on both sides of the debate. I'm guessing that this is understood. I hope so.


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Why not question something for a change?

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

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26022 Posts

Posted - 02/05/2013 :  14:38:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Machi4velli

What of this argument:

(1) More males than females hold high-level credentials in the sciences (which I believe he provided a reference for). Suppose it's a 60/40 split for the sake of argument.

(2) Males and females are equally likely to be good speakers, thus implying the same 60/40 split for male scientists who speak well vs. female scientists who speak well.

(3) Thus, taking a 50/50 split in speakers would draw half from the pool of good speaking scientists from females, when they only make up 40% of that pool, i.e. they're overrepresented.

I don't see that it's sexist, and comes to the same conclusion.
Why would overrepresentation of women be a problem? What does it matter whether the gender mix of actual speakers at an event matches the gender mix of the entire potential speaker population? Perhaps the gender mix of the speakers should more match the gender mix of the audience?

(I wish I could find it again, but I read the other day about a study or poll on skeptics specifically that said that the general skeptical population is like 54% men, with a larger disparity among the subset of organization leaders and larger still among the even smaller subset of regular speakers.)

Now, if men gravitate towards some sciences and women gravitate towards different sciences and the listening population matches those tendencies, then you might want to set things up so that 40% of the subjects to be discussed matches the 40% of the audience who might be interested, for example. Just like you don't want a general skepticism convention to have a speaker line-up that 99% lake-monster debunkers.

But if men and women gravitating towards different sciences is the result of sexist attitudes, one wouldn't want to promulgate those stereotypes by rigidly matching them.
In reality, there are some implicit assumptions involved and some facts ignored that may have some bearing on the choice of speakers in a wider sense...
Indeed!

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Dave W.
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Posted - 02/05/2013 :  15:21:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Kil

There are feminists on both sides of the debate. I'm guessing that this is understood. I hope so.
That'd be an actual debate, and I wouldn't know what it would be about.

No, when I spoke above about the abuse that the feminists get, I'm talking about abuse, not criticism. I assert that there are no feminists telling Rebecca Watson that she's good for nothing more than being a sperm depository, for just one example. Of course, there is no debate to be had with those people, because they're not interested in discussion, they're only interested in silencing the feminists.

Edited: see also "Definitely not equal."

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The mission of the Skeptic Friends Network is to promote skepticism, critical thinking, science and logic as the best methods for evaluating all claims of fact, and we invite active participation by our members to create a skeptical community with a wide variety of viewpoints and expertise.


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