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Skeptic, atheist, biologist of some note, PZ Myers has asked the question, what can we do to get women more active in the skeptic and science communities. Sometimes this is a condescending question, but PZ seems to really and truly believe in equality, that women are valid, contributing members of society, and is completely baffled at all attempts to segregate or patronize women. He just does not get why some people think the patriarchy is the best option or why some people think men and women are significantly different. He also doesn't come across like some of the woo-meisters who would like to place women on a pedestal above men. He is, in the same way ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tacit is, a true egalitarian who manages, most of the time, to not let his position of privilege as a white, middle-class male, make him sound patronizing or condescending when railing against inequality or asking how to fix the problem.
He asked the question in his blog, and decided to just sit back and let women answer the question of what could get us more involved, rather than to attempt to come up with answers as a white, middle-class male of privilege looking in from the outside. He also asked the men to stay out of it, which should hopefully prevent well-meaning but clearly clueless-of-his-entitlement men from butting in, like the guy who once answered this same question with "how about more secular wedding ceremonies? Women might become atheists if they didn't have to give up the dress and the big party." (yes, someone did say that, I will spare you my scathing retort, as it's only tangential to my main point here)
Here's my answer, that really needs to be fleshed out, but I wanted to post here for reference, and as a place to start:
I *really* wanted to read all the comments before I chimed in, so I didn't repeat anything, but there are LOTS of comments!
So, you asked for women to post their blogs or other activist activity. I can be found at http://joreth.livejournal.com where I talk about lots of things, including science, skepticism, and atheism. You can also add /tag/science or /tag/atheism to the end of that URL to read just those articles. I also have /tag/gender20%issues for posts that rant about these sorts of issues as a woman who works in a male-dominated field and who dabbles in other male-dominated arenas, like science and the internet.
As for what I, as a woman, would want that would get me more active in the science and skeptical communities? Well, several people have mentioned financial aid, and that would definitely help. I like the idea of a big, mainstream convention that chose as a theme women's interests, but not a women-specific convention (as I believe you, PZ, mentioned you were not suggesting). I'd love to get out to TAM or some of these other events, but I just can't afford them. I have to settle for the Skeptics Track at Dragon*Con for all my skeptical convention activity (which is a pretty fantastic venue, btw). It's almost-local and certainly the closest one to me, closer than any other. More local conventions would help too, even if they're not as large as the national conventions.
Also, as some were saying, people who represent skepticism and science from other angles, like artists, musicians, performers, philosophers, etc. Some workshops on community building from community leaders would be a good idea, so we can start our own organizations and communities even if we're not scientists ourselves. Some non-science-focused events, for those of us who aren't scientists but who support science and critical thinking - this new trend of Skeptics In The Pub is a great idea. How about something like The Skeptics Movie Society, or Skeptics Book Clubs, social events where people can do things that aren't strictly science-based but with skeptically minded people. I'd love to attend a dance with all skeptic, science, and atheist music - something where I can have a romantic slow dance without a song invoking god or fate and where, maybe, we can even poke a little fun at ourselves with some humorous music or performances.
As a community leader myself, I'm yelling at myself in my head, that if anyone made all these suggestions to me, I'd be wanting to say "great ideas, why don't you get on that?" It can get really frustrating to hear people say they want certain things out of their community, but don't make any effort to contribute to getting those things accomplished. So that's why I suggested including some community leaders that are not necessarily skeptical leaders, to offer workshops on how to build our own communities right where we are to offer all these services that we think the skeptical community is currently lacking. Many people have good ideas for what they'd like to see, but haven't the faintest idea how to go about implementing them, and don't think they have any skills to contribute to getting these things done.
I also think we need some cultural changing that says logic is not a mens-only domain, being loud and aggressive is not a mens-only domain, science, especially the hard sciences, are not mens-only domains, and that there shouldn't be certain areas that men need to *do something* to cater to women in order to invite them in.
There is nothing inherently masculine about being loud and brassy. There is nothing inherently de-feminizing about liking sports or science or power tools. I can be feminine, female, sexy, demure, and anything else that is supposed to signify "woman" while still being logical, analytical, scientific, mechanical, athletic, or anything else that's supposed to signify "man". These dichotomies of what makes us "woman" and "man" are false dichotomies. There is more variation among women and more variation among men, than there is between men and women as groups, even counting sexual dimorphism. And we need to make our society accept that.
I think it is only when we embrace the concept that there is no such thing as "man's domain" and "woman's domain" will we see more gender balance among subsets of people. I am not being "like a guy" because I play with power tools for a living. I am being "like a woman" because I am a woman who likes to play with power tools, so therefore playing with power tools is a woman's thing because this woman does it. I am not diminishing my accomplishments in a mechanical career because I also like to cook, which is traditionally a "woman's domain". They both use the same skill sets - an understanding of mechanics and chemistry, and an inspirational drive to create things. These are not the domains of either women or men, these are the domains of humans. When we learn that, women will stop feeling so intimidated, and men will stop feeling so threatened.
A plausible hypotheses for why women are so inclined to be steeped in woo, for example, is because that's where women feel they have more power. When society strips women of their power to contribute equally to society, women find some other outlet that gives them a sense of taking back some of that power, and so fall for The Goddess and alt-med with its easy fixes, and psychic phenomena which women are supposedly more "in tune" with because of "women's intuition". So a general cultural shift away from sexism and patriarchy would remove some women's need to find their own power in a fantasy world because they would have power in our society based on their own merits. If a woman's voice is ignored without the power of the dead behind it, I can see why wanting to develop psychic abilities would be so tempting. But if a woman's voice is heard simply because she's speaking, then she doesn't need to be bringing messages from dead relatives to get attention or build a power base.
I don't know that this is something the skeptical community should be doing within itself, but it is definitely something the skeptical and the equality communities should be doing to our culture at large.
But PZ, your continued insistence on gender equality, not as a pandering patriarch who must make allowances for the wimmenfolk, but as someone who truly understands equality, does a great deal for the community in making women feel appreciated and their contributions valued. More men who can express their equality views without sounding like they're pandering or being condescending would be very welcome.
tacit is, a true egalitarian who manages, most of the time, to not let his position of privilege as a white, middle-class male, make him sound patronizing or condescending when railing against inequality or asking how to fix the problem.He asked the question in his blog, and decided to just sit back and let women answer the question of what could get us more involved, rather than to attempt to come up with answers as a white, middle-class male of privilege looking in from the outside. He also asked the men to stay out of it, which should hopefully prevent well-meaning but clearly clueless-of-his-entitlement men from butting in, like the guy who once answered this same question with "how about more secular wedding ceremonies? Women might become atheists if they didn't have to give up the dress and the big party." (yes, someone did say that, I will spare you my scathing retort, as it's only tangential to my main point here)
Here's my answer, that really needs to be fleshed out, but I wanted to post here for reference, and as a place to start:
I *really* wanted to read all the comments before I chimed in, so I didn't repeat anything, but there are LOTS of comments!
So, you asked for women to post their blogs or other activist activity. I can be found at http://joreth.livejournal.com where I talk about lots of things, including science, skepticism, and atheism. You can also add /tag/science or /tag/atheism to the end of that URL to read just those articles. I also have /tag/gender20%issues for posts that rant about these sorts of issues as a woman who works in a male-dominated field and who dabbles in other male-dominated arenas, like science and the internet.
As for what I, as a woman, would want that would get me more active in the science and skeptical communities? Well, several people have mentioned financial aid, and that would definitely help. I like the idea of a big, mainstream convention that chose as a theme women's interests, but not a women-specific convention (as I believe you, PZ, mentioned you were not suggesting). I'd love to get out to TAM or some of these other events, but I just can't afford them. I have to settle for the Skeptics Track at Dragon*Con for all my skeptical convention activity (which is a pretty fantastic venue, btw). It's almost-local and certainly the closest one to me, closer than any other. More local conventions would help too, even if they're not as large as the national conventions.
Also, as some were saying, people who represent skepticism and science from other angles, like artists, musicians, performers, philosophers, etc. Some workshops on community building from community leaders would be a good idea, so we can start our own organizations and communities even if we're not scientists ourselves. Some non-science-focused events, for those of us who aren't scientists but who support science and critical thinking - this new trend of Skeptics In The Pub is a great idea. How about something like The Skeptics Movie Society, or Skeptics Book Clubs, social events where people can do things that aren't strictly science-based but with skeptically minded people. I'd love to attend a dance with all skeptic, science, and atheist music - something where I can have a romantic slow dance without a song invoking god or fate and where, maybe, we can even poke a little fun at ourselves with some humorous music or performances.
As a community leader myself, I'm yelling at myself in my head, that if anyone made all these suggestions to me, I'd be wanting to say "great ideas, why don't you get on that?" It can get really frustrating to hear people say they want certain things out of their community, but don't make any effort to contribute to getting those things accomplished. So that's why I suggested including some community leaders that are not necessarily skeptical leaders, to offer workshops on how to build our own communities right where we are to offer all these services that we think the skeptical community is currently lacking. Many people have good ideas for what they'd like to see, but haven't the faintest idea how to go about implementing them, and don't think they have any skills to contribute to getting these things done.
I also think we need some cultural changing that says logic is not a mens-only domain, being loud and aggressive is not a mens-only domain, science, especially the hard sciences, are not mens-only domains, and that there shouldn't be certain areas that men need to *do something* to cater to women in order to invite them in.
There is nothing inherently masculine about being loud and brassy. There is nothing inherently de-feminizing about liking sports or science or power tools. I can be feminine, female, sexy, demure, and anything else that is supposed to signify "woman" while still being logical, analytical, scientific, mechanical, athletic, or anything else that's supposed to signify "man". These dichotomies of what makes us "woman" and "man" are false dichotomies. There is more variation among women and more variation among men, than there is between men and women as groups, even counting sexual dimorphism. And we need to make our society accept that.
I think it is only when we embrace the concept that there is no such thing as "man's domain" and "woman's domain" will we see more gender balance among subsets of people. I am not being "like a guy" because I play with power tools for a living. I am being "like a woman" because I am a woman who likes to play with power tools, so therefore playing with power tools is a woman's thing because this woman does it. I am not diminishing my accomplishments in a mechanical career because I also like to cook, which is traditionally a "woman's domain". They both use the same skill sets - an understanding of mechanics and chemistry, and an inspirational drive to create things. These are not the domains of either women or men, these are the domains of humans. When we learn that, women will stop feeling so intimidated, and men will stop feeling so threatened.
A plausible hypotheses for why women are so inclined to be steeped in woo, for example, is because that's where women feel they have more power. When society strips women of their power to contribute equally to society, women find some other outlet that gives them a sense of taking back some of that power, and so fall for The Goddess and alt-med with its easy fixes, and psychic phenomena which women are supposedly more "in tune" with because of "women's intuition". So a general cultural shift away from sexism and patriarchy would remove some women's need to find their own power in a fantasy world because they would have power in our society based on their own merits. If a woman's voice is ignored without the power of the dead behind it, I can see why wanting to develop psychic abilities would be so tempting. But if a woman's voice is heard simply because she's speaking, then she doesn't need to be bringing messages from dead relatives to get attention or build a power base.
I don't know that this is something the skeptical community should be doing within itself, but it is definitely something the skeptical and the equality communities should be doing to our culture at large.
But PZ, your continued insistence on gender equality, not as a pandering patriarch who must make allowances for the wimmenfolk, but as someone who truly understands equality, does a great deal for the community in making women feel appreciated and their contributions valued. More men who can express their equality views without sounding like they're pandering or being condescending would be very welcome.
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Date: 7/7/10 07:37 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 7/7/10 05:59 pm (UTC)From:The poly movement is being touted as a "feminist" movement because women make up the majority of community leaders, activists, and authors, and women find an incredible source of power in this community by being given the right to choose multiple partners when the rest of society forbids it (while simultaneously looking the other way with "boys will be boys" when the guys cheat or have multiple partners).
The poly community is also overflowing with pagans who worship the Goddess, in which women are also given a higher step than men, women who are leaders and priestesses and heads of the household. I think there is a reason for this correlation, and it was being steeped in two cultures at the same time that leads me to my hypothesis (I also work in a traditionally male-dominated field with very "normal" men who have all the typical mindsets that many of my more egalitarian, philosophical, and self-analytical friends half-believe are Poes or exaggeration for the sake of storytelling in movies and books and don't really exist in the Real World).
The idea crystalized for me while listening to a song that I like the sound of, in spite of the lyrics, called "Pagan Girl", which says "I'm gonna find myself a pagan girl, who understands the Goddess and rocks my world". In Paganism, even the men put the female spirit higher than any other, because of her ability to give birth, mostly. These men don't seem threatened or insecure because they're not represented as the top of the food chain, but women who embrace their Abrahamic religions don't seem to mind that their god is male & has dictated for them a second class of citizenry.
Anyway, now I'm starting to ramble into what I will eventually make a whole post about.
So, thanks for following my link! If you like PZ Myers, then you probably won't be scared away when I get on one of my rants either :-)