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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Don't like criticism?

6 replies

GrendelsMum · 23/09/2013 14:28

Well, this is a charming way to deal with suggestions that there should be a greater representation of women in your line-up. And from a respectable scientific organisation as well:

twitter.com/DawnHFoster/status/382096777425350656/photo/1

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AnnieLobeseder · 23/09/2013 14:32

What am I missing here?

FloraFox · 23/09/2013 17:29

grendelsmum that's shocking! I think they have removed it now.

GrendelsMum · 23/09/2013 19:46

Ah yes.

So, a big concern with science communication is conveying the message that you don't have to be a middle aged white man to be a scientist. We spend a lot of time showing there are many many female scientists, many scientists from ethnic minorities, etc. because unfortunately there are still plenty of kids who know that 'women don't do science'.

This particular ground breaking organisation organised an innovative day of talks, featuring only male scientists. They also happen to all be white, and none exactly young any more.

Some people felt this was a bit of a surprising line-up, given that its not exactly difficult to find outstanding women scientists and scientists from ethnic minorities. They queried the decisions.

At which point, the comments I linked to above were posted on the official website of the organisation, calling the people who had commented fanatical, bigoted, abusive and misadrist. Wanting to have some female scientists represented was apparently unrealistic and unscientific.

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FloraFox · 23/09/2013 22:52

None of the women they invited accepted so because they are scientists, they deal with "reality". Perhaps they could consider why none of the women accepted (not sure what happened to scientists from ethnic minorities) and how they might meet the objectives of the event / organisation. Is that not scientific enough for them?

AnnieLobeseder · 23/09/2013 23:38

Ah, that makes more sense - I could only see the two comments you linked to. I gathered there were objections to the panel being all white males, but sadly that's hardly unusual.

As a random aside, since when is Bill Bailey a scientist? He is a feminist though, so I'm surprised he's continued to be associated with this event if what you say is true about them slagging off women on their website.

I'm a scientist; a molecular biologist/virologist, and we're pretty much a 50/50 gender split at the bench. There are still more male group leaders and in management, but I hope that's a relic of the previous generation and when my cohort rise to the top the genders will be far more equally distributed. My point though, is that the "women don't do science" is certainly not true in the Life Sciences; we're probably getting more female new graduates coming into the lab than males. But more work definitely needs doing in the more "manly" sciences like maths, physics and engineering.

At the end of the day, this organisation can't be all that groundbreaking if they can't persuade a single non-white-male to sit on their panel, and then resort to insulting people who point this out. They'll have lost a lot of credibility; I certainly won't ever take them seriously.

GrendelsMum · 24/09/2013 09:31

Exactly, Annie! I'm in Life Sciences too, and I've never had a problem finding top class women to speak on a panel. That's why the whole thing is so striking...

Mind you, as a result of this, I've been pointed towards some interesting tips for getting a broader range of applicants for this type of opportunity, and I may well try them out.

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