At a women in STEM conference and losing my will to live

[Conferenceblues]

Am at a conference focussing on supporting women in STEM, in a talk about how you measure and achieve fairness in data collection so that you are not biased towards one sector of society, and focussing on how women are underrepresented. Much apologies and hand-wringing around their own data because it only includes male and female as possible genders (no acknowledgement of any diffs between gender and sex) and promises to do better in future.

Very first question - from a women, at a conference about supporting women in STEM - was about whether we should be asking people about gender because some people might find this personal and there were so many different options. To be clear, this person was not suggesting we should ask about sex not gender, just that we should ignore it altogether. The response rightly pointed out that that would mean we wouldn’t know if data was biased and would likely lead to favouring men, but also long explanations about how they were working with social scientists and gender experts to make sure there were 15 billion options in their forthcoming surveys. No discussion about how this might impact the quality of their data or obfuscate inequality.

We’re still holding on the word women for conference for now even though the conference is now for all genders … but it all feels pretty hopeless and depressing.

Uugh this sounds so frustrating.

Can you ask a question about sex? Perhaps framing that, in the Equality Act 2010 it is sex and not gender that is the protected characteristic? And everyone has a legal sex that is a matter of public record. And asking about sex in addition to gender would shine a light on intersectionality and help target the best action to support underrepresented groups.

I bet you are not the only one sitting there losing the will to live.

Sensible advise from lights, its a good way of phrasing it without upsetting anyone or outing yourself as GC.

I have stopped attending our local women in STEM etc as its been highjacked by a TW who is now running the show.

TRAs and their hangers on target these kind of things @FloatOn

Just to help you with the will to live, I'm also at a conference this morning, just had a talk great talk from female professor at Oxford University about women in subject of conference. All unapologetically about women in this field, how women have been affected by their sex in the history of said field and pointed out that we are still having this battle given she's the only female speaker today. Biggest round of applause so far.

That sounds great!

What I have done in similar circumstances and which works is to say, so important we focus on all these issues of representation and making people of different genders feel included etc, but in addition there is a sex difference here and we can look at that too because of the issues sex brings up.I take the wind out of their sails by acknowledging their concerns and also make it impossible for them to stop me discussing mine.

Then they should rename it ‘gender in STEM’ as it’s no longer women in STEM. The only way is to boycott these events and let the the organisers know why.

We are already underrepresented in STEM and often end up leaving when we become mothers due to lack of flexibility. We don’t need to sit there and take this nonsense, women need to put their head above the parapet and say no.

We are already underrepresented in STEM and often end up leaving when we become mothers due to lack of flexibility. We don’t need to sit there and take this nonsense, women need to put their head above the parapet and say no.

Yes - there are many factors affecting girls and women re STEM, but basic structural sexism arising from the simple fact that men are 100% rubbish at having babies is one of the largest contributors.

Perhaps as a way of making it neutral, but helpful, why not suggest that they just replicate the census format? ie first question what is your sex (biological at birth) second question optional, what gender do you identify as.

Thechnically the whole point of the census is to have base figures that people in different areas, fields of work, etc., can compare their specific figures to. So you need to follow their format.

(And dont mention that later research showed that there is not a shared understanding of the word gender !)