Erasure of Women from Public/Cultural life:

[blackcurrants]

I thought this column in the guardian, "I'm tired of being the token woman" was a high quality rant, and thought you might enjoy a read, if you haven't seen it.

Just goes to show how complicit I've become, when I read that and think to myself: scenario x showcases 12 men and four women, that's not bad. Urgh, can you imagine if men were consistently under-represented like this?

i reckon more women wre asked but they were at home looking after thebabies where they should be

Good article, quite depressing realisation though as it isn't something I thought was commonplace anymore but actually, it's all around me.

The related archive article at the bottom is "Katie Price - a life in pictures"

Oooh, go Bidisha!

The thing is that if you are running an event you need to be pretty clear about the importance of equal representation, otherwise it just won't happen. If you expect it to happen because there are lots of women writers (or whatever category), it pretty much won't. That's why female-only shortlists are really important, to help redress the political balance; that's why positive discrimination is needed, because otherwise it won't mend itself. People argue that positive discrimination is also unfair; but actually it's just one sort of attempt to level the playing field.

I'm one of a group of people who run a comics convention in Oxford, and even though women are and have historically always been well-represented on our committee, we always have to be careful to consider whether we've got a balance of women speakers as well as men, because otherwise even though we're aware of the issue, we're likely to end up looking at the line-up saying 'damn, how did that happen? only 2 women!' or whatever. (We also aim and mostly succeed in including GLBT speakers and concerns; but we're not very good at ensuring that our speakers and indeed audiences aren't mostly white middle-class people.)

What crap.
She is the embodiment of right-on/ethnic/disenfranchised/fringe arts/self absorbed misery.

I think its a good article. Very true.

A valid point well made.

Thanks for posting blackcurrants.

Surely the real issue is not why there are not equal numbers of male and female artists/scientists/theatre directors selected for cultural events, awards, etc.

Surely the real issue is why there are not equal numbers of male and female artists/scientists/theatre directors, full stop.

Shortlists for cultural events, awards, etc will usually (and should) reflect who is at the top of their profession. The imbalance in the shortlists just reflects the imbalance in the profession itself.

If there are fewer women at the top of that profession, we should not adjust the shortlists, we should try to help more women get to the top of that profession. (Assuming of course that they want to. But I bet lots of them do).

I think the point is that there are plenty of women in the arts/professions.

Where there have been significant numbers of women in a profession for say, twenty or thirty years, then the reason we are not seeing them at the top is discrimination of one kind or another.

You're right though, its not just the arts.

I'm half way wadding into it (it's very long).

I have a few points so far, we all ready know women get paid less then men and there position in companies tend to be lower, has she not thought about this fact? perhaps the PR companies and the like have sent there "higher up" staff to the events.

Secondly at least there are women there, she is moaning about them being vastly out numbered, who cares?, they are there, they are a presence, if they outnumbered the men or where of equal number there would be a view of them being there due to there sex instead of there skill or knowledge, we do not live in an equal society, black people for example are over represented in the media as they are only 10% of the population of this country yet every advert etc feels the need to show them and people like the police want to take more of them on as staff leading to a general feeling that they are there due to colour only.

Now I don't know about anybody else but I would prefer to be the only women in a work place or on a panel or what ever who got there because I was good at what I do and determined, not because I am a women to equal out there gender balance check sheet.

Ryoko, are you saying that you think that the absense of senior women in any field (not just the arts) is due to their lack of ability, and if 50% of senior posts ever go to women at some future time, it can't ever be because of their ability, but must be due to positive discrimination.

Sorry, if I've misunderstood you.

I'm saying if 50% did go to women, it would be seen as positive discrimination if it is due to it or not which is not good for the women in th e jobs or in general looking as there will be the perception that they are there due to sex.

same as in politics, all women candidate lists is not a good idea it simply makes women MPs be seen as window dressing for the party.

ryoko, do you see it as positive discrimination in favour of men when most senior positions are occupied by men?

if not, why not?

Because that has happened over centuries, it is ingrained in the fabric of this and many other countries that men be in the positions of power, to change it over night (which the article seems to suggest) will do nothing but belittle the women involved in the eyes of men and many women too.

Change takes a very long time, no help should be given, only freedom to do something so it happens naturally over time.

So basically we wait for men to say 'ok we are tired of benefitting from having the biggest slice of power, prestige and money, let's abandon that priviledge so that more women can have a go'

you'll be waiting a while then.

Making all equal in law is the only way to have a truly equal society, it simply wouldn't work any other way, you would get someone moaning about they are only there/getting that because they are women/black/immigrant etc.

if the law said everyone was equal tomorrow I would expect it to take at least 50 years to make a change.

Agree with minipie.

If in a profession, you start out with 50% men and 50% women, over time, even if you assume all the men and women have equal talent and are not discriminated against, more women will drop out of going for the top of their profession than men, because of family/childrearing alone.

So, except in extremely female dominated areas, I would in general expect more men than women in the cream of any profession. That is not discrimination. That is life - women often don't try as hard as men in their career, for reasons I can understand.

I am uncomfortable with the concept of positive discrimination for women.

So what if people moan about people only being there because they are women/black/immigrant? The fact of having those minorities in positions of (more) power would already be making a difference, both in terms of any policies or actions those individuals do, and in terms of the fact of them being role models once the initial hoo-hah dies down.

If you have entrenched inequalities, then positive discrimination is an important and powerful way of levelling the playing fields - it's a fair way of proceeding precisely because the existing situation is not fair. The people in the minority situation are having to climb uphill as it is; giving them a leg up is perfectly reasonable in that context.

In any case Bidisha's article isn't about positive discrimination, it's about how even when there are numbers of women out there the 'default' choice for a panel or a media slot is a chap. That's the easy choice and doesn't stick out, whereas having the numbers of women on things that reflects actual reality looks like it's out of whack - because we're not used to it. QI once had two women panellists on, meaning that there were two women out of the 5 on screen. They got complaints because there were too many women on!

If women are promoted to positions of leadership and power through positive discrimination and not by merit, it would soon become apparent if they are not up to the job. Far from promoting acceptance, their presence will highlight the unfairness and ineffectiveness of positive discrimination.

blueshoes, I agree with you in that I'm not a big fan of positive discimination. But I do wonder why it's women that drop out of their careers when they have kids, not men. Why would women try as hard in their careers up to when they have children and then just stop?

Is it because they weren't really committed to them anyway?

They did a survey recently and found that in their early 20's men and women were about equal in the media...then there was a drop of 80% in the number of women. They just left those jobs.

Basically if you want to have kids you need to be earning megabucks and be able to afford a nanny. Women lower down the pay scale haven't a chance to carry on due to the unsocial hours of those jobs.

Even DD, who was 5 at the time, said to me once "why are there hardly any women on the TV mummy? That's not like real life, is it?"

As women have out performed boys academically for years and are now over 50% of graduates, when will there be a change?

A lot of men in senior positions are fairly mediocre. A mediocre woman would never get that high in a company as far as I can see. Why can't there be mediocre senior women as well as all the useless senior men???? That would be true equality.

Or you need their father to step up to the plate.