Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage • Hacker News Board

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#21

Post by jimbokun » Wed, May 21, 2014, 4:23 PM UTC

There may very well be systematic bias against women by the organizers of this conference, but this article does a terrible job making such an argument.

Even anecdotally, citing specific women who have done good work in this very specialized field, submitted a quality paper, and were rejected would go a long way towards corroborating the claim this conference is excluding women. Without knowing how many women submitted papers, and some (even subjective) indication of the quality of those papers, there is no way to judge whatever bias towards women this conference may have.

Also, are all identifying data stripped from the papers before consideration? If there is no way for the judges to even know whether the paper was submitted by a woman, how could they discriminate against her? If this is not the process, it may merit consideration for future conferences.

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#22

Post by Argorak » Wed, May 21, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

streptomycin wrote: post #18

Argorak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the statistics based approach to this. But it answers less questions than it poses: e.g. given that statistics says that there are always outliers, how come that the outlier "a lot more women than expected by statistics on this conference" is almost never found, while the other outlier is often? (chemistry, by the way, is a field that has an equal gender ratio at start in some countries: http://www.rsc.org/Edu…

But it answers less questions than it poses: e.g. given that statistics says that there are always outliers, how come that the outlier "a lot more women than expected by statistics on this conference" is almost never found, while the other outlier is often? That just poses another question: how do you know your premise is true? chemistry, by the way, is a field that has an equal gender ratio at start in some countrie…

Sure, but that is neither answered by the OP nor any of the numbers that are usually thrown around. Still, some events claim that they are outliers if they have no or almost no women on the roster.

My point is more that there is not sufficient hard data in the discussion to support anything.

(the first sentence in my post was half in jest)

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#23

Post by canistr » Wed, May 21, 2014, 5:28 PM UTC

afternooner wrote: post #11

canistr wrote: post #5

Would have been to nice to see some quotes from a woman who was also a minority. But clearly ethnic/racial diversity isn't a problem for this conference.

What are you going on about?

Consider the fact that of the quotes from female chemists in the article, none of them were minorities. They were white women.

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#24

Post by afternooner » Wed, May 21, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

canistr wrote: post #23

afternooner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you going on about?

Consider the fact that of the quotes from female chemists in the article, none of them were minorities. They were white women.

Oh, I must have missed the breakdown by race. Did you have that handy?

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#25

Post by BrandonRead » Wed, May 21, 2014, 11:19 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #13

BrandonRead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Perceived bias" You are ignoring a larger history and the institutionalized sexism that currently exists in all sects of government, industry, and society as a whole. Of course you would feel the same if there were no male speakers, because men haven't had to suffer through centuries of exclusion, therefore it would not threaten the position of men. When you take a deeper look at the issue and realize that we have t…

To say that having a conference which does not represent a certain group threatens the position of this group is hyperbolic. When you take a deeper look at the issue and realize that we have the utility to create a gender-balanced (and gender-fluid if you want to trim some more ignorance) society, it is upsetting that yet another conference has no female speakers. Your comment on "trimming some more ignorance" in rel…

'Gender non-conforming' would have been a better term; it slipped my vocabulary and gender-fluidity can be used in its place in most cases.

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#26

Post by BrandonRead » Wed, May 21, 2014, 11:24 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #20

So this post has been deleted by the mods (or flagged out of the top few hundred posts), in less than a hour. Honestly the best thing HN could do for its community today would be to remove permanently remove flagging privileges from every single user that flagged this article.

Seriously. A lot of these comments are along the lines of 'Hey, me and my awesome smart hacker brain have all of the evidence, so I don't need to acknowledge this serious issue,' and then the argument dies. It's alright, maybe in another few thousand years or so people will start to use those big hacker brains to take a minute to contextualize the issue instead of brushing it off...

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#27

Post by BrandonRead » Wed, May 21, 2014, 11:28 PM UTC

canistr wrote: post #23

afternooner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you going on about?

Consider the fact that of the quotes from female chemists in the article, none of them were minorities. They were white women.

So disheartening that you would immediately receive negative feedback on your witty (and important) comment. Better luck next time when you try and say something socially progressive around here. Nice comment +1

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#28

Post by BrandonRead » Wed, May 21, 2014, 11:38 PM UTC

worksaf wrote: post #15

BrandonRead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Perceived bias" You are ignoring a larger history and the institutionalized sexism that currently exists in all sects of government, industry, and society as a whole. Of course you would feel the same if there were no male speakers, because men haven't had to suffer through centuries of exclusion, therefore it would not threaten the position of men. When you take a deeper look at the issue and realize that we have t…

I am not ignoring anything. This particular conference was not called to address historical issues with gender favoritism. This is a scientific / academic conference dealing with actual ongoing research not related to gender studies. If there is a woman in this group that has something relevant to speak about she should definitely be considered but I don't think that the controlling board should be required to select…

So sorry to interrupt 'actual ongoing research'! Oh no! How dare progress be stopped!? There is an actual ongoing struggle for women to feel just as appreciated as men and not feel like they have to fly to the moon in order to be taken just as seriously as their male counterparts. Sure, they don't NEED to be required to select women--exactly the point! This article is useful in that it points out the disadvantaged position women still face. If a board does not intervene to try and create a gender balance, then there will be no gender balance, precisely because the issue is unregulated and ignored. Hmmm... sounds a lot like ignoring regulation on economics--clearly there are actual ongoing issues that can be solved by the private sector and so we should just ignore the potential solutions of the people so that the private sector can really get things done. Your argument is underdeveloped. It seems to make logical sense, yes, I credit you that, but the logic is baseless if you ignore the larger picture.

Re: Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage

#29

Post by worksaf » Thu, May 22, 2014, 1:55 PM UTC

BrandonRead wrote: post #28

worksaf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not ignoring anything. This particular conference was not called to address historical issues with gender favoritism. This is a scientific / academic conference dealing with actual ongoing research not related to gender studies. If there is a woman in this group that has something relevant to speak about she should definitely be considered but I don't think that the controlling board should be required to select…

So sorry to interrupt 'actual ongoing research'! Oh no! How dare progress be stopped!? There is an actual ongoing struggle for women to feel just as appreciated as men and not feel like they have to fly to the moon in order to be taken just as seriously as their male counterparts. Sure, they don't NEED to be required to select women--exactly the point! This article is useful in that it points out the disadvantaged po…

Just curious, do you have any evidence at all to back up your assumptions that without forceful intervention this particular organization will have a gender imbalance from now until the end of time?