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The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

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Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#41

Post by andosa »

crooked-v wrote: post #5
unit91 wrote: post #2

> Take the things that are said about a female subject and flip them around as if they were said about a male. If they sound ridiculous, then chances are good they have no business in the story. Exactly. Every time I read something that fails this test, I can't help but dismiss it as identity politics. If somebody does great work, let's praise the performance. All this focus on male/female, black/white, rich/poor, et…

To me, this sounds like an excuse to pretend that systematic inequality doesn't exist, and thereby imply that not being able to rise above it is a personal failing.

Women are twice as likely to get a tenure position in STEM when compared to equally qualified men http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/04/women-best-men-stem-f...

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#42

Post by Broken_Hippo »

crooked-v wrote: post #5
unit91 wrote: post #2

> Take the things that are said about a female subject and flip them around as if they were said about a male. If they sound ridiculous, then chances are good they have no business in the story. Exactly. Every time I read something that fails this test, I can't help but dismiss it as identity politics. If somebody does great work, let's praise the performance. All this focus on male/female, black/white, rich/poor, et…

To me, this sounds like an excuse to pretend that systematic inequality doesn't exist, and thereby imply that not being able to rise above it is a personal failing.

It isn't that it doesn't exist. No one is saying not to write about inequalities and stuff like that - it happens, and there should be articles about it.

But tone matters, and after a while, tone has an effect on people's attitudes. If you are writing about a scientist's breakthrough technology, just write about that. There isn't a need to write about the scientist being female any more than it is to write about them being male. This way, both sexes are treated more similarly. The article about their personal passions, disadvantages, and so on can be another story altogether, but not the one pretending to be about the discovery.

If you'd give a little background about a straight, white male, it might list some interesting things about the person. Surely the most interesting thing about being female isn't being female. Same for sexual orientation. I know these are true for me. I'm female and bisexual, but these don't tell you anything about me, really. I'm vastly more interesting if folks write about me being an immigrant, that I met my spouse online, or that I'm an artist.

The outcome is that the tone is that x person did y, and treats being female (or whatever) as just a thing that is, a completely normal thing. It rubs off on readers.

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#43

Post by AnimalMuppet »

munchbunny wrote: post #35
bvc35 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why write about women specifically unless your intention is to emphasize the accomplishments of their sex in the field? This sounds a lot like "write about women more, but don't say you're writing about someone because she's a woman."

That's exactly the point. If you take it out of the context of gender issues, it makes sense. Want to destigmatize homosexuality? Write about people going about their lives normally, who happen to be homosexual. Make TV shows of "two dads" or "two moms" where they're just like any other TV couple. Do it for a few years and people become more comfortable with the idea, as if the new default was always the case. With g…

I thought about this when Elena Kagan was nominated for the Supreme Court. I think that there's a four-step process society goes through:

1. She's female and hispanic. She can't serve on the Supreme Court.

2. She's female and hispanic, but she's nominated for the Supreme Court anyway! (See how enlightened we are?)

3. She's nominated for the Supreme Court. Nobody bothers to mention that she's female and hispanic.

4. People mention that she's female and hispanic, but only in the same way that they'd mention that she once did ballet or that she's an amateur fencer - as personal interest, not as a statement about her qualification to serve on the Supreme Court.

When Kagan was nominated, we were at step 2. (Which is progress - a generation earlier, we were at step 1). But we should be moving on to step 3, where nobody talks about such stuff because it's irrelevant. Ideally we should wind up at step 4, but I'm not sure that we can without going through step 3 first. And when we do start going to step 4, people are going to get uptight, because mentioning gender and race are going to raise fears that we're going back to step 2...

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#44

Post by chongli »

jordigh wrote: post #9
unit91 wrote: post #2

> Take the things that are said about a female subject and flip them around as if they were said about a male. If they sound ridiculous, then chances are good they have no business in the story. Exactly. Every time I read something that fails this test, I can't help but dismiss it as identity politics. If somebody does great work, let's praise the performance. All this focus on male/female, black/white, rich/poor, et…

The article isn't saying that we shouldn't focus on women in science or that we shouldn't be writing articles about them. It says we shouldn't emphasise stereotypes about their femininity, but it still talks about how we have to address the inherent sexism that exists. > The issue, she says, is that when you emphasize a woman’s sex, you inevitably end up dismissing her science. That's the point. Write about women. We…

we have to address the inherent sexism

If it's inherent, then what can we do about it?

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#45

Post by BadDebug »

nuclearburrito wrote: post #12

This is why I hate identity politics and why I believe all jobs for a given role should pay identically. Men/women are created equal but different. Praise people for their merit, not their sex. I know women who can run circles around men in coding and sysadmin work. I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm working with a woman when we're sat together working on something. I just tend to notice that this person is s…

Why do you say "attempting to teach my daughter programming" and not "I am teaching my daughter programming"? You make it seem like she's not interested.

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#46

Post by abalashov »

dang wrote: post #36
abalashov wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, that really wasn't my intent. I thought it to be germane to the issue at hand, though of course, the issues raised by the article participate in a larger ideological nexus.

I believe you. It's just that we have a lot of experience with these tangents where discussions become both more generic and more ideological. If you imagine a 2x2 matrix of those variables, that's the flamewar quadrant.

That's hard to argue with, because it's undeniably true. :) I'll be more careful.

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#47

Post by rayiner »

gms7777 wrote: post #24
rayiner wrote: post #18

Where this discussion gets confused is that it fails to recognize that there are actually two different issues and two different kinds of articles at issue. To make the discussion neutral, instead of women in science let's talk about startups. There are many (but at least two) kinds of articles about startups. Ones that focus on the technology, and ones that focus on the "human interest" angle. There are articles abo…

I agree, and I think there is definitely space and a need for "women in science" articles, because there are topics that are of particular interest for women in science. The issue that the author is pointing out is that it seems like when it comes to female scientists, it seems like every article about female scientists is written from this "women in science" perspective.

And I think that is a valid issue. But I think the real answer is, unfortunately, that people don't really care about science articles. The human interest angle is the only thing that sells ads.

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#48

Post by ggg9990 »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #13
ggg9990 wrote: post #4

Another thing I’ve noticed is articles using large headshots of women for companies where they could use product photos. With men it’s much rarer... they even prefer to run cheesy graphics of “AI” instead of headshots.

That's true, but now your pushing into the territory of marketing. When you are making compelling images to attract attention its more about creating an effective advertisement than a political agenda.

I'm not talking about the companies themselves... but media outlets who don't have a responsibility to market the companies they're covering.

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#49

Post by tptacek »

viridian wrote: post #30
rayiner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Men/women are created equal but different. Identity politics is a reaction to people who say stuff like that.

It's not society and nurture stopping a woman from deadlifting 800lbs, or a man from breastfeeding. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. My girlfriend and I were just talking about how it's pretty unfortunate that there are basically no top level female smash players, but the fact is that reaction time is such a huge advantage that only a fraction of a percent of men can perform at the top level, and the female b…

Well, what's stopping men from deadlifting 800lbs? Because only a tiny fraction of men can deadlift 600lbs (the women's deadlift record), let alone 800lbs.

Will a man hold the deadlift record? Most assuredly. Does this in any way matter? It sure doesn't seem like it does.

Re: The Finkbeiner Test: A Tool for Writing About Women in their Professions

#50

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #49
viridian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not society and nurture stopping a woman from deadlifting 800lbs, or a man from breastfeeding. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. My girlfriend and I were just talking about how it's pretty unfortunate that there are basically no top level female smash players, but the fact is that reaction time is such a huge advantage that only a fraction of a percent of men can perform at the top level, and the female b…

Well, what's stopping men from deadlifting 800lbs? Because only a tiny fraction of men can deadlift 600lbs (the women's deadlift record), let alone 800lbs. Will a man hold the deadlift record? Most assuredly. Does this in any way matter? It sure doesn't seem like it does.

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