Here’s another meta-post on posts over at the Feminist Philosophers’ blog. It may seem like overkill to write blog posts on blog posts, but there have been some new important developments in the Gendered Conference Campaign, which deserve to be discussed in some detail.
The first one (already noted by John Protevi here) is that, on the basis of the results of the poll conducted recently on reasons why women may be declining invitations to speak at conferences more often than men, Jender has drafted a list of practical recommendations on how to avoid a poor gender balance at conferences. Of course, the list is meant for people who are already convinced of the importance of having female keynote speakers at conferences, but we’ve been hearing a lot that some people do try to make sure there is some sort of gender balance at their conferences but still somehow “it does not work out”. With these practical suggestions, however, I firmly believe that the chances of ensuring a reasonable female representation at a conference are significantly increased.
The other, equally important development is a more pronounced emphasis on the consequences of conferences with an all-male lineup of speakers, as opposed to their causes. Often, when a conference organizer is approached on this issue, he/she seeks to be absolved of any ‘blame’ by noticing that he/she did try to have women as speakers, with various degrees of efforts in this direction. In other words, it often becomes a matter of individual responsibilities in particular cases. Now, the problem with this way of approaching things is that conference organizers take it to be an individual accusation (which it is not, it is about a systematic phenomenon), and once it becomes established that the person in question did try, then it is as if “all’s well that ends well”. But the phenomenon, i.e. an all-male lineup of speakers, is still there, and so are its harmful consequences -- in particular a reinforcement of the stereotype that philosophy (some sub-areas more than others) is a ‘male thing’, which in turn affects women in the profession negatively through the now familiar implicit biases and their consequences. Personally, I am particularly concerned with the message that an all-male lineup of speakers sends to young women who are still struggling with the idea of being a women in philosophy, i.e. whose own implicit biases are telling them that they are not cut for the job. As discussed before, positive female role models can do wonders, and seeing female philosophers speaking at conferences is a great way to expose young people (both female and male) to positive female role models.
In other words, even if you’ve tried your very best to organize a gender-balanced conference (but failed), your good efforts still do nothing to mitigate the harmful effects of the outcome. Although this remark may sound accusatory, the point is really to divert from discussions of individual blameworthiness and instead to focus on the phenomenon systemically. On the individual level, the best that can be done is to urge people to be aware of their own implicit biases (we all have them: you, me, everybody), and to try to counter them -- for example by following Jender’s well-formulated practical suggestions -- rather than to discuss the specific causes of a given conference having a poor gender balance. But it’s never too late to get started, so maybe next time better! (^_^)
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