Over the past few months or so, it seems like there’s been a lot of talk around here (and elsewhere) about gender. This being one of my pet topics, I thought this would be a good time to organize my thoughts and get a discussion going. Maybe all y’all can help me figure some things out. If you like it, I may even make a series of it. FSM knows there’s enough material…
I guess I’ll start off with something that sort of bothered me. I know it was like forever ago now, but did anyone else cringe at that bit of the July 9th SGU interview with Randi where they speculated (sans Rebecca) as to why the skeptical movement has trouble attracting women? It was weird. Nothing they said was necessarily disrespectful, and they seemed to be asking the question in a genuinely feminist way (at least they intended to), but I couldn’t help but get the impression that they were talking about women like we’re aliens or something, which strikes me as a huge reason for the problem which spurred the question. Maybe it’s just me. I do wish Rebecca had been there for that discussion, because I’m sure she would’ve had something more insightful to say than, “Well, women don’t like confrontation so they stay away, but we don’t want them to stay away ‘cuz they’re good at teh social stuff.” (I’m paraphrasing here, obviously.) I do love the SGU guys, and Randi, but that conversation hit me the wrong way.
And more recently, it was suggested to one of my fellow Skepchicks that the blog’s content has become too skewed toward “chick stuff”, rather than bringing women into the “mainstream” of the skeptical movement. It immediately struck me that part of bringing women into the mainstream is to make the mainstream aware of issues that affect us as skeptical women, some of which can go completely unnoticed to people who haven’t experienced them. You can’t attract people to the movement if you don’t take seriously the issues that they care about.
I think there’s an underlying tendency for some people to view Skepchicks as the cheerleaders of the skeptical movement: pretty faces standing at the sidelines whose proper place is to support whatever the men at the top happen to be championing at the moment. For the most part, I don’t think this is a conscious thing, but extends naturally out of the larger societal view of women as either sexy or smart, but not both. One of our main goals here at Skepchick is to change that view by being out there and showing our brains and our bodies, putting forward the issues that affect us, and having fun doing it. I’d like to think we’re succeeding at that, but sometimes I don’t know.
In light of the comment mentioned above, I wonder how many other people are simply blind to the brains aspect. I skimmed briefly over our articles over the past couple of months, and saw one or two items relating directly to women’s issues, but mostly a whole lot of news stories, commentary, and book reviews that I would consider to be of interest to the “mainstream” skeptical community, albeit from our various perspectives. Sort of makes me wonder if the commenter even really reads what we write.
I know of a few individuals in the movement who disagree strongly with our approach and seem to think we should emphasize the brains/body dichotomy, cutting out the sexy altogether in order to garner some “legitimacy”. I can’t think of a worse solution. As frustrating as things can get sometimes, feeding into the problem does not solve it. Besides, to do that (at least for me, though I’m sure my fellow Skepchicks would agree) would be to portray a false image. What you see of me here on Skepchick is not a contrived character constructed to make a point or get attention. It is just me (ok, I’m not really a cartoon). I am smart, skeptical, opinionated, and nerdy, and I also have fun (which includes the occasional drink or 3), enjoy my body and my sexuality, and I see no reason to hide any of these things.
My instinct is that if we just keep on being ourselves, unapologetically, things will change. I think things are changing, but socialized norms are tricky things to overcome. Also I think it is crucial that we talk about these things. Making skeptics of all genders examine critically how they think about these issues can only help root out previously unrecognized stereotypes and prejudices, and, hopefully, lead to a more diverse movement.
At the risk of sounding glib (which is all I have time for right now), keep having discussions like this until gender is no longer an issue. Seriously. The issue should devolve from “getting women into skepticism” to “getting people into skepticism”. I honestly don’t care how many free-thinkers are men or are women, just that the prospect is made equally attractive to everyone.
Awesome, Carrie :)
Just a couple of things:
First off this:
I skimmed briefly over our articles over the past couple of months, and saw one or two items relating directly to women’s issues, but mostly a whole lot of news stories, commentary, and book reviews that I would consider to be of interest to the “mainstream†skeptical community, albeit from our various perspectives.
I agree with this. If this site were mostly about women’s issues I wouldn’t frequent it. Sure I want to see equality and all that goes with it, but quite frankly the meat and potatoes of those issues don’t affect my life much. I think you all do a pretty good job of addressing a large area of interest instead of focusing on one or two things.
Also:
I think there’s an underlying tendency for some people to view Skepchicks as the cheerleaders of the skeptical movement: pretty faces standing at the sidelines whose proper place is to support whatever the men at the top happen to be championing at the moment.
Well, not to be rude but isn’t that what this site is about? In fact, is that not what the whole skeptical movement is? Are we not all cheerleaders of critical thinking? My interperation being that since you are not performing experiments to debunk woo, you are just opinionating, guessing, or reporting. All of which seem like cheerleading to me. And that is just fine. That’s what I am in this race as well.
I know of a few individuals in the movement who disagree strongly with our approach and seem to think we should emphasize the brains/body dichotomy, cutting out the sexy altogether in order to garner some “legitimacyâ€.
I think some people will have a problem seperating a woman’s sex appeal from her intellectual worth. And I don’t think there is much anyone can do to change that. Some people just can’t help but view somebody based on X quality, regardless of any other aspect of their person.
Some men are only ever going to look at women as sex objects and value them based on their prefrences. Just like there will always exist a KKK on some level. The best anyone can do is marginalize them.
To that end, blending brains and beauty can only enhance societies impression of the total woman.
But first you have to get rid of the high profile beauty queen morons who continue to stereotype women. [cough Palin cough]
w_nightshade, i couldn’t agree more. it’s about widening the scope of the movement until it becomes everyone’s movement, and the demographics melt away.
Ooh, a series of posts on gender would be awesometastic.
Honestly, as someone who is a skeptic, a woman, and a feminist, I wish Skepchick would do more to call out silly anti-woman shit I see in the skeptic movement from time to time. But yeah, I understand that I’m in the minority :)
When I think about it, I guess I’d like Skepchick to champion a more inclusive tone, which y’all already do to a large extent. I read Skepchick (over other skeptical group blogs) because the posters don’t assume believers are stupid or delusional. I think that’s a positive attitude that has helped attract women (or at least this particular woman) to the movement.
To be honest, I’m rather disappointed with the whole skeptical movement. I tried for months to get into it, but I found it was way too.. cold. There wasn’t much emotion except for anger and hatred towards the “believers.” This is why I continue to read Skepchick… women automatically add emotion and depth to the stories and issues, and as a woman.. that is something I need.
Perhaps the whole reason more women don’t get “into” it is because it seems so masculine. I’ll admit I’m intimidated by the whole thing.
I’m gonna take a wild guess that “chick stuff” is some sort of douchebag code for “feminism”, given that we only had, what, one post about shoes in the past six months?
One of the problems I myself have with the skeptical community as a whole is a proliferation of alpha male libertarians, the kind who think that they’re so much smarter and more awesome than all the other plebes, so why should their special selves have to pay taxes or follow laws they don’t like (seriously, they need those 20 guns and the rocket launcher, because they’re manly men who have to defend their property!) or listen to what those annoying women who refuse to sleep with him (astonishing, really, considering how totally awesome and manly he is!) have to say. And I have to distinguish with the “alpha male” qualifier because, while I think all libertarians are silly, I don’t think they’re all misogynist douchebags.
But, anyway, more to the point, there’s something about that “special snowflake” macho libertarian mentality that’s attracted to skepticism for the wrong reasons. Namely, because skepticism gives them an excuse to feel superior to other people and clothe it in the mantle of scientific correctness and intelligence.
I think these guys are also what folk like AmberEyes mean when they say that skepticism seems “masculine” and “intimidating”. Because for macho skeptics, it’s all about being better than somebody else, and that can be very off-putting to someone who doesn’t care about all that pecking order bullshit.
(Not that it’s only women who have a problem with that — I do, too, for one — but it’s a situation where the traditional view of the “skeptic” is at odds with what our culture expects of women.)
@seaducer:
I see your point, but I have to say that’s not what I’m in it for. I’m in it to play, not stand on the sidelines and make the real players look popular. I’m guessing Carrie was using that term to draw a similar distinction.
“And more recently, it was suggested to one of my fellow Skepchicks that the blog’s content has become too skewed toward “chick stuffâ€, ”
I am fairly new to Skepchick — I’ve been listening to the SGU podcast for over a year now, but have only been frequenting this blog for a few months. And I DO NOT see this. This blog has quite a wide variety of posts. I mean, hell, the AI questions alone tend to be all over the place.
I do not frequent typical “chick places” because I am not a girly girl and I do not care about normal “chick stuff” — which to me is fashion and gossip. Skepchick is SO MUCH MORE than “just chick stuff.”
Honestly, I think whoever made that comment has a biased opinion already and probably thinks, because the blog has “chick” in the name, that everything is automatically about and for chicks and that’s that, and obviously does not read this blog regularly.
@Joshua:
@marilove:
I think the skeptical community is large enough that everyone can find something to love and something to hate about the community. I don’t care who joins the community or for what reasons, so long as the ideas are propagated.
People have biases; everyone is prejudiced in some way. People read their own information into posts and content. Some people make these connections and are right and some people are not. I don’t judge anything in the community by any one of its members. I also try not to judge anyone by one comment or one quote.
@Joshua: Well said. Also: nice beard.
On a note unrelated to that: there’s a skeptical movement? I’m not sure how I feel about this.
@Protesilaus: Oh, I don’t know. Someone saying that Skepchick “has become too skewed toward ‘chick stuff'” obviously has not been keeping up on this blog, and/or already has a huge bias. Because … I honestly can’t recall any recent posts that have been “too skewed toward ‘chick stuff'”.
Great post, carr2d2!
I have a request though. Can we officially step away from the “skeptical movement” thing? The phrase just doesn’t sound right to me. It sounds like something skeptical is about to be shat out onto the ground. “Whoa, I just had a huge skeptical movement.”
Yeah, that’s gross, but I think it relates to why women may still be seen as having to make inroads. A movement implies that there are leaders in some capacity. And let’s face it, leaders in a movement are usually the ones that started it or that have been around the longest. And those that have been around the longest right now are still old white guys.
But I think instead we can take cues from people like Genie Scott and Neil Tyson — neither of whom identify as skeptics as much as they identify as scientists and critical thinkers — and focus on promoting a skill set instead engaging in something that by nature can be adversarial, like a movement.
What I mean is, if we focus on showing people how to think critically, if we promote the brilliance of the scientific method, and if we comment on this blog about how that relates to all human beings, we will not only put the adversarial nature of a movement behind us, but we will eliminate those bullshit “why aren’t there more women in the movement?” discussions.
You old farts asking that question are in a movement. And I say good luck with that. Knock yourselves out. The Skepchicks and their readers are not in a movement. Skepticism just happens to be what they do. They are taking critical thinking to the masses in their own way. And they’re doing it with style, humor, and while being as sexy as they damn well want to be.
No one needs to make inroads into a movement to do that.
If skepticism is to truly go mainstream it needs go multi stream. We need chick skeptics, dude skeptics, black/white/yellow/etc. skeptics, kid skeptics, retired skeptics, gay skeptics, straight skeptics, tranny skeptics, and plain old vanilla skeptics.
I’ve been a skeptic since I was about 12 and saw Randi perform psychic surgery on Carson. I was lucky enough to have a dad that was able to explain to me who this guy was and what his point of view was. It truly changed my life forever.
But over the years I continually found myself not really fitting in with the movement. I can’t really say why, we obviously shared a philosophy but at the same time I felt like I would never fit with that group.
The first time I got a sense that I might be wrong about that was when I discovered Penn & Teller were skeptics. This was the first example (outside of myself) of skeptics that didn’t fit a certain mold.
Over time I’ve discovered more and more of them and now see the movement on the cusp of growing exponentially simply because of groups like skepchik. You help show that skepticism is a way that a person views the world and has nothing to do with the length of their beard. Much like being gay, people are beginning to understand that skeptics are just like them, only they are attracted to reason instead of members of the same sex.
And some of them are curious or are realizing they’ve felt that way all along.
I say keep the sexy, it’s fun and I think I heard somewhere that it sells. And frankly we need more smart and sexy in the same package. If people don’t like it there are other blogs for them to read.
I do find it funny that when I’m logging in from certain sites this particular site gets blocked for “pornographic content.” Apparently you put the word “chick” into a website and it gets flagged.
seaducer: I think what Carrie meant is not that we’re all cheerleaders (which we are in a sense), but that some people see the Skepchicks as cheerleaders while the men of the movement are the ones really playing the game. IOW the women are sidelined and just used to attract attention.
That may very well be true in some peoples’ minds.
I read a lot of skeptic blogs, and Skepchick is one of my favorites. The content here is really good, there are lots of different opinions, and I find that I get to hear viewpoints that are not only different from mine but also from a POV that may not have occurred to me because my background is different than the authors’.
And I’m not a woman, so right away that’s an important aspect of the opinions here. If I have a blind spot on some issue because of my gender (or race or education or economic status or political affiliation), then I need to know about it. I’m glad this place exists.
I don’t read Skepchicks because the women here are hot, I read it because of what I said above. The content here is good. That’s the first and best criterion for me to read something.
I don’t know exactly why there is such an imbalance of men versus women in the skeptic movement. Maybe it’s because it attracted stereotypical science/scifi/geek guys twenty years ago when it got started, and it’s only in recent times that it’s become cool for women to be geeks too. Every year I see more women at TAM, and DragonCon was close to 50/50.
I find that very heartening. Breaking boundaries and shattering old paradigms is part of what skepticism is all about. The Skepchicks here are doing just that.
Thanks for the great post. This is something that I have definitely been thinking about. I do find the sceptical movement intimidating at times. I have been on so many forums where all you get is constant tedious one-upmanship. On several occasions I have seen some poor newbie being attacked for falling for some logical fallacy even though they had stated that they were new to science and scepticism. Debate and the occasional argument is great, but so is supporting each other or using a little gentle criticism.
I do sometimes find it hard to be taken seriously because in some ways I am quite girly (I don’t giggle all the time or fall out of my top, but I like glittery nail varnish, handbags and have a worrying fondness for Hello Kitty). But I am also intelligent, well-educated, sceptical and extremely bloody-minded. I am quite techy and can be geeky at times. I kind of feel that sometimes the more masculine women get taken more seriously, but I guess that has always been true that it helps to become more like men if you want to be taken seriously. I must remember not to take my Hello Kitty bag to any sceptical events! ;o)
I really like this blog, because it takes scepticism seriously, but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
I’ve been following this blog for a number of months now. First of all, I want to say that, as a mature male, I’ve found that around half of the people I deal with on a daily basis are actually female. In my opinion, that makes their problems my problems. Therefore, it doesn’t bother me when “women’s issues” are addressed, because they’re ALREADY “people’s issues”.
Let’s face it, both women and men are being targeted by conmen trying to get us to enlarge certain parts of our anatomy. Certainly we can bond over that.
Great post. I have nothing to add but I wanted to chime in. I like to see these kind of serious, thoughtful posts.
Not to twist the subject away from feminism (and me of all commenters to do so), but I’d also like to chime in and say “the skeptic movement” evokes bowel imagery. …And makes it okay to poke fun at god on the sides of UK buses.
Other than that, I would like to echo Amanda in saying a series on the topic would be beneficial.
I think, in general, skepticism should lead to pro-gender outcomes. Meaning, once critical thought is slathered on enough slices of life, gender appreciation will also become the norm.
Mmmn. Gender appreciation. Maybe this is a better term than “gender equality”, which is what I was trying to avoid saying, since my emotional scars still throb when I think of that AI. But the concept I was referring to was, I think more accurately, “equal gender power”. Still, you need both.
I don’t see this site a skewed toward “chick stuff” at all. It’s definitely narrated from a female point of view, but if someone has a problem with that, they should probably not be reading blogs in the first place. I do think this site skews too much toward “comedy” though – everyone is always trying to be funny here. That annoys me.
@Joshua:
Women can be Alpha libertarian ars*holes as well e.g. Thatcher.
What are the right reasons to be attracted to skeptisim/critical thinking? What’s so bad about want to have a coherrent logical outlook on life?
I doubt anyone becomes interested in critical thinking to feel intellectually superiour to others any more than people become interested in chess so they can beat small children at it.
Besides almost everyone who contributes here is a skeptic and while discussions have been vigourous (whats the point if we all agree on everything?) they’ve always been within the context of critical thinking.
I think the reason the whole skeptical thing tends to be mainly men is probably due to the fact that those professions which apply critical thinking the most tend to be male dominated (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, STEM) and anyone who’s studied STEM at College will have had training in critical thinking (even if some where asleep when falsifiability came up :-) )
@Sam Ogden: I’m going outside the box here because 1) Sam is a poster and not just a commenter and 2) the COTW is typically reserved for smartass comments, but I call COTW none-the-less.
I can’t follow that comment. It is spot on.
Two more things.
One, it’s great to see BA posting comments here. BA is the only other skeptical blog I read, actually! …Even if I’m still mad at him for making me lose a point on tkingdoll’s “Hot Skeptic” poll.
Two, I don’t know if you read Slash7 (Amy Hoy’s blog), but she just posted about women in technology, and I think it categorizes the “mood” that carr2d2 was posting about in the podcast. Namely, that the motives of many men in skepticism are “How can I find a woman to date who will understand what a brilliant [analytical mind I have]?” …or, perhaps more diplomatically, “Women have innate abilities and a way of thinking about things that balance very nicely with male ones, and we’re missing out on that.” …Which may turn out to be bullshit way of saying “girls have boobs and I want to see them”. : ) Anyway, it is a long post, but I think it’s worth reading… if the point is a little vague.
First, @ Joshua: I found myself nodding in agreement at your “alpha male libertarians” remarks. Very well put.
Now, more generally: I *am* puzzled by the gender imbalance in skeptic circles (which I guess aren’t quite circles, since their asymmetrical), since smart critical thinkers I met in my university days tended to be women more often than men. Maybe this is a generational thing, and there’s just a heavy preponderance of men in the older age categories. Maybe there’ll be more balance as more people in the younger generations get involved.
On the whole sexy/brainy thing. A quick straw poll of colleagues comes down against the calender of nude skeptics.
To quote someone in the office : “How can you expect to be treated as anything but a sex object if you take your clothes off to sell your ideology?”
I must admit I’m inclined to agree with her, your rationale must speak for itself, nudity is just an advertising trick and should sway sensible people either way. There I said it
Well, there is also a skepdude calendar, and no one ever makes those comments about the male skeptics who pose in it. So I think that’s basically a load of shit.
@TheCzech: Perhaps Sam’s comment isn’t eligible for a COTW, but it is eligible to promotion to a full post.
And I think it’s a topic that’s been on plenty of people’s minds, so it would drum up lively conversation on its own
…AND it would avoid derailing this discussion, which should really be about gender.
So: I hosey Sam promotes his comment to a Post.
@russellsugden: I couldn’t possibly disagree more. “How can you expect to be treated as anything but a sex object if you take your clothes off to sell your ideology?” is so incredibly close-minded, it makes my brain burn.
(Phil, where’s that “the stupid, it burns” picture?)
Wow, I’m actually too stunned to coherently argue the point.
I was a geek girl long before I was a skeptic, so I’ve always been a proponent of the “sexy AND brainy” thing. It’s how I identify myself, and it’s who I’m going to be, and you can’t separate the two. To find a whole community of women and men who live by that here at Skepchick is just awesome.
And yeah, I know that the term “skeptical movement” is kind of weird, but again, to find a community of people who think that science rawks and critical thinking is super-important has been such a wonderful thing.
No, Skepchick does not focus on “women’s issues” and I like it that way. Like some of the other commenters here, I wouldn’t read it every damn day if that were the case! Just be yourselves, keep doing what you’re doing, and let the discussion roll on from there.
Awesome post.
ZOMFSM don’t ever stop making the calendars. That’s just silly. That’s just people being uptight about sex in general, then they don’t have to buy it!