Participation - From Lori
Hi Everyone,I was chatting with one of my colleagues regarding women vs. minority issues. In his opinion, if the subject of any forum/meeting includes the topic of women and minorities, then women who are not minorities are less inclined to attend.
The Cook Colloquium on Wednesday will discuss both issues of women AND minorities. He's expecting that women who are not minorities will probably be in low attendance because the colloquium will discuss minority issues as well.
While I think that the issues for both groups can be widely divergent, I worry he might have a point that the women in math, science and engineering (MSE) may not attend the colloquium. Unfortunately this could feed into the perception that women don't attend events such as this one because women see such programs as only a service to the needs of minorities, while most women at Duke are not minorities, particularly not underrepresented minorities.
I'd like to know your opinion of his perception, in particular whether or not it is valid. I don't necessarily think he is correct, but I honestly don't know. If the program garners low attendance from women in MSE (particularly not minorities), would it be because of apathy among women in MSE for issues involving minorities, apathy for issues involving women or merely because they do not have time to attend?
Truthfully, I'm sending this out preemptively in the hopes that we'll all strongly encourage our women colleagues in MSE of all backgrounds to attend the colloquium (Griffith Theater, Bryan Center 1-5pm Wednesday Feb 22, 2006).
Lori
posted by Tong @ 9:03 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Lori,
I have to agree with your colleague, although I can think of at least one other reason than apathy towards minority issues (although I don't doubt that there's a lot of that as well).
I know that for me, there is a certain amount of fear of seeming presumptuous. Since I'm white, I realize that in any discussion of minority issues, I'm coming from a position of white privilege, and therefore feel that I have nothing of use to contribute to such a discussion. Moreover, I worry that my very presence might have a chilling effect. I know it changes the dynamic of discussions of women's issues when men are around -- there has to be a lot more explaining, for one thing, and sometimes more defending. That's certainly not a bad thing, but sometimes that's not what the discussion needs to be at that time. And just as I would like the concept of women's space to be respected (as fluidly defined as that may be), I also want to respect the concept of minority space. I don't want to minimize or belittle the unique issues confronting women of color by purposefully or inadvertently shifting the focus onto my own issues as a non-minority woman.
The effect of this kind of white guilt, of course, is indistinguishable from the effect of apathy towards minority issues. If I act on it, I remain ignorant of what women (and men) of color have to say. I think the right action -- in this situation at least -- is to go and listen. (I don't know whether I'll be able to stay and listen for all four hours -- but I'll definitely do what I can!)
Caroline Ring
Hi Lori, Caroline, others,
I haven't been to that many minority and women together events, but I feel like a large part of the makeup of the audience is determined by the makeup of the committee in charge of the event. For instance, the upcoming colloquium is sponsored by the Cook Society, an African-American society, so I would expect to see mostly African americans in the audience. I think part of that is simply due to the networks those on the committees have access to. Most likely they know most of the african american list-serves out there, but they might not be as familiar with the muslim students association, or latino american lists, so it's simply not as well advertised to those groups. But it goes beyond list-serves, it's who you talk to and how the event is connected to you personally. I think people are much more likely to attend an event if they receive a so called "personal" invitation.
Like, hey someone from our department is part of the group putting this event on, and she said it would be really relevant to me, so I'm going to go check it out. People talking up the event is critical. I think this gets to what Caroline brought up, that there's an automatic barrier that people put up when they feel like they are not part of the target audience. It's like you need a personal invitation to feel o.k. about attending. So maybe for this event, we should really talk it up, and emphasize to our friends (who will talk to their friends, etc) that it's going to be relevant to women too.
Similarly, I think this issue applies to getting men to come to women's issues events too. Right now, they're the ones in charge of the climate that we face, so we need to get them thinking about our issues. We need to overcome this male-guilt that's keeping them from partcipating in these discussions.
Going back to the idea of the committee predicting the makeup of the audience, the biases of the committee are going to show up in subtle ways on the posters, agenda, panelists, and topics covered. So naturally, the Cook sponsored colloquium will have a slight African-American focus, which will turn off women from other ethnicities from attending. I think we'd get a very different audience makeup if gpwn put on the colloquium vs. the Cook society. And in a way that's because the topics covered are assumed to be more relevant to that group.
Are there any thoughts on minority men -- are they less likely to attend an event that's for women and minorities?
Sorry this is so rambling,
--Erica
Hi Everyone,
Thank you so much for your replies. Your opinions and insights have been really enlightening. I have shared with my colleague your feelings, so he could understand the dynamics of situations like this. I really appreciate your suggestions for ways of improving overall attendance at events like this one. Maybe there's still enough time to put the suggestions into action. If not, they can always be implemented next time. Thanks again!
Lori
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