Comments on: Women in skepticism

By: Anna J. Jacobs

Anna J. Jacobs — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:30:34 +0000

I said “more likely” – it’s not a hard and fast rule. One example:

http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/28/leadership-business-basics-cx_tw_0629womennegotiating.html

By: Podblack

Podblack — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 06:34:36 +0000

Anna, the research demonstrates that isn’t strictly true. I would also question what ‘roaring’ entails? One of the questions I’ve come up across is whether there are already established groups that have funding, government backing and aren’t from a niche that has a reputation of being ‘cynical’ – which are doing quite well already.

You might like to check out an upcoming document by Skeptic.com on the matter, should be out in February.

By: Anna J. Jacobs

Anna J. Jacobs — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 05:56:56 +0000

Women are more likely to base their decisions on emotion rather than reason. There are a few exceptions out there and we need to get out there and roar.

By: Podblack

Podblack — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:24:03 +0000

…by the way. Why TAM? Why not Dragon*Con?

It actually addresses many of the concerns you later raise in the post… something I noticed, for a start:

http://podblack.com/?p=412

By: Podblack

Podblack — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:17:18 +0000

It’s something I’m researching – you might like to check out my blog for further posts on the matter. In fact, you might discover that it’s not exactly so that ‘women are under-represented in the Skeptical movement.’
http://podblack.com/?page_id=330

and there’s a presentation I did at a conference: ‘On Sex, Smarts and Where The SkepGrrls At: An Investigation into Gender Differences and Belief In Weird Things‘ – all about gender and skepticism as well as future directions.
http://podblack.com/?page_id=742

I would say – there are plenty of women in the skeptical movement. What people should be more concerned about is the lack of skepticism in general. Just because a woman is saying it is no guarantee that other women will be as ‘turned on’ by their ‘hotness’. :p

To be frank, stepping away from hanging out only with skeptics and getting hands dirty with concerns that are relevant to women who do NOT call themselves skeptics (such as working on http://www.stopjenny.com, networking and creating events, researching and contributing to academia and joining ventures that have established support like women in STEM careers and feminist groups, et al) – that’s where more can be done?

By: Jim Lippard

Jim Lippard — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:04:09 +0000

I think there’s something to the criticism that skeptics tend to be people who are overly intellectual and underly (if that’s a word) emotional, a characteristic that’s also common among techies and other sorts of geeks. Women are less likely to go to extremes in that direction–they have a tendency to consider the emotional and social to be of greater importance.