Hungry for Equality - Two Debates about Single-Sex Events

A debate from last week:

Each year, we hold a women's research symposium on our campus. This event has been going on for some time and has been quite successful. There has been a call to open the event up to males - with a suggestion that the event is a type of reverse discrimination. We have no similar event for males or for the entire faculty. The nominal leader of the group of women running the event asked the women faculty listserv (you are signed up when the ink on your contract is dry) what we all thought of this.

The correct answer was not, apparently, what I said. I tried to open a structured dialogue. I asked some questions. One question in particular that everyone ignored was "Are there goals of the symposium which would not be met by opening up the symposium to men?" Several e-mails came back. At least a few were angry. One even used ALL CAPS for some points. Can I just say how fond I am of people YELLING AT ME via e-mail? In the end, my attempts to bring a discussion together failed miserably.

I have participated in many female-only events that encourage female participation in math and science. I've done this because it is the case that significant inequalities persist that result in discouraging girls to pursue SEM fields. In other cases, I gravitate towards moving single-sex events to all-inclusive events, such as Dr. H and I did with our co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party. I thought perhaps a discussion on the listserv would help suss out our views on the subject. Turns out, everyone had already made up their mind. I could summarize it as follows: One group (humanists) said not understanding the need for this event was like putting one's head in the sand and and denying the need for affirmative action. The other group (social scientists) said "We're scientists, not women scientists." I was the only natural scientist naive enough to enter the discussion.


A debate from many years ago:

I received my Ph.D. at an R1 with a large and vibrant Expanding Your Horizons program for middle school girls. This program encourages girls to continue to take math and science in high school. Over 300 girls participated each year. Dozens and dozens of postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates worked hard to pull this event together each year - from coordinating promotional materials and sponsors to developing science workshops to shuttling groups of girls around campus. The number of women-hours put into this was huge. Every year, the question about inviting boys came up - because the women who want to help girls succeed in science are the same women who are concerned about equality and fairness. These same women all saw the value of a single-sex event. My favorite quote: "Girls need to see that women who look like women they know do science."

Finally, after much debate one year, a woman said something like this: "Look, this comes up every year. The truth is female postdocs and grad students on this campus put in countless hours of planning and preparation for this event. Some have the support of their advisors, some don't. The take time aways from their research to do this because this issue is very important to them. They have experienced sexism. They have withstood attempts to discouraged them from pursuing science. So, I say if the male grad students and post docs want to run a workshop for boys, let them. We'll even help." In my recollection, there was no further discussion that year, or the next.


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