14 to Zero
Screechy Monkey alerted us to a story that began with an origins of life conference featuring 14 men and 0 that’s zero women.
0/14 women speakers at FfAME Origins of Life Conference+Workshop in ATL.
I made this slide for the precise purpose of preventing this from happening. #smh #YAAMM #YAMMM #manel #STEMDiversity https://t.co/MQ9iQ2ZYXL pic.twitter.com/0MEwFdLj0S— Jennifer Glass (@methanoJen) August 7, 2018
She emailed the organizer to object, so he…announced a panel to discuss “biases and disparities in origins research” including her name without ever asking her.
The latest on #FfAME fiasco. Without ever agreeing to do this, nor ever even being asked, my name was added to OoL program.Unbelievable. Here’s a screenshot of the new program and an email telling me I was going to appear for this. #YAMMM @templeton_fdn https://t.co/OxqXjVKLW0 pic.twitter.com/Q7YPu0eu1y
— Jennifer Glass (@methanoJen) August 16, 2018
What strikes me about this, that I haven’t seen mentioned in the Twitter discussion, is that this is Templeton. Templeton has an agenda, and a tendency to disguise or play down that agenda. I don’t know if that’s relevant to what happened here or not, but it’s interesting.
She responded:
My response. pic.twitter.com/1SL3X5EIzY
— Jennifer Glass (@methanoJen) August 16, 2018
The organizer's response. pic.twitter.com/XSSt1f6zQy
— Jennifer Glass (@methanoJen) August 16, 2018
Jaw-dropping, isn’t it? They stick her name on without asking, and then refuse to remove it when she tells them to, saying there will be an empty chair, as if she were being a naughty absentee.
They’ve got a lot of people mad at them now, which seems fitting for Templeton.
I think the fact that it’s Templeton is noteworthy in a couple of ways:
1) Aside from the sexism, we’re getting a glimpse into the bias and dishonesty of the organization. As one of the organizers wrote:
Now, it’s neither illegal nor immoral for an organization like Templeton to have a “point of view” on scientific or other questions. But Templeton likes to pretend that it doesn’t; that it is just interested in asking “the Big Questions” and isn’t gunning for particular answers. That has always been pretty obvious bullshit, but this statement is further confirmation that Templeton is interested in funding scientists or journalists who say that there is a (cough cough) “intelligent designer” (scare quotes theirs). Anyone being offered Templeton money in the future ought to pay heed.
2) Templeton’s excuse for the all-male panels was that gosh, there just don’t seem to be any women in this area who do our kind of work (hint: the goddy kind), and the 50 women Dr. Glass mentioned don’t count because they aren’t goddy enough. Now, the “we couldn’t find any women” excuse gets used so often in so many different fields where it has been proven to be bullshit that I doubt it applies here either, but I suppose it’s possible that it’s particularly hard to find religiously-focused women scientists because women with those kinds of agendas are even more likely to be deterred from scientific careers than even the average woman does.
I suppose that it is hard to find women in a field if you only look at the men…
I would like to think that Templeton approached women but found they were unwilling to compromise their professional and personal ethics for the sake of a Templeton cheque. Sadly, this is Templeton, so we can be sure that women simply weren’t even considered, much less invited.
@AofS, If Templeton had approached women who declined the invitation we would have known, because the women’s names would have been listed as attending anyway.
I wonder if Templeton will be asserting that women don’t really care about bias in research…they don’t even show up for their panels.
It seems to be all of a parcel – women aren’t real people, so…
(a) there can’t be any women doing any serious work in any relevant field, so why would anyone want them at a conference; and
(b) if we do want some women, they don’t need to be invited – they can be appointed. It’s not as if women have anything better to do.