Women in Skepticism

Recently a query was posted to the skeptic mailing list (skeptic-request@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu) by the list moderator Taner Edis. He noted that by identifiable first names about 13% of the skeptic readership were women. Most users of the Internet are men and Taner noted this may account for the difference, but his experience with local skeptics groups led him to ask if there were some other reasons.

The topic of "why so few women in skepticism" had been discussed before on skeptic, as well as on sci.skeptic . Some of the early responses (by both men and women) to Taner's query suggested that by wiring or upbringing women may be less confrontational then men, or they may be less inclined to accept science and more inclined to visit psychics and New Age fairs. The following two articles, by Amy Bix and Beth Wolszon, are from the second round of responses, and inject some skepticism into these initial speculations.

   Mike Sofka, Editor

Why are so few Women in Skeptics Groups?

Interesting to see this question raised one more time. I'm glad, since I think it's an important one, and since I've never been happy with the various answers/explanations proposed. Regarding the computer list, I think your focus on the Internet as male territory is a key component. However, that doesn't explain the observations of the rarity of women in local skeptics groups.

I'm willing to go along with the relative scarcity of women in scientific fields in general as another key point in explanation. However, I've never been happy with that as a full explanation---it just seems too pat. There are three more factors I'm wondering about (and wondering is the key word; these are phrased sort of vaguely):

• How do people hear about the existence of an organized society for skeptics anyway? After all, things like churches have institutionalized recruiting mechanisms (including, for many people, of course, being born into a religion). But something like Skeptic may be more hit or miss - I heard about it vaguely many years ago and was intrigued, but that's a far cry from actually knowing exactly what it is and where to get involved - that took longer.

• Women potentially involved with skepticism (agreeing with its perspectives and goals) may simply be choosing to invest their time/energy elsewhere (in disproportionate ratio to men). Perhaps many may simply not consider organized skepticism to have an immediately visible pay-back. Again, spending hours on the PTA can be justified as supporting your kids' education. Many women, of course, also continue to bear a larger share of responsibility for child-rearing and household chores, often in addition to outside employment. Given all that, aside from the pleasures of intellectual exploration and debate, it's harder to see skepticism as making an immediate difference in your immediate world, and some women may decide with regret that they can't "afford" to commit their time and energy to organized skepticism.

• Women potentially involved with skepticism may drop out after a brief or longer period of exploration because of a sense of the skeptic community as not entirely "female-friendly." This is, in part of course, a vicious cycle - a consequence of the existing gender imbalance in skepticism. Some women might have trouble feeling "at home" as the only female attending meetings of a local skeptic group - it can be an uncomfortable feeling being "odd one out." Other women might have gotten burned in an exchange on the computer and decide it's not worth the grief staying involved. Others might be turned off by what some might perceive as anti-feminist sentiments which occasionally crop up (more often in the past than recently, I think). Of course, such incidents will not deter all women; more power to those who stay involved. But such measures of the "climate" for women can be important.

  Please note, this is not meant to be an attack on the skeptic community; I have no doubt that the vast majority of members are "female-friendly," great people who genuinely would welcome more women involved with skepticism. I know there is some wonderful support here for women's involvement with skepticism and with science. Such positive feelings deserve praise; in truth, the very fact of people being concerned about the gender imbalance in skepticism is a good sign. Nevertheless, intangible "comfort" factors may be worth considering, and gender imbalance may itself be a factor tending toward continued imbalance.

I'm not thoroughly happy with the way I've phrased the above and certainly don't think they're full explanations, but they may be issues worth thinking about.

   Amy Bix

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Amy Bix is an Assistant Professor History of Technology and Science Iowa State University.

Are Women Less Skeptical Than Men?

Are women really less skeptical/more gullible than men? What exactly was defined as a 'paranormal belief?' I assume the studies¹ looked at the following beliefs as those typically defined as 'paranormal' - ESP, ghosts, astrology, psychic phenomena, etc. But there are a lot of irrational beliefs cherished by many which don't fall under the definition of 'paranormal' yet should be subject to the same level of criticism. If the studies had instead been designed with a broader definition of 'irrational' beliefs, I think the results would show some interesting distributions.

I'm going to take the position that the level of irrational belief/gullibility is not strongly related to gender, but the type of irrational belief might be. In other words, men may not overall be less gullible than women, but simply more likely to subscribe to certain other forms of unreason that the studies didn't look at.

To illustrate my argument, a few examples:

UFO Buffs: I think it'd be safe to say that in this field of irrationality, men outnumber women.

Dowsing: Heck, well-drilling and utility companies (who usually have predominantly male workers out in the field) have been known to use dowsing as a means to locate underground water, pipes, who knows what else. The homeowner Usenet newsgroups regularly have guys proclaiming their dowsing prowess, but I seldom see women proclaiming their skill at locating lost household items using a bent coat hanger. Oh wait---if women are more religious, I guess they usually just pray to St. Anthony (or is it St. Jude?) to help them find it.

Conspiracies: Seems to me that many more men than women buy into paranoid/irrational beliefs of a national or global scale. At least, when I listen to these talk shows it's almost all men calling in about the trilateral commission, etc.

Get-Rich-Quick schemes: Ever attend any of the multi-level-marketing or home business seminars? It's mostly men, and sheesh, do they ever want to believe that they can become wealthy by working just ten hours a week out of their homes. They'll pay and pay and pay for the books, tapes, whatever the leader tells them they need to achieve financial heaven. There is a definite religious aura in these meetings, but what's worshiped is money and `personal freedom'. It may not be spiritual, and therefore not classed as newage, but it still is irrational---promising unbelievable or unrealistic results from just a little effort.

Corporate Training Crap: Business management, which is still predominantly male, falls wholesale for this garbage. They think fire-walking will help you do your job better, as will seminars such as est, or that feng-shui will create a favorable office atmosphere, or that the Briggs-Meyers personality profiles will help everyone understand themselves better. Which leads to another type of business crapola: employee screening---honesty tests, corporate psychics, handwriting analysts, heck, even checking credit reports. How is a credit report gonna tell you if a candidate is the best person for the job? The Co$² has gotten into the corporate training business, which speaks for itself.

Another point, people are notorious for being quite sensible on some subjects, completely irrational on others. (I'm thinking of Robert Sheaffer here³) Should studies be done to develop a `scale of harm' based on how likely holding a particular belief could adversely affect your life? Perhaps that'd be more useful than arguing about whether men or women are more gullible.

Of course, the Internet is mostly male territory, so some of the above discrepancy can be chalked up to that. [from Taner Edis's original query.]

I'll throw a little gasoline on that fire with the following quote:

"For what I had discovered - reinforced by the comments of respondents to the questionnaires - was that lengthy and often tendentious messages posted by a minority of male subscribers effectively set the terms of the discourse for the group as a whole, and intimidated others - especially women - into silence." (Susan Herring, Computer-Mediated Communication: Some Ethical and Scholarly Considerations)

Know-it-alls are not popular, but men are much less likely to regularly receive negative feedback from speaking in authoritative tones. Women often notice a strong aura of disapproval, sometimes even hostility, if they do so. It's not only men who react this way, and I think people often don't realize they're doing it. But I've learned from experience that if I want my message to get across, I need to soften my presentation, speak and act in a more friendly, softer, `typically female' fashion. If I break this stereotype, it will disturb some people who thus won't be thinking about what I'm saying, but will be distracted by the way I'm saying it.

Since on the Internet body language cues can't be seen, the `tone' of what we write has a great effect on how we are perceived. I don't happen to believe most of the men viewed as posting lengthy, tendentious messages were actually bossy or boorish - I bet they simply never had to consider the impact of just their words. Whereas I rigorously edit my text, knowing that my message can be lost in the reaction to how I'm presenting it.

Skeptics have the same challenge - how to gently dissuade people of cherished or interesting beliefs, without appearing to be obnoxious know-it-all types. Perhaps promoting it in the form of consumer advocacy would work...

But my experience of organized local skeptic groups is much the same. Men predominate. [continuing from Taner's query]

Bad marketing! If more women knew about the groups, which don't get much exposure in the popular media, there would be more women attending. Cynical thought - if a skeptic's meeting was promoted as a great way to socialize with intelligent, friendly, professional guys, the meetings would be packed with women. Schedule meetings or post fliers at the local colleges or public libraries, but post those fliers up in supermarkets and hair salons, too. Have a woman listed as a contact person to call for more information. If you want to draw women, go to where women congregate. Working at a public university, I'm exposed to such a large variety of people holding so many irrational beliefs I can't seriously believe that it's a failing of predominantly one gender.

   Beth Wolszon

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Beth Wolszon is Librarian at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul campus.

Footnotes

1 - Beth Wolszon was responding to a post that read, in part: "And of course, women tend to be more religious, hold stronger paranormal beliefs in the surveys SI [Skeptical Inquirer] reports (nuts-and-bolts UFO's used to be an exception, but I don't know how things stand with abduction beliefs). Nicholas Humphrey notes that women, 'as every contemporary survey shows, tend to be surest that the scientific picture of the world is incomplete.'". Back

2 - Church of Scientology. Back

3 - Robert Sheaffer is a well known UFO critic who occasionally discusses feminism on sci.skeptic. Back

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Published on The WHY-Files, The Journal of the Inquiring Skeptics of Upper New York - Volume 3, Issue 2, February, 1997

The publishing was authorized by the authors of the original essays.

The original essay is available at http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/isuny/Journal/vol3_2.html

Suggestions and grammar corrections on the translation to portuguese and spanish are welcome.