Women are half the population, not a minority

<p>Considering that women make half the world population, can they be considered a minority? If we would normalize by the power each group exerts, it is possible to consider women a minority assuming men have more power. However, putting women in the <em>minority</em> class risks the naturalization of the <a class="wikilink" href="/gender_unbalance/">gender unbalance</a> in any context. </p> <p>See, for example, this tweet by Said Rodriguez:</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We are talking about scientific conferences. I don&#39;t know in your field, but in every physics/photonics conference I&#39;ve been, women were a minority.</p>&mdash; Said R. K. Rodriguez (@srk_rodriguez) <a href="https://twitter.com/srk_rodriguez/status/1331873900905582594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <p>No doubts in a male-dominated environment such as physics, researchers will exert their own power to keep the playing field tilted in their own advantage (see: <a class="wikilink" href="/the_problem_with_people_in_positions_of_power_in_academia/">The problem with people in positions of power in academia</a>). Claiming that women are a minority means that there won't be an extra effort to give women their rightful place, especially considering the <a class="wikilink" href="/unpaid_work_done_by_women/">unpaid work done by women</a> and the <a class="wikilink" href="/work_policies_designed_for_the_average/">Work policies designed for the average</a>. </p> <p>One of the biggest challenges is that most of these researchers actively believe they are being <em>fair</em>. They do believe that they are doing the proper math and shield themselves behind statistics. They almost invariably reach this conclusion: "If there are 10 women and 100 men, then in a conference there should be 10% female speakers." </p> <p>They never consider, for example, that an alternative approach would be to <a class="wikilink" href="/limit_the_number_of_male_speakers_in_conferences/">limit the number of male speakers in conferences</a>, not the number of women speakers.</p> <p>Tags: <a href="/tags/gender-bias-in-academia">#gender-bias-in-academia</a> <a href="/tags/gender-unbalance">#gender-unbalance</a></p>