TAM Australia Announcement – Leslie Cannold Raises The Ratio Question (Yes, That Again)

Thanks to ‘bastardsheep’ for this one:

TAM (The Amazing Meeting) is coming to Australia this year, the last weekend in November. The first official lineup lineup of speakers has just been officially announced: James Randi, DJ Grothe, SGU, Brian Dunning, George Hrab, Dr Eugenie Scott, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and MC Dr Paul Willis.

#TAMOz appears to be the ‘official’ tag on Twitter. I have noticed that Dr Leslie Cannold made an initial observation along the lines of ‘where’s the women?’ and then acknowledged how there’s only two women represented so far (I don’t like the use of the word ‘chick’, but I guess that’s her choice).

I met Leslie Cannold, in case you don’t know who she is, at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne. She was on a panel dedicated to women and atheism, including Jane Caro, Lyn Allison, Tanya Levin and (Maggie Millar was taken ill at the last minute and was replaced by) Meredith Doig. There was also myself as an MC / presenter, and activist Taslima Nasrin amongst the women who you would have seen on the stage.

First thoughts? I’m wondering if that indicates how there’s smaller population of people who would identify themselves as ‘skeptic‘ in comparison to those who would identify themselves as ‘atheist‘ and thus making the task of including women in the TAMOz lineup more difficult? This was something I pointed out in my presentation – that those who would be categorised as atheist and female in the population of 1243 people is larger than those who would be ‘non-believers’ in horoscopes, psychic healing, lucky charms and the like (let alone, possibly, atheist as well).

To assume that every atheist woman in the audience was a skeptic (and from my experiences, I would say that there isn’t going to be an obvious correlation!) would make it easier for people to say ‘see, there’s a lot of skeptically-minded women!’ – but it would be easier still if skeptical women are identified as potential presenters to TAMOz who are also qualified, confident and have relevant things to say… all of this I covered in my earlier blog-posts on having inclusive opportunities to speak, women in skepticism who are qualified, people presenting in general and the issues, and so forth. It’s one thing to say ‘we need more‘ – another to have ‘we need more and we have examples of those who do it well and know what they’re doing‘. But then, we’d expect that no matter who you were – wouldn’t we?

Certainly the big thing about ‘coming out as atheist’ that was promoted at the Global Atheist Convention might have been a factor in my casual count of a crowd attending the Friday opening, of about 40/60% women to men. No details as of yet as to actual population of gender ratio at the GAC.

However, also present at the Global Atheist Convention was quite a buzz about #TAMOz it being ‘the next event to go to’ (completely without my mentioning its existence to anyone in any capacity beyond casual discussion!), so I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some effort to make it a little more inclusive in future announcements?

There may be quite a few people who do not consider themselves particularly ‘skeptically minded’ who would go just to ‘find out what it’s all about’ – certainly Dr Cannold seems interested in finding out more in regards to the gender balance. This may be a great opportunity to find out what interests people in skepticism. If there are new people wanting to learn, be supported, have more interaction – and whether what is being provided by the Australian Skeptics or the JREF is meeting that demand.

The question remains unanswered as to whether having women on the stage who are qualified and engaging presenters will then automatically mean more women identifying themselves as ‘skeptically-thinking’ – and what do they do next? For all I know, it will be the likes of Dr Karl who will spark some sense of activism and incite new projects amongst a group of women who attend.

So, I guess that would mean that we’ll be seeing skeptical women like Sue-Ann Post, Dr Krissie Wilson, Dr Rachael Dunlop, and the like in the audience at the very least. Naturally, I’d love to be able to talk more about the research that Dr Martin Bridgstock and I did, because there’s some very significant findings that have not been formally announced. I have no idea if I will have that opportunity – at the very least, Dr Martin Bridgstock should. You see? Even I know that Dr Martin will most likely capture your attention with his verve and vibrant character, and he’s most definitely a bearded guy!

But it’s early days yet and for all we know, there’ll be additional elements like panels and workshops like they have at the Las Vegas Amazing meetings? Since the ‘Sunday Papers’ no longer feature at the Vegas ones, perhaps the opportunity for offshoot presentations will exist in another format at both of these upcoming events. Certainly Dr Leslie Cannold will be keeping an eye out.

Oh – nearly forgot (heh, a plug again, like I did at GAC!) – if you want to hear examples of female skeptic speakers from Australia, have a listen to the Skeptic Zone podcast!

Tagged as: #TAMOz, Australian Skeptics, female, feminism, gender, Links Elsewhere, male, Media, news, ratio, research, skeptic, Skepticism, twitter