[t_brah]

It is possible for both things to be true at once:

* For women to have strength & agency

* For external circumstances & socialization to have impacts on individuals

But what I don't understand is how you can maintain simultaneously that women are strong & have agency, but must receive corrective action sensitive to gender-differentiated effects.

Are the strong women you're thinking of incapable of overcoming societal pressures without gender sensitive treatment?

[fatbird]

When I was little and my brother was hitting me, I was always capable of moving away from him so he couldn't hit me. The right thing, though, was for him to stop hitting me.

[t_brah]

Sorry that happened to you. What you've said is true - your brother should not have hit you in the first place.

Apples and oranges, though.

Physical violence, threats, and calls to action must not be equated to expression. The urgency & rigor needed to address violence would be inappropriate applied to expression.

As an aside: it's not always possible to take action to defend yourself, but this does not necessarily mean that passive or defensive actions are all that you have.

[fatbird]

Thank you. It wasn't severe abuse, it was just annoying sibling bullying. My point, made obliquely, is that the one's agency is independent of how others should behave.

> Are the strong women you're thinking of incapable of overcoming societal pressures without gender sensitive treatment?

Strength and agency are relative, and different in principle and in fact. All women (and men) are theoretically capable of asserting themselves even against an expressive bully (which is what I think you mean when you say " I believe in the strength & agency of women"; in practice many are not for a variety of circumstantial reasons--bad day, bad upbringing, cultural background, misinformation, fear, insecurity.

Whether men (especially conference organizers and panel moderators) should do something differently in light of received knowledge about sexist patterns of socialization, there's no contradiction with believing in the agency of women. Affirmative action might be problematic at the legislative level, but strongly indicated at the social level.

In other words, Jim Holt could be conscious of the fact that sexism against women in science is a real and ongoing problem, and make a point of being deferential to female speakers; at the very least, he could avoid actively preventing them from speaking more than he was preventing the men. The first would be a positive good; the latter a basic expectation. Neither is an infringement on Holt's expression, nor is a social backlash against Holt for failing to meet even the basic expectation of civility.

[joyeuse6701]

From a societal perspective, it would be honorable to right a wrong on behalf of the victim. Sure they may lift themselves up out of their own predicament, but it may not be necessary.

[t_brah]

So long as our society rights wrongs reactively I see no problem with this.

A society righting wrongs proactively will never run out of wrongs to right.