| >How do you propose to fix things? Make sure you pick two or three females for at least every eight to seven males. Aim for as high a mix as you can. >how do you know they aren't being subconsciously racist/reverse-racist in exactly the same way you're complaining about whites/males being racist? That's easy; there's no such thing as 'reverse racism'. There's discrimination, and anyone can be discriminated against. Furthermore, few if any conferences are organized in the matter you described. There's no selection committee. Only 1-to-3 people are involved picking speakers. >How do you objectively evaluate the race-blind quality of a set of potential speakers if your claim is that everyone on any possible selection committee is potentially subconsciously biased? You misunderstand my claim. My claim isn't that people are subconsciously biased, my claim is conference after conference filled with white dudes is a sign the conference speakers aren't doing their jobs of presenting their audiences with the widest range of interesting ideas. >Is this demographics equality campaign to be pursued at the expense of attendees' perceived value of the conference? This assumes that your pool of potential speakers is only slightly larger than the number of speaker slots. There are fewer potential female speakers, but this does not automatically mean that you can't provide a full slate of A+ speakers - only that you have to work a little harder at it. See: http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got... and http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got... |
That's tragic, and in that case I agree that underrepresentation is a problem, but I don't agree that organizers are discriminating if they don't make that extra personal effort to reach out to potential presenters from underrepresented groups.
I agree there should ideally be more encouragement, but I don't think it should be required for conference organizers to do that, to avoid allegations of discrimination.