I think, in my humble and limited opinion and experience, that skepticism is appealing to more women since it doesn't just include "science". It is critical thinking, encompassing parts of the scientific method to test what we are told about the world. I'm very into science, but after getting to know women who are not scientists, but are skeptical, the appeal is knowing how to find out things, anything. Why is there astronomy and then astrology? What should I believe about what I read about things like astrology? Why do alt med types hate doctors so much, yet sell me a pill while telling me "drugs" are BAD??? Where do I turn if religion turns me off? You don't have to be a science geek to be a skeptic. Science is the tool, and anyone can use it in their day to day life to escape charlatans and fundies. We are raising children and need answers with limited time to seek them out. We also need to feel like we're part of a community with supports. Skepticism is no longer seen as that closed room of old men smoking cigars discussing dry topics. It is becoming a more inclusive community that appeals to women.

I would argue this one small point (as a woman, and as a skeptic); I think it's a bit harder to 'come out' as a skeptic for a woman than it is for a man. I do think that more women than men in general believe in and support woo, so for a woman to tell her girlfriends it's nonsense, well, speaking from experience only? It doesn't always go over so well. For this reason I would say (and I haven't tested this hypothesis, but it could be interesting) that passionately skeptical women are probably more so drawn to skeptical groups and activism then men of a similar mindset, because they might be more likely to be rejected for their skepticism than a man might be in their non-skeptical, social groups. But then again, it's probably only the really vocal skeptical women who do get involved. For this reason I suggest that there might actually be a representative number of skeptical women, we just aren't able to identify them unless they speak up about it, and I think women risk alienation more so than men in doing so.

Thanks for the comments... keep 'em coming!

Wow.. so much to say on this... don't know where to start. In fact, I won't. I'm going to do some research at have some dialog about this on Swift (http://www.randi.org). However, consider me an ally.

Just finished listening to the show.

Such a tough subject. (Heck, even the ubiquitous Nathan didn't call in!)

As a man I feel very much pulled in a lot of ways: Sympathetic to the cause of feminism; so relieved that the bra-burning insanity of the 70s is over; proud & grateful for my single-parent Mother; scared I might say something politically incorrect; mad that I should be made to feel that way; annoyed with myself when I inadvertently do say something outside the lines; defensive when I'm taken to task for doing so; inspired to deliberately say something even stronger when the subject won't die; sheepish when I've been pushed to that point.... and on and on and on....
I relate to "John"s "Yeah I get it." attitude, but still want to pop him in the toolies for it.

So really is it so surprising that so many people are squeamish about putting anything but their most considered words up fro public scrutiny?

The critical thinking movement must be an unusual place for women to 'be'. I must pander to stereotypes to make my point here - but not female ones. There is a measurable 'social awkwardness' on the male side of the rational thought community. For many of us it's part of our past, for still others we are still 'there'. And that must make for an odd hodge-podge of attitudes towards women in our ranks - some men are weird and at best harmlessly shy, at worst creepy and unhygenic; others have socially evolved to a point of charming, perhaps even disarming defference to women (I.E. Still amazed and thankful that women notice them 'at long last' even when that 'at long last' began twenty years back.) Not that those types don't exist in the larger world, they're just more concentrated in the skeptical demographic while the more common male-sub sets are still represented but in smaller proportion.

I'm glad to get some clarity on the ill-balance of male to female presenters. Unfortunate, but at least more understandable from the perspective of the JREFs difficulties on landing female speakers.

As to how women present themselves - whether it's flirty and/or tarty at the Del Mar as the night winds down or dressing like a burlesque dancer closer to the end of her act than the start.... I don't see either of those as issues we should afford being exclusivist about. Okay, I don't really see either as an issue at all. But working from the position that they are.... The Critical Thinking movement may be on the rise, but it is still very small, and it is too important to the world that that it spread for us already within it to be turning up our nose at any legitimate allies.

I think we on the inside already know that women can be smart and sexy or smart and, uh... cosmonaut-ish. We (on both sides of the xx-xy divide) can fail to act like it at times. We all need to remember to try not to fail, and remember that when someone else does fail they are probably more likely failing to be funny than failing to be astute about the issue.

I think the default way to treat a woman should always be to acknowledge her intelligence. When I read comments on Skepchick that focus on how hot a particular author is, to the exclusion of addressing the content of her claim or question, I groan to myself.

Then again, there are a lot of situations where that's (explicitly or not) what's being proffered. Again, to use Skepchick as an example, they sell a pinup calendar. I'm all for them expressing their sexuality, especially since they're not all stick-skinny supermodels. But it does result in situations where their bodies are, by default, the object of the discussion. I think that the commenters could do a better job of distinguishing between situations where it's time to talk about someone's rack and time to discuss her hypothesis, but any woman who's ever been hit on in a office will tell you that this isn't an issue limited to skepticism or the Internet.

Which leads me to TAM. I've never been to TAM, but I've been to other large social gatherings built around common interests, and it's my experience that a certain percentage of the female attendees - far more so than their male counterparts - use it as an excuse to dress in a way that they can't get away with in their daily lives. It's kind of like Halloween. When guys do it, it's generally some kind of cosplay bullshit. (I get it, you're a stormtrooper; congratulations, there were only a million of them on the frickin' Death Star.) But when women do it, it often seems to deliberately involve sexualizing themselves in a way that guys don't get in to.

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Women should be able to dress however they want, and if that's a look that they enjoy, more power to them. Especially in a setting where they're (at least theoretically) going to able to do so safely, why not let them? I'd love to live in a world where any woman could wear as little as she wanted and be perfectly safe, but we don't, so if they want to cut loose when they're among like-minded folks, that's great.

Unfortunately, men are still men, no matter how skeptical they are. The straight ones (and a not insignificant percentage of the gay ones) are almost inevitably distracted by boobies, and the power of breasts to divert attention is inversely proportional to the amount of cloth that's covering them. It would be great if this wasn't necessarily the case, but that is, again, the world we live in.

Thus, the scantily clad ladies wind up contributing to two problems. The first is personal; those women are going to find it almost impossible to talk to anyone without all the photons reflected from their tits being absorbed by eyes in the vicinity. The severity of this problem, or whether it's even a problem at all, is mostly the choice of the individual. Everybody like to feel sexy sometimes, and for some people, those times are in a crowd of people. It's not necessarily my scene, but that doesn't make it wrong.

The second issue is more general, and harder to quantify; I think it's possible that using TAM as an occasion to dress provocatively could contribute to an atmosphere in which women are objectified, and women who don't choose to dress that way may find that they are swept up in that tide.

Does that mean there should be a dress code at TAM? I lean toward no, but I could see room for discussion. On the one hand, see my previous comments about women being able to dress however they like. On the other, there's the pragmatic consideration about the perfection of worlds, etc. It's a sad reality that a woman in a corset and high heeled boots is going to attract a different kind of attention than a woman in a suit and a pair of pumps, in the same way that a guy in khakis and a polo causes a different reaction than a guy in a leather pouch-hugger.

So, I guess it boils down to I Don't Know. I think being proactive about getting more female presenters is a good start, and I'm happy to hear that Phil Plait is actively thinking about it. As to the best way to eliminate objectification - or if that's possible, or even entirely desirable - I'm clueless. I try to live by example, I suppose. Then again, I never would have met my wife if I hadn't thought she was smokin' hot, so who can say if I'm successful.

On a side note, I think it's vital for women who do want to dress more modestly and have conversations without being ogled to go to TAM, and encourage other, like-minded women to go to TAM. Not to necessarily challenge the women who enjoy those parts of the TAM experience, but to offer an alternative. If you feel like a minority among the women at TAM, and you stop going, then anyone who might share your perspective is going to be that much more alone next year. Instead of abandoning the convention space, start reaching out to other women who are into the same kind of fun you are, and don't let the rowdier parties be the only option.

Just out of curiosity...when did this exchange between Dana and 'John' (not that we all don't know exactly who you are talking about) actually happen? Was it July 13th, or was it more recently? Was it before or after he sent out his answer to the general skeptic community in regards to the situation (that unlike Bill Prady, didn't get published on skepchick for some reason)? When you send a complaint to someone who is already getting a pile of complaints over an off-handed comment that wasn't meant to be sexist, don't expect your specific complaint to be addressed when it's already being addressed elsewhere. You have made a mountain out of a molehill, and are not making the rest of us women look good by acting like clucking hens that continue to drag a done issue through the dirt. I don't blame him for his answer to you. I would have said the same thing in that situation.

Hi, I have only listened so far up to 45mins of the show, but will finish it within the next hour or so.

What I wanted to add was that around the 36.00min mark, the 'Google-Fu' fail to find any accounts of 'why a woman would choose Dragon*Con' is kind of a concern - because I have about five posts, one of which specifically addresses why this woman chose D*C (including the matter of a creche and this year's child-friendly skeptic show):

http://podblack.com/?p=412 - 'Why Dragon*Con?'

There's also live-blogging I did whilst there and some earlier posts before I got there:
http://podblack.com/?p=862 (whilst en-route)
http://podblack.com/?p=868
http://podblack.com/?p=877
others can be found via searching the site.
There's also a sequence of YouTube videos of my experiences whilst there, found via my YouTube account.

Hope that's of use, thanks again for making a very interesting and thought-provoking episode. I'm still at a complete loss at how to respond to the matter of 'John the Presenter' - who clearly doesn't quite understand the situation they're now facing.

K.

Thanks Kylie. I very much appreciate you posting these.

I had heard about your posts, but somehow couldn't find them.

We had this discussion after the show with some of the men at the studio, and I just want it to be clear for anyone not sure where we stood. We aren't saying that there should be a dress code, or that women should never dress up sexy at TAM, we just don't want that to be the standard model for a woman who goes to TAM.

If most of the public discussion of women at TAM involves their looks or clothing, then that's going to be a turn off for the women who don't dress that way. And I think the biggest cure for most of this is diversity.

Okay -- why am I anon? Because to even slightly criticize the Skepchick movement apparently comes across as being anti-skepticism. They appear to be the only female group regularly being promoted out there by the 'big name' men -- and yet I do not wish to be one nor called one.

Straightforwardly, I do not wish to be associated with the behaviors demonstrated in this video, because this is the last thing I want to be associated in men's minds with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmLdaBTFtoA It is the 'elephant in the room' as far as I'm concerned.

When people start not immediately assuming a skeptical woman is a 'skepchick', or people start recognizing that they do not represent all skeptical women or that they are not 'doing the job' of representing skeptical women as they claim (who really is? Because if someone was, wouldn't this not be happening?) -- then I'll be more comfortable about speaking out.

I consider myself a 'staunch feminist'.
1) Women (& men) should be free to dress how they want without any fear of physical or verbal molestation.
2) The female/male imbalance in the skeptical activist groups that I attend, is a clear problem, and is something that I am actively seeking to correct.

First off, gender, race, style, ethnicity, &c are things that I think
that skeptics notice, but to most of us, it doesn't really matter.
For example, in any group of people I might have the following run
through my head, "That chick has a nice rack. That guy is wearing
white socks with his suit. The woman's accent is interesting, I
wonder where she's from. I love that dude's tie. She has really cool
glasses. That guy's lisp is really distracting." My point is that we
all have little traits that make us individuals, some of which we can
control, and others which we cannot; to most skeptics, they can and
should amount to jack shit. Personally, I'll notice these things, but
they barely even register, as I am usually trying to keep up with what
people are actually saying, as this is more important to me. Except
for the guy wearing white socks with his suit... that's just lame.

Secondly, I think that more people should try to pickup at skeptic
events. Most of them are at least partially social in nature, and our
people (nerds) don't do well in bars. What better place to find a
potential mate than somewhere where you are pretty sure that they will
share important parts of your worldview. If I were single, I'd be
whoring myself out to no end at these meetings, as I know that I can
avoid a good number of my "dealbreakers". As an aside, I think that
Marion was absolutely right in saying that we need more family
oriented skeptical events. I think a good place to start is by having
skeptics actually get laid and have some kids.

Finally, if I were easily offended, I would probably take offense to
the implication that providing child care at skeptical events is only
of benefit to women. Truthfully, I believe that this is the only part
of last week's show that may merit a correction. Most children have
two parents, and quite often, one of them is a man. As a new dad,
this would benefit me greatly, but that didn't even seem like it came
into play during last week's show. While listening, it seemed to me
that what your panel was effectively saying is that raising children
is a woman's job, which seems really counterproductive to your aims.

Regarding the lack of women in engineering.

A friend of mine, a rather beautiful woman who recently graduated with a BSc (mathematics), had originally begun her undergrad in engineering. She told me that the reason she switched her degree from engineering to science was that she didn’t like the mob of male engineering students ogling her all the time.

@desiree: I find gender politics fascinating. Perhaps a show on gender politics or feminism is merited?

I listened to this show, and didn't quite know what to think.

I was in a relationship with a woman for eight years that commented on a beautiful, partly cloudy moonlit night "I wonder if the clouds are going behind the Moon too". I was gobsmacked. She also didn't know the temperature at which waters freezes. Every driver should know this. I must mention that in retrospect, this relationship was based purely on attraction and sex.

These days, I care so little what a woman looks like and more if we have anything to talk about. What kind of companion was my former girlfriend? Not much of one.

So, I think if I attended TAM I would be interested in the women there. A HUGE hurdle would already have been leapt by her attendance.

I find intelligence intensely attractive. I find myself thinking "She could be a FRIEND and a lover".

A few years ago I was fortunate to be in a relationship with with a woman that was the first girlfriend I ever had that I admired. She was smarter than me. She would challenge me in conversations by insights that came from somewhere that I couldn't think from. She had immense "common sense", and a gift for simplifying subjects we talked about. I so admired her. Sadly, we are not together anymore. I will not settle for sexual attraction anymore.

Am I off base with my comments? Did I stray from the topic? I rambled, didn't I? Sorry.