There’s a meetup near me that is for women who are interested in urbanism. The idea I think is that a women-only space is more inviting and comfortable to a lot of women who are interested in urbanism. I wonder if something similar would make sense for rationality: a women-only rationalist meetup.
From what I can tell, meetups are typically very male dominated. And it seems likely to me that women tend to feel at least mildly uncomfortable in such male dominated spaces. I suspect that they show up, I dunno, at least 10% less often than they would with better gender ratios. I think my best guess would be something like 50%, but it’s hard for me to say. I’m a man who isn’t particularly knowledgeable or enlightened about this stuff.
The cost to trying a women-only rationalist meetup is low though. What’s the protocol for starting a meetup? Iirc it’s basically just to announce that you’ll be somewhere, show up to that place consistently—every other week or whatever—and hope other people show up too. Maybe a few other things.
But anyway, when the cost to trying something is low, the bar to justify trying it isn’t very high. The cost of starting a women-only rationalist meetup does in fact seem quite low, the possibility of being helpful pretty plausible, and magnitude of impact if successful possibly kinda big. It could make our community a lot more appealing to 50% of the population.
In general, this is a good thing to try in places where the community is presumably large enough.
This, like any group, will profit from having a face (who should be a woman, of course) to contact about it. As not-a-woman, one may be able to provide a convenient meetup location, or do some behind the scenes organizing, but during the actual event one should probably stay in the background if at all.
One factor in this of course is that you’ll need to clarify for yourself, and for the invitees what you mean by women. People will wonder if they are included if they are trans (fem or masc), nonbinary etc. - and without specifically inviting them, they will tend to stay away. A welcoming phrase like the ACX “Extra Info For Potential Attendees” can clear up doubts about this part.
Makes sense. The urbanism meetup I mentioned actually specifies that it’s for “women and femmes”. It sounds like the “and femmes” part, perhaps along with clarification on what is meant by “femme”, might make sense.
Potentially, though this to me still sounds like an attempt to the definition down, or to leave some people out by being unclear. It would for example make an early-transition trans woman doubt if she is included, or a born-female nonbinary person who doesn’t think of themselves as particularly feminine.
We have not yet found a simple short phrase that includes everyone. I recommend explicitly listing who is included—again, if that is the intention. There are also groups that would like to not overinclude everyone. It feels better to communicate this directly than through such passive signage.
There’s a meetup near me that is for women who are interested in urbanism. The idea I think is that a women-only space is more inviting and comfortable to a lot of women who are interested in urbanism. I wonder if something similar would make sense for rationality: a women-only rationalist meetup.
From what I can tell, meetups are typically very male dominated. And it seems likely to me that women tend to feel at least mildly uncomfortable in such male dominated spaces. I suspect that they show up, I dunno, at least 10% less often than they would with better gender ratios. I think my best guess would be something like 50%, but it’s hard for me to say. I’m a man who isn’t particularly knowledgeable or enlightened about this stuff.
The cost to trying a women-only rationalist meetup is low though. What’s the protocol for starting a meetup? Iirc it’s basically just to announce that you’ll be somewhere, show up to that place consistently—every other week or whatever—and hope other people show up too. Maybe a few other things.
But anyway, when the cost to trying something is low, the bar to justify trying it isn’t very high. The cost of starting a women-only rationalist meetup does in fact seem quite low, the possibility of being helpful pretty plausible, and magnitude of impact if successful possibly kinda big. It could make our community a lot more appealing to 50% of the population.
In general, this is a good thing to try in places where the community is presumably large enough.
This, like any group, will profit from having a face (who should be a woman, of course) to contact about it. As not-a-woman, one may be able to provide a convenient meetup location, or do some behind the scenes organizing, but during the actual event one should probably stay in the background if at all.
One factor in this of course is that you’ll need to clarify for yourself, and for the invitees what you mean by women. People will wonder if they are included if they are trans (fem or masc), nonbinary etc. - and without specifically inviting them, they will tend to stay away. A welcoming phrase like the ACX “Extra Info For Potential Attendees” can clear up doubts about this part.
Makes sense. The urbanism meetup I mentioned actually specifies that it’s for “women and femmes”. It sounds like the “and femmes” part, perhaps along with clarification on what is meant by “femme”, might make sense.
Potentially, though this to me still sounds like an attempt to the definition down, or to leave some people out by being unclear. It would for example make an early-transition trans woman doubt if she is included, or a born-female nonbinary person who doesn’t think of themselves as particularly feminine.
We have not yet found a simple short phrase that includes everyone. I recommend explicitly listing who is included—again, if that is the intention. There are also groups that would like to not overinclude everyone. It feels better to communicate this directly than through such passive signage.