From such experience, this might be a fruitful approach to trying to shift the gender imbalance in the community. It’s unfortunate that describing oneself as a rationalist can have the potential to come across as having a superiority complex, and doubly unfortunate is how common-place is the meme of rationality being a “men’s” thing (all women are slaves to their bleeding vaginas, amirite?)
A possible consequence of this is that, when it’s phrased explicitly as such, the idea of a “rationality community” conjures up images of boorish men talking about how “you’re irrational if you get offended when I say women are sluts who always cheat! IT’S SCIENCE!”, which is not at all an inviting atmosphere.
Stuff like that is something that does itself need to be combated, but in the meantime, books like GEB perfectly illustrate how whimsical and fun—AND WELCOMING—real rationality can be, introducing important concepts and making the reader feel brilliant and excited to learn, without the triggering the defensiveness that can occur through the implication that, if I want to teach you rationality it must mean I think you’re “not good enough” the way you are.
Totally agree. I’ll also add the invalid sterotype of “rationality is emotionless” slams smack bang into the equally invalid stereotype of “women are supposed to be emotional beings”… which doesn’t help.
So far I’ve encountered that people think rationalists are “smarter” and perhaps “intellectual snobs.” I have not come across anyone saying they would disapprove of a rationalist community, but so far have not found anyone that thinks the idea of being around those people would be a good thing. I think the exact quote would be “they would analyze everything I say.” or something to that effect.
The intellectual snob bit needs to be weeded out, along with the idea that it’s not a welcoming place to discuss ideas.
From such experience, this might be a fruitful approach to trying to shift the gender imbalance in the community. It’s unfortunate that describing oneself as a rationalist can have the potential to come across as having a superiority complex, and doubly unfortunate is how common-place is the meme of rationality being a “men’s” thing (all women are slaves to their bleeding vaginas, amirite?)
A possible consequence of this is that, when it’s phrased explicitly as such, the idea of a “rationality community” conjures up images of boorish men talking about how “you’re irrational if you get offended when I say women are sluts who always cheat! IT’S SCIENCE!”, which is not at all an inviting atmosphere.
Stuff like that is something that does itself need to be combated, but in the meantime, books like GEB perfectly illustrate how whimsical and fun—AND WELCOMING—real rationality can be, introducing important concepts and making the reader feel brilliant and excited to learn, without the triggering the defensiveness that can occur through the implication that, if I want to teach you rationality it must mean I think you’re “not good enough” the way you are.
Totally agree. I’ll also add the invalid sterotype of “rationality is emotionless” slams smack bang into the equally invalid stereotype of “women are supposed to be emotional beings”… which doesn’t help.
What does “GEB” stand for?
So far I’ve encountered that people think rationalists are “smarter” and perhaps “intellectual snobs.” I have not come across anyone saying they would disapprove of a rationalist community, but so far have not found anyone that thinks the idea of being around those people would be a good thing. I think the exact quote would be “they would analyze everything I say.” or something to that effect.
The intellectual snob bit needs to be weeded out, along with the idea that it’s not a welcoming place to discuss ideas.
Gödel, Escher, Bach.
It looks interesting. I will pick it up and read it.