1-- Are women who wish to speak during events given equal (de facto) opportunity to speak? (Of course they are given equal formal opportunity, but as I saw in my postgrad program, group sessions that favour more typically ‘masculine’ ways of engaging in dialogue—favouring assertiveness and competitiveness—would tend to leave the women in my program alienated).
2-- Could the gender difference in jobs and education and its relation to the sorts of activities EA emphasises play a part?
3-- Do women feel uncomfortable at events for any other reason? If they did, would it be in such a way that they could or would report it on a survey?
4-- Would the amount of women in leadership positions alter this?
5-- Have similar surveys been conducted with people of different races and ethnic backgrounds?
Hi Kyle! A lot of these questions are about how women feel at events—I hope to be able to answer them after I finish working through my focus group data. I can tell you that EA London has two paid staff, one male and one female.
We haven’t used our attendance data to look for patterns in race/ethnicity because it would be more difficult. We can usually make a good guess at someone’s gender from their name and appearance, but can’t always make a good guess at someone’s ethnic background from their name and appearance. We’d have to ask, and asking first-time visitors about their race seemed like a bad idea.
Some questions that come to mind:
1-- Are women who wish to speak during events given equal (de facto) opportunity to speak? (Of course they are given equal formal opportunity, but as I saw in my postgrad program, group sessions that favour more typically ‘masculine’ ways of engaging in dialogue—favouring assertiveness and competitiveness—would tend to leave the women in my program alienated). 2-- Could the gender difference in jobs and education and its relation to the sorts of activities EA emphasises play a part? 3-- Do women feel uncomfortable at events for any other reason? If they did, would it be in such a way that they could or would report it on a survey? 4-- Would the amount of women in leadership positions alter this? 5-- Have similar surveys been conducted with people of different races and ethnic backgrounds?
Cheers
Hi Kyle! A lot of these questions are about how women feel at events—I hope to be able to answer them after I finish working through my focus group data. I can tell you that EA London has two paid staff, one male and one female.
We haven’t used our attendance data to look for patterns in race/ethnicity because it would be more difficult. We can usually make a good guess at someone’s gender from their name and appearance, but can’t always make a good guess at someone’s ethnic background from their name and appearance. We’d have to ask, and asking first-time visitors about their race seemed like a bad idea.