As another data point: I’m a woman, I think I’m the main reason a particular man has been banned from a lot of EA events under certain conditions and I think CEA’s Community Health team have handled this situation extremely well.
But on balance, I’ve found that men in EA treat me with a lot more respect than men do outside of EA. And if anything, I think any complaints I do make are taken too seriously.
This doesn’t excuse bad behaviour of course, even if my experience were typical. But I have always wondered why so much of our energy goes into how women feel in this community vs people with other marginalised characteristics, some of whom no doubt also feel “sad, disappointed, and scared” in EA (e.g. discussions nominally of “diversity and inclusion” often end up just being discussions of how to treat women better).
For what it’s worth, I think “discussions of DEI end up becoming discussions about women” is pretty common—not to say it’s excusable, but I don’t think that’s unique to EA.
As another data point: I’m a woman, I think I’m the main reason a particular man has been banned from a lot of EA events under certain conditions and I think CEA’s Community Health team have handled this situation extremely well.
But on balance, I’ve found that men in EA treat me with a lot more respect than men do outside of EA. And if anything, I think any complaints I do make are taken too seriously.
This doesn’t excuse bad behaviour of course, even if my experience were typical. But I have always wondered why so much of our energy goes into how women feel in this community vs people with other marginalised characteristics, some of whom no doubt also feel “sad, disappointed, and scared” in EA (e.g. discussions nominally of “diversity and inclusion” often end up just being discussions of how to treat women better).
Thank you for sharing that!
For what it’s worth, I think “discussions of DEI end up becoming discussions about women” is pretty common—not to say it’s excusable, but I don’t think that’s unique to EA.