Free Culture <FAIL > Research Workshop 2009
Mary, Thanks for pointing this out! A number of us, including the "X woman" (Elizabeth Stark of the Yale ISP) on the committee, have been debating and discussing this problem as it concerns this conference but more important, how it also pertains to the wider field of digital media, especially when it comes to tech and law. For instance, here are some other examples of similarly problematic conferences when it comes to gender balance: http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/citi/ugc3 http://www.hiit.fi/nccc/speakers.html And there are unfortunately many many more examples. Elizabeth and I have recently started to compile a list of women leaders in law, technology, and internet research to highlight their presence. We will soon circulate the list to get more names and eventually publish on website as a resource for conference organizers or those working on edited collections. Hopefully Elizabeth will also jump in as she has also thought quite a bit about this issue. I have found this problem to be pretty pervasive and have been personally frustrated as well as academically intrigued. Any thoughts about the skewed conference representation? Gabriella
> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:17:29 -1000 > From: mary.bryson@ubc.ca <mailto:mary.bryson@ubc.ca> > To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:air-l@listserv.aoir.org> > Subject: [Air-L] Free Culture <FAIL > Research Workshop 2009 > > Take a look at the lack of inclusion of women (FreeCultureFail) on the > Organizing and Academic Program Committees for this event. > > http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/5486 > > There are 12 people on the former and 28 people on the latter. According to > the person from the Free Culture Research Workshop group that I contacted: > > "Based on my count, there are 4 women in all on both Committees, with > <Person X> serving on both the organizing and academic committees. > > The other 3 women serve in the academic committee..." > > > 4 women out of 40 people. One woman on the Organizing Committee. That's some > kind of "free culture". Free Culture Fail, as far as I can tell. Maybe there > is a story here. Or not. > > Mary > -- > Dr. Mary K. Bryson, Professor and Director, Network of Centers and > Institutes in Education (NCIE) & Center for Cross-Faculty Inquiry (CCFI), > Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia > CCFI: Innovation Works Here > http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/ > -----Original Message----- >
**************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman
Not sure this counts as a thought; more like a primal scream/yawn at the sheer predictability of it all. For some time now I've been scheduled to spend 2009-10 as a visiting professor at Harvard Law, but the first I've heard of this event was when Jeremy circulated the call to this list. Being temperamentally loathe to bite the hand that feeds me, I suppose I shall have to assume that my invitation has gotten hung up in a spam filter somewhere. Cheers, Julie -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Gabriella Coleman Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 2:30 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-L] Free Culture <FAIL > Research Workshop 2009 Mary, Thanks for pointing this out! A number of us, including the "X woman" (Elizabeth Stark of the Yale ISP) on the committee, have been debating and discussing this problem as it concerns this conference but more important, how it also pertains to the wider field of digital media, especially when it comes to tech and law. For instance, here are some other examples of similarly problematic conferences when it comes to gender balance: http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/citi/ugc3 http://www.hiit.fi/nccc/speakers.html And there are unfortunately many many more examples. Elizabeth and I have recently started to compile a list of women leaders in law, technology, and internet research to highlight their presence. We will soon circulate the list to get more names and eventually publish on website as a resource for conference organizers or those working on edited collections. Hopefully Elizabeth will also jump in as she has also thought quite a bit about this issue. I have found this problem to be pretty pervasive and have been personally frustrated as well as academically intrigued. Any thoughts about the skewed conference representation? Gabriella
> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:17:29 -1000 > From: mary.bryson@ubc.ca <mailto:mary.bryson@ubc.ca> > To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:air-l@listserv.aoir.org> > Subject: [Air-L] Free Culture <FAIL > Research Workshop 2009 > > Take a look at the lack of inclusion of women (FreeCultureFail) on the > Organizing and Academic Program Committees for this event. > > http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/5486 > > There are 12 people on the former and 28 people on the latter. According to > the person from the Free Culture Research Workshop group that I contacted: > > "Based on my count, there are 4 women in all on both
Committees, with
> <Person X> serving on both the organizing and academic
committees.
> > The other 3 women serve in the academic committee..." > > > 4 women out of 40 people. One woman on the Organizing
Committee.
That's some > kind of "free culture". Free Culture Fail, as far as I can
tell.
Maybe there > is a story here. Or not. > > Mary > -- > Dr. Mary K. Bryson, Professor and Director, Network of Centers
and
> Institutes in Education (NCIE) & Center for Cross-Faculty
Inquiry
(CCFI), > Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia > CCFI: Innovation Works Here > http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/ > -----Original Message----- >
**************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
I am one of the organizers of the workshop and in fact started it all last year in Sapporo, so I am also largely responsible for the composition of the committee although the opinions of many more people factored in as well. I find that the gender issue is interesting and is perhaps symptomatic of certain fields of academic endeavor and also present in some practices of what we may broadly call 'free culture'. I know more male DJ's and remixers than female, and there is more evidence of that nature that is mostly anecdotal, so I cannot make any definitive statements here. I'd like to write a paper about it though, so I'm slowly collecting relevant data. I think there are some salient issues with respect to the participation of women in what we call 'free culture'. If anyone has relevant data points, especially published work, please do share. But now going from these general thoughts to insinuations of discriminatory behavior on our part is taking it too far. I am surprised I have to say by the approach of Mary Bryson who may have good intentions at heart but who chooses to publicly criticize our efforts and even publicly label them as FreeCultureFail (sic), instead of communicating her discontent directly to the organizers first and trying to understand who we are and how we do what we do. Indeed Mary, "maybe there is a story here, or not", but I think it would have been better if you had done some more research on this matter before hinting at any possible discrimination on our part. Even your hasty and incorrect calculation of 4 in 40 shows that your email to the list was probably written without much forethought. I would have been happy to discuss any issues with you personally, but you never sought any such discussion. From my part I can just say that we tried to include the people who seemed the most relevant and had to also contend with the fact that some replied to our invitations to join the program committee and some did not. Gender was never a factor in the composition of the committee. It was purely on academic merit, having shown strong interest in participation in the past, having a relevant and recent track record of published work, and, to a much smaller extent, a matter of serendipity and familiarity with the persons involved. I do not keep a catalogue of everyone in the world doing relevant research and it may be that I know more male researchers in the field than female. To that end what Gabriella and Elizabeth are doing will be a constructive contribution that I applaud. Personally I will still use academic merit and motivation/commitment as my main factors whenever anyone asks me about who should be on a program committee, but I can at least check the names on my mind against such a list to try and control for any bias that I may have and be unaware of. For what it's worth, we had actually one woman declining our invitation due to other commitments, while another one was invited and didn't reply. Best, Giorgos On Jul 17, 2009, at 2:29 PM, Gabriella Coleman wrote:
Mary,
Thanks for pointing this out! A number of us, including the "X woman" (Elizabeth Stark of the Yale ISP) on the committee, have been debating and discussing this problem as it concerns this conference but more important, how it also pertains to the wider field of digital media, especially when it comes to tech and law.
For instance, here are some other examples of similarly problematic conferences when it comes to gender balance:
http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/citi/ugc3 http://www.hiit.fi/nccc/speakers.html
And there are unfortunately many many more examples.
Elizabeth and I have recently started to compile a list of women leaders in law, technology, and internet research to highlight their presence. We will soon circulate the list to get more names and eventually publish on website as a resource for conference organizers or those working on edited collections. Hopefully Elizabeth will also jump in as she has also thought quite a bit about this issue.
I have found this problem to be pretty pervasive and have been personally frustrated as well as academically intrigued. Any thoughts about the skewed conference representation?
Gabriella
> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:17:29 -1000 > From: mary.bryson@ubc.ca <mailto:mary.bryson@ubc.ca> > To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org <mailto:air-l@listserv.aoir.org> > Subject: [Air-L] Free Culture <FAIL > Research Workshop 2009 > > Take a look at the lack of inclusion of women (FreeCultureFail) on the > Organizing and Academic Program Committees for this event. > > http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/5486 > > There are 12 people on the former and 28 people on the latter. According to > the person from the Free Culture Research Workshop group that I contacted: > > "Based on my count, there are 4 women in all on both Committees, with > <Person X> serving on both the organizing and academic committees. > > The other 3 women serve in the academic committee..." > > > 4 women out of 40 people. One woman on the Organizing Committee. That's some > kind of "free culture". Free Culture Fail, as far as I can tell. Maybe there > is a story here. Or not. > > Mary > -- > Dr. Mary K. Bryson, Professor and Director, Network of Centers and > Institutes in Education (NCIE) & Center for Cross-Faculty Inquiry (CCFI), > Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia > CCFI: Innovation Works Here > http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/ > -----Original Message----- >
**************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Giorgos Cheliotis wrote:
I am one of the organizers of the workshop and in fact started it all last year in Sapporo, so I am also largely responsible for the composition of the committee although the opinions of many more people factored in as well. I find that the gender issue is interesting and is perhaps symptomatic of certain fields of academic endeavor and also present in some practices of what we may broadly call 'free culture'. I know more male DJ's and remixers than female, and there is more evidence of that nature that is mostly anecdotal, so I cannot make any definitive statements here.
Indeed, in terms of DJ's and coders there is a much larger pool of males than females, overwhelmingly so. As such, at non-academic events, like FLOSS developer conferences, I am left unsurprised when the program is 75% male presenters or higher. But in the academic field, the playing field is far more equal. There is an impressive crop of female lawyers, legal scholars, and academics of all ranks who work on these issues and yet, it seems to be that they are at times under represented. And as you note (and I could not agree with you more) we need some research needs to help us pin point the various sources or possible patterns. I'd like to write a paper about it though, so I'm
slowly collecting relevant data. I think there are some salient issues with respect to the participation of women in what we call 'free culture'. If anyone has relevant data points, especially published work, please do share.
Elizabeth and I are planning on collecting data from conferences to track or identify any patterns. For instance, we will be looking at things like 1) the gender of the organizers and what influence or role that may play 2) differences depending on academic fields (humanities vs social science vs law schools) 3) nature of the conference (academic, non-academic, and hybrid) and location (Europe vs North America) It would also be interesting to collect data on "rejections" by female participants notably reasons for doing so. I suspect this does not exist right now but I see no reason why it can't be collected if someone set up a protocol for how conference organizer can "dump" the data once their conference is all (thankfully) done with. It
was purely on academic merit, having shown strong interest in participation in the past, having a relevant and recent track record of published work, and, to a much smaller extent, a matter of serendipity and familiarity with the persons involved. I do not keep a catalogue of everyone in the world doing relevant research and it may be that I know more male researchers in the field than female. To that end what Gabriella and Elizabeth are doing will be a constructive contribution that I applaud. Personally I will still use academic merit and motivation/commitment as my main factors whenever anyone asks me about who should be on a program committee, but I can at least check the names on my mind against such a list to try and control for any bias that I may have and be unaware of. For what it's worth, we had actually one woman declining our invitation due to other commitments, while another one was invited and didn't reply.
I took a fascinating training class last fall, the OpEd project, which I can't recommend enough to all the female scholars and advocates on this list: (http://www.theopedproject.org/cms). It is a project that seeks to enlarge female experts and writers for OpEds, which are overwhelmingly male. Given the power of OpEds to influence public opinion and policy, this imbalance is serious business. One unconfirmed factoid I learned during the course (and if anyone can point to something that confirms this, please do and this might help you as well Giorgos) was that when it comes to upper management, Google tries to keep the percentage of women at around 40% for it it dips lower, they need to actively recruit female employees. If it hovers around 40%, then female employees tend to refer other women. This example, if true, points to the existence of unintentional patterns that can lead to biases and exclusions, which in this case emerge out of ones' personal networks and not overt discrimination. This dynamic is one that I am sure can't explain for everything and yet I suspect it may also play a role at times. But a first step is initiating a conversation and building various resources that can help alleviate a problem that I think or at least hope can be solved or attenuated. All best, Gabriella **************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman
Thank you for the useful pointers Gabriella, we need more informed and cool-headed perspectives like that. Something I forgot to mention previously is that for this workshop one of the objectives we tried to aim for when composing the PC was interdisciplinarity. This led us to include less legal scholars than we would like to because we wanted to make space for others and send a clear signal that this workshop is not just about law. As soon as one tries to include scholars from the sciences/engineering/business, the chances of those being female decrease. I am actually happy to be housed now at a department where the overwhelming majority of faculty and students are female, but I have also worked in IT/engineering and business before and there is a clear difference there, even among academics. As I said, I also personally really value when someone shows strong motivation to participate/co-organize an event. Then I feel more comfortable that the person will actually make a contribution instead of wishing to be listed as PC member for the sake of it. I will often factor that in, along with the person's track record. I have a suspicion that men may be more aggressive in that manner, proactively seeking opportunities to get involved and making their case for why they would be a valuable partner, perhaps thus getting more on people's radars. This may also explain some of the imbalance, although this is again speculative on my part and based on circumstantial evidence only. On Jul 17, 2009, at 4:42 PM, Gabriella Coleman wrote:
Giorgos Cheliotis wrote:
I am one of the organizers of the workshop and in fact started it all last year in Sapporo, so I am also largely responsible for the composition of the committee although the opinions of many more people factored in as well. I find that the gender issue is interesting and is perhaps symptomatic of certain fields of academic endeavor and also present in some practices of what we may broadly call 'free culture'. I know more male DJ's and remixers than female, and there is more evidence of that nature that is mostly anecdotal, so I cannot make any definitive statements here.
Indeed, in terms of DJ's and coders there is a much larger pool of males than females, overwhelmingly so. As such, at non-academic events, like FLOSS developer conferences, I am left unsurprised when the program is 75% male presenters or higher.
But in the academic field, the playing field is far more equal. There is an impressive crop of female lawyers, legal scholars, and academics of all ranks who work on these issues and yet, it seems to be that they are at times under represented. And as you note (and I could not agree with you more) we need some research needs to help us pin point the various sources or possible patterns.
I'd like to write a paper about it though, so I'm
slowly collecting relevant data. I think there are some salient issues with respect to the participation of women in what we call 'free culture'. If anyone has relevant data points, especially published work, please do share.
Elizabeth and I are planning on collecting data from conferences to track or identify any patterns. For instance, we will be looking at things like 1) the gender of the organizers and what influence or role that may play 2) differences depending on academic fields (humanities vs social science vs law schools) 3) nature of the conference (academic, non-academic, and hybrid) and location (Europe vs North America)
It would also be interesting to collect data on "rejections" by female participants notably reasons for doing so. I suspect this does not exist right now but I see no reason why it can't be collected if someone set up a protocol for how conference organizer can "dump" the data once their conference is all (thankfully) done with.
It
was purely on academic merit, having shown strong interest in participation in the past, having a relevant and recent track record of published work, and, to a much smaller extent, a matter of serendipity and familiarity with the persons involved. I do not keep a catalogue of everyone in the world doing relevant research and it may be that I know more male researchers in the field than female. To that end what Gabriella and Elizabeth are doing will be a constructive contribution that I applaud. Personally I will still use academic merit and motivation/commitment as my main factors whenever anyone asks me about who should be on a program committee, but I can at least check the names on my mind against such a list to try and control for any bias that I may have and be unaware of. For what it's worth, we had actually one woman declining our invitation due to other commitments, while another one was invited and didn't reply.
I took a fascinating training class last fall, the OpEd project, which I can't recommend enough to all the female scholars and advocates on this list: (http://www.theopedproject.org/cms). It is a project that seeks to enlarge female experts and writers for OpEds, which are overwhelmingly male. Given the power of OpEds to influence public opinion and policy, this imbalance is serious business.
One unconfirmed factoid I learned during the course (and if anyone can point to something that confirms this, please do and this might help you as well Giorgos) was that when it comes to upper management, Google tries to keep the percentage of women at around 40% for it it dips lower, they need to actively recruit female employees. If it hovers around 40%, then female employees tend to refer other women.
This example, if true, points to the existence of unintentional patterns that can lead to biases and exclusions, which in this case emerge out of ones' personal networks and not overt discrimination. This dynamic is one that I am sure can't explain for everything and yet I suspect it may also play a role at times. But a first step is initiating a conversation and building various resources that can help alleviate a problem that I think or at least hope can be solved or attenuated.
All best, Gabriella
**************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman
participants (3)
-
Gabriella Coleman -
Giorgos Cheliotis -
Julie Cohen