CCL: ICQC shame

Rajrashi et al. I think your assumptions and propositions may be right, but this is not the right place to develop them. You should get in contact with your respective political parties and put on the program for 2015 on how to promote women in science.

Cheers

Sergio


Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 13:52:01 -0500
Subject: Re: CCL: ICQC shame
From: rajarshi.guha_._gmail.com
To: chemistry_._ccl.net
CC: sergio.manzetti_._outlook.com; auclark_._wsu.edu

Sergio, while this should be true, the fact is that just focusing on the science implicitly accepts many (admittedly, very subtle) discriminatory practices. Your approach is perfectly fine in the ideal case where men and women are indeed treated completely equally. I'm sure you'd agree that your idealized model does not match reality. Or are you indeed saying that for this conference there are no women whose ability, experience & stature compare to those of the male speakers?

I think no one would disagree that there are many aspects in science (academia, conferences etc) where women may be discriminated against. Importantly, there are many situations far upstream (say in retention of women in STEM fields beginning from the high school level) of todays discussion that impact the current situation. 

While we may not be in a situation to address such upstream factors, we can and should address problems that are closer to us - such as gender representation in conference. 

The key thing here is that (I hope) nobody consciously decided that women should not be invited or considered for any of the plenary talks. The fact that the skewed gender distribution did happen is an indication of unconscious biases - which is even more pernicious than conscious discrimination.

But having been alerted to this fact, shouldn't we, as a community, make an effort to address these disparities? 

Nobody has said the community should accept bad science so as to adjust gender ratios in the speaker list. But can you confidently say that there are no women in theoretical & computational chemistry that are equivalent in stature, competency and scientific achievement to the men speaking at this conference?

I'd be very interested in how many women were invited to be plenary speakers and how many refused, versus the same for men. In fact, were there any women on the organizing/program commitee for this conference?

And to end - this is not unique to comp chem. This is an ongoing issue with many tech conferences and there's ample precedence for how similar problems in our community can be addressed.




On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 6:27 AM, Sergio Manzetti sergio.manzetti._._.outlook.com <owner-chemistry_._ccl.net> wrote:

Dear Aurora,

 I am not sure that the number of women or the number of men defines the quality of a conference. It is the topics, the level of experience built in each topic, and naturally the experience of the presenters, whether they are men or women. I have seen both good men and good women in QM, the latter particularly in teaching. Conferences should be organized according to topics of research, independently of gender. Maybe this conference has topics that are mostly covered by one gender. That does however, not stop anyone from organizing another conference, where, occasionally, another gender is more overrepresented.

Again, the outfall of this is in the topic, scientific advance and expertise, not gender.

If one starts finding missing aspects in terms of WHO is behind the research, the research will disappear and be replaced by persons.

The person behind the research is not really of outmost relevance,  it is the research, where I guess all researchers would agree one (men or women).

Cheers



> From: owner-chemistry(0)ccl.net
> To: sergio.manzetti(0)gmx.com
> Subject: CCL: ICQC shame
> Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2014 04:12:00 +0000
>
>
> Sent to CCL by: "Clark, Aurora" [auclark#,#wsu.edu]
> It is important to point out that this issue is much broader than
> merely including women in major theoretical conferences, it is about the
> repercussions of not including them and the implications to our field by
> maintaining a status quo that is closed minded. It is multifaceted, but
> inherently about the growth and development of theoretical chemistry as a
> discipline and not really about gender at all.
>
> Omitting women from major conferences affects a very large swath of
> scientist's careers, not only politically, but also in terms of the
> recognition and distribution of the new work they produce and in the
> recruitment and education of talented young people that are badly needed
> in any discipline in order for it to keep its relevance to the
> ever-changing tides of federal funding and an evolving scientific
> state-of-the-art.
>
> It is harder for scientists to get promoted if they are not invited to
> conferences where they are unable to network with potential collaborators,
> program officers, and reviewers of their dossiers. Networking works both
> ways, in that not only does it help the female scientist, but also the
> collaborator...what if you miss out on the next best algorithm for solving
> some complicated numerical problem because you had no opportunity to see a
> poster or talk from said female scientist? What if you pay for a grad
> student to work on this complicated numerical problem and end up paying
> valuable research dollars for this student to solve a problem that has
> already been addressed? What if the next Einstein is an undergrad working
> in your group and she decides she wants to go into Biology because she
> doesn't see anyone that respects her ideas or believes in her potential?
>
> One of the beautiful things about conferences is that they provide a
> platform for showcasing a large group of people working on a problem. If
> you omit an entire population, then you not only hurt those you omit, but
> also yourself and your own opportunities to learn and develop
> a research program, not to mention recruiting new talent to our programs.
> Without these things we degrade our field and eventually, it might not
> matter anymore because no one will see the value in pure, non-applied,
> theoretical chemistry anymore anyways.
>
> So - I view this string not merely about echoing the chorus of how
> terrible it is that there may be discrimination in our discipline, but
> also in the health and development of theoretical chemistry and what our
> field will look like 20 or 50 years from now.
>
>
> Cheers;
> Aurora
>
>
>
>
> Aurora Clark
> Associate Professor
> Department of Chemistry
> Washington State University
> Pullman, Wa 99164
> Ph: 509-335-3362
> Fax: 509-335-8867
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2/15/14 2:57 PM, "Kadir Diri dirikadir[a]gmail.com"
> <owner-chemistry{=}ccl.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >Sent to CCL by: Kadir Diri [dirikadir ~ gmail.com]
> >Dear Colleagues,
> >
> >I am posting this message on behalf of professor Anna Krylov -one of the
> >many outstanding women in theoretical chemistry- regarding the choice of
> >speakers for the upcoming ICQC conference.
> >
> >I would always like to think of us, scientists, as some of the leading
> >figures in the fight for gender equality. I wish the choice of speakers
> >for this conference was just a statistical abnormality. Even that would
> >be unacceptable...
> >
> >Professor Krylov's message follows below.
> >
> >Best regards,
> >Kadir
> >---
> >
> >
> >Dear Colleague:
> >
> >It happened again --- another major theoretical chemistry conference
> >features an all-male program. One of us began boycotting such
> >conferences 14 years ago and can't believe that 14 years later we are
> >still seeing such overt discrimination. This time it is the 15th
> >International Congress of Quantum Chemistry (ICQC,
> >http://www.icqc2015.org) conducted under the auspices of International
> >Academy of Quantum Molecular Science (http://www.iaqms.org), which will
> >be held in Beijing, China. As of 02/15/2014, the program features 24
> >invited speakers and 5 chairs and honorary chairs and does not include a
> >single woman.
> >
> >Are there no women in theoretical chemistry? Hardly. The Women in
> >Theoretical Chemistry web-directory (http://iopenshell.usc.edu/wtc)
> >lists more than 300 female scientists holding tenured and tenure track
> >academic positions or equivalent positions in industry and other
> >research establishments pursuing research in theoretical and
> >computational chemistry, biochemistry, material science, as well as
> >theoretical molecular/atomic physics and biophysics. Many of these women
> >are far more distinguished than many of the men being invited to speak
> >at these conferences.
> >
> >Feeling as fed up and frustrated as we do? Add your voice to ours by
> >signing this open letter (http://chn.ge/NQGKUc) denouncing this biased
> >practice, which we had hoped would be obsolete long ago (it will take
> >less than a minute).
> >
> >Thank you for your for your support.
> >
> >Prof. Emily Carter, Princeton University
> >Prof. Laura Gagliardi, University of Minnesota
> >Prof. Anna Krylov, University of Southern California>
> >
>
>
>
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--
Rajarshi Guha | http://blog.rguha.net
NIH Center for Advancing Translational Science