CCL: ICQC shame

 Sent to CCL by: German Ignacio Sastre Navarro [gsastre:itq.upv.es]
 Any comment I've seen so far deserves attention and respect and hence
 I would like to invite everyone to be constructive.
 Issues on discrimination can also become offensive by excess of
 discrimination, which then becomes favoritism. Gender quotas may be
 offensive. But what if ICQC now decides to invite a few more woman in
 just recognition of their mistake?
 Well, yes, I consider they have made a big mistake by inviting only
 3.8% women as plenary lecturers. In my more than 20 years fully
 dedicated to computational chemistry I think 3.8% does not reflect
 the real number of valuable women among valuable scientists in
 computational chemistry. 10-20% would be a much better number in
 my opinion, but I don't have objective data. In my daily work, I
 just happen to face a considerable large number of valuable women
 in computational chemistry. And this is not only at the level of
 Spanish contacts, but also at the level of my international collaborators.
 Further, if we are concerned about the NEXT generation (capitals 'borrowed'
 
 from Chris), we would like to promote equal opportunities and we could
 
 increase slightly the opportunities for all those collectives who may have
 been discriminated in the past.
 So, coming back to my main point, I suggest that we may give a 'way out'
 for the ICQC in case they want to explicitly recognise the mistake of
 inviting only 3.8% women as plenary lecturers. Which means, let's try
 to avoid any boycott or action against this conference and give the
 committee a few days to think.
 Best regards
 German
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 German Sastre                              http://www.upv.es/~gsastre
 Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica (UPV-CSIC) e-mail: gsastre__itq.upv.es
 Universidad Politecnica de Valencia            Phone: +34-96-387-9445
 Av. Los Naranjos s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain)     Fax: +34-96-387-7809
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 Sent to CCL by: Kadir Diri [dirikadir-$-gmail.com]
I am stunned by the lack of sensitivity by several colleagues here, on what I see as a very important issue. I would have expected such reactions and defensive attitude in some third world countries, but maybe not from the academic elite.
I find sarcastic comments about preventing discrimination based on "shoe size", "eye color", "nose length", etc, not only silly, but also very arrogant, and not appropriate for an adult. Much less for an adult with a PhD in a very tough science, from whom the society expects some constructive behavior.
It is the reality that the number of women in theoretical chemistry is smaller than the number of men, but even in cases where there is no faulty behavior and it is just a statistical anomaly, I believe contemporary society requires some more sensitivity. In the fore-mentioned case, perhaps something as simple as tweaking the program deliberately to include a few women among the conference speakers, could have prevented the complaints. I bet if this was done, the distinguished women who signed the email (each one of whom I know very well, and guarantee you, has more significant contributions to the field than most of the men participating in this debate), would probably not complain at all. If it came to a point where they saw the need to write that message, it means there is a problem that needs attention.
And for those who believe that this is not part of science, and are bothered by this discussion, the emails have subjects, you can ignore them, just like you can ignore any other email in the list on a scientific topic that doesn't interest you.
My apologies from those who see this discussion as spam, rather than a relevant issue. I will try not to prolong it. 
 Regards,
 Kadir