Ok there’s another thing…
I was re-reading Chris Hallquist’s post, trying to figure out what there is about what DJ said that he finds worth agreeing with, and I noticed something I overlooked before. From the much-quoted bit of the comment that DJ posted on more than one blog (two? more than two? I forget) –
Last year we had 40% women attendees, something I’m really happy about. But this year only about 18% of TAM registrants so far are women, a significant and alarming decrease…
Last year was very soon after The Great Eruption (of misogynist bile in response to elevator item). This year is in the wake of The Great Eruption. That could be part of the explanation right there. Women likely to attend TAM have had most of a year to digest The Great Eruption, and it may be that some of them just think there might be more of the same kind of thing at places like TAM because there is so much of it in other places. I think that myself, actually. I’m not certain about it, but I think it’s quite likely that there will be some Eruptionists at TAM, and that they might do some erupting.
I wonder if DJ has considered that possibility. I suppose even if he has he could still shove the blame onto people objecting to The Great Eruption as opposed to The Great Eruption itself, but still…I wonder.
Yes, I think you’re probably right. The good news, though, is I think the Great Eruption has pissed off some of us (like me) that we’re getting more involved rather than less. My route to organized skepticism, after all, wasn’t through Bigfoot or even religion, but feminism. And I’m fucking pissed off at the way the ‘movement’ is not handling its problems. (I made a modest proposal in the previous thread for something to do about that.)
If only he’d asked first (and listened) instead of jumping to conclusions and rushing to assign blame.
Somebody (I think it was Stephanie?) also mentioned that at least some of the decline could simply be that a lot of women went to the WIS conference, and don’t have the money to go to two conferences in a year.
That is possible, which makes me wonder why JREF has not looked into why women who attended last year are not planning to attend this year. They presumably have the data required to identify women who attended last year so surely they should be asking those women why not do not plan to attend this year.
Was the Great Eruption the result of a Small Erection?