LW Women Entries- LW Meetups

I'm more and more struck by how different people have different things going on in their heads.

Sounds to me like the guy struck a group, and thereby self, depreciating tone that would be non threatening to an outsider; that you'd have to be dragged to the meeting if you weren't a regular reader lowers the status of the meeting members relative to outsiders, and is thereby respectful and inviting to an outsider.

That's how I would take it if someone asked me that. I would take it as a comment to gain information about me in a way that was meant to reassure me if I were an outsider. It is a relevant question at the meeting, after all - do you or don't you read the list? Just getting some context.

Now I wasn't there, and I suppose one could say that in a particularly aggressive and hostile way, but given the guy's passive response to the aggressive attack he received in turn, I don't think he had started the conversation in an aggressive frame of mind.

But even if you thought the comments could be taken as hostile, I thought the attack on the guy was unwarranted, and was a very socially inept response. If the guy committed a faux pas with an outsider, the goal should have been to deescalate the situation in a gracious way, leaving the outsider feeling more comfortable. Instead, the conflict was escalated by aggressively white knighting, leaving the "rescued damsel" a front row witness to a wholly unnecessary conflict about her. Talk about your weird and creepy groups. I guess the guy wasn't joking about people needing to be dragged to these meetings.

Even if she found the first question off putting, would being "rescued" me more or less annoying? Maybe she thinks she's a big girl, and doesn't need protection from such an "attack". But whatever the answer to those questions, I think the escalation made matters worse in the vast majority of scenarios, and usually much worse.

It seemed like a basic failure to think about the consequences of his words.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

I thought the alternative questions were worse as well. Questions with a presupposition that the person is a reader puts them on the spot to contradict the assumption and fess up that they're not. Better to ask whether the person was a reader or had been dragged there. The most open ended way to ask would have been the cliched "come here often"?

The easiest way to avoid offense is to say nothing at all. I don't see it as an advance to paint the less usual demographics as mine fields to be navigated. I've got other things to do than navigate mine fields. I try to start with a presumption of basic good will, and behave accordingly. When others share that presumption, life is easy between us. I'm not going to spend my life tip toeing around people who don't need it for the sake of people who do.

Something about that anecdote just bugs me... The submitter is the one escalating the conversation each time, and she seemingly doesn't realize it. It's easy to call out other people on failing to think about the consequences of their words, but much harder to apply that same criterion to yourself.

Hypothetical gender reversal test:

"So, do you actually know how to knit, or did someone drag you here?"

"Are you saying that because he's wearing a suit and tie?"

flustered "No, it's not because of how he's dressed. It's just that most men who come here are dragged by someone else."

"Do you think that any man, no matter why he came here, would feel welcomed by that question?"

"Well, if you frame it like that... Didn't your question imply that suit-wearing men shouldn't be welcome at the LessWrong knitting club?"

"..."

"... Guys, I'm right here!"

A man turned to a young woman near him and asked, "So, do you actually read Less Wrong, or did someone drag you here?" I asked, "Are you saying that because she's wearing heels and lipstick?" "No, no," he answered, flustered. "It's not because of how she's dressed. It's just that most of the women who come here are dragged by someone else." I asked, "Do you think that any woman, no matter why she came here, would feel welcomed by being asked that question?" At that point he began apologizing, and the other woman assured him she wasn't offended.

Whether the man was being rude depends on the details of the context. Specifically, the attitudes and personality of the recipient, how well he has inferred them and how he presents.

Whether the interloper is being unpleasant is far less ambiguous. Butting in on conversations and throwing about social political opinions is, all else being equal, an obnoxious behavior. If one of those involved is in fact offended or can reasonably be expected to be then it may be tolerable or outright welcomed. However if both participants were content with the conversation and made uncomfortable by the interjection then they would quite rightly update in the direction of the interloper being unpleasant to be around.

(FYI: I don't recommend that particular conversation starter. It is a little clumsy and that kind of self deprecation can backfire.)

If you really want to find out if she reads the site, ask how long she's been reading Less wrong or what her favorite posts are

I think that's much more aggressive. What if she hasn't been reading long, and feels intimidates as everyone else has read the Sequences several times? What if she can't think of any particular posts (I certainly couldn't, beyond Politics is the Mindkiller, which is good but not my favourite), freezes, and has to say "err, none in particular"? I think that would make me feel much more excluded.

The guy's phrasing was poor and maybe a little rude (depending on tone and body language), but I don't think that bad considering the poor social skills of many LW readers.

On boyfriends/girlfriends coming to LW meetups- If you already have a strong base of members, this can be the MOST effective way of getting new people. It's like a company hiring via networking, rather than trying to pull a resume. So I highly recommend AGAINST discounting people immediately because they are "just" someone's boy/girlfriend.

What you already know about this person: They are romantically involved with someone who is already a member (so they probably like analytical types, if they aren't one themselves). That person thinks they would enjoy it enough to invite them.

Many of our most highly valued members, came into the community via a significant other. Examples:

• I was introduced to rationality by someone I was dating at the time.
  -We have many members who first came as someone's SO. For example, one is the natural leader type that makes every meetup that she attends significantly better, by her presence. She is only even in the state because she is visiting her boyfriend, but that doesn't make her contributions any less valuable.
  -A person who does a lot of the work for organizing Cincinnati meetups, and has contributed highly to all of their meetups (I haven't been to all their meetups, but I'm extrapolating based on what I know of her contributions to back when all of Ohio was in one meetup), came to our very first meetup as a LWers wife.
  -Many of our members join as "couples", and it's pretty evenly split on whether it is the male or female of the couple who is the higher contributer.

Of course, sometimes it will turn out that they are just being dragged along, but if you want to grow your group and/or its diversity you should not treat them as if that were the case immediately. Instead, welcome them to the group like you would any other member, and wait to see where they land.

If it turns out that they are new to rationality ideas, recognize that this doesn't mean that they are stupid or uninterested, but DOES mean that they might not understand terms or concepts that are specific to the community ("What's this one-boxing everyone's talking about?"). A quick explanation of the topic being discussed not only allows them to participate, but is often appreciated by other group members as a refresher on the idea.

I asked, "Are you saying that because she's wearing heels and lipstick?" "No, no," he answered, flustered.

A "You could be right." preceded by an unflustered pause for thought may have been a better reply. It seems rather likely that he was using those obvious mechanisms by which an individual signals identity to infer things about that person's identity. Different personal presentation would certainly have created different inferences about correlated traits to at least some degree.

Moreover, providing "Because she is a woman" as ammunition to someone who has already signalled their aggression and sexual-politics agenda is just crazy. Poorly played anonymous man.

UPDATE from Submitter C

This happened last year, and since that time we've talked about it more. I think it was a genuine mistake/misunderstanding and not a deliberate attempt to alienate anyone. I don't know how the other woman took the whole situation. I know it pushed my you-don't-belong-here button, and I responded based on that. The whole thing would have gone better if I had responded more charitably.

I'm not on this site very much anymore,

:-( Thanks for the time you've spent here. Wishing you luck in whatever you've moved on to.

REPOST- I messed up the first poll, so I retracted and reposted a fixed version. Gosh, you guys are fast at responding! If you voted in the minute or two that the first poll was up, please revote in this poll.

This topic (LW meetups) is the one that I personally am most interested in. I'm curious if the gender representation in meetups is better/same/worse than it is on the LW website. I hypothesize that it is slightly better.

Gathering data Please vote below iff you are a meetup regular!

I regularly attend LW meetups, and the gender balance, (in percentage of women participants) at the meetup I attend is:

[pollid:458]

*Note- I'm near positive that in the fiasco that was Me Trying to Create a Poll that I voted twice for the 33% option (long story), so you should probably subtract 1 from that bin.

Yes, I recognize the flaws in this poll. A big flaw is that one meetup might have 10 people answer the poll, and another meetup might only have one or none. If you are willing, please leave a comment with your meetup location, and gender ratio.

I've always thought being surrounded by people not talking to you while they talk about things you're not familiar with around you was bad, and this is a conversational gambit intended to avoid that, rather than trying to make someone feel like they don't belong.

You're interpreting this as as lot more confrontational than I think it's normally intended.

Of course I could be wrong and in general people feel attacked in this situation.

If you're a stranger coming to a new group or activity, and someone asks whether you were dragged there because you don't appear to conform to normal qualities for members of that group do you...

[pollid:459]

I MESSED UP THE FIRST POLL! IF YOU VOTED IN IT IN THE FIRST MINUTE OR TWO IT WAS UP PLEASE VOTE IN THE NEW FIXED ONE. THANKS!

A man turned to a young woman near him and asked, "So, do you actually read Less Wrong, or did someone drag you here?" I asked, "Are you saying that because she's wearing heels and lipstick?" "No, no," he answered, flustered. "It's not because of how she's dressed. It's just that most of the women who come here are dragged by someone else." I asked, "Do you think that any woman, no matter why she came here, would feel welcomed by being asked that question?" At that point he began apologizing, and the other woman assured him she wasn't offended.

I could say that and mean that as a compliment.... (of course I wouldn't be going to a LW meetup)

Are these get togethers the kind of things that one brings partners to? If so, then given the ratio of male and female at the site, assuming a woman is there as something other than a friend-of seems to also be making an assumption that the men of less wrong are less than capable of convincing a woman to accompany them.