I also have to admit this unintentional bias comes up often in my daily working experience, mostly because I work in a male-dominated area of education and although I do know that it’s definitely unintentional, it happens, regularly. It’s definitely a reality of the world that I wish did not exist. Thank you for drawing such careful attention to it, and for starting this discussion.

I am so flattered to read your kind words about the work I’ve been doing with amazing colleagues and to be included among people who I consider to be leaders in education (regardless of gender).

Thank you.

First I want it to be publicly known that I had no intention of singling out BLC as a target for gender bias. I wanted the ‘unintentional biases’ that I mentioned to be from personal experience and BLC is the only big conference that I will be participating in for two straight years.

As for suggestions, I need only look to my last post to find 5 exceptional educational leaders.

Here they are again with some more information that I personally think would make them worthy of being a keynote. Please note that I can suggest them but do not speak on their behalf and may not be aware of some topics that they may be working on that would fit even better for a keynote topic. All 5 of them can be contacted through their blogs or on Twitter.

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* Sue is an amazing connector and in her own words this is what she stands for – “practical application of technologies in education, and most importantly HELPING OTHERS learn how to use these technologies.”

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So there you go Jim,

In my last post I said that these were some amazing educators and now it is evident that when I chose them for the list, I had done so thoughtfully and selectively. BLC would be that much better to have any one or all of these educators as either a keynote or a presenter. I’d also like to remind you that it would be advantageous for you to speak to these educators and leaders personally rather than having me speak on their behalf.

Thanks for reading, commenting and for being open to suggestions.

Dave.

If I’ve learned two things from this conversation they would be:

1. The biases are real, and present, and not just there for women. Recognizing this and not doing anything about it does not help in any way.

2. Family influence is much greater than societal influence… for my reading audience! In my years as a teacher, I’ve met many students that would not have the same positive home influence that many of your children would be provided with.

A final thought on this is that a better question was asked by Betty who commented above: She wants to know how success is being measured. It would be worthwhile to continue the conversation on her blog: Success… in female terms? Also of worthy note is the ‘aside’ Claire Thompson makes in comment #5 of that post. I think Claire’s ‘aside’ puts the whole conversation on both these posts into perspective!

Thanks again for your contributions to my learning!
Dave.

Your most significant role models for your daughters are yourself and your wife and the ACTION you take in guiding your girls to be the wonderful woman they will grow up to be.

Cindy

I was very interested in your post and the comments that followed. I wanted to react to one comment you made.

“* Last year I went to BLC08 with three male keynote speakers. This year I’m going back for BLC09, and what do I see? Three male keynotes.”

We just had a meeting in Boston about the conference and discussed the fact that we haven’t had a female keynote speaker for the last two years. We haven’t had a female keynote BLC since BLC06. We are open to suggestions.

Jim

What I have found interesting is that most people want to explore gender and race discrimination, but not really go any deeper. And even on the gender side, only women are discussed, never men. Isn’t that odd? Not really, because our culture punishes us when we dare to speak of discrimination against men. But yet the truth is that we must tackle ALL the “isms” because they are a vicious chain that support each other … and allowing discrimination in one area give unspoken tacit approval to discriminate in others. We just keep pushing it around from one place to another … and most of us discriminate via INACTION not ACTION. We sit in the comfort of our armchairs and turn a blind eye … saying “I don’t discriminate against THOSE people.” But in fact they do, it takes more that passive words to end discrimination against ourselves and others.

Remember the definition of a pedagogical task? One has to DO something and there has to be an OUTCOME. You can’t just sit and ponder.

What about those discriminated for age (including children), sexual orientation, abled-bodiness, ethnicity, physical attributes, etc.

My point is that we will continue to talk overtly about women until we begin to address all “isms” .. because ignoring them actually keeps sexism alive in the end. Remember the Martin Niemöller poem. Well it says it all:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

So wanna stop highlighting women? End all discrimination as best as we can, each and every day, and not just from your armchairs or blogs.

P.S. Just a closing note. Many think that men and in particular white men are free of discrimination. And many women refuse to address men’s issues until their issues are discussed and explored and addressed, etc. Let me give you all an idea of the great discrimination that men face, professional economic positions are not everything. Do men kiss each other in public or hold hands or dance together like women do? Why not? Because homophobia is a discrimination that keeps men from sharing intimacy and closeness as women enjoy between themselves. And of course we must isolate men from one another .. because they must be conditioned to kill each other for national and international defense. Men’s lives hold less value in this respect than women’s do. Even during the Titanic days of men going down with the ship and only women and children in the lifeboats. Men are more unsuccessful when it comes to parental custody issue. Men are jailed more often than women for similar offenses. Men are label low-lifes, bums, jerks, no-goods if they can’t work (for women it is still ok not to, they are called loafers for not working). Men are tossed a lot of stress to be quick on their feet, providers, on top of things, and on and on. We really need to do a lot to remove these discriminating expectation from men, too. Many of these “traditional” views are kept in place by families, churches, and education. Men (internalized) and women both participate in the discrimination against men.

When we address it all, we won’t have to say “female” educational technology leaders any more. It isn’t unintentional at all. Isms are very intentional and we all have a duty to minimize them and check our own blindspots.

As to your girls Dave, I believe they will be more affected by both you and their mother, than just their mother. They are lucky to have a dad that cares enough about all this to even venture into such “loaded” territory.

Heidi, you get what I am saying! Thanks for clarifying for me.

The fact that Lisa Thumann and Liz Davis are leading a session on “Equity Issues in the Edublogosphere” at Educon 2.1 this year, tells me that my concerns are legitimate. Liz and Lisa, I wish that this didn’t have to be a topic we even discussed, but if we are going to have to have the discussion then I’m glad that it is you two leading it… and yes Liz, I wish that I could be there too.

Vicki’s comment speaks glaringly from the trenches that bias, (the actual point made in my title, in my introduction, and in the last half of my post), is both present and problematic: “The bottom line is that we’re here for the students and diversity just
means we can reach a wider audience — more people will find SOMEONE to relate to. It is a real turnoff to learning for many of us to see a lack of diversity.”

And to compliment the point Louise Maine makes about the challenge of being a female science teacher… here is a bit of the reality she is facing: Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist and Swedish Study Finds Sex Bias in Getting Science Jobs. You can find more of these kinds of articles in Kris ‘ bookmarks on gender. Also, I agree with Louise, “Silvana makes a great point that we don’t acknowledge the role models already here and what they provide.”

We don’t acknowledge them enough… and that recognition will not come by sitting idly by and letting unintentional bias (again the actual point of this post) be something that we allow to happen without discussing it.