Monday, June 28, 2010

The Lefthanded Latina Lesbians in Algebraic Topology Workshop

There was a Women in Theory Workshop at Princeton From June 19-23. ***SORELLE***, who was there, has some intelligent and interesting things to say about it here.. I will, instead, offer up a question.

I was at a Ramsey Theory Workshop in Italy and it was noted that of the 27 people there, none were women. Is there a shortage of Women in Ramsey Theory? Is this a problem? I suspect there is a shortage, however Ramsey Theory is too small an area to worry about it. Hence I doubt there will ever be a Women in Ramsey Theory Workshop.

Should there be a African-Americans in Theory Workshop? There are so few that it would end up being a bunch of non-African-Americans discussing why there so few African-Americans in Theory. To have a workshop analogous to the Women in Theory Workshop you need a larger critical mass. How many African-Americans are in Theory? What if I drop the requirement they must be American? I honestly don't know but I suspect its not that many. (If I am wrong then please let me know in the comments.)

Let A be an area (e.g, Recursive Algebraic Topology) and P be a subset of people (e.g., Left handed Latina Lesbians). When does a on P in A Workshop make sense? If A is too small then it would not make sense. If there are very few P's in A then there really can't be a such a workshop unless its mostly non-P's discussing why there are so few P's in A. If P is too big then there may not be a need for such a workshop; however, there may still be if there are issues facing P's that are not facing non-P's.
  1. There have been African Americans in Mathematics Workshop. Here A is big enough and P is above critical mass.
  2. According to this 24% of all lawyers are female and 44% of all law students are female. There may still be a need for workshops for female lawyers as they may face issues that male lawyers do not. Here was one: A Transformational Workshop for Women Lawyers.
  3. Male Nurses are few in number, but there are some and I suspect they have problems that women nurses do not have. I do not know if they have workshops, but they do have their own magazine here.
What other workshops or conferences or whatnot on these types of issue have there been?

Most conferences hope that they will last a long time (e.g., We just had the 25th CCC. I hope there is a 50th). I suspect that the participants in the Women in Theory Workshop hope that these workshops are eventually not needed.


  1. I think it should be noted that not all black people are African-American. Actually most of them aren't any kind of American at all.


    That's why Bill noted it in his post:

    What if I drop the requirement they must be American?

  3. Latina, not Latino.

  4. Latino-->Latina. Fixed. Thanks.

    Bill G.

  5. Surely the laws of alliteration dictate that all lefthanded Latina lesbians work on the Lovasz local lemma.

  6. I can think of 3 black theorists.

  7. It is good that some members of P in A have decided to form a group for mutual support because they're so few in number. However, one shouldn't feel obligated or pressured to participate their activities just because one happens to be a member of P in A. Indeed, he/she may not even have much in common with other members of P other than certain superficial characteristics.

  8. remember that the Latin Grammy Awards are a pride thing but if there was an attempt at the Caucasian Grammy Awards that would be racist

  9. if there was an attempt at the Caucasian Grammy Awards that would be racist

    What about the Country Music Awards?

  10. I love the title lol...
    "The Lefthanded Latina Lesbians in Algebraic Topology Workshop" I'm sure that would have a MASSIVE turnout hahahaha.

  11. There was an attempt at a White Basketball league in America.
    The organizer gave the reasons that
    (1) Black play a more street game
    and whites play a more thinking-mans game (or something like that), and
    (2) (Paraphrase a quote)
    ``Fans are tired of black players getting arrested for carrying guns and dealing drugs.''

    Rather than call this racist I would like to ask the organizer the following: Couldn't you have a league where the RULES are changed a bit to encourage the kind of Basketball you want, and couldn't you have morals-clauses in contracts?

    If he answers
    GEE BILL YOU ARE RIGHT, THATS A BETTER IDEA then he is not a racist he just had not thought this through.

  12. Another example of such conferences are those geared towards undergrads/graduate students. Not what you might think of a typical 'minority' group, but it fits the bill.

  13. No women in Ramsey Theory? Actually, the only person I have met who works in Ramsey theory is a woman :p

  14. As a left handed latina lesbian, I find this quite amusing!