Friday, October 4, 2013

Increasing the number of female submissions at your conference

Over at Feminist Philosophers there is an interesting post/thread on putting on conferences in line with the goals and aims of the GCC. The GCC, for good reasons, has focused on the keynote and invited speakers at conferences. And the Feminist Philosophers have provided some helpful strategies for avoiding an all-male or mostly male conference.  What I am interested in is the other side, how to increase female applications to your conference. This is particularly focused on smaller conferences. The type that that may have one or two invited speakers (if any), and might get 20-50 abstracts (if even 20). I've organized or help organize a few conferences of that size and scope, and I have never had any real issues with mostly all male submissions. So, what follows are some strategies I believe may have lead to that conclusions. More ideas, and criticisms of my ideas, is very much welcomed. This is list is numbered in no particular order of importance.

(1) When writing the CFP, explicitly invite women to submit papers.
(2) Do you do that thing in your CFP where you suggest possible themes to be addressed, or possible thinkers to think alongside/against? Well, make sure to include feminist themes and women thinkers in those lists.
(3) Okay, your cfp is written. How do you send it out?  Think about posting in places you know feminist and women philosophers might be more likely to see it. Think about posting in SWIP-L if it has specific feminist overlaps. Find listservs, websites, blogs, facebook groups, and newsletters that may not be where you would normally post your cfp, and that can expand the diversity of the applicants to your conference.
(4) Like many CFPs, there are mass distribution channels (as I just talked about), and there are more informal social network channels. Social networks, particularly professional ones, often become gendered. If you are dealing with a field that is already heavily gendered, that is even more true. As Matt Yglesias explained so well:

Unless you can say that your personal network is well-balanced between men and women, then you need to take some moments to step back and look beyond that circle to find some women who'd be well-suited to the job. Otherwise a "gender blind" search process will, over the years, put women in an entrenched position of disadvantage.
This means when you look at who you send your CFP too, you might need to do a bit of research, and send it to people who might be strangers. So, if you are running a conference that you know will be geographically small (like a small state philosophy conference) make sure to send your CFP to female professors and instructors within that geographic region. Encourage them to share the CFP. Encourage their students to apply. If your conference is narrow in terms of focus, look for women doing work within your focus. Send the CFP to those women, encourage them to share, and for their students to apply.
(5) Encourage your female students (if appropriate) to apply. Encourage your colleagues to have their female students apply. 
(6) Have you thought about arranging child care for your conference? Look into it, and if possible, make it happen, and put that on your original cfp.
(7) If you are going to have one or two keynotes, try to make sure they are female keynotes. I know that with the funds of your conference, that might not be possible. But before asking that guy you know, and are sure will say yes and for cheap, think if there are women you can at least ask and try to coordinate with. Maybe it doesn't work, but it is a good idea. 
(8) I am just going to steal this from poster "mm" at the Feminist Philosopher thread I indicated before:
Suppose you are soliciting papers for a conference and these papers will be anonymously reviewed prior to acceptance. Suppose you have slots for 8 papers and receive 80 submissions. Don’t select what you take to be the top 8 papers and stop. Rather, first select the top, say 15 papers. In my limited experience, when there is a sufficiently high number of submissions I have very little confidence that the small subset of papers selected is in any sense “the best”. But I am usually pretty confident that a larger subset consists of papers all of which are worthy of being presented. Once you have selected that larger subset, then de-anonymize them and then narrow the selection further by considering factors like inclusiveness.

In general, these ideas can be boiled down to three major ideas: (1) Invite, and be inviting, for women to send abstracts to your conference. (2) Break out of your normal social network and places for posting conference materials, and try to find places that will draw upon a diverse group of philosophers. (3) Make diversity an avowed goal in your conference planning.