American and Canadian Anthro conference drops panel on sex

[marshwiggle]

So with the massive cumulative experience of members here of attending and organizing conferences, how common is it that after a conference is organized and scheduled that an event is cancelled by the professional association, (not the conference organizers), on the grounds that the event has no academic merit? (If so, in what discipline?)

I can't imagine that happening. The sessions are not policy statements on behalf of the professional society. They are opporutnities for people interested in a specific question to get together and compare their curren thinking. The professional society doesn't try to evaluate the academic merit or try to set some threshold different from the organizers.

Sure, there is evaluation at the proposal stage to slot sessions that will enhnance the conference experience. There are usually more proposal than slots. But after the thing is scheduled? No. And if the topic is controversial enough to get a big audience of dissenting opinion, well that makes for a lively conference.

I don't think it's ever happened before.

Which makes me wonder at the content of the presentation. 

Kind of like someone not liking the results of an election and saying the whole thing was wrong? That's never happened before either, but I think most people have more faith in the people doing their jobs.

[Wahoo Redux]

Kind of like someone not liking the results of an election and saying the whole thing was wrong? That's never happened before either, but I think most people have more faith in the people doing their jobs.

Ummm...No, actually, it's nothing like that at all...

My brofessor Marshmallow and his analogies and his tireless quest for victimization and hypocrisy...

[marshwiggle]

So with the massive cumulative experience of members here of attending and organizing conferences, how common is it that after a conference is organized and scheduled that an event is cancelled by the professional association, (not the conference organizers), on the grounds that the event has no academic merit? (If so, in what discipline?)

I can't imagine that happening. The sessions are not policy statements on behalf of the professional society. They are opporutnities for people interested in a specific question to get together and compare their curren thinking. The professional society doesn't try to evaluate the academic merit or try to set some threshold different from the organizers.

Sure, there is evaluation at the proposal stage to slot sessions that will enhnance the conference experience. There are usually more proposal than slots. But after the thing is scheduled? No. And if the topic is controversial enough to get a big audience of dissenting opinion, well that makes for a lively conference.

I don't think it's ever happened before.

Which makes me wonder at the content of the presentation.

Since what was shut down was a panel discussion, how common is it to have panelists submit their intended statements in advance? If they didn't have to do that, then the "content of the presentation" is entirely speculative. It was shut down because of what they might say, not because of what they did say.

And of course this implies that the organizers are completely incompetent in recognizing "scientific merit" in their own discipline. If that's true, they should never have been chosen, and if it's not, their reputations have been trashed unjustly.

[Wahoo Redux]

I think it is standard practice to submit summaries of one's panel to conference organizers.  Otherwise, you are beating a dead horse, my friend.

[waterboy]

That summaries are provided in advance is an overly broad assumption. I seen, and been in such panels, when all that was required was some expertise in the issue at hand.

[Wahoo Redux]

That summaries are provided in advance is an overly broad assumption. I seen, and been in such panels, when all that was required was some expertise in the issue at hand.

Dunno.  At least from my experience, the most prestigious conferences are hard to get into and individual abstracts must be submitted beforehand.  The less prestigious conferences will generally accept anyone, including grad students, again in my experience.   

One can actually see what the AAA asked for.   It would appear that not all panels were accepted.

[Hibush]

That summaries are provided in advance is an overly broad assumption. I seen, and been in such panels, when all that was required was some expertise in the issue at hand.

Dunno.  At least from my experience, the most prestigious conferences are hard to get into and individual abstracts must be submitted beforehand.  The less prestigious conferences will generally accept anyone, including grad students, again in my experience.   

One can actually see what the AAA asked for.   It would appear that not all panels were accepted.

Using a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), each reviewer will evaluate each submission based upon four (4) weighted criteria:

• Rate the rigor of scholarship in this submission (25%)
• Rate the relevance of this submission to critical issues within the discipline (25%)
• Rate the importance of this submission to current issues of broad concern (15%)
• Rate the quality of the submission overall (35%)

It appears that section program chairs (i.e. anthropologists) evaluated contributed papers. Each of the 38 sections got to scedule the section chair's favorite. The remaining slots were fill in order of the panel scores.

The panel description is posted at https://elizabethweiss74.wordpress.com/discussing-sex-is-no-longer-allowed-at-anthropology-conferences/. While it is not my field, the text of the does not seem to match the description in the NY Times as anodyne and hiding the true agenda.

[ciao_yall]

That summaries are provided in advance is an overly broad assumption. I seen, and been in such panels, when all that was required was some expertise in the issue at hand.

Dunno.  At least from my experience, the most prestigious conferences are hard to get into and individual abstracts must be submitted beforehand.  The less prestigious conferences will generally accept anyone, including grad students, again in my experience.   

One can actually see what the AAA asked for.  It would appear that not all panels were accepted.

Using a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high), each reviewer will evaluate each submission based upon four (4) weighted criteria:

• Rate the rigor of scholarship in this submission (25%)
• Rate the relevance of this submission to critical issues within the discipline (25%)
• Rate the importance of this submission to current issues of broad concern (15%)
• Rate the quality of the submission overall (35%)

It appears that section program chairs (i.e. anthropologists) evaluated contributed papers. Each of the 38 sections got to scedule the section chair's favorite. The remaining slots were fill in order of the panel scores.

The panel description is posted at https://elizabethweiss74.wordpress.com/discussing-sex-is-no-longer-allowed-at-anthropology-conferences/. While it is not my field, the text of the does not seem to match the description in the NY Times as anodyne and hiding the true agenda.

Definitely not my field, and I'm also not a true academic. On the surface, it seems that the authors are making some fairly anodyne statements and discussing sex vs gender in anthropology which is a timely topic.

Still, if you read between the lines, it gets a bit gender-binary (references to DNA) and TERF-y (suggesting that new power dynamics and gender fluidity erases women and girls).

And then arguing "Discussing sex is no longer allowed..." is just silly. The conversation is broader now and recognizes the complexity of gender and sex and how many Western academics are catching up to the many cultures and societies which already recognize this. She wants to bring it back to the old days when "Goils were goils and men were men." 

Nobody is saying categories of male/female, man/woman are not to be used! Gah.

[Wahoo Redux]

From "Open Letter: RE: 2023 AAA/CASCA Annual Meeting Cancellation" in Hibush's link.

Spanish anthropologist Silvia Carrasco planned to present data that looked at "sex-based oppression, violence and exploitation" and the difficulty of addressing these issues when biological sex is disavowed.  UK anthropologist Kathleen Richardson's abstract highlighted issues surrounding material disparities between the sexes in the tech industry that are being erased by counting men who identify as trans as women rather than by having more women enter the field. Francophone Canadian anthropologist Michèle Sirois was to offer an ethnographic account of the ways "in which Quebec feminists have organized to document, clarify and oppose the exploitative surrogacy industry that hides under the guise of 'equity' and 'inclusion'", and in which surrogacy policies which exploit poor women are cynically framed as liberatory.

How many transmen are we talking here? Aren't they able to count women, men, and transmen in Spain?  Are there honestly enough transmen entering the system to skew "material disparities"? I guess I am just wondering about the legitimacy of these approaches.  Is there anybody here who has some depth of insight about these things?

The language "under the guise of 'equity' and 'inclusion'" is worrisome.  It sounds like the propagandistic stuff being bandied about by certain segments of culture right now.

-VS-

The quote from AAA on Hibush's post.

Such efforts contradict scientific evidence, including the wealth of anthropological scholarship on gender and sex. Forensic anthropologists talk about using bones for "sex estimation," not "sex identification," a process that is probabilistic rather than clearly determinative, and that is easily influenced by cognitive bias on the part of the researcher. Around the world and throughout human history, there have always been people whose gender roles do not align neatly with their reproductive anatomy. There is no single biological standard by which all humans can be reliably sorted into a binary male/female sex classification. On the contrary, anthropologists and others have long shown sex and gender to be historically and geographically contextual, deeply entangled, and dynamically mutable categories.

The function of the "gender critical" scholarship advocated in this session, like the function of the "race science" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is to advance a "scientific" reason to question the humanity of already marginalized groups of people, in this case, those who exist outside a strict and narrow sex / gender binary.

Transgender and gender diverse identities have long existed, and we are committed to upholding the value and dignity of transgender people. We believe that a more just future is possible—one where gender diversity is welcomed and supported rather than marginalized and policed.

And, from the "Letter of Support for AAA's Withdrawal of Session from the Annual Meeting"

We are writing in support of the American Anthropological Association's decision to withdraw the "Let's Talk About Sex, Baby" session from the Annual Meeting. The session itself makes a number of claims that are counter to much of the settled science within biological anthropology and evolutionary biology more generally, throwing vague insults at the concept of "gender" without defining it in a meaningful way. Let's look at some of the claims:

While some have focused on the session title, that is not our concern here except for the ways in which the title assumes a position within the field that is inaccurate.
**The session writers offer up a concept of "biological sex" that is in contrast to "gender" without defining either term.

**The session suggests that "gender" is being substituted for "sex" in anthropology.

**This is incorrect as there is currently massive work on these terms, and their entanglements and nuances, across social-cultural, biological, archeological, and linguistic anthropologies.

**From the first presentation abstract, the authors use outdated terms such as "sex identification" rather than the more scientifically accurate term "sex estimation."

**Implicit in the session abstract and several of the individual abstracts is the assumption that sex is a biological binary; a concept that is rejected by current biological anthropology and human biology, and highly disputed across contemporary biology.

Most of the individual abstracts reflect grievances based on the erroneous assumptions outlined above.

As anthropologists who work in biological anthropology and human biology, we are aware that definitions of sex can be made using pelvic girdle shape, cranial dimensions, external genitalia, gonads, sex chromosomes, and more. Sex, as biological descriptor, is not binary using any of those definitions. People are born with non-binary genitalia every day – we tend to call people who fall into this group intersex. People are born with sex chromosomes that are not XX or XY but X, XXY, XXXY and more, every day. The same is true with gonads. What's more, someone can have intersex genitalia but not intersex gonads, intersex chromosomes but not intersex genitalia. These bodily differences demonstrate the massive variation seen in sex physiology across vertebrate species. Looking beyond humans, we see three forms of the adult orangutan. Does this represent a sex binary? Significant percentages of many reptile species have intersex genitalia. Are we still trying to call sex a binary? The binary limits the kinds of questions we can ask and therefore limits the scope of our science.

[marshwiggle]

And, from the "Letter of Support for AAA's Withdrawal of Session from the Annual Meeting"

As anthropologists who work in biological anthropology and human biology, we are aware that definitions of sex can be made using pelvic girdle shape, cranial dimensions, external genitalia, gonads, sex chromosomes, and more. Sex, as biological descriptor, is not binary using any of those definitions. People are born with non-binary genitalia every day – we tend to call people who fall into this group intersex. People are born with sex chromosomes that are not XX or XY but X, XXY, XXXY and more, every day. The same is true with gonads. What's more, someone can have intersex genitalia but not intersex gonads, intersex chromosomes but not intersex genitalia. These bodily differences demonstrate the massive variation seen in sex physiology across vertebrate species. Looking beyond humans, we see three forms of the adult orangutan. Does this represent a sex binary? Significant percentages of many reptile species have intersex genitalia. Are we still trying to call sex a binary? The binary limits the kinds of questions we can ask and therefore limits the scope of our science.

Similarly, a coin flip shouldn't be viewed as binary, since this ignores the number of times the coin lands on edge.

[Wahoo Redux]

Science, Marshgiant.  Sometimes it tells us things we don't want to hear.  My wife has been researching "UPFs"---ultra processed foods----which is sooooo depressing for a junk food maven such as myself.

Maybe it is the Branch Davidian documentary I just watched (I have a cold and am avoiding work) which detailed how both sides of that tragedy behaved in such a dangerously egregious manner that everyone was damaged, but the AAA / Sex Panel controversy seems like a double-whammy joint knockout on a much, much smaller scale.

On the one hand, maybe the panel should have gone forward and taken their lumps.

On the other hand, maybe the AAA and CASCA have the responsibility to knock off the crap.  I mean, the panel used the phrase "exploitative surrogacy industry" as an implied pejorative for people who voluntarily transition. That's propaganda. 

[namazu]

I mean, the panel used the phrase "exploitative surrogacy industry" as an implied pejorative for people who voluntarily transition. That's propaganda. 

Huh?! Doesn't it refer to gestational carriers?

[Wahoo Redux]

I mean, the panel used the phrase "exploitative surrogacy industry" as an implied pejorative for people who voluntarily transition. That's propaganda. 

Huh?! Doesn't it refer to gestational carriers?

You're right.  I am just trigger-happy when I see "exploitative." 

[downer]

So how has it worked out for the panel organizers and the conference organizers? Was the dropping of the panel good for the association? How has the anthropology world reacted to it all? What lessons can future conference organizers learn from this episode?

[Wahoo Redux]

So how has it worked out for the panel organizers and the conference organizers? Was the dropping of the panel good for the association? How has the anthropology world reacted to it all? What lessons can future conference organizers learn from this episode?

Everyone got a lot more media attention than they would have otherwise.

And the panel-in-question will get a much bigger audience because of the Streisand Effect and its easy-to-access blog posting.

And the conference organizers did the right thing.