
Listen to Her: Gender on This American Life (2017) - Raj7k
https://pudding.cool/2017/09/this-american-life/
======
awakeasleep
I consider myself a feminist and progressive, but utterances like this sort of
test my wokeness and make me feel weary.

>The fact that our mostly female staff and I have created a show where most of
the voices are men is interesting and, frankly, disturbing.

It's disturbing that your female staff doesn't produce content in the way you
want? What am I supposed to take away from this?

~~~
skybrian
I think the lesson is that just like any other goal, if you want to get a
certain result you have to actually keep track of how well you're doing and
look for ways to do better. You can't just be "not sexist" and hope everything
works out because you're so woke.

Metrics are useful, Goodhart's law notwithstanding.

~~~
s-shellfish
Blind leading the blind without metrics.

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spacehome
I question the unspoken assumption that there should be an equitable split of
male and female voices on the program. An alternative hypothesis is that the
most interesting people skew male, or at least the ones willing to talk into a
microphone. You have to at least consider this hypothesis before jumping to
the conclusion of bias in the reporting.

~~~
rule_follower
Isn't it one of the great assumptions of our age that everyone is "equal" and
ought be proportionally represented in every endeavor? And that inequitable
representation is evidence of a moral or actual crime against the under
represented? (At least in cases when an official oppressor class is over
represented and an official victim class is under represented. And also when
participating in the endeavor is desirable.)

~~~
spacehome
No, of course not, to both questions. All people should be treated equitably
under the law, and we decided it’s illegal to discriminate along a very small
number of dimensions for the essentials of life: employment and housing. But
people are not equal at all. Some people are better tenants or employees than
others, and it’s ethical to discriminate along those lines. And, yes, some
people are better interviewees, too.

~~~
loco5niner
Good points all. Some people are more disciplined, motivated, and responsible
than others and that should be rewarded.

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alexandercrohde
Meh, I don't know what to make of this. I don't think equal proportion of
gender talking is a meaningful goal, and the more I think about it the less
sense it makes to me.

I think about it and start to ask should all shows need to be gender-balanced?
Should then The View need to be 50% male? Oprah? Should we strive for an equal
proportion of races in all shows? What about non-Americans, should they be
represented proportionally?

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rectang
I think the best way to answer this question is to listen to what those who
are currently underrepresented have to say about it.

~~~
alexandercrohde
I don't understand. Do you mean "listen to" as in "hear the opinion of" or as
in "obey"?

~~~
loco5niner
"hear the opinion of" would be the normal interpretation (US English),
especially when "listen to" is followed by "what [they] have to say about it".
I struggle to understand in what context "obey" would make sense.

~~~
Glyptodon
"listen to" is commonly used as a form of follow/obey in vernacular English.
"Listen to Bob, he knows what he is doing." At minimum it frequently connotes
more than just listening.

~~~
loco5niner
Good point. That is a different context I hadn't thought of.

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rossdavidh
So, this is a fascinating article and I greatly appreciate the time that went
into it. I also appreciate that Ira Glass was not immediately defensive about
it, and seems to have cooperated with it to at least some degree. But... isn't
the most obvious answer, that it's male dominated because the Boss is a male?
I'm not saying that I have proof of this being the case, but it seems like an
obvious hypothesis to check out. Too simple? Or are there no comparable shows
where a woman is the Top Boss, to compare to?

~~~
itronitron
they could do a comparison with Fresh Air, hosted by Terry Gross on NPR

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spacehome
It's not really the same kind of show. Fresh Air mostly consists of Gross
interviewing a single interviewee.

~~~
rossdavidh
True, but over many years. It would be interesting to see if the pattern is
different (or maybe even more interesting if the pattern is the same).

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mcguire
There is something weird about the percentage dialog - contributors graph. The
line doesn't look like it goes through the points.

~~~
itronitron
yeah, that one seems off, and the interviewees one looks like a regression
line should be flatter

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spacehome
> To figure out how much airtime is divided between men and women, we pulled
> the show's transcripts and categorized the gender of every person who
> speaks.

It sounds difficult to figure out the gender of the speakers from their voice.
They probably made some assumptions.

~~~
bitcurious
Transcripts are annotated text documents usually written by professional
staff.

An example:
[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/474/transcript](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/474/transcript)

~~~
spacehome
This helps how?

~~~
bitcurious
Really? You can't imagine how knowing who is speaking would help identify the
gender of who is speaking?

