Warren Bowen: Does the “E” in TED stand for “exclusion”?

Five examples from the TED2015 conference in Vancouver

by Warren Bowen on March 17th, 2015 at 4:56 PM

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If TED’s $8,500-a-ticket financial exclusion upsets you, consider the following racial, gender, and knowledge exclusions.

1. Seven to one—the ratio of white men to women in the “Opening Gambit” (see the TED2015 program guide). The opening speakers are all white men, except for a female performance artist. Why was the performance artist role not filled by a man, and the international relations expert, chemist/inventor, or computer scientist role filled by women? The artist ensemble is a trio of white men.

2. The session “What Are We Thinking?”—in which three out of five are scientists (why must mostly scientists tell us what we are thinking?), as opposed to, say, authors, ethicists, social critics, philosophers, sociologists, community activists, art historians, poets, photographers, need I go on?—is also almost exclusively white men (four to one), which makes me wonder, what were they thinking?

3. This pattern is partially broken in the sessions “Life Stories”, “Radical Reframe”, and “Creative Ignition”, relegating women and visible minorities to experts of (explicit) stories (is science not a story?), radicalism, and creative (meaning artistic) pursuits. While “Out of This World” is three men to two women and hosted by a woman (yippee!), they are all white scientists (oops). Do artists not take us out of this world? Are minorities not part of ours?

4. Where the pattern is truly broken is under the session “Pop-up Magazine”—whatever the effing earth that’s supposed to mean—where conspicuous amounts of women and visible minorities are packed together—there are 14 presenters in this session of 105 minutes, whereas the other sessions (105-200 minutes) have no more than six presenters to share their session’s time (no scientist gets less than 20 minutes to present except for one engineer and one female neuroscientist-comedian, both with 17.5 minutes). Did the organizers think no one would notice that women and visible minorities are packed together under the glibness of a magazine-pop-up-book genre-mash monstrosity?

5. Their “TED University”, an “ever-popular TED institution” (which features Bill Gates), is 10 men to four women, and not a single person has a surname of non-European origin. However, they have filled the only artistic role with a visible minority (Eric Lewis, a black pianist), once again affirming that visible minorities in our society remain experts of (explicit) entertainment, not of, say, invention, architecture, economics, philanthropy, health advocacy, et cetera.

I’m shocked that a conference that styles itself as a venue for creative ideas reproduces such obvious exclusion. Where’s the TED talk on that?

Comments

12 Comments

Steve y

Mar 17, 2015 at 5:29pm

Scientists must tell us what we are thinking because they actually know things unlike bs artists like Mr Bowen.

Blergh

Mar 17, 2015 at 7:49pm

TED is an abomination. The Vancouver Convention Center is zoned to have public washrooms. Somehow, they can get around that zoning and convert an entire public building into a no-go zone.

Tahitian sunrise

Mar 17, 2015 at 8:22pm

$8,500 a ticket is insane! Should be $85 a ticket.

Wow

Mar 17, 2015 at 8:42pm

You've got some time on your hands don't you? Here's an idea. Compare the communities of academia etc, that these groups come from and see if the same ratios stand up. THAT might be a story.

Edward Bernays

Mar 17, 2015 at 9:20pm

With the Internet giving us all access to free educations in nearly every discipline (TED approved or otherwise) it is difficult to understand why anyone would pay for these conferences or even for a BA. I suppose some people will always place value on shoulder rubbing. Perhaps it should be rebranded from an "ideas" conference to a "fawning" conference. Pop culture consumers have Comicon and networkers have TED. What would a TED cosplayer look like?

d brent

Mar 17, 2015 at 10:36pm

I'm thinking Mr Bowen's research on "ways scientists transform nonhuman animals into technologies to persuade us of narratives of medical progress" was rejected by TED. Maybe that could explain his rant above?

Why does anyone care what colour skin the presenter is? - I doubt this is one of the criteria for getting your presentation accepted. If you are an expert in a subject, then you are an expert.

If you cant afford to attend in person (and I definitely cant), you can watch loads of these TED talks for free online. Some are good, some are crap.

hey warren

Mar 17, 2015 at 11:45pm

how about you do some actual work and tell us which people don't deserve to be there and who should have been selected.

Easy

Mar 18, 2015 at 7:09am

The Daily Beast did a good job of explaining how the vast majority of the 77 cent pay gap comes from the different professional choices that men and women make by putting together a list of the most lucrative and least lucrative professions and applying gender percentages to them. Here they are. It has nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with the choices men and woman make in their career choices. TED simply represents the market.

The Most Money

1. Petroleum Engineering: 87% male
2. Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% male
3. Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% male
4. Aerospace Engineering: 88% male
5. Chemical Engineering: 72% male
6. Electrical Engineering: 89% male
7. Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% male
8. Mechanical Engineering: 90% male
9. Metallurgical Engineering: 83% male
10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: 90% male

The Least Money

1. Counseling Psychology: 74% female
2. Early Childhood Education: 97% female
3. Theology and Religious Vocations: 34% female
4. Human Services and Community Organization: 81% female
5. Social Work: 88% female
6. Drama and Theater Arts: 60% female
7. Studio Arts: 66% female
8. Communication Disorders Sciences and Services: 94% female
9. Visual and Performing Arts: 77% female
10. Health and Medical Preparatory Programs: 55% female

Mikey mike

Mar 18, 2015 at 7:10am

I'd urge you to check out the TEDFellows part of TED- where anyone can apply to become one, and the results speak for themselves. http://blog.ted.com/meet-the-new-class-of-2015-ted-fellows-and-senior-fe...