Why was John Dickie the "Keynote Speaker" at the 2012 American Association Italian Studies Conference?...Is it a WOMEN's THING"?
Why was John Dickie the "Keynote Speaker" at the 2012 American Association Italian Studies Conference?...Is it a WOMEN's THING"?
(March 22, 2013)
John Dickie and the Women of AAIS
How is it that one of the primer English language south of Rome historians was invited to be the Keynote Speaker for an organization of Italian American scholars and teachers who worship the Arno Valley culture, and whose scholarship and teaching suggest they cannot find Sicily on a map? A plausible explanation takes the form of a ‘gender hypothesis’.
The presence of John Dickie as the Keynote Speaker at the 2012 American Association for Italian Studies is fascinating.
Why would an organization of scholars and teachers who have a virtual fanatical love and worship of the Arno Valley culture, to the virtual exclusion of the Mezzogiorno and Sicily, invite an historian who specializes in south of Rome historiography to be their Keynote Speaker?
The members of the Association are overwhelming specialist in northern Italian history and culture. Evidence of this ‘fact’ has been presented many times on this blog in the form of college catalogue descriptions of the credentials of professors in, and curriculums taught at and translations published by the primer departments of Italian Studies in American universities (see links in "Related Articles" box and "Related" links within those articles).
Further, a statistical sampling analysis of AAIS member's publications corroborates those catalogue findings. The list of all 604 AAIS members on its web site was copied into an Excel spreadsheet. Using the Excel random number generator, a sample of 32 members (5% of the total population) was created. As sample sizes go, this represents a large random sample, and for mathematical reasons I never understood but my statistics teachers emphasized, a sample size of 32 is significant.
Consistent with the logic of inferential statistics, such a sample should be representative of the population as a whole; i.e. the characteristics observed in the AAIS sample should closely correspond to characteristics that would be observed in the whole AAIS population.
Then, using Google searches of the sample names, all the publications of all 32 AAIS members in the sample were observed. Of the dozens of publications observed, none were dedicated studies of south of Rome persons, places or events.
Accordingly, again with the logic of inferential statistics, it is logical to conclude that the publications of the whole population of 604 members would also be largely devoid of south of Rome studies.
Accordingly, again with the logic of inferential statistics, it is logical to conclude that the publications of the whole population of 604 members would also be largely devoid of south of Rome studies.
Thus, the mystery! Again, why would north of Rome scholars and teachers, who in their publications and classrooms demonstrate no professional interest in south of Rome studies, invite a south of Rome historian such as John Dickie to be the Keynote Speaker at their professional conference?
My hypothesis: It’s a women’s thing!
Test of the hypothesis:
Having copied the AAIS membership list into a spreadsheet, it is easy, albeit extremely tedious, to determine the proportion of women to men in the organization. Using first names as indicators, each of the 604 members was identified as either Male or Female.
Then using the Excel 'count function', it was determined that (drum roll) 417 (69%) of the AAIS members were women, and only 187 (31%) men. Women outnumber men by more than 2 to 1.
The implication of the gender bias character of the AAIS membership:
The women of AAIS wanted Dickie as their Keynote Speaker becasue the topic of his presentations was – hello – “WOMEN in the Mafia”.
Having copied the AAIS membership list into a spreadsheet, it is easy, albeit extremely tedious, to determine the proportion of women to men in the organization. Using first names as indicators, each of the 604 members was identified as either Male or Female.
Then using the Excel 'count function', it was determined that (drum roll) 417 (69%) of the AAIS members were women, and only 187 (31%) men. Women outnumber men by more than 2 to 1.
The implication of the gender bias character of the AAIS membership:
The women of AAIS wanted Dickie as their Keynote Speaker becasue the topic of his presentations was – hello – “WOMEN in the Mafia”.
It is a reasonable hypothesis that the 417 AAIS women were interested in any historiography of women, even if it means casting their gaze away from the sacred Arno Valley to women south of Rome.
The AAIS male minority of Arno Valley oriented academicians would predictably go along with the majority women’s south of Rome speaker decision. Male academicians, in all the humanities and social sciences, under pain of unemployment, are always politically correct and few issues are more politically correct than women’s issues.
DISCLAIMER: Posts published in i-Italy are intended to stimulate a debate in the Italian and Italian-American Community and sometimes deal with controversial issues. The Editors are not responsible for, nor necessarily in agreement with the views presented by individual contributors.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - RIPRODUZIONE VIETATA.This work may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission.
Questo lavoro non può essere riprodotto, in tutto o in parte, senza permesso scritto.
Add a comment
-
This Blog
-
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Most Commented
