Those crazy leftist Europeans are holding their randomly scheduled, sometimes annual, oftentimes monthly, Gender Summit in London’s Bush House, on Kings College Campus, formerly the home of media giant British Broadcasting Company (BBC). This will be the 15th congregation of the summit, thus giving it the nickname "GS15."
This year’s rapidly approaching brouhaha is titled "United in Science and through Science" with a mission statement even feminist theorists and privileged old white men can agree on, when they ebulliently and breathlessly claim, “Our aim is to make gender equality in research and innovation the norm.”
Organizers of the summit have found it quite disparaging and untenable to comprehend in this day and age that all genders are not equally represented, so throw gender issues into the mix almost as an afterthought. Burdening an already hefty program:
“GS15 builds on past discussions and recommendations and tackles fresh gender issues, in the context of new concerns such as: Brexit, impact of climate change, addressing societal challenges; opportunities and consequences of digital transformation, the 4th Industrial Revolution; strengthening societal responsibility and relevance of research and innovation; ensuring the success of the UN Sustainable Development agenda; and managing the interactions between scientific, political and policy agendas in a rapidly changing world.”
What does that even mean? It appears the GS15 is a giant chopped salad of summits with the topic of girl-power tossed in as crunchy croutons and bacon bits. How will they ever fit this amount of content into two short days while pandering to feminists? Will there be a bra burning bonfire on the front walk? Asking for a friend.
Who is Responsible for This?
The summit is sponsored by heavy hitters in science and technology through their own private non-profit foundations.
Elsevier Foundation, the charitable arm of a global information analytics business of the same name, that “helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance,” is a sponsor. The foundation spends $1 million each year in assisting other charities to promote women in science and research, economic sustainability, and innovation in the healthcare industry.
They sponsored microbial ecologist Merja Itävaara of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, to visit Myanmar to dodge maniacs bent on genocidal cleansing and to chat about building the nation’s environmental sciences.
Another grand sponsor is NordForsk, a foundation designed to help facilitate Nordic company cooperation on “research and research infrastructure” in the fields of healthcare sciences.
Other sponsors on the roster include Portia, an organization devoted to gender in science, the University of Oxford, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (say that three times fast), and a host of smaller secular institutions in the United Kingdom. And all are committed to pushing girls into science, math, and technology fields, and promoting the advances of women scientists — because they seem to be woefully under-served in these fields.
Understood. And if this summit produces a plan to encourage girls in the STEM fields, great!
There was a time when women in any of the aforementioned fields were the exception. But strides have been made on every level to close the inequality gap, for four plus decades. Heck, the United States has done away with gender identifiers in a host of traditionally male or female institutions. Transgendered kids are competing against traditional gendered kids in their “I identify as…fill in the blank” in sports, the Scouts may as well have the tagline, “Let’s get teens knocked up on our retreats,” and who knows who you will find airing their junk in the public restrooms these days.
Sure, it’s a noble concept, this Gender Summit. But what is there left to destroy of the traditional role that the other 99% hold dear? Stop pushing neutrality and strive for excellence regardless of gender, if you please.
