📣🚨 Action Alert | Women Can't Possibly Be Experts on Anything of Substance, Right? CFR and The New Yorker Need to Get It Together.

This article from the Council on Foreign Relations, sent to us by a loyal GenderAvenger follower, starts out like this:

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) welcomes the 2020–21 visiting fellows to the David Rockefeller Studies Program. Selected fellows have the opportunity to broaden their perspective of foreign affairs through a year in residence at the Council.

If we had written it, it might have said:

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) welcomes the 2020-21 visiting fellows, who are primarily men, because women can’t possibly be experts on the topic. Selected fellows, again, almost entirely men, have the opportunity to continue the man-centric perspective of foreign affairs through a year in residence at the Council, and the remainder of their lives, really.

And you know this gender imbalance doesn’t stop at foreign relations. Take this article in The New Yorker, shared by Esther Choo, about COVID-19: there are 12 experts quoted, and 11 of them are men. Choo said it best when she tweeted, “writers, please reflect the world we live in, in which women of all kinds make contributions to science and have a voice to contribute.”

It’s time for this to stop. Authors, organizers, those who choose foreign relations fellows, and everyone in between needs to recognize that there are women experts in EVERY field and their voices and opinions should be heard. Don’t know any? Really? Ask.

CFR and The New Yorker can do better.

When @choo_ek said “writers, please reflect the world we live in, in which women of all kinds make contributions to science and have a voice to contribute,” it could been about any industry. Women are experts too. cc: @CFR_org @NewYorker #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/action-alert-cfr-new-yorker-need-to-get-it-together