One of the terrible effects of skewed populations -- when a minority equals less than 15% of a population -- is tokenism.

Cyberlyra

One of the terrible effects of skewed populations -- when a minority equals less than 15% of a population -- is tokenism. Being called 'the token' female/black/trans person is one symptom of this proportional effect. You are wheeled out as the example of 'we have an x!' while tested for loyalty by members, any reward you get is special treatment and can't possibly be merited--and when one other totally different human than you somewhere that has nothing to do with you does something bad, you are blamed for it as a member of the group you purportedly represent.

This effect is alleviated at 30% full participation, but if between 1-15% you are allowed to be there as a twisted example of benighted acceptance, between 15-30% the majority will 'backlash' as they see your emergence as taking something from them, illicit or ill-gotten gains. So getting to 30 is made especially hard as the game changes as you go.

This is Rosabeth Kanter's observation in 1977 and it holds. I thought of it when Google's workforce reached 17% women and the 'bean counting' group emerged as a prominent antagonistic force. When CERN got to 17% and one male scientist went off about how girls can't do physics. I think of it with my black and POC friends in all white spaces they encounter.

I am thinking of my trans friends today. Hang in there, everyone.

This is also why allies matter. It is up to those in majority situations to recognize the symptoms of tokenism, call it out for what it is, and stand up for people who are unjustly blamed for another human's actions because of some characteristic they share.

WesDym

@cyberlyra Very early in the run-up to marriage equality (Vermont days, for whomever remembers that), there was a sensational murder case involving a woman and her (clearly EXTREMELY ex-)girlfriend. I was asked what I thought about that, as if my thoughts about it might be more meaningful than anyone else's. I said, it goes to show that we have a lot more in common with the general public than different.

André Polykanine

@cyberlyra Although this seems logical, we can't deny there are groups of people who will never achieve such numbers as 30%. there won't be 30% of trans people (just statistically and by anatomy), there won't be 30% of blind people (I'm blind, and I'd never ever wanted to have a population with 30% of blind people — something would have been deeply wrong with such population). And there is no viable solution. Again, to quote an example closest to me, there is a German town called Marburg, where there is a huge school, library and edition for the blind. Of course there awareness is super-high, like every cashier at every shop knows how to help a blind person if he/she is struggling with something. But de facto this is ghettoization which is bad in lots of ways.