EA, rationality, gender ratios and harassment

April 28, 2023

If the gender ratio in some group is significantly skewed in favor of men, each woman in that group probably experiences more harassment than women in other social settings with more even gender ratios.

Consider a simplified case with two social clubs: Even and Uneven. 50% of members of Even are women, while only 10% of Uneven are. Now, suppose that 1% of men harass women. Then, in a gathering of Uneven with 1000 attendees, there would be 9 harassers targeting 100 women (~1:11 ratio). In contrast, in a same-sized gathering of Even, there would be 5 harassers targeting 500 women (1:100 ratio). So, the probability of each woman being targeted by a harasser is lower in Even than in Uneven. For it to be the case that women in Uneven experience the same amount of harassment as women in Even, men in Uneven would need to be less likely to harass women than the average man in Even.

There has been a lot of discussion about harassment in effective altruism and rationality recently (see for example this and this). However, there is disagreement about whether there is more harassment in these movements than is expected given their sizes. Are effective altruists and rationalists more prone to harassing than other people? Do these movements have “a toxic culture of sexual harassment and abuse”?

It can both be true that men in effective altruism and rationality have typical likelihoods of harassing, and that there is a wider problem of harassment going on (compared to other social settings). Both movements have gender ratios favoring men. For example, 33% of attendees at EA Global events in 2022 self-reported as female or non-binary (link to survey). And a little over 10% of Astral Codex Ten survey respondents indicated they are women (link to survey). Given these gender ratios, women in effective altruism and rationality would experience more harassment than women in other social settings even if men in these movements are no more prone to harassing than other men.

But it is also possible that the average man in effective altruism and rationality is less likely to harass women than the average man in other social settings. I can think of some reasons for this: being more educated, being too shy to make advances, aspiring to high moral standards (effective altruism) etc. These factors might be enough to counterbalance the effect of skewed gender ratios. On the other hand, effective altruists and rationalists might be more socially clumsy and open to breaking social norms, which could predispose them to harassing.

To summarize, skewed gender ratios might mean that women in effective altruism and rationality experience more harassment than women in other social settings (especially so in rationality, given that the skew is greater). This can happen even if men in effective altruism and rationality are no more prone to harassing than other men.

Ratios of harassers to women in effective altruism, rationality and Even with 0.1%, 1% and 10% of men being harassers:

	Effective Altruism	Rationality	Even
0.1%	1:499	1:136	1:1000
1%	1:50	1:14	1:100
10%	1:5	1:1	1:10