On the revolutionary potential of women in physics groups

Originally published on Toward Decolonizing Physics

I recently got into an interesting discussion with a friend on the revolutionary potential of women in physics groups, and in particular her goal of reinvigorating an existing women in physics group that has long been dominated by cishet white women. I have long written off such groups as possessing little potential for radical change, given the strong resistance of most white women to examining our own privilege within physics. That said, given that my own activism began in a women in physics group in undergraduate (albeit an unusually radical one), I found my friend’s points intriguing and I want to explore this issue more here.

The gist of her argument: due to existing structural factors, women in physics groups are far more prevalent and easier to set up than any other type of marginalized student group in physics. Thus, women in physics groups present an ideal platform for organization and consciousness-raising. Given that women in physics groups often already exist and are easy to form, we should leverage their revolutionary potential to the maximum and use them as a jumping-off point for other change efforts.

The Structural Advantages of Women in Physics Groups

The main argument for the revolutionary potential of women in physics groups is that they are structurally far easier to set up than other affinity groups for marginalized students in physics, at least in the US. APS provides easily-accessible dedicated grant funding to build or grow women in physics groups. Meanwhile, efforts I am familiar with to develop student groups for BIPOC or LGBT+ physicists have run into funding challenges.

Given the importance of conferences as a site for consciousness-raising and networking, women in physics groups at the undergraduate level face an additional benefit. The Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) are inexpensive and dispersed across the country. Including transportation costs, CUWiP costs a factor of 2-3 less per attendee for national conferences like the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) or Out in STEM (oSTEM), according to analysis I performed for my undergraduate department two years ago.

Finally, women in physics groups are also easier to establish from an organizational perspective. At most R1 institutions, (white) women represent the largest marginalized group from which to draw student members at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Almost everywhere, white women are the dominant underrepresented group within faculty, and can serve as mentors for a fledgling women in physics group as well as help convince other faculty to support and fund such a group. Because (for better or for worse) gender is a legal category and is reflected in names, it is usually rather easy to construct a reasonably accurate list of female physics students to assist with recruiting. In contrast, data on other axes of oppression (race, disability, socioeconomic status, LGBT+ identity, etc.) is usually either carefully guarded or nonexistent. Finally, members of women in physics groups can often be open about their membership in the group – a much riskier proposition for those possessing identities that are invisible and/or highly stigmatized – making it much easier to identify leaders and recruit new members.

Given these structural advantages, it is not surprising that women in physics groups seem to dramatically outnumber affinity groups for other marginalized identities within physics. Affinity groups for other identities either tend to span all physical sciences (like oSTEM chapters) and thus are in a weaker position to advocate for change within physics specifically, or struggle to recruit enough members to persist long-term.

The Revolutionary “Anti-Potential” of Women in Physics Groups

The question remains whether the proliferation of women in physics groups are a useful starting point for decolonizing physics, or whether they instead lack revolutionary potential and instead primarily serve the status quo.

The main argument against the revolutionary potential of women in physics groups is that they primarily serve the aims of diversity and inclusion: namely, they help to integrate a relatively privileged group (white women) into the existing physics culture, rather than changing it. In other words, the institutional support for women in physics groups can be seen as a threatened oppressive system “widening the net” by providing a relatively privileged group token inclusion without fundamentally ending oppression. (It is quite common for oppressive systems to stretch their boundaries when under attack; well-documented examples include homonormativity and the evolving definitions of whiteness.)

It is telling that when threatened with diversity and inclusion movements, physics culture starts funding women in physics groups on individual campuses, while similar attempts to organize physicists of color rarely receive funding. Though APS programs exist for recruitment and mentorship of physicists of color, for example, there is a gaping lack of institutional support for consciousness-raising groups. (Physics culture is willing to support token attempts to recruit students of color, but it doesn’t want physicists of color to have spaces to develop their own politics!) Clearly, consciousness-raising by white women in physics is not seen as a particularly strong threat to the status quo.

As long as women in physics groups remain dominated by relatively privileged white women, the revolutionary potential of such groups is probably minimal. Such groups often give lip service to intersectionality, and often achieve valuable changes such as the designation of gender-neutral restrooms or improvement of undergraduate curricula. However, their potential for decolonizing physics is hindered by their very mission, to uplift women in physics. For white women, decolonization fundamentally involves giving up and destroying (not gaining) stature and privilege. None but the most radical women in physics group will ever approach this. Diversity and inclusion promises to make white women co-equal oppressors with white men; decolonization takes away our land.

Unlocking Revolutionary Potential Within

As we have hopefully seen, there is nothing inherently radical or revolutionary about women in physics groups. Left to their own devices, women in physics groups often accomplish good within their departments, but they have minimal potential to actually decolonize physics. However, given the resources available to women in physics groups, it does not make sense to write off their potential.

The first way women in physics groups can achieve revolutionary change is by radicalizing members. Though women in physics groups rarely achieve radical politics, they can be an ideal site for radicalizing multiply-marginalized physicists and empowering individual activists. Many physicists I know (including myself) first dipped their toes into departmental change through women in physics groups. Even if the politics are shallow, it can be empowering to see that you are not alone, and this realization is a key step in a marginalized physicist’s journey. And creating any space for consciousness-raising provides the space for multiply-marginalized physicists and genuine allies to have deeper discussions outside.

The other way women in physics groups can achieve radical change is if they are designed from the start to center multiply-marginalized women. I was involved in such a group in undergraduate, which from its earliest days featured leadership by women of color and trans women. Here the politics were completely different from a typical women in physics group: the focus was on liberation rather than shared womanhood. We used APS women in physics group funding to create a multi-racial coalition of women and gender minorities (and even a fair number of cis men). I suppose an existing white-led women in physics group could be similarly redirected, although this would require dedicated leadership. Used in this way, the women in physics group becomes part of a broader strategy of coalition-building, rather than an isolated group aiming simply to empower women.

Conclusion

Women in physics groups are not inherently revolutionary, but given their structural advantages within physics departments are often the locus of departmental change. It is thus important to consider the revolutionary potential of women in physics groups, in the same way as all coalitions are built. Traditional women in physics groups, when left to their own devices, will never converge upon the politics necessary to decolonize physics. But as part of a coalition, they very well might be a keystone tool in bringing about the type of change we wish to see.