Research Project: Long Beach Scuba Show 2023 Zane Rose

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The Long Beach Scuba show is The scuba diving industry is Introduction

Investigate the gender and racial makeup of the Long Beach Scuba Show's printed Event Guide in two different areas: Purpose I had originally planned on reviewing a third area: the event staff (by gender and title). However, the only information available about the staff's demographics were their names and titles. Because of this, I decided to only focus on advertising and presenters. 1. Advertising 2. Presenters

● Determine demographics categories ● Review advertisements and official presenters in printed guide from Long Beach Scuba Show 2023 ● Collect demographics into spreadsheets ● Analyze results Methods Categories of Gender: Male, Female, Other or Unknown Categories of Race: white/light-skinned, POC, Unknown/Not Visible

Gender was determined by the presence or absence of several factors: Hair length, eyebrow grooming, jewelry, facial hair, body shape, breast/chest shape, and makeup. Race was determined by a combination of several factors: Skin tone, eye shape, name origin, and hairstyle. Methods A note about sociological identifications of race and gender and how i really couldn’t find a good one to use sorry Also cases where it was difficult to see specific details of the people shown

I am aware of the limitations and risk of stereotyping due to attempting to identify people’s race and gender based on names and appearances alone. This also essentially erases people whose gender presentation is different from their identity, people with mixed racial backgrounds, and others. For future research, a more accurate assessment could be accomplished by contacting each of the presenters directly and asking them if they would like to self-identify for this project. Additionally, one could reach out to the advertised companies and request information about the models used in their printed advertisements. However, these methods were outside of the scope of this project. In addition, this research project aimed to evaluate the visual (perceived) representations of race and gender. Methods Disclaimer:

Text Other version of Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I want to acknowledge that it is not always possible to discern gender or race simply by looking at a photo. Racial and gender identity is widely varied and complex. Additionally, I was limited to using stereotypical markers of race and gender, according to my American/Western background. Finally, because many of the photos were taken underwater and with scuba gear that covered most of the head and body, it was sometimes difficult to determine skin tone, body shape, and facial appearance. Because of these things all together, it is possible that I may have misidentified people in the images. For a more thorough and accurate assessment, a researcher would need to contact each advertising company to request demographics information on the people in the photos, and possibly speak to those people directly to learn how they self-identify. Header: make a copy

● Review all advertisements in printed event guide ● Record how many people were visible in each image ● Assess how many of the people in the image appeared to be male, female, other genders, or whether it was too difficult to discern gender presentation, based on chosen criteria Methods: Advertising

There were more women than men in the images. [how many?] The vast majority of people in all the advertisements were white-appearing. There were only visible POC in one advertisement. ^ change the language on this, please. how are we saying "looks white/POC" for this? Results: Advertising

● Review all presenter bios ● Add all of the names to list ● Add presenters' gender and race, based on chosen criteria ● Mark which presenters were presenting on which topics ● Presentations with more than one presenter were listed on separate lines, and marked accordingly. ● Presenters who gave more than one presentation were listed on separate lines, and marked accordingly. Methods: Presenters

● 19 of the presenters did not have bios in the event guide. ○ It was not clear to me why some presenters had bios and others did not. ● There were 66 total presentations. One presentation did not list the name(s) of the presenter(s). ● Most of the multi-presenter talks were given by 2 people. One presentation was given by 3 men. Observations: Presenters

● There were 51 listed presenters: 35 men and 16 women. ○ Approximately 68.63% of the presenters were men and 31.37% were women. ● There appeared to be no presenters who were non-binary or other genders. ● 4 of the women presenters were co-presenting with a man, and 12 gave presentations on their own. ● 17 men presented multiple times, compared to only 4 women. (33.33% of men compared to 7.84% of women) ○ All 4 of the women who presented more than once were co-presenting with a man. Results: Presenters Source: 2023 Long Beach Scuba Show Event Guide

● Male-dominated ● White-dominated ● More women were displayed in advertisements than men, but this is still indicative of men's control of the space. ○ “Male gaze”? ○ Examples of women being used as "props" in advertising ■ 1 zipped-down dive skins ■ 2 ● Pervasive whiteness throughout; hardly any POC presence ● Whiteness is often seen as the "norm" or "default" ● Women are more valued visually, while men are more valued as presenters/educators. ● Significantly more men were presenters than women. ● 30.7% of women who gave presentations were co-presenting with men ● [# ? ] of men gave multiple presentations. [# ? ] of women also presented multiple times, but women only presented multiple times if they were presenting with a man. ○ None of the women presented alone more than once. ● Not only were more men given an opportunity to speak, but more men were given the opportunity to speak multiple times. (This privilege was only given to the women who shared the podium with a man.) Analysis

● Any visual representation of disability? ● Are there better ways to categorize people in visual media by race and gender? ● What would we like to see in the future? ○ Long Beach Scuba Show ○ Scuba diving in general ● taking the study further in the future: reaching out to presenters, advertisers, staff members, even event participants ● how this applies to the wider field of scuba diving ● What steps can be taken in order to increase equality and diversity within the Long Beach Scuba Show, and scuba diving in general? [no. better title.]

Summary

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Zane Rose 2023