>Or as many female speakers as speakers called Steve?
Three is enough for a coven. After that, things get hairy very quickly. Disappointed this turned out to be a parody, it would be a marvellous and amusing thing to do.
KatieConf
61–68 of 68 posts
Re: KatieConf
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there are enough women named Katie to fill a compelling conference schedule, anyone running a conference who can't find women named anything at all is clearly not even trying.
Maybe it's not the organizers, but the attendees are exhibiting self selection bias? Maybe males have a stronger urge to seek reputation/fame, so are more likely apply to conferences? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-selection_bias
That's a perfectly possible reason! So, as a conference organizer or attendee, do you want talks from people who seek reputation and fame, or do you want the best speakers?
Re: KatieConf
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I think your point is superficially valid, I'd ask you this – what if you had the power to change something that you admit is less than ideal (i.e.: the lack of a wide variety of speakers, or even the exclusion of a group) – if you had that power and didn't use it, wouldn't you be part of the problem? All of this is a vicious circle – women don't apply to be speakers at many tech conferences in equal numbers as…
Aren't amongst peers? I mean I get the concern about gender imbalance, really I do, but to feel that someone is a 'peer' in a professional context really shouldn't require identical genital configurations, surely?
First off – gender isn't always equal to genitals – I gather you're trying to be light hearted in that but it's an example that highlights the fact it can be hard to understand situations outside of the mainstream.
If you reject my explanation for why there are so few women in tech and in tech conferences, I'd request you offer another one that doesn't depend on things like "they don't like math or technology", etc. The data shows that women leave tech/IT/engineering fields – why is that?
Explanations like the one I offered are simple and make sense, (of course, IMHO) and it's not really as much conjecture as you might think. A very close analogy can be seen in Schelling's Model of Segregation: http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling-model-segreg... – essentially, it's an agent based model that shows how segregation can evolve from even a minor preference for being those similar to one's self.
It's not an indictment of men or women in tech, but it shows how even small preferences can end up having big impact.
Re: KatieConf
#64People here are saying that this page is trying to create awareness that there are enough females in technology to ensure greater numbers of female speakers at conferences, and that conferences should try harder to achieve that. Why is that the responsibility of the conference? As far as I'm aware most conferences call for proposals to be submitted. Whether or not anyone of a particular group applies to speak at that…
Everytime we try blind auditions we see more women being picked. It's the responsibility of the conference to guard against bias.
Sometimes you get Curtis Yarvin.
Re: KatieConf
#65In case anyone was wondering as to the point of the parody: > If you are looking for speakers for your conference, why not ask one of the wonderful people featured here? They are all listed with their Twitter accounts, and a link to some of their prior talks. > Do you really need another conference lineup of all men? Or as many female speakers as speakers called Steve? I suspect it is a direct rebuttal to the argumen…
> "Do you really need another conference lineup of all men?" If they are the subject matter experts, then yes, I would prefer they are all present, and none of them be excluded because we are searching for faux diversity. When the subject is one's technical knowledge, the actual genetic makeup of the person making the presentation doesn't matter. It's strange that, to some, this is somehow a controversial statement.
It's strange that, to some, this is somehow a controversial statement.
For a conference to say "we couldn't find enough subject-matter-qualified women", one of the following must be true:
* The least qualified speaker on their roster is still more qualified than literally every woman currently living, or
* Something about their conference failed to attract (or worse, repelled) half the population of the planet.
The first is statistically extremely unlikely. The second is more likely, and represents a problem with the conference rather than the pool of potential speakers.
Unfortunately, telling people "the problem is with your conference and not with the pool of speakers" is a controversial statement despite being painfully obvious.
This is without getting into the "faux diversity" insult which implies that there is something about women as a class which naturally makes them less qualified (since, obviously, conferences select purely on qualifications and just coincidentally end up heavily or often entirely male) -- if you didn't believe women are inherently less qualified, you wouldn't think that having women speak was necessarily a relaxing of qualifications or only done for "diversity".
Here's another true-but-sadly-controversial statement: if you believe what you're saying, then the kind of tech conferences you'd likely run are actually affirmative action for people who look and think like you. And I bet you wouldn't want anyone saying you only got in because they give preferential treatment to people like you, right?
Re: KatieConf
#66Malkovich.
Malkovich, Malkovich.
Re: KatieConf
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://lanyrd.com/2012/benconf/
Having attended Benconf (which was really, really great), and only having skim read this page (I'm not called Katie, it's not in the UK), I didn't realise this was a parody...
How absolutely British of you to do that for the sheer eccentricity of it.
Re: KatieConf
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
What sort of black people do you expect to find in Australia in significant numbers?
Not OP, but what about Aboriginal Australians?
Not really here in significant numbers. Approximately 3% of the population. Not sure how many would be called Kate either.
Probably a good opportunity for a similar site emphasising Aboriginal people in business and tech.