While I can certainly understand where the woman who wrote this article is coming from, I really enjoy hearing and seeing women in tech. I work in tech, albeit peripherally (EA/Admin role at the moment, just getting in the door), and 99% of the time I feel like I've wandered into a men's club. I am treated really well by my male colleagues (I'm lucky enough to work with a group of kind, talented people, though), and generally am treated well by the men I meet at meetups and the SF tech scene, but they don't see me as a threat. I'm not on GitHub responding to code reviews and changing things they've worked on. I'm not competing for their jobs. I have a feeling that the second that happened, a large percentage of the men who are now cordial to me would be less than that.
I guess my point is that though I see why nobody wants to be a token female on a panel, and nobody should be coerced into giving talks they're uncomfortable or unqualified for, as a woman just stepping into the scene, it would be really great to see more women speaking out visibly in the field.
Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
171–180 of 375 posts
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If women are disadvantaged Except they're not. In fact, in tech, they're advantaged. Female names on resumes get more callback than male names. This has been studied. The reason there are fewer of them is because fewer of them are interested.
I'd like a source for that, since my understanding was the opposite.[1] Quoting from the abstract: "In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hire…
I would argue that it's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was great and necessary when women really were disadvantaged. But now that they are generally "equal", it's detrimental to them. I.e. It's entirely plausible that society is self-correcting against the unfairly-claimed bias by...being biased. One can "factually" be certain that men are not "favoured", therefore they can treat men exactly as they see it. They take their degrees, their experience, their work at face-value. However, they can not honestly do so with women because they know that there is a claimed bias against them. Therefore all work, degrees, experience, etc, of women is suspect as there is no way to know which items were "embellished" to promote the "equality" of women.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#173I went to ngconf this year and two of the talks that stood out to me were given by women. One was the angular materials talk / demo and it was amazing. The presenter was exuding tech prowess, I was blown away by how easy she made it look to make a dog adoption website. One of the best talks. The other was by the CEO of girl scouts giving a patronizing 5 minute talk about how we need all help women in tech succeed and…
Some people are completely lost on the idea of intent vs the result. If we're not 50/50 on gender balance apparently we're all super racist.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#174I went to a recent tech conference and a few things came back when I read this article. In particular that the conf had a lot more female talkers than male ones (It was curated and invitation based). Most talks were good but a handful were nuggets where clearly the deciding factor why that person got the talk was because she was a woman and not her expertise in the area. Your typical dose of women who code talks were…
Most talks were good but a handful were nuggets where clearly the deciding factor why that person got the talk was because she was a woman and not her expertise in the area.
And how did you come to "know" this, exactly? As opposed to merely speculating that that's what the deciding factor was?
Really, now -- please do tell.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a member of a disadvantaged group, you often do not have the ability to identify as a professional first and a group member second. That is the effect of being disadvantaged. Other people will make your life seem primarily about being a group member. Think about dealing with sexist/sexually-charged comments, racial tension at the office. Even if you want to just be a professional, other people will get in…
Argue for your limitations, and surely they're yours. To the extent that you can focus on what is under your personal control, you are likely to be happier and more productive. To the extent that you focus on things that are not under your control and can't be changed, you will be unhappy, unproductive, and will have a built-in excuse for your failures. This is not an either-or choice, it is a spectrum. And the farth…
Nah man, of course it diminishes their challenges. You literally start your post by diminishing their challenges; you do this in response to a post that makes the highly uncontroversial point that minorities are perceived differently in the workplace.
The interesting thing is that your line of advice really just needs a single, model minority person to prove it right. "Look! She didn't accede to the haters! Please ignore all the other people like her who gave up along the way! She obviously focused on what was under her personal control, and that's all that mattered."
But it isn't all that matters. If that were true, diversity in tech would not be an issue. Instead, only the most resilient people, those most willing to overlook the ongoing and systemic discrimination, make it.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#176I personally know several successful professional women who have a policy of refusing to belong to any women-only groups. Their reason is that in their experience such groups are populated by people seeking reassurance. The result is that they offer the "support" of lowered expectations. Which won't help you succeed. One also pointed out to me that if a group of men were to form a men's only business club, that would…
There's nothing wrong with seeking reassurance. Not everyone can be naturally confident, and in most cases the lack of it becomes a barrier. Take maths in British schools for example: most kids presume that it's hard, and I've witnessed many times when they just refuse to try and have a go because of this pop delusion (because yeah, it's almost cool to be bad in maths). But I've also taught lower set kids where their learning (and consequently test scores) boosted significantly once they realised that the 'fear' was all in their heads.
But confidence is not like a switch that can be flipped on/off. It might surge, but then it will tail off again. So you need support - not necessarily all the time - that's enough to push you back up in the air. In the classroom, a good mentor will give you that. In an environment that is often perceived by a group of people to be a bit 'scary' - like tech - the occasional empowerment talk will give you that. That's why I don't (well, no longer) see these "women" talks as awkward - on the contrary, they are much needed. You might roll your eyes, but there will be some in the audience feeling just a little less scared about the too-big-for-me ideas in their heads - and so increase the likelihood of executing them.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#177I can't wait to hear what a bunch of white men think about this article!
Because people's opinions should totally be discounted based on the color of their skin! Privileged or not, I will never support those who try to fight that privilege with discrimination and censorship.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#178I 100% agree with this article. Whenever I am invited to talk, I always speak about my work and expertise, as opposed to women in tech stuff, because being there and being good at what I do, is much more effective than statements about diversity (IMHO). The only time I've done women in tech type conversations, it's been in small, intimate settings for an all-female audience. In that scenario, it makes sense to discuss the challenges and learn from each other.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a member of a disadvantaged group, you often do not have the ability to identify as a professional first and a group member second. That is the effect of being disadvantaged. Other people will make your life seem primarily about being a group member. Think about dealing with sexist/sexually-charged comments, racial tension at the office. Even if you want to just be a professional, other people will get in…
Argue for your limitations, and surely they're yours. To the extent that you can focus on what is under your personal control, you are likely to be happier and more productive. To the extent that you focus on things that are not under your control and can't be changed, you will be unhappy, unproductive, and will have a built-in excuse for your failures. This is not an either-or choice, it is a spectrum. And the farth…
I'd argue that there are other reasons for seeking a group of one's similarly disadvantaged peers than 'focusing on things that are not under your control'. Simply being in the presence of individuals with similar experiences offers solidarity, which is not equivalent to focusing on the negatives of those experiences. Nor would I agree that 'seeking reassurances' (quote from grandparent) necessarily leads to lowered expectations.
Re: Why I won’t give talks about being a woman in tech
#180I personally know several successful professional women who have a policy of refusing to belong to any women-only groups. Their reason is that in their experience such groups are populated by people seeking reassurance. The result is that they offer the "support" of lowered expectations. Which won't help you succeed. One also pointed out to me that if a group of men were to form a men's only business club, that would…
There's nothing wrong with seeking reassurance. Not everyone can be naturally confident, and in most cases the lack of it becomes a barrier. Take maths in British schools for example: most kids presume that it's hard, and I've witnessed many times when they just refuse to try and have a go because of this pop delusion (because yeah, it's almost cool to be bad in maths). But I've also taught lower set kids where their…
It's kind of unnerving how many responses in this thread boil down to "well, it doesn't work for me, I never needed emotional assistance, so it's not useful for anyone."