Why I won't speak at women-only events
guardian.co.uk
Why I won't speak at women-only events
1–10 of 136 posts
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#2I've attended several gender balance events (in politics, more than tech) and been one of the 2-3% of the audience who were male. They were some of the best I've been to, and I wish more dudes would turn up and learn from them.
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#3She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to.
The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities.
There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual assault, legal issues), but those tend to be done best as small groups anyway - it's a lot harder for a 1000 person auditorium to be a true "safe space".
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#4[deleted]
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#5Sounds like she was living in a real-world circlejerk without realizing it.
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#6She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual…
That's a danger, but it's not a guarantee. And I think you're not seeing some of the benefits of a single-gender event. For example, Mz pointed out one reason you might want a women-only event: a good reason to have some "ladies only" groups is because of the way a lot of women behave around men, not because of the way men behave around women or because "men are all sexist pigs". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5272532
That said, I don't think the article is about intentionally women-only events. I think she was planning to talk to men as well, and the men though she wasn't talking to them.
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#7She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual…
How would you feel about an event with a female only speaker list?
Instinctively, it raises my hackles, because positive discrimination is still discrimination, but I've seen it work really well in stand up comedy.
Women standups only events have a very different feel, but you are also more likely to see women do standup that is normally male territory. So you might see an angry female political shock comic, whereas mainstream female comics tend to do observational humor about life.
I'd suggest that there is value in creating a situation where vacuum causes people to fill roles they normally feel they don't fit the expectation for.
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#8She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual…
How would you feel about an event with a female only speaker list? Instinctively, it raises my hackles, because positive discrimination is still discrimination, but I've seen it work really well in stand up comedy. Women standups only events have a very different feel, but you are also more likely to see women do standup that is normally male territory. So you might see an angry female political shock comic, whereas…
Are they all qualified speakers who are insightful and sharing something I can learn from? In that case, I wouldn't mind one bit.
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#9She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual…
I think the more powerful aspect isnt even the gender biases but how she frames her potential future talks as basically "You want to follow me because it makes economic sense."
Arguments about fairness quickly fall apart because (I believe) the vast majority agrees with tenets of fairness, but they don't see how it effects their bottom line.
Re: Why I won't speak at women-only events
#10She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual…
How would you feel about an event with a female only speaker list? Instinctively, it raises my hackles, because positive discrimination is still discrimination, but I've seen it work really well in stand up comedy. Women standups only events have a very different feel, but you are also more likely to see women do standup that is normally male territory. So you might see an angry female political shock comic, whereas…
I'd probably attend, because I tend to be curious about things and I'd want to see how an event with only female speakers operated differently from 'business as usual'.
Stereotypically, females tend to do the front-end, QA, and design aspects (not saying this is always true or that it should be true, just that this is the common stereotype). So I would find it cool to have more women speaking about "hardcore" stuff like language and compiler implementation in C, low-level optimization, and so forth.