An open Letter to Women in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#21

Post by aspir » Fri, May 18, 2012, 6:53 PM UTC

factorial wrote: post #11

aspir wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conferences are lower margin than you think, particularly in tech. They're normally thrown for the good of the community or as a loss leader for some other business/product. If you're lucky, there's a slim profit that can be reinvested into the next conference, or that allows you to pay yourself for the insane hours put into planning. In all, tech conferences are generally a labor of love.

This certainly does not apply to conferences that cost a cool four figures to attend and are geared towards the corporate market. Nobody can tell me that the organizers are not making money.

Oh definitely -- Legal, Medical, Real Estate, "Corporate Leadership" -- those guys are definitely out for the payday. They also usually are thrown by niche publication/magazine firms, so there's even more to be made.

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#22

Post by ryandvm » Fri, May 18, 2012, 7:55 PM UTC

adrianhoward wrote: post #9

This post prompted me to go check the people we accepted onto the UX stage of Agile 2012 - and we have a 50/50 male/female split. Merit based - sex wasn't a factor in picking speakers. Makes me rather proud of the community we've built up in that particular field over the years. And community building is what changes things in my experience. People attend conferences to have fun and learn. Speaker or audience. Lose s…

> we have a 50/50 male/female split. Merit based - sex wasn't a factor in picking speakers

In a field overpopulated by males at a rate of about 9:1, half of the most qualified speakers you picked were female? Statistically, that doesn't reflect well on the skill of men. I would have expected a merit-based selection process to produce candidates in the same sex ratio as the sampled population.

I had no idea a woman was four times as valuable as a man...

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#23

Post by hej » Fri, May 18, 2012, 8:44 PM UTC

Nice victim blaming.

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#24

Post by adrianhoward » Fri, May 18, 2012, 8:55 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #22

adrianhoward wrote: post #9

This post prompted me to go check the people we accepted onto the UX stage of Agile 2012 - and we have a 50/50 male/female split. Merit based - sex wasn't a factor in picking speakers. Makes me rather proud of the community we've built up in that particular field over the years. And community building is what changes things in my experience. People attend conferences to have fun and learn. Speaker or audience. Lose s…

> we have a 50/50 male/female split. Merit based - sex wasn't a factor in picking speakers In a field overpopulated by males at a rate of about 9:1, half of the most qualified speakers you picked were female? Statistically, that doesn't reflect well on the skill of men. I would have expected a merit-based selection process to produce candidates in the same sex ratio as the sampled population. I had no idea a woman wa…

In a field overpopulated by males at a rate of about 9:1

Intriguing. Where did you get this statistic on folk qualified to speak on integrating UX and Agile? It's a fairly narrow field that I'm intimately familiar with and I've never come across a gender breakdown.

Oh wait... the Agile 2012 submission process is an open one... so I can just go look to see what sessions were submitted.

Of the 51 session proposals submitted to the UX stage there were 19 female and 40 male speakers (this adds up to more than 51 because some sessions had multiple speakers) - so judging by submissions that ratio is 2:1. If we only look at the primary speaker of each session we have a 8/5 split. So, statistically, the men don't come off too badly. Good for us boys.

If you're worried about a gender bias in the CFP then you can find an example at http://www.ixda.org/node/31640 - they were sent to many other places but were all pretty much variations on the same theme.

The session reviews and session submissions are public. Just register at http://submit2012.agilealliance.org/ and browse around. If you detected a bias that has caused us to reject an excellent submission please let me know. Wouldn't want that. We try an make the submission process better each year.

One way that the Agile 20XX conferences differ from many others is that we have a public review process. The review panel gives feedback on proposals - and submitters have a chance to clarify and improve their session proposals. I'm too lazy to go through the history of each session to see whether women were more likely to improve their sessions based on feedback. Can't say I noticed any difference at the time - but it's possible that may explain the difference.

[Edit: Hmmm... it might be a factor at that. More men submitted at the last minute when there wasn't enough time for submissions to be updated after the reviewers feedback - so they lost out on a couple of potential feedback loops.]

I had no idea a woman was four times as valuable as a man...

Or maybe it's just that we try quite hard not to say things like this.

[Edit: removed one unnecessarily harsh word]

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#25

Post by roopeshv » Fri, May 18, 2012, 9:25 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #12

factorial wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume that the community is unwelcoming toward women? Isn't it just equally plausible that women just don't really want to be in technology-oriented fields? Maybe they just much rather prefer other areas. I know, the thought that men and women are actually different is deeply troubling to those who think that the only differentiator beween the sexes are a couple of sex organs.

I'm not just making assumptions. e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3731441 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3894404 and https://plus.google.com/106119964731604142156/posts/DkFAzuwm... and a lot of other stories. I do believe that's the only difference, actually. Girls are not encouraged to enter tech nearly as often as boys are. Also they have fewer women as role models in tech. So it's not surprising…

having 10 anecdotes is not data. and opinion is not data. you do understand that much right. if i were to give you anecdotes, probably i can pull off a hundred of those right of the internet (probably there's a subreddit for that too), arguing the exact opposite.

of all the people saying how they are so pro-evidence are falling back to these one off anecdotes, just upsets me. no you didnot provide evidence, you showed a case.

if a gender has to be given a easier option to be included just because of their gender, what kind of stupid equality is that.

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#26

Post by wpietri » Sat, May 19, 2012, 12:25 AM UTC

factorial wrote: post #10

sp332 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having "too few" women give talks isn't a problem. It's just a symptom of the fact that the community is unwelcoming toward women. That's what we're really trying to fix.

Why do you assume that the community is unwelcoming toward women? Isn't it just equally plausible that women just don't really want to be in technology-oriented fields? Maybe they just much rather prefer other areas. I know, the thought that men and women are actually different is deeply troubling to those who think that the only differentiator beween the sexes are a couple of sex organs.

Why would one assume that?

Aside from the millennia of oppression of women, you mean, keeping them out of every professional field? And aside from endemic gender stereotyping that pushes women strongly away from "hard" professions and toward "soft" ones? Oh, and aside from the dozens of conversations I've had with women in tech talking about how they've been mistreated?

Aside from all that, mainly because I'm really suspicious of unprovable arguments for a status quo that's very convenient for the speaker.

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#27

Post by wpietri » Sat, May 19, 2012, 12:27 AM UTC

jamiew wrote: post #2

I'm amazed anybody, male or female, would speak at an event where tickets cost $600 and they won't even pay for speakers' airfare & lodging.

I think that's pretty typical for a conference the speaker would have attended anyhow. I've certainly spoken at conferences like that and been quite happy about it.

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#28

Post by wpietri » Sat, May 19, 2012, 12:32 AM UTC

roopeshv wrote: post #5

ckolderup wrote: post #3

One of the things I think he's overlooking: Frequently the reason that people don't go the extra mile of giving talks or otherwise sharing their thoughts and experiences is that they think that they're not good enough or worth less than other people. Sometimes this results in someone with a really great idea or a unique voice staying quiet. In an industry dominated by men, women have been discouraged from participati…

fuck. same can be said of geeks who don't speak up. there is no one advocating for them. if the stage is open, and you don't take the fucking chance to get in, don't complain.

Two interesting aspects of your argument here. One, you've quietly dismissed any possible sexism. And two, after accurately pointing out a problem, your solution is basically, "well fuck them, then." Nice.

I've been involved in selecting conference speakers, and we went out of our way to find geeks who aren't used to speaking up. Quiet people often have the most interesting things to say.

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#29

Post by sp332 » Sat, May 19, 2012, 12:33 AM UTC

factorial wrote: post #20

sp332 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There is a shortage of software engineers right now. And geeks might be cooler than they used to be but that doesn't mean that everyone is a geek.

Huh? How does this relate to anything either you or I have written in this thread? Now all of a sudden we have to get more women into tech because there is a "shortage right now". Why not motivate more men who may be more interested in tech to begin with? By the way, the alleged shortage is addressed by H1-B visas. They have the welcome side effect of driving down prices of domestic developers, and if this doesn't he…

OK I think I don't know what you're talking about. :) You wondered if men are being pushed into tech instead of other things. But this is clearly not happening because there is a shortage. So men might be more welcome in tech than women, but clearly neither men nor women are being pushed into tech. We know this because there are not enough men (or women) in tech. If they had been pushed, there would not be a shortage. Clearly both men and women should be pushed more :)

Re: An open Letter to Women in Tech

#30

Post by sp332 » Sat, May 19, 2012, 12:45 AM UTC

roopeshv wrote: post #25

sp332 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not just making assumptions. e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3731441 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3894404 and https://plus.google.com/106119964731604142156/posts/DkFAzuwm... and a lot of other stories. I do believe that's the only difference, actually. Girls are not encouraged to enter tech nearly as often as boys are. Also they have fewer women as role models in tech. So it's not surprising…

having 10 anecdotes is not data. and opinion is not data. you do understand that much right. if i were to give you anecdotes, probably i can pull off a hundred of those right of the internet (probably there's a subreddit for that too), arguing the exact opposite. of all the people saying how they are so pro-evidence are falling back to these one off anecdotes, just upsets me. no you didnot provide evidence, you showe…

I don't think I said, or linked to anyone saying, that women should get an easier option than men. My links were intended to show the overall feeling that people in tech have, but if you want hard data, here you go: http://narrowthegapp.com/aat39.txt Here is a description of the environment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1965472 and a non-comprehensive list of infamous events http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents . Obviously these incidents do not involve every member of the hacking community; the point is that they form a pattern of harassment that makes an atmosphere that is not welcoming toward women.