Category: Diversity

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The conference organizer for Office 2.0 has added three more women speakers. Actually, three very impressive women speakers. To address those who think that achieving diversity means giving up quality–you’re a putz.

Speaking of putz, Dennis Howlett wrote the following in comments at Robert Scoble’s weblog related to this issue:

Sadly to say Robert, when you engage the castration crowd, you ain’t never gonna win an argument. Not even come close.

One question to those who agree with Howlett: what are you afraid of? Why is attempting to add 5 or 6 women to a conference of over 50 speakers scare you so much? Are you afraid that the women will have bigger dicks than you? We already know they have more balls.

(And on that note, time to take hands off of keyboard, and back away slowly.)

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Both Tara Hunt and The Head Lemur have written on the Office 2.0 conference and the fact that of the 53 speakers, only one is a woman. Exactly one.

This isn’t a conference on esoteric technology where the participants rush out and say, ‘There are no women who do X’, whatever ‘X’ is. This is a conference that encompasses a broad range of interests related to a concept of Office 2.0, and features people like Michael Arrington and Stowe Boyd, both of whom don’t have any specific technical background.

The conference organizer wrote in Tara’s comments that we should suggest some women and to point out the conference, but that makes little sense when the conference is a month away, the speakers have already been slotted, and the organizer is less interested in representing women and more in getting attention directed to his conference. Well, he has his wish: I am giving him attention.

I have been told that the way to make a difference is for women to be more proactive; to submit proposals for conferences, to put ourselves on lists, to create our own conferences and web sites. I’ve been told these things, and I’ve watched as this has become the ‘accepted’ way to generate change in this Web 2.0 world. The thing is, I don’t see that it’s working.

I see Office 2.0, located in the Silicon Valley the very bastion of women who celebrate the concept of ‘working from within’, and there’s only one woman on the list. One.

There are some women, small numbers, at these conferences but it’s the same group of women; the same ones over and over, as if there’s a list that men pass around of women who are ’safe’ to have at these conferences. Isn’t the point of working from within to open opportunities for all women, not just a few?

Still, if the conference organizer had included at least some from this list, he would have gotten credit for at least making a token effort. But such lack of regard and interest in a woman’s perspective: what would cause a conference organization to go in such a direction?

If my approach of rocking the boat–highlighting such events, using satire and anger in equal parts, to demand to be heard–isn’t the way to go, working quietly from within doesn’t seem to be the right approach either. What other approach, then, do we need to follow? What do we need to do?

I think it’s time, now, that perhaps we ask the men who attend these events to tell us what we need to do. To pick 1 or 2 or 4 or 10 of the people at Office 2.0 and ask them, directly, what is the third approach, the mystery approach, that will suddenly open the doors and bring forth equality. What is the secret? What do the men know that we don’t that gets them invited to conference, that gets them heard in discussions, that gets them linked in debate, that makes them hear and see each other that we women are doing wrong?

Ask them, as they go off to this conference that so obviously values women so little, what other approach do we need to take? This is a conference related to the whole concept of Web 2.0 and moving into the future; held in the year 2006; in an environment where women make up 50% of webloggers and at least 20% of technologists and closer to 50% of marketing, as well as almost half of business professional and lawyers and doctors and I could list you a whole bunch of other statistics–what didn’t work? Why would a conference so related to something of interest equally to women as well as men have such little representation among women?

Ask them directly, these men who go to this conference: what should we do?

Ross Mayfield (speaker profile), you’re hosting the list of potential women speakers from the last set of discussions on this..what should we do?

Stowe Boyd (speaker profile), you’ve been vocal in your condemnation of other conferences that have so few women…what should we do?

Michael Arrington (speaker profile), you profess to want to bring back ‘core values’ into weblogging. Aren’t fairness and equality and diversity core values? Aren’t they, perhaps, the most important core values? If so, what should we women do?

Marc Orchant (speaker profile), you wrote about this for ZD Net, and mentioned about C/Net being a sponsor. I have to wonder how C/Net feels about being associated with a conference that has such an obvious bias against women. Do you know the answer? Can you tell us what women need to do differently?

David Young, your conference photo shows you with your daughter, and your profile says you have two daughters. Do you want them to have an equal opportunity to participate in the web of the future? Rather than increasing in numbers and visibility, we’re actually losing ground in this brave new world. By the time your daughters are in college, at the rate we’re going now, women will make up less than 10% in the fields related to the web and the internet. As a father of daughters, how do you feel about this? What do you think we need to do differently?

Ask the men. Pick one or many. They obviously know how it works. Ask them to share their secrets.

Update

I wanted to point out other voices in this discussion:

Jeneane Sessum–Oh please, do go and read this one. The one woman speaking at Office 2.0 is Kaliya Hamlin: Identity Woman. I should have linked to her originally.

Sour Duck has created a terrific compilation post.

Ken Camp Wants to hear from women interested in VoIP.

Elisa Camahort writes on prioritizing diversity.

Update 2 My apologies to Stowe Boyd for not acknowledging his technical background. I believed when I wrote that bit that Stowe had a journalism background and a strong interest in social software.

Update last Clueless

Update Really Really the last Sheila’s pithy take and a new word: Ismaeled.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Two excellent from Sour Duck:

21st Century Employment: For Many it’s all work, no benefits which is disturbingly true.

Links to stories related to August 26, Women’s Equality Day. I don’t, and won’t, celebrate any holiday which promotes the belief that women are ‘equal’. The day celebrates women getting the vote in the United States, but that doesn’t mean we’ve achieved equality.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Ethan sent me a link to Smart Bitches who Love Trashy Novels who writes about an article that I just now noticed is making all the rounds of the feminist weblogs. And then some.

The article is in Forbes and the premise was that men shouldn’t marry career women (sorry, ‘career’ girls). Why? Because we’ll divorce you, cheat on you, and not take care of the house. Bad womans. Bad, bad womans.

I don’t have the time to do this one justice, especially when others have done such a good job. I’ll just point to a few:

Forbes article and counter-point

Feministe Why you should marry a doormat

BoingBoing post, which also points to several other posts.

Gawker

Shakespeare’s Sister

Pandagon

Alternative take by Slate–note, I do not have long nails, can I use yours?

Excellent article by Salon’s Rebecca Traister

Most of the reaction is outrage, but with a great deal of humor involved. When faced with the absurd, giggle. Then there’s this by Pajamas Media:

“Don’t Marry a Career Woman” says Michael Noer, putting forth a detailed—and honest—list of nine reasons not to do so. (Editor’s note: It is this career woman’s opinion that such reasons are symptoms of something else on the part of both men and women: lack of commitment and lack of gratitude for one’s blessings and/or good fortune.)

Is a complete lack of a sense of humor a prerequisite to write at Pajama Media?

Me? I love articles such as the one at Forbes, unsubstantiated statistics aside. Though I’m beyond the age suitable for most ‘barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen’ scenarios, I’m still a professional woman, very happily single who may actually date from time to time. Articles like this scare away the closet pricks.

It can become a test of sorts. When meeting a new man, I can look him in the eye and tell him, “I’m a career woman”. If he turns pale, flinches, or suddenly excuses himself, I know he’s a both a Forbes reader and a prick. I won’t have to figure out a graceful way to disengage, he’ll happily do it himself. Saves me from finding out he’s a Forbes reader later in the relationship.

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From Science + Professor + Woman = me, in explanation of her hesitancy in visiting her old graduate school:

Another reason I avoid that place has to do with feelings of discomfort about a situation in which I played an unknowing but counterproductive role. After I had moved on to a postdoc and faculty positions, a group of women students in that department actively tried to change the negative culture for women there, but were told “We don’t have a problem. X got her Ph.D. here.” Can’t those guys do the math? If X (me) = 1, and many more women enter the program but fail or drop out, is there not a problem? I felt awful when I heard that my example was being used as a reason not to address longstanding problems. I talked to the person who said it, but to no avail. I am still a shining example of what a great place that department is for women. For how many decades can they continue to use me as an example?

One of the points of disagreement I’ve had with some people about the continuing problems of women in technology, is the belief that all we need are mentors role models: examples of women who have ‘made it’. Given such is supposedly enough to somehow make women feel more comfortable, and thus encourage more to enter the profession.

Focusing on examples of women who have made it, as a solution in fields where women are excessively outnumbered, though, disregards all the other factors that make the environment uncomfortable or even hostile to women.

Thanks to Melinda for the link.

update Frank is right, I should have used role model instead of mentor. He also opens up the burden that role models place on people — an interesting perspective. Perhaps we need more opportunities, and fewer models.