Categories
Diversity

SxSW Panel

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m participating in a panel titled, Women and Visibility: Whose Butts Should We be Kicking? at SxSW with Dori Smith, Kathy Sierra, and Virginia DeBolt.

I’m looking forward to SxSW, and I’ll have more on the event later. In the meantime, should be a most interesting panel.

Categories
Diversity Technology

Maids, Mommies, and Mistresses

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Kathy Sierra writes on how to speak at Tech conferences. Some of her advice is good, but I disagree, and strongly, on a couple of assertions she makes. Specifically Kathy believes that if women aren’t represented well in this industry, it’s our own damn fault.

One of her tips for getting invited to speak is attend a lot of conferences:

This is by far the best strategy for getting a talk accepted. The more you know what works and what doesn’t, the better you’ll be at both proposing and especially delivering the talk. However, many of us can’t afford the conferences which is precisely why we want to land a speaker slot–Free Pass! Still, I have a hard time listening to complaints about the lack of diversity from people who aren’t motivated enough to find a way to attend a professional conference. There are always clever ways to get into a conference if one wants it badly enough… (as a master at finagling entry to conferences, and being a conference junkie myself, I’ll do a whole separate post on that some day).

I suppose this will work for those women who happen to live where conferences are held, but for the rest of the country, showing up on the door and begging admittance doesn’t hack it. More, this implies having connection into the insider group in order to get in the door. If you don’t have connection to the insider group, it’s harder to get in.

To get an idea of what the insider groups consist of, pick a topic related directly or indirectly to technology and see how often women webloggers who write on it get referenced as compared to the men.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

I have a hard time listening to complaints about the lack of diversity from people who aren’t motivated enough to find…–pick one: a job, an education, free passes to a conference, an opportunity for advancement, a ride out of a flooded city. This goes back to that old excuse of the priviledged: those who don’t have opportunity choose not to have opportunity.

Kathy also writes:

It’s tempting to think your proposal wasn’t accepted because…

B) I’m [insert your favorite: female/non-white/too old/too young/unknown/not Web 2.0-ish]

There’s been a LOT of complaining about the lack of women at the conferences, and lot of finger pointing at the conference organizers for having an all-male committe that clearly favored the male proposals. WRONG! From O’Reilly, for instance, these are the stats for the last ETech:
“We received 223 proposals, 15 of them from women, for 6% of the total. Of the women who submitted proposals, 46% were selected; for men, the acceptance rate was 32%.”

In other words, women were MORE likely to have etheir proposals accepted than men. The lack of diversity in conferences — at least the O’Reilly conferences — is because they do NOT get enough proposals from non-white,non-male speakers.

I like Kathy, I really do. I think she’s a hell of a good writer, and I admire her skills: both as a technologist and a marketer. But if she says we’re wrong, I answer back, as emphatically: WRONG.

Let’s look more closely at O’Reilly, shall we?

The invitation list for Foo Camp consists of what? Ten percent women? Less? How about the recent Web 2.0? Doesn’t matter if this was a joint conference or not: the O’Reilly name was on the door. As for the ETech conference, the statistic mentions how many of the proposals submitted by women were accepted. I’m curious: how many of the people invited to speak outside of the proposal system were women? How many women as compared to men were specifically invited by O’Reilly folk to submit proposals?

I took graduate level classes in statistics in college: tell me the point you want to make and I can tell you how you can package your numbers to make it. So let’s walk away from these numbers for a minute…

How many conferences has O’Reilly put on that have had a woman in charge of speakers? How many conferences has the organization even had women on the selection committee? I’m not talking about the women involved in administrating the conference–I’m talking about those directly involved in choosing speakers.

Let’s go even further: how many times do you see women referenced in the O’Reilly weblogs? Even when the topic of conversation is social software, which does have a significant number of women? Good lord, look at the O’Reilly sites and the writers and people: we can only hope that some of the critters represented in the colophons are female.

Too few women submitting proposals to O’Reilly conferences. It would seem the same could be said in regards to books and articles, too. There was a Wired article on Tim O’Reilly recently, hinted that he’s a bit of a country hippy. If so, then he’ll understand the phrase, “You have to prime the pump first”.

I could go on, but the point is mute, and the problem isn’t specific to O’Reilly and I don’t want this to turn into a “Let’s kick the shit out of Tim O’Reilly, shall we?” session. The issue comes down to this: do you believe that the reason women don’t have the opportunities at technical conferences is because we’re not trying? If so, why stop there: the same could be asked of women in technology, and even women in society.

Categories
Diversity RDF Technology

Women and Web 2.0

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I have many things to do and it seems or feels little time to do them. This is compounded by some frustration in wanting to get a little of the Fall photography in while I have the opportunity, but this endless summer refuses to end.

The only tasks I have left now are writing and the preparation for the RDF tutorial at XML 2005, and they’re slow going. In addition to my commitments, I also want to get some writing here to the weblog before I take what could be a longish break. I want to finish my bottoms up RDF tutorial, and yes, finally, my part 2 and 3 of Parable of the Languages, and few other odds and ends that aren’t tech related.

I am also planning on writing a detailed response to Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 writing, but was dismayed when I looked at the speaker list for the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Conference. For a topic as diverse as Web 2.0, what statement about this wonderous new world is being made when only 7 out of 106 speakers are women? Is there room for hope among the hype of Web 2.0?

We can only wish that during the parties and schmoozing, those attending will look through their glasses of bubbly and notice that something seems to be missing.

Categories
Diversity Technology

It starts with one

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

David Weinberger wrote about turning down attendance at an event because the guest list ended up being all men.

When I told the organizers why I wasn’t coming, they replied that they had invited three women who turned out to be unavailable. After our conversation they have invited some more women. But, only a few because, they told me, they’re trying to keep the total number of participants down so it will be more intimate – more better bonding! I told them they could use my spot to invite another woman. Have I mentioned that this is how the old boy network is formed?

Well done David. And yes, I think it is important that you discuss it online. It lets other folks know that there are consequences for not ‘trying hard enough’ to reach diversity.

Trying to diversify these gatherings doesn’t mean a lowering of quality. It means keeping your mind open as to what makes an interesting person; being aware that each of us contributes in our own unique, and possibly, different way. It also means questioning the assumptions, and if the answers aren’t good enough, making what could be some tough decisions.

So I’ll say again: well done, David.

Categories
Diversity

The new Catholic Inquisition

The first of the new Catholic Inquisitions is happening in St. Louis today. Many people in this community, and that includes many Catholics, have been saddened and disillusioned by this, the Church’s new witch hunt. Personally, I think this will hasten the end of the Catholic Church in modern times–all thanks to the appointment of a homophobic piece of…work like the new Pope.

Unlike John Paul, Benedict has no charm, no charisma, and absolutely no flexibility, understanding, or true “Christian” compassion. With all due deference to the Catholics who read this site–and you know that I would not want to hurt you– I can loathe him quite easily. I don’t see that he has any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I’m just sorry the caring and faithful gay Catholics have to be hurt and spurned yet once again from the so-called ‘loving, open-armed’ Christians among us. And yes, I do know there are many variants of Christian Churches that do open their arms to all people, regardless of sexual orientation, race, whatever. It’s the only reason I can still say “Christianity” without spitting. But every year it gets harder. I think now the only reason I don’t, is I don’t want to hurt those Christians–gay and straight– whose respect I cherish. As it is, I have to draw a line at the new Pope.

I’ve thought of many of the issues facing us in the next three years as a desperate Bush seeks more and more to put his ’stamp’ on society. I am aware of the risk to women’s reproductive rights, and normally that would be my first line of defense. But ultimately, I can’t stand up for women’s rights while I know that an entire segment of this population stand to loose so much. I have never seen or received anything from gay people other than friendliness, acceptance, warmth, kindness, and love; to abandom them for my own cause would be something my honor just cannot condone.

If I had to choose between so many freedoms at risk–women’s rights, true freedom of religion in school and government, and rights for gays (not to mention the continuing fight for equal rights for minorities)–I’d have to choose to fight for a baseline of rights for all of us. Which means equal rights, under God or not, for gays. Luckily, the fight for one is ultimately the fight for all and so my energy does not have to be divided.

It was so heartening to see the gradual acceptance of gay marriage in Massachusetts; to know the state legislature in California has brought true equality to gays that much closer to reality. Now, this.

To those who read this who are gay, I want to join with the many saddened Catholics in St. Louis (whom I am quite proud) to say: I am sorry you have to yet again be the brunt of such unreasoned fear. Do not give up hope; it will not last forever.