I don’t particularly like writing about women and tech. It’s uncomfortable. And it makes me uncomfortable. It means sometimes critiquing people that have been nice to me. It also means critiquing an industry that people like. It’s companies like Facebook, after all, not BP.
It also means that because I know and have experienced exactly how the tech industry is covert – and not in a Chuck Bartowski kind of way – that I should somehow know how to navigate the mines. That I should somehow be farther ahead than I am. But I don’t. And I’m not.
I don’t think it’s just me. It’s other women too. They feel uncomfortable. The simple act of writing about women in tech means I’m asking them to define their relationship with tech as more than their roles in PR, human resources, marketing and community management. It’s insinuating that those roles aren’t good enough. That women need to code. That they need to be the founders and visionaries and C-level execs. There is a sense that women don’t want these roles, but really, there is not even an inch – not even a centimeter! – of a clear path to get there.
So, women in tech are stuck on a career roundabout when men logically take the next exits to code, found, and invest. Pseudo-equality exists, but only to satiate the cries for respect and inclusion, not to actually address or eliminate sexism. For instance, the typical response to the lack of women in tech is to form pockets of women, which just adds more turbulence to the discussion: tech blogs publish posts from women about a woman’s role in tech; a tech meet-up features presentations from female-only founders; women form mailing lists for other women to discuss the problem of more women in tech.
In reality, guest posts from women on tech blogs need to be about topics other than themselves. When women are invited to blog on Tech Crunch, they write about women. They don’t write about tech. Last time I checked, however, our knowledge extends far beyond that of ourselves. And, just because a woman is speaking doesn’t mean she speaks for me. I don’t particularly like talking about shoes and I certainly don’t believe that because women love to shop that we control the Internet. And yet, that’s the message so far, twice-over this year, when women take the pen on Tech Crunch.
Without a voice in these places and without access to leadership in others, it seems women are keen to start women-only groups and mailing lists to promote new leadership and get ourselves heard. But while that’s an easy route, it’s not the most effective. Particularly because existing leaders and power-brokers will never attend your meetups and will never join your conversations. We all just end up talking to people like ourselves.
Too many women-only groups exist now to stop them, but really, I don’t disagree with them in theory, just in execution. So here’s a simple solution now: co-plan and co-sponsor your next event. Bring both audiences and decisions-makers together. Invite a man to your Google Group in exchange for a seat at his CEO breakfast. Separate interests are well and good, but not when you silo dialogue and interaction.
And that’s doubly and triply true at tech events. The segregation of women and men on stage needs to stop. So, if you organize an event an like the DC Tech Meetup and you get complaints about the persistence of your all-male panels, your response should not be to create an all-female panel.
There are no make-up tests for equality. You can’t just show up with all the available women in one room and expect a gold star. It is far less important to see all the women in tech at once than it is to see all the women in tech as speakers over time consistently and often. There are a minority of women in tech (for reasons we’ve talked so far about here and here), but that doesn’t beget special gloves. Such an event is unavoidably condescending, and it also means you won’t have any women for your next event; the cycle of men on stage continues.
(Case in point, of the seventeen speakers and panelists scheduled at yesterday’s DC Tech Meetup, the event following their all-female panel, only one was a woman. That’s not good enough.)
I don’t think that the majority of men, or women for that matter, are intentionally holding women back and fencing them out of the tech industry. But no one is being particularly smart about the issue either. It seems everyone is throwing spaghetti on the cupboard to see what sticks. But we can do better. This is start-up land, after all. We know how to test and evaluate, to solve problems and find solutions. And we already know, the only way to have enough people working on the big problems, is to solve this little one.
18 replies on “Women in Tech Need to Stop Segregating Themselves”
Again, proof why I read Kontrary the second it hits my inbox. Kontrary is the only site for which I do this.
Tina Fey discusses something similar about women in comedy in her new book (you can read it all in about two hours – hilarious stuff). She discusses how people say “women aren’t funny” like their experience with one or two female stand ups allows them to generalize an entire swath of people. She also talks about the male/female ratio on comedy shows and in writers’ rooms.
Fey, I think, fixes by doing. She has a platform (now) to discuss the sexism and exclusion of the past and people listen. She got that platform by being great at her craft (she also has a chapter of encouragement to people looking to make it as artists).
I – as a white male – often wonder, “What do I need to be doing?” to bring about the equality I say I want. Abdicate opportunities handed to me because (like the panel/event mentioned above) they are unfair/inequitable in the decision making process? Shine a light, regardless of gender?
I’d really appreciate you answering that question for me. :)
That’s so interesting about Tina Fey. She was on Oprah (yes, I watched the whole last season!) along with other Saturday Night Live people and one of them, Jane Curtain, basically said John Belushi hated women and sabotaged their comedy careers because he too believed women are fundamentally not funny. Crazy!
What’s difficult about what you point out is that Tina Fey has a platform, but so many other women don’t. And you feel like you can’t speak up because that will hurt you. So you just suffer alone. Again, I think this is why a lot of women form women-only groups so they can know they are not alone. But it really doesn’t help anything in its current form.
I want to write a post about how men can be advocates for women when they are not there. Speak up and say something. I think you have to decide what’s right for you and whether you abdicate opportunities or not. One thing you could try depending on your comfort level might be to say,
“Thanks so much for the invitation to this panel. I’m happy to participate on the condition that the panel has gender parity. To get you started, here’s a woman I know that would be a perfect addition.”
Like, have a bunch of smart women in your pocket, and make it clear that this is an important issue. Or yes, you could refuse to do it (I think the word abdicate has a sense that you’re in charge, but you’ll be the bigger person… refuse says you know something is wrong!) This article in GOOD, Why White Men Should Refuse to Be on Panels of All White Men makes some impassioned arguments as well. It also has the suggestion to say something like, “Why don’t you include my colleague who works on something similar, who has possibly more to say because they’re not listened to as frequently.”
Pearls of wisdom. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Great post. You are fresh and thoughtful. That’s why I love Kontrary.
Thank you, appreciate the kind comments!
I wish we could get past female only this that and the other thing. I did a google search for girl susport groups and found a ton of such groups. I did a search for boy susport groups and for men susports
group and found very little.
Also I did a seach for books written to help females and found a ton. A similar search for books written to help boys and found much less. Is it any wonder girls are now out performing boys?
Don’t our boys need help to? If we truly desire equality of the genders than we need to stop special books and groups aimed soley at one gender. If something will help girls it will help boys also.
so please lets have all groups open to both genders otherwise we are going to help one gender and hurt the other.I don’t see how society gains from that.
The way I see it, women are still implicitly and mostly unwittingly viewed as the Other, which is why when they are invited to write, it is about the female experience (as if by the virtue of their gender they are able to speak for the entirety of the female experience). They are as you say, limited to that aspect of their lived human experience.
I attended an all-female networking event recently and while it was refreshing to hear insights from more experienced women at the top of their industries, I ended up concluding that in the long run such segregation is more detrimental than beneficial.
Attitudinal shifts are perhaps the hardest and longest to accomplish but once it’s done, it tends to stick. Just look at how long it took for our female forbears to win the right to vote.
And *sadface* that I’ll never be able to push through my plans for Internet control, cos I’m a woman and I HATE shopping. Damn.
I really liked how you framed the situation in the first paragraph of your comment. Spot on.
I know many women don’t agree that all-women events/groups are detrimental, but like you, I think they are very dangerous. Not because it’s inherently bad (it’s not), but because it silos those conversations that everyone needs to hear, not just women.
I agree that it will take a looooong time, but it will be so worth it. And I hate shopping too, haha. Ah, well, someday :)
Thank you for writing about this Rebecca. Helping women kill it in the tech sector is one of my passions and missions with not only DC Tech Meetup but also DCWEEK and my own business. Ask the women in the community and they’ll tell you so.
Regarding your criticism of DC Tech Meetup I’ll just drop in a few points:
1. I think having a female only DC Tech Meetup is awesome and stand by having done it. If you felt it was condescending, please know that that would never be the intention behind what we do. The feedback from women was 99% positive.
2. Last night’s DC Tech Meetup had 30 talks submitted to it – 1 by a woman, which was accepted — not because she was a woman but because she was qualified. If she wasn’t, it would have been all men on stage. I spoke at DC Web Women, and reached out to HUNDREDS of people to source women working in Big Data. The result was 17 people on stage who were qualified to speak on the topic. One happened to be a woman.
3. Regarding #2 I personally feel great about last night’s event, but wish we could have seen more qualified speakers who were women. They just didn’t submit themselves to speak/their colleagues didn’t refer them to and we need your help.
4. None of the above means that I’m trying hard enough. It doesn’t mean conference/meetup organizers in general are trying hard enough (they aren’t for the most part). I will try harder always. You can count on that.
5. And now, Rebecca, I challenge you to try harder too. All DC Tech Meetups for the rest of the year are accepting submissions. I’d like to see you refer/submit amazing female presenters for all of them. The link is: http://istrat.gy/dctemsubs. Please refer those to me who you think are relevant rockstars for this opportunities. They will not be accepted because they are women. They will only be accepted if they are awesome.
Will you help? We’re trying hard, and will try harder, but we need you.
Peter Corbett
CEO, iStrategyLabs
C0-Organizer, DC Tech Meetup
peter@istrategylabs.com
Thanks for weighing in, Peter. I appreciate you taking the time and energy to post a comment.
I haven’t lived in DC that long and frankly, do not have a vast network to recommend people from. I already submitted myself for the event in December, however, and was forwarded this group recently that may be a good pool for you to choose from – http://www.meetup.com/Ladies-Tech-XXchange/.
Everyone I have met in DC has been tremendously nice, friendly and welcoming. As I said, sexism is never overt anymore, and rarely do I think it’s conscious either. It’s often just easier to leave women out. While only one woman may have submitted to Big Data, I have hard time believing you couldn’t find others given that at the All-Female panel you mentioned you had more than 100 submissions. Surely, a few of those ladies would have been awesome as well? I’m guessing they didn’t submit again because you had already not picked them.
Not only have I read a lot from other conference organizers about this, but I used to plan a lot of events myself at my last position. Women need to be asked. Whether that’s fair or not, there are times when you will have to seek out women speakers instead of having them come to you (i.e., a submission process is not always the best way to achieve gender parity).
I’m not trying to call you specifically out; we all need to try harder, as you say. I’m certainly willing to act as your resource and action-taker with whatever help you need with future events. Like, for instance, if you want to send me the list of 100 women that previously submitted, I’m happy to help you vet them and slot them into future events. I’m looking forward to when we have the occasion to meet in person. Talk soon.
Thank you for offering to help Rebecca! A few things:
1. You’re right about “As I said, sexism is never overt anymore, and rarely do I think it’s conscious either. It’s often just easier to leave women out.” > which is exactly why I/we are proactive about this.
2. Big Data is a niche within a niche in the tech sector…..you may find it hard to believe, but I’ll tell you with 1000% confidence that it is/was extremely difficult to source women for this specific topic. We anticipated this and were as proactive as possible and you saw the result.
3. We don’t have a vetting problem. We know someone knows their stuff when they submit. Sourcing is the issue – it is so in DC and everywhere in the world. Keep in mind that DC is also SMALL. This isn’t SF or NYC where the population of people working in, say, Big Data is 4-10x therefore providing 4x-10x potential women for talks. Actually…yeah if we did this same event in SF or NYC i’m pretty sure we would have had at least 5-10 submissions from women…
4. We volunteer our time and energy and scrape together sponsors and venues to make this kind of stuff happen for zero profit. That means there’s only so much we can do. That means we need everyone to help push GREAT women to submit. I will never condescend by putting a woman on stage just because of her gender. In the end, I can’t change people’s behavior though. I can only create an opportunity for someone to grab.
See you out there – and thank you again for writing about this and calling these issues to the community’s attention.
-Peter
Let me preface this comment by saying it’s completely okay to agree to disagree. That’s actually one of the great things about the Kontrary community, which I know your visiting today, so let me make clear: we often disagree, but we are always respectful and always learn from each other.
I appreciate the confidence you have in what you do, but saying over and over “we need everyone to help push great women to submit” is not a viable strategy in my book. Who is everyone? Are you going to keep just putting the call out in the wild? At other events? Hitting up the same people to hit up the same people? My sense from your replies is that your attacking this from a very specific viewpoint, but that it might be good to look through it with different eyes.
For instance, I moved from Madison, WI so DC isn’t small at all to me. It’s funny to me that you would say that. For me, the tech scene is probably fifty times bigger and there are fifty times more women in it. My first DC Tech Meetup, I actually told the people I was with I was impressed that during the 30-second say-what-you-need bit at the end, how many women came up. That would never happen in Madison!
So when you say things like “We don’t have a vetting problem. We know someone knows their stuff when they submit,” it makes me worried! Maybe you do have a vetting problem. Because women don’t often speak, maybe they don’t know what to put. Maybe they put one thing, but are really better suited toward a different event. Maybe they don’t want to talk to you about it. It could be a million things, right? Maybe, as I’ve tried to make clear before, they’re not submitting at all.
And that last point is key, because it seems you want to structure planning your events around people submitting, and I’ve made the point several times over now that that might not be the best strategy if you want more women. You keep telling me how hard you’re trying. I totally get that. Major props to you. I have run organizations like this and have been there and feel your pain! But maybe you’re just pushing in the wrong directions. Right? Like, you admit you have a sourcing problem, so if you what you’re doing isn’t working, maybe you may want to try a different strategy? Just a thought…
You’ve also said this sentiment over several times: “I will never condescend by putting a woman on stage just because of her gender. I will only put on great women.” Great is subjective. Some of your all-female panelists grated on my nerves, and I thought knew nothing and some were freaking awesome. Same with the male speakers you’ve had too. That is a very common excuse to use when there aren’t enough women on stage. And is also the exact reason more women don’t get involved. Do you see the circular reasoning and result? (Not enough great women speakers on this topic; women come to the event and see no women; women think this isn’t for them; women don’t go into the field; next year rolls around and there are still not great women on this topic… hmm, I wonder why!)
My entire goal with Kontrary is to get people to think differently. So I hope you are thinking a bit different about women in tech now. It’s clear your passionate about it. You have certainly made me think differently! And I just love, love, love conversations like this. So thanks for taking this seriously :)
And once again, I’m offering to help you. I hope you take me up on it. Beyond what I already offered in my previous comment, here are some very specific ideas I have off the top of my head:
1) Send a liaison to women-only tech meetups and groups to get women involved. Have it be a male.
2) Make your next event co-sponsored/co-planned with one of these groups.
3) If there really aren’t enough women in DC Tech, invite them from other cities.
4) Set a goal that you will have gender parity at every event. Make it public.
5) Specifically ask women in a personal email or phone call to speak.
6) Build a database or list of great women in tech speakers so that it’s easy for you and other organizers to have more women.
Much of what you recommend is already what we do but thank you for giving me additional ammo for getting things done for this community :)
Haha, you do not! You don’t do #2, #3, #4 and I know because it would be public knowledge. And maybe you do #6, but it’s not public to my knowledge which is really what would be the most useful for the tech community here. But, I’m glad I could give you some ideas ;)
I love this conversation that you’ve started, Rebecca.
I was recently at a women in politics panel event in Boston and it was great to be in a room filled with so many other women who were interested in politics, but also frustrating to never see these women anywhere else. The only time that we all got together was when there was an event geared specifically towards women. Undoubtedly the panel members addressed this, and the general concensus was that women aren’t vetted and encouraged to get involved and women aren’t given the confidence that politics is something that we can be great at and that people want us to be involved in.
There was a great conversation about the differences between men and women that can be applied to most anything, not just tech and politics. This is of course a generalization, but men tend to be less likely to question their abilities. A man will say to himself, “I’m great! I can run for mayor!” A woman is more likely to question her ability to be mayor and instead start out on a much smaller scale, believing that she may not even be qualified for that position despite having the same, if not more, qualifications as that man.
I do think that a lot of this is very psychological/sociological and showing the manifestations of years of women being taught to “know their place” and a great examination in how far we have really come in achieving gender equality. It isn’t necessarily that women don’t believe that they have a place in tech, but they may not see anyone encouraging them to get involved and then they don’t see other women, particularly in positions of authority e.g. panelists, at events, making it very easy to just presume that you’re not welcome. Breaking that barrier and demanding that women be included – which is a step that both women and men should take – is a difficult, but necessary step.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience, Ramou. I think it’s very common for women to think they’re not being vetted and encouraged to be involved, but then men say, but we are doing that! We’re doing all of that! Just like Peter below. And bless his heart, I bet he is. But somewhere, this is a disconnect.
The qualification bit hits home for me because I was recently testing a new start-up idea and decided to opt-out of this very big idea to focus on Kontrary because it seemed more manageable… I think part of that is women tend to take things on all by themselves and men immediately bring in their friends to help. Another generalization, but wondering if that resonates with you.
It’s such a complicated messy issue as you say. I’d love to fast-forward ten years just for a half a day and see how we’ve successfully solved the issue. I really think that if women are involved in tech that that will be what makes equality trickle down through the rest of society.
You know, I had similar feelings to the all-women DC Tech Meetup. At first I was excited – a topic that called specifically to me – but then after thinking about it I felt segregated because of my gender and was kind of annoyed. It would be laughable to call for an all-male DC Tech Meetup. (I often like to consider the direct opposite when suggesting an idea. If it sounds ridiculous I often look back on the original idea to consider it’s effectiveness.)
On the flip side, I must admit that I’ve never been to a DC Tech Meetup and I really considered going to the all female panel (it just happened to be on a night that I have a standing prior engagement). Using that as a stepping stone to get women more involved was intriguing to me personally.
I’m in the world of design more so than tech, so my thoughts are in comparison of the two, if I may. There was a point when the design profession was more male dominated, but now there is not such a strong line between men and women. After many years of the national AIGA board being ruled by male presidents, Debbie Millman stepped up two years ago and recently completed her term. Her presence over the profession was simply icing on the cake to the idea that women are now inherently a part of the profession. I have never once heard of an event (nationally) that was male or female focused.
Moreover, we are very focused on diversity within the profession. In fact, we held an event 3 or 4 years ago specifically on the topic of cultural diversity with a panel of culturally diverse design professionals discussing cultural diversity within the profession. We got the same criticism that you’re suggesting in this article. Why are we calling out diversity rather than simply involving these individuals in our usual programming slate? While our goal was to be inclusive, shining a spotlight does the opposite. We reworked our strategy over the last two years and changed the spotlight to more of a search light when selecting presenters. We still struggle, but the more we’re sensitive to it (awareness or searching rather than spotlighting), I think we’re taking steps in the right direction. Maybe this is how the male/female lines became more blurred within design?
Thanks for writing this Rebeca. I agree with “Samdavidson” below — I read your articles the moment they hit my inbox (although sometimes it takes me a day to respond).
Jill
Thanks so much, Jill. Again, like Ramou, I so appreciate you sharing your experiences because I know it’s often difficult to speak out for some of the reasons I listed in my post. It’s fascinating to hear the progression within the design profession and it’s something I follow closely as well. Is your sense of equality in the profession something you have felt personally or have others commented on the progress as well? I’d love to hear some of the very specific things your doing to get more cultural diversity and more women. What does the search light process entail? I think for anyone who visits this post in the future, that would be really helpful info.
In todays world women and technology is closely related…
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