[photo taken at a Women 2.0 Startup Weekend]
After voicing my opinion on the maleness of yet another tech conference, I ran into a friend of mine at the afterparty who told me, “I nearly picked a fight with you. That stuff is getting so boring.” And upon getting back to my hotel room to check the conversation on twitter, several others suggested the same.
Yes. Boring. I’m bored of it, too. I would love us to move onto another subject. 100% agreed. But the fact of the matter is that these boring complaints actually lead to action.
It was boring when people complained about an early Future of Web Apps being an entirely male lineup, but since then, the Carsonified folks have seriously focused on making sure that their conferences feature more women, which ended up attracting more women as audience members. It was boring when, many years ago, people complained about the SXSW Interactive speakers being mostly men, but since then, Hugh Forrest and his team have taken more time to make sure women appear on stage, leading to a HUGE female attendance. It’s been boring to complain to multiple conferences over the years, which led to more women on stage and in the audience. And it’s really boring that the growing exposure of women in technology has led to the attraction of more young women to the technology space.
Listen. I don’t like to continue to point out the conferences, articles, lists and such that lack the presence of women (or are weak in their research), but everytime I do (or someone else does), it gets a little better. Organizations like Women 2.0, She’s Geeky, Women Who Tech, Women in Technology, Geek Girl Dinners and articles like Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology and Brian Solis’ article showing how women define the social networks have emerged because of the growing conversation around the issue. And because of these articles and organizations, more women have been encouraged to strike out and do their own startups. And, from what I hear, more young women are being drawn to technology as a career.
This is far from boring to me. This is exciting and awesome. So, we keep on bringing up the boring blah blah when we see exclusion because, well, it is leading towards a pretty awesome future where I’m hoping to see a 50/50 split of men and women on stage, in articles, talking about tech, creating startups, getting funding, participating in open source and making the future of the web inclusive. I, personally, look forward to the day where I never have to bring up the subject again.
And I know there are many additional issues of diversity in the technology space. It’s dominated by white heterosexual males, many of them young. The web user population is far more diverse than that (majority of users are female in North America and the largest population on the web is Asian), so it’s fairly logical to say that those designing the online experience should reflect that diversity. Until that day comes, I will continue to be boring and encourage everyone else to join me in being boring, too.
Everyone…if you haven’t seen Jon’s awesome post on this subject: http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=957
You should!
It brought up some other awesome posts. One by Allyson Kapin’s fabulous post a while back: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/allyson-kapin/radical-tech/diversifying-your-rolodex
And Alison C – I’ll drop you a line!
Hi girls,
I just went to LeWeb twitter, and followed a discussion on “LeWeb et Feminité”. Here is what I found : http://mry.blogs.com/les_instants_emery/2009/12/le-web-09-leweb-networking-feminite.html
If you need a translation, it basically says that at LeWeb09, women were very pretty, not dressed like Geek… Very professional, isn’t it? Did anyone send the link of our current discussion to Loïc Lemeur and his team?
Regards,
Cécile
@cécile – Loic and I had a very quick chat, but he seems exhausted. I’m going to wait until he gets back from his holiday to approach him (never want to make someone defensive).
Tara, I just read Jon’s post and I’m going to strongly disagree with you on its “awesomeness”. Yes, it’s well-intentioned and DOES have quite a lot of useful, practical ideas. But I found it borderline offensive, as a woman, with “helpful” statements like this:
“Women may generally be less experienced and/or comfortable with the five-minute rapid presentation format than men.”
WTF?
If you wanted to construct a post that was a parody of subtle gender bias, that’s the kind of thing you’d say.
@Kathy I think Jon was giving a ‘what if’ example, not necessarily trying to stereotype (and personally, I think women may have quite the opposite reaction to the format.). But point taken.
Kathy, point taken indeed. Apologies for the wording; I rephrased it as
Did the conference organizers investigate the possibility that the unfamiliar five-minute rapid presentation format might be a barrier to entry?
The reason I brought this up is that Gov 2.0 organizer Jessica Pahlka had commented “I’ve long meant to start a Women’s Ignite series, designed to let women practice public speaking … more women who feel comfortable on stage will help with the left side of that equation.” Computers, Freedom, and Privacy has introduced five-minute talks over the last couple of years and while they’re very popular, a lot of people (of all genders) have told me that it’s a new format to them and they’re not ready to try it in a conference setting. This year, we’ll try to arrange mentoring for people who would like to participate but are concerned about their lack of experience. This might be helpful for Gov 2.0 as well.
However, I certainly didn’t say it well. Apologies again. And if there are other bad word choices in my essay, I’d certainly appreciate hearing about them.
jon
@jon, thanks for responding. Your post isn’t poorly-worded (in my opinion), I simply disagree. And I probably shouldn’t have been so harsh about it — your post was simply the straw/camel one for me after the latest round of discussions… and that line struck me as a perfect example of how difficult this topic is.
Personally, I found the Ignite format *insanely* challenging. I did two. Sucked at both. Unfortunately, I’m dead certain my problems were lack of skill/practice, not gender-related.
I do, however, HUGELY applaud any attempt to help ANYONE get better at public speaking, in a comfortable environment. Toastmasters is one of the best resources for this, and widely available.
I’m equally concerned, though, that all of this still sends at least two messages I’m less than thrilled with: first, that women NEED “extra special care and attention” in learning to do these things… more so than men, and second… that public speaking is something women MUST or SHOULD do to further their career. Whenever these topics come up, the implicit assumption is that public speaking at events is implicitly THE path to increased success. I don’t fully buy that, and think we put WAY too much emphasis on the Importance Of Being On That Stage. (I can think of so many other far better ways to increase one’s exposure or chances for success)
However, like you, Elisa, Mike, and everyone else here — I do believe more diversity on stage is a big win for the *attendees*–whoever they are–and they’re who I care most about. Too often in these discussions, the emphasis is all on providing opportunities for people to increase their own exposure and “enhance their personal brand.” There are no short-cuts, and most people willing to lay a foundation and put in the time to participate fully in their profession find it less daunting than the picture I see painted about how “excluded” some of us are.
Nobody “deserves” to be a presenter/speaker any more than one “deserves” to have paying customers. People pay to attend these events and learn, not provide opportunities for exposure. The people who “deserve” something are the paying attendees, and in that — many of your ideas would go a long way toward helping improve their overall experience and growth.
Tara Hunt, I said it in a tweet and will say it again. I <3 you for being so damn boring and unapologetic for it!
Being known as the first woman to start a full-service Internet company back in '95 and a "pioneer" of the Web, I'm frankly freaked out that we are still having the EXACT same conversations – and facing the same situations in our industry – as women faced back in 1995.
I repeat: 1995. (I won't even go back further than that because we all know it was far more dismal.)
Every woman – and many men – wish that this conversation was over but not because it is boring but because we really do want to see women in highly visible and powered places as a given, not a token. But that just ain't gonna happen anytime soon, most likely not in our lifetime, at least not to the point where we have nothing left to be boring about.
I was one of the very first women to speak at SXSW. I was asked by the organizers to put together the very first woman-only panel for the very first SXSW Interactive (panel was about women and the Internet). Since then, I can't get a speaking slot at SXSW to save my life so I go as press instead. But it is getting better, more diverse, and women now clamor to go there.
Things do get better, in tiny increments. Those of us who may finally get a foot in the door to speak at the biggie conferences can feel the door open just a sliver, a mere crack. But we're going to wedge our feet in there, our whole bodies if we have to, in order to throw the doors open to other women. That is our DUTY. That is our GIFT.
@Sheila (changed) THANK YOU for sharing that story. It is so impactful to see women doing it. It may be a human ego thing (not egotistical, but ego as in the sense of Freud) to be more empowered by seeing someone who mirrors you more being in a position of influence and power.
I can’t wait for you to be up on the podium!
Actually, Tara, I wrote that comment, not Visitki. (Here: http://www.horsepigcow.com/2009/12/women-women-blah-blah-blah/#comment-52461 )
Happened to see that bit of theft because I’m subscribed to the comments for this post.
@Sheila
Oops! I see that. I’ll delete it. I thought the story sounded familiar, but it had been a while since I’ve visited this post. Sorry!
T