Grace Hopper women's tech conference overrun by men
npr.org
npr.org
I can't imagine anybody getting a talk slot based on merit (as opposed to privileged position or advanced hucksterism) at that kind of event. (e.g. "I did something interesting")
I'm reminded of a talk series in the CS department which had three women in it that had a poster that listed the names and affiliations of the speakers but didn't give the titles of the talks which really was a first for me. (e.g. I am not in a hurry to hear a talk from "a woman from Harvard" if that is all I know but if someone is coming around to tell me how they got a net energy yield from their laser fusion or how they solved a tough machine learning problem, sign me up!)
I mostly blame the CS department for that because they struggle to get good speakers for any kind of event (I was glad to see Geoff Hinton before he got famous but I also saw a lot of job talks by people who really shouldn't have been there, the CS folks were polite but me and the meanest physicist in the world, who were not even on speaking terms at that time, would tag team and demolish some of those people like those crabs who team up to cut a starfish to pieces.)
I'd contrast that to the physics department which could bring in three women to give three great talks and make it look easy.
"With some 30,000 annual attendees, that career expo was already a competitive space, according to past participants."
Any event with 30.000 attendees (any gender) would make me uncomfortable. I've never been to such a large career event, isn't that already crowded and competitive?
How does this individual know whether people lied about their gender identity?
> Videos posted to social media showed scenes of men flocking around recruiters, running into event venues and cutting in front of women to get an interview slot.
The link for "cutting in front of women" doesn't appear to show that. It shows men standing in line, and a couple confusing videos with crowds. What is the part where a man is cutting?
> Women were disproportionately affected by those cuts, making up 69.2% of all tech layoffs, according to The Women Tech Network.
Were women more likely to be junior, and therefore more likely to be cut? It's almost as if NPR just wants to parrot a narrative.
That last point read like BS to me. I’m willing to bet that number includes a good chunk of tech recruiters (which tend to be female). And yeah a lot of recruiters got laid off in the last year
I thought it was something that focused on women in tech but men were allowed to join.
If the organizers don’t want men attending it they should verify peoples sex before handing out tickets.
Personally I don’t see the point of segregation. It’s not like shunning men will make women’s lives any better. Your best bet to improve things is to make the one side understand the other. You do that by socializing them.
Another thing this event shows is that men tend to be more competitive and will be more aggressive towards their goals. Like it or not companies reward that behavior
Sorry, but this reads as pretty disconnected from reality. On the surface what you're saying sounds nice and feels like it should be true, but it's not quite that way in reality.
I recently got out of school (well, 3 years ago), and I can say with absolute certainty that women need a safe space in their early career that is free of men. The behavior of sexually frustrated men towards women in CS can be vomit-inducing (just ask ANY female CS student). There is a time and place for socialization. If you integrate every career space, watch the numbers of women in CS drop precipitously.