Women and Tech
womenandtech.com
womenandtech.com
I don't know anyone in Toronto, but I have several nominations around the US, should your scope expansion work out :)
(Completely aside: is there any good advice for men who want to further the role of women in tech -- because balance is always a good idea -- to help and encourage without being overbearing or accidentally patronizing? I worry about furthering the problem accidentally so I very rarely bring up this topic, even though I feel strongly about it).
As a successful woman in tech, I would say the following:
--Note that women tend to underplay their accomplishments and judge themselves more harshly (I've also seen men who fit into this pattern, but it's more common with women.) So when a woman who fits this pattern says "I'm decent at x", it may be the same as a man saying "I'm great at x."
--Become a champion for the women in your life who deserve more recognition. Encourage them to take more leadership roles, jump at more speaking gigs when presented with the opportunity, etc. Women will often tend to think "I'm not ready for that yet" while a man with similar experience will say "Yeah, let's go for it!"
--Help the youngest girls in your life develop more self-confidence. My cousin, a brilliantly smart teenager, kept telling me, "I'm terrible at math." I encouraged her to focus on the positive (she was getting great grades in her math classes, and understood the problem set) and to think more positively about her abilities.
This lack of self-confidence is ingrained from an early age in many women and affects us throughout life in many cases. Encouraging girls to think more empowering thoughts and to have more confidence may be the best thing you can do to give them a better chance for success.
Do you have any advice for telling when someone is doing this?
I ask because I can't blindly apply it to women any more than men, because I've seen so many women be over-confident in their skills, too.
So, you could, when interviewing, focus on bringing out discrete meaningful stories. Ask for those kinds of examples. Ask what they're proud of. Create a space in which they feel comfortable saying positive things about themselves. Maybe lead by example by talking about part of the organization that you think is awesome.
Instead of asking "what are you good at?" you could ask for things like "what do you most love doing?" Also, asking for numeric ranking "1-5" of technical skills might be a little too aggro/macho.
Don't downplay the plural "we built this" as less important as the singular "I built this" Some people are just better at sharing the credit than others. If in doubt, ask for clarity.
Yes.
Put simply, learn to read facial cues. (It's easier than you think--much like a programming language, facial cues are a system. So if you are a systems thinker--and I bet you are, based on the fact that you're here on Hacker News--learning facial and body cues will probably be one of the best time investments you'll ever make.)
I had no ingrained social skills when I grew up, so I had to learn facial cues to understand how to fit in socially. I can read nervousness on a face, and I can read the body posture and awkwardness that comes with not being sure of your ideas.
The first thing I did was to videotape myself speaking and focus on getting rid of those same cues in my own speech and posture. Then I started watching others. After a while, I could start to pick up all kinds of stuff. It's like a hidden language. I could tell when someone was lying or untrustworthy, when they were interested in what I was saying and when they had zoned out, etc. Incredibly useful!
So, to tell when someone is judging themselves too harshly, I look for two patterns:
1) Negative self-talk. "I never could do this...I can't do this...I don't know how to do this...this is impossible...I guess I'm just not cut out for this..." are some of the verbal patterns. Another common verbal pattern is looking for the negative in a given situation..."Yeah, I know C++, but not Javascript, and so I'm not the right fit" vs. "I'm a great programmer; I don't know Javascript yet, but I'm sure I can pick it up given some time and guidance." (I made a concerted effort to get rid of my own negative self-talk and documented the result here: http://www.erica.biz/2008/my-7-day-no-complaining-wrapup-or-... )
2) Demeanor cues. Socially awkward, casting down glances toward the floor, not meeting eyes, mumbling. (Don't get too upset if you have some of these but you feel like you don't fit the description above...these can also describe other behaviors.)
Here is the book I used to learn more about this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0757003141/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... It was fantastic to read and finally feel relief that people's facial and body cues are a system that I can learn and understand.
I read an article once, about racism in the workplace, and how it creates a situation where minorities who succeed are harsher on people of the same minority than others are on anyone of that minority. I can't remember the name of the phenomenon, (or honestly the article) but it referenced an study done on successful women in the workplace, who followed that pattern as well. The general phenomenon was attributed to this general set of thoughts:
1. The successful person probably had some struggles getting to success, which were overcome. (No reference to help or not).
2. The successful person is has gained a tenuous foothold for the group, and is believes that they can help others succeed, but also worries that they might be seen as an exceptional outlier to the general stereotypical views the outlier holds to that group.
3. The successful person wants to get other people from the group in, but only knows the one path that worked for them. They also know the mistakes and have hindsight on "easier" ways.
4. Combining the fears about stereotypes, and the bits of wisdom they have, as well as the limited knowledge of successful paths (frequently there aren't a lot of other role models to compare with), they want to mold their successors into their understanding. The limited view, plus consequences of losing the foothold being a potentially big setback for the group, they tend to become very strict disciplinarians, as a way of maintaining the success path to a greater "beachead" for their group.
(I know this paraphrasing of the article is not the best, I'm pretty tired, and it was a long time ago I read about it.)
I don't know if this is what is happening in what you describe, but it reminded me of it. I'll see if I can dig up a reference, but perhaps just knowing about this will help you and other women at these events who are experiencing the problem you describe contextualize what is happening. Maybe it would help get the women who aren't being honest to open up about their mistakes and actual paths.
A different tack on this same thing: it might also be an outcropping of the common "i did this on my own" image of success that seems to be the cultural norm for successful people to project: if they had help, they shouldn't admit it, perhaps enhanced by the fact that in the dominant group, imperfections (such as admitting needing a mentor) are less judged than those same imperfections in a minority.
As another successful woman in tech, yes, there is. A very simple thing. Whenever you hear your colleagues make a misogynist remark, call them out on it.
Yes, I realize many of them are meant as funny asides, but here's the problem: They still hurt. We get that they're usually not meant offensive, but it's simply not funny if you're on the receiving end of those "jokes". Every single one of them is a cut to the confidence and willingness of women in this field.
I know you want to focus on the positive, and I apologize for dragging in a negative instead.
To be clear, nobody requires you to be a knight in shining armor, riding to our rescue ;) But it'd sure be nice to occasionally hear an "You know what, dude? Not cool. Not cool at all" when those remarks come out.
I love the idea, and I'll be keeping an eye on the site. I just wish the slogan was more like, "We're not endorsing the obvious. We're celebrating the hidden." Or something like that. You can resolve not to focus on (often well deserved and important) "complaining", and I think that's a valuable focus for someone to take, but please don't cast aspersions by implication on those that do speak up about active issues.
I'm really glad to see this being done at all, however, and the site looks great! I hope you get a lot of traction!
On the note of constructive feedback, the "hounding women in tech until they meet with you" bit could definitely be misread. I know it isn't meant that way, but it sounds a little bit like you're going to harass women who may not be interested until they agree to be involved.
I've seen the case made both anecdotally and empirically that women, or maybe more generally, mixed gender teams, boards of directors, etc., have broader perspectives, make better decisions, take less bad risks, and are more generally enriching than all-male.
So, perhaps a simple 'thanks for sticking with it and bringing that' would be a nice addition.
I wonder, is there a non-patronizing way to be positive and supportive of the women who DO feel, if not victimized, at least frustrated by "some oppressive system of sexism"?
Or is it just something you think?
When I read "not complaining", it conjures images of complaining. Rather, a stronger focus on "commending" "applauding" would be apropos.
Really? By creating a whole website around it? I think it'd be really good to sum up what issue you consider there to be with women in tech...
* Are there specific instances of sexism that occur?
* Are there "not enough" women in tech?
* Is tech uninteresting to most women?
Sharing stories from startup women is great, although I'm not a fan of the reverse sexism.
We do have several men on our team (more men than women, in fact), and don't at all intend "reverse sexism".
Also, just to clarify, this isn't just for startup women but for any lady working in tech fields – including those coders who sit behind big monitors all day and are reluctant to put themselves in the limelight or to serve as mentors/role models.
If you craft some well-thought-out questions people will be likely to talk about the specific issues they have faced, how they dealt with those issues, and what kinds of supports they would like to see in their profession.
Focusing on people's stories is a great way to bring out these issues from the very people who have experienced them.
"Privilege?" Check your cultural Marxism.
When the term 'male privilege' is dragged into the discussion, people are likely start thinking about their own experiences. They'll remember girls getting extra attention in labs, girls getting deadline extensions, they'll remember working at a pizza shop Saturday night to help pay rent/tuition while the girl on a girl-only scholarship is enjoying a date paid for by her wealthy boyfriend. The details will be different for each individual but the important point is that the answer to the question "what is privilege?" is not simple. It doesn't offer a clear answer to the charge.
> Is there nary a safe space on the internet for men to talk about their experience in the tech sector?
Why not simply state this point directly (minus the sarcasm if possible) instead of making accusations of privilege to people you don't know anything about?
If the counterargument is good enough I will file it away in my head to use next time the topic comes up. Or I might think of other questions, like what happens if a womens-only tech group becomes more successful than any other tech group in a particular domain/region and men want to participate?
Though personally, I probably would have just downvoted and been done with it.
If you are suggesting that privilege of experience doesn't exist or is somehow Marxist, you are basically saying that any experience other than your own isn't real and doesn't count. That is to say, you are calling everyone who has ever lived differently from you a liar.
The point is, we are all minorities, depending on which way you cut the population. It doesn't really matter, unless you let it matter. especially in this industry.
What about "whites in tech"? Would that be racist? What about "blacks in tech?"
Or are you of the opinion it's impossible to be racist to white people, sexist to men, etc?
Yeah, that's the kind of pathetic platitude that condescends in order to pretend nothing's wrong. Having trouble because you're black, female, wheelchair-bound, recovering from alcoholism, etc.? Pft. It wouldn't matter if only you'd stop letting it matter.
Is that an attempt to discredit someone just by tossing out a scary-sounding label? What if we haven't been programmed to fear Marxism, and "cultural marxism" just makes you sound like an ignant fool?
In other, politer words, what exactly are you trying to say here?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism
Perhaps you are simply ignorant of the origin of your "privilege" rhetoric.
What exactly are you trying to say?
The focus of the project sounds quite meaningful, and it is well said in the first couple lines: "We're going to share stories about smart women doing important things." That is perfect; I want to read those stories!
The copy gets off track a bit after that, like others here are already saying. "We're simply going to hound some clever women in tech..." does not sound good. Part of the problem is women in tech getting hounded. I know the intention here is good, but there is language that doesn't bring to mind the problems. This project is strong enough that you can just say, "We're going to invite clever women in tech..." People will understand the project, and want to be part of it.
Others are talking about the "We're really not complaining" slogan, but I have no idea what "We're not endorsing the obvious" means. What's obvious to me is that telling smart women's stories is a good thing. I'm not sure what you are referring to here.
A small design note: the top banner is huge, and takes up a lot of screen real estate, which distracts from your message.
Again, I love it. I teach high school math and science, and I can say anecdotally that when I show this kind of project to the young women in my classes, I can see a change in them immediately. Most young women I see in school have no idea that people care to support them specifically. When they learn about projects like this, they become more confident that they could be successful in tech-related fields. Thank you for what you are doing.
It's discouraging and painful because everyone wants to know that they can succeed. They want to know that "someone like me can make it in this industry". So it's important for people who are minorities in industries to support each other and encourage themselves.
Get mad if you want, my problem with "Women in Tech" is that many times (not all) women don't add to the tech conversation and instead focus on showing themselves as victims. When men speak about tech it's about TECH, when women speak about tech it's about "The Lack of Women in Tech".
So a site like this is a step in the right direction.
If you already know whom you want to interview, the site would benefit from having a story or two already there, on launch.
If you're targeting the tech crowd, add an rss feed in addition to the e-mail newsletter.
And lose this bar at the top, it's completely unnecessarily wasting vertical space.
I don't know what would create the same thing for women in tech, but I think if someone could find that, it would be a more effective and resilient means to get support to women in tech. It would need to be a project which just so happened to attract a high percentage of women without the name or stated goal having anything to do with gender and which also in no way excluded men.
I hope you find an easy way to make the site grow past Toronto, perhaps with submitted stories from people in other cities that follow your standard style.
Have you thought about sometimes making (edited?) video recordings of the interviews? I can see how this would make many interviewees nervous, but I think it would also increase the effectiveness of the interviews for people who are comfortable with it. It would help make it easier to "put a face" to women in tech.
Hm, photos could work pretty well for that, too. Have you thought about getting a good photographer to take photos of the women whose stories are being told, perhaps with photos of them both "at work" and at your interview?
The only disappointing thing was the link to Toronto, I have two women in the UK that I'd nominate straight from the get go and a possible third (although I'd need to clear it with her first).
In a perfect world, peopleandtech.com would be all that's required, but unfortunately we're not quite there yet.
At the risk of being controversial, we will never be there, and nor should we desire to be. Women like different things to men. We're hard wired to have different tastes, desires, strengths and weaknesses.
After all, I assume you don't believe that the women who are successful and passionate about STEM fields are fighting their every instinct, right? So, even if you think they are biologically less likely interests for a woman, it'd be good to encourage the ones who are interested that they can be successes.
Personally, I think this just throws up an issue where there is none.
Any woman can get into tech, learn technology, setup websites, make apps, do a startup etc etc. I'm not really sure what barriers there are for anyone, apart from the barriers they impose on themselves.
Also I'm not a fan of sexism even when it's "reverse" - this website is "women only". It'd be much better to just share stories from everyone...
Just my 2c.
As a woman in high school and college in the stem fields (computer science, physics and biochem), while I can't point to any example of explicit sexism I faced, there was definitely this feeling of a "boy's club" at times, and at least personally, there was times I felt excluded and looked down upon by some individuals within the field. And even from individuals outside the field there was times that I got this feeling that people thought it was "weird" that I liked this stuff. Don't get me wrong, I loved it wholeheartedly, never once did I consider switching to something more "feminine". That doesn't mean that it didn't get me down at times. I had the benefit of having some strong female professors, who definitely inspired me.
I'm still not sure why anyone feels they need a role model. IMHO we should be teaching our kids to be confident about themselves, and trying what they want to try. If they're confident about exploring the world themselves, then role models probably matter far less.
My personal experience was that I found out about computers, saw they could do cool stuff, and wanted to play with them. "Role models" have never been part of the equation for me. Perhaps it's more necessary for Women to have role models, as they're more 'social' and communicate far more than men?
Just anecdotally, isn't the biochem industry pretty even, if not slightly female dominated?
I agree with you that its about confidence. If you were probably never discouraged by anyone about computing and tech because of some facet of who you are, or always had to confidence to let that stuff go even if you were, power to you. I don't think many of us are quite as strong as that. That's the idea behind presenting positive role models that people can relate to: even when other things are working against you, there is someone you can look up to and go "See, he/she was just like me, and look what they've done now". Its about boosting their confidence (not the only way, mind you).
Its not even about that idea of a stereotypical "role model". If someone asked me in high school or college who my female role-models were, I wouldn't have been able to say. Its more that repeatedly seeing examples of people like you who have "succeeded" hammers in the idea that you could do it too.
And just personally, I find the comment about being more "social" and "communicating far more than men" entertaining. It may be true in the general case, but I'm definitely the quiet one, out of my team, otherwise composed entirely of males :)
This is the key sentence right here. For myself as a cis man, there are SO MANY more roles models that I see and hear about than many other group of people. It doesn't matter if you feel that you don't need role models because you grew up in a world where those kinds of people get the most amount of attention.
For women in tech it is completely different. Women in tech aren't visible. Sexist attitudes and news stories dominate the discussions about women in tech. Can you imagine how off putting that is to someone who likes tech? Would you want to spend your life working in a field where your very existence as a woman will be a constant source of harassment and experience erasure? That your skill will be questioned automatically because of your gender?
To suggest that such a site as Women and Tech is "reverse sexist" is ludicrous, because it is NOT sexist to provide safe spaces and outlets for people who are ignored and silenced in popular media (the web is the predominant popular media source for tech).
So this is a really hard idea to get out to someone, and is the core of a lot of the issues here: a lot of issues women face in technology are issues that men have never experienced. They usually aren't aware that these issues even exist, and probably couldn't brainstorm them if prodded.
Here is a thought experiment. You're writing a unit test framework, and the output of your test is like so: http://i.imgur.com/jIsR8.png (sorry for the non-terminalness)
You pass this off to your friend to see what he thinks. "How do you tell if the test passed?" he asks. "What do you mean?" "I can't see if a test passed or failed. I don't get it." "What? All the information you need is right there!"
Turns out your friend is colorblind. Chances are, you didn't intentionally make this hard for colorblind people. It simply wasn't on your radar. Assuming you aren't colorblind, you go through your whole life discerning the difference between green and red and simply assume everyone else does too! The difference is that when someone brings this up, you don't go "nuh uh! We all see exactly the same way! I don't see what barriers there are for anyone to tell the difference between red and green." Yet this is exactly the response you gave above. (Don't worry, we all do this to a degree).
The point is, there are lots of subtle differences that people with different backgrounds view the world through. It's unrealistic to accommodate all of them, but in order to be a better human being you have to stop and listen when someone tells you something that is outside of your experience. So when you say you're 'not really sure what barriers there are for anyone,' well, there are a lot. Especially for women. That's why we need sites like this.
If you're interested in a long but very well written piece, I highly recommend Ellen Spertus' MIT AI Technical Report on this subject: http://people.mills.edu/spertus/Gender/pap/pap.html
FWIW, I said it because I learnt to program alone. Sitting in front of a computer. With books. I didn't 'network', or attend gatherings of other people. I don't see the need for it... So that's perhaps why I'm not seeing any hurdles.
Plus, there are lots of those around. Why would we need one more?
Is there a reason why you think that your desires are generally held, or why they're particularly important to the creators of the site? I'm assuming by your username that you're a man and the site isn't aimed at men who don't want to hear women talking about women in tech. (I could be wrong on either or both assumptions, of course.)
The point is not to mindlessly cheerlead because a person has some attribute, whether it's two X chromosomes, or a last name ending in a vowel, etc. The point is to aggregate the accomplishments of people with that attribute, so they don't always feel so damned alone.
My wife was working at a large tech company on an automated translation system. She needed some more native Spanish speakers to help vet the output. The call went out to the regular employees, thousands of people, and she got nothing. Hindi, Chinese, OK. But no Spanish. She ended up going down to the cafeteria (!) and asking the workers there to help out.
Maybe, someday, a woman programmer will be as unremarkable as a woman lawyer. Until then, well, keep remarking on it.
Well said! Every time I show up at a tech event and someone shouts "Yay! There's a girl here!", it just makes me want to leave.
That's good to know. I'll stop doing that. Sorry.
Just curious if you really mean gender, or if you actually mean sex.
Gender and sex are not equivalent -- OED even makes the distinction -- and I merely was curious as to the intentions of the organization.
Don't people know it's the same thing as green? What's the point of slicing such fine distinctions?
EDIT: And from a practical perspective, I think the use of "cis-woman" is harmful to the trans community. It makes them seem kind of like they have an extreme agenda, when they really don't. If trans people really hate being labeled as "different," just co-opt the word woman. Stop labeling yourself AND "cis-women" differently.
Assuming the best of you, let me give you a small piece of advice. Never say this. Even if it's true, and even if it's your trans friends who Made You See The Light, etc. Not only is it an irrelevant fact, but it's a very frequent cover for bigotry ("I have a gay friend!" "I have a black friend!" "I know lots of women!") and will never help your case.
There are a couple reasons for this. 1, it obviously didn't keep you from making whatever mistaken statement you made. 2, just because someone is part of a group does not automatically make them sainted evangelists of that group. In stricter terms, it's an argument from a false authority: your friendship with a small group of individuals does not make you (or them) an authority on the larger group under discussion.
> But call me old fashioned, we already have a word for "cis-woman," the word is "woman".
Who is "we" and why do you assume you're included? Language drifts, and it drifts most particularly in subcultures. People discover needs to describe things that they do not immediately have words for and begin using new words. You can be as old-fashioned as you like; just don't prescribe how other people talk. You ain't no po-po for da lingo.
> If trans people really hate being labeled as "different," just co-opt the word woman.
They did. That's when you didn't hear about them.
Think of it this way. A lot of people currently believe that gay people do not exist. I'm serious. They do not exist, and that is part of what justifies legislation against them. They're not trying to oppress people; they're trying to convince supposedly gay people to relinquish their traumatic past and return to the straight and normal. Laws that oppress a non-existent class don't really seem like oppression. Forcefully reminding us that they are a class and that they are treated differently right now has value.
I mean, really. How exactly do you expect them to talk about the issue of bathrooms without bringing up the transgenderedness? And how do you expect them to talk about their transgenderedness without sounding like it's something deviant?
You know why the word cis-women grinds my gears. The prefix sounds like "cyst" every time I read it. It's not too late to pick something else, I doubt more than 5% of the population has ever heard it. Marketing matters.
If a woman whose gender and sex don't match is interested in being a subject on the site, then the distinction might be relevant. Judging by the tone of the site, they seem likely to be inclusive more than exclusive so long as your story is worth covering. But that's hard to say for sure and certainly use of the term "gender" (unqualified) doesn't tell us anything.
Although a person with male genitalia who looks like a man and acts like a man but claims to identify as female may be denied coverage, the odds of this scenario happening are very low, so the distinction between sex and gender is a non-issue in this case unless you have a particular agenda to push.
Get these published in teen girl and cosmo magazines, because the women who read it on the internet are probably already in tech.