An Outspoken Voice for Women in Tech, Foiled by His Tone
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I don't see this as very complicated. Women, just like any aggrieved minority, don't want to be spoken for, or spoken to. They want to be heard; they want to speak for themselves.
The goal of engagement is not to get some establishment figure to "parrot some feminist line", it's to listen to women's voices, for a change. The primary work of male allies should not be speaking up on behalf of women, it should be facilitating the voices of women. I.e., mostly, stand aside and listen.
Are you a woman?
Instead of this (who speaks for which group), these scientists (after all, Wadhwa was (is?) a professor of business) should have produced 'knowledge' about what is going in the tech industry. Here, it requires more than "who speaks for which group": generating non-ad hoc hypotheses to understand phenomena, testing such hypotheses for testable consequences.
When one can't produce knowledge, they end up with arguments. On one hand, one can reasonably argue for any proposition, say P, to an extent. On the other hand, some others can reasonbly argue for the logical opposite of P too. In the end, it boils down to who believes P or not-P.
Seriously, though, it's really easy, as a member of the dominant group (male, white, able-bodied, you name it) to try to stand up for a minority group in a way that seems really helpful from our own perspective, but is actually really hurtful, dis-empowering, or otherwise messed up from the perspective of the people actually living the issue.
If you're finding it frustrating trying to put in your two cents, then there's no harm in just listening for a while. Sometimes it's important to speak out against really egregious stuff, but if you're not confident you're doing it "right", often it's better to let someone else take the reigns--someone living on the disadvantaged side. It's frustrating to have to do, but sometimes that's best.
However, it's important to remember that when we screw up, that's NOT the fault of the minority group. Yes, they're the ones calling us out when we're trying to help, but if our response is to dismiss their concerns, then there's a good chance we ARE speaking from our own perspective, rather than promoting theirs.
But, yes, you can "win" in these conversations. It sounds like you're dismissing them as totally unreasonable because they didn't always agree with your perspective. Could be they're just crazy, emotional women--shrill, bossy ones, no doubt. More likely you screwed up. A lot. That's what people do. Just don't abandon the idea of supporting minorities because the way you wanted to help wasn't they wanted you to help.
If it's any comfort, every feminist who got mad at you for saying something wrong has also said something wrong to a disabled person, a person of color, someone from a minority religion, someone from a different economic class....we all screw up. Ideally people will be nice when we do, but even if they're jerks, they deserve equality. We don't punish all white men when one is a jerk.
Minorities don't need my solutions. They need my support for their solutions.
This is a common but, IMO -- speaking as a member of a minority on one important axis and a non-minority on other important axes -- misguided view.
As a developer, I wouldn't say "business users don't need my solutions, they need my support for their solutions" -- though I might say "business users need me to be attentive to their interests and needs in proposing solutions".
Similarly, minorities don't need blind adherence to their demands from the majority any more than vice versa -- certainly, people who are outside of a particular minority can often have important and useful perspective on solutions to the problems faced by minorities. But a key part of that is really paying attention to the interests of people in the group at issue.
Who, usually, aren't going to be monolithic, and some of whom are going to disagree with any solution, whether its proposed by a fellow member of the minority or not. And, yes, they'll often bring lack of minority status into it if the person they disagree with is outside of the minority (but then, they'll often bring betrayal language into it if the person is a member of the minority -- that's not because either is a valid critique, its because both are convenient emotional attack vectors.)
We need solutions that acknowledge minority experiences and treat them as valuable, not solutions that simply impose majority viewpoints.
It couldn't be that I have reasonable notions, take a balanced view, and help where I can. And get beat up for using the wrong pronoun or whatever.
It takes time to get it right. Dismissing it because you're not welcomed unquestioningly as the savior indicates that you're not.
As I said, sure, we should be try to be nice, but being mean does not delegitimize the movement.
if you're a white male the best thing you can do is shut the fuck up and watch because you are literally only in the movement to get ripped apart. none of these people have any respect for you in the first place. the currency of the social justice movement is being institutionally oppressed. more oppression directly gives you more authority. you have none.
moreover, the fundamental currency of human self-esteem is in overcoming adversity. but as a white male, you will never be allowed to have a struggle. and if your struggle is denied, then your humanity is denied. you're here to play the role of the oppressor and the privileged. don't think you're a "fellow member" of the social justice movement. everyone already hates you.
If you find that you as a dude are dominating a conversation about women, you may be speaking over the actual women. Perhaps you even forgot to invite them to the conversation in the first place. I know I've been guilty of this before.
But above all, remember that it's not about you winning.
If you're a man (like I am!), and you want to help women in tech (like I do!), and someone approaches you to speak at a conference about that, the thing to do is to recommend some awesome women you know to speak instead. Instead of talking about how women need support in this industry, support an actual woman in the industry.
Otherwise you run the risk of coming off like Wadhwa did. He looked like a carpetbagger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger) -- someone who had identified a hot trend and jumped on it to raise his own personal profile. And if you're a man who sincerely wants to help women, the way you do that is by helping them raise their own profiles, rather than using their problems to goose your own.
Maybe it's okay for a man to be the spokesperson for women's issues, or a white person to be the spokesperson for black issues, but it's important to realize you're speaking for someone else. It's really hard to do that better than that someone. Maybe I'm a better public speaker. Maybe people are more likely to listen to me. Maybe I even have a better understanding of power dynamics and sociology and tech culture. But it's also really, really critical to have an understanding of the perspectives of those I'm speaking for. That's hard. And in this situation, seems like a bunch of those people seemed to feel that wasn't the case.
Also, anecdotal experience, even by large numbers of the population, should not be taken as anything significant without a scientific endeavor to interpret them. Consider the numerous parents who will state "As a parent..." when disagreeing with an expert on child development. Even if thousands of parents disagree, even if the expert has never been a parent, an immunologist saying children should receive vaccines is still correct.
In all other fields, the expert lacking personal experience has the better perspective than part of the population impacted with their own personal anecdotes.
Why? You explanation shows why women are perfectly valid candidates; they don't need a man. But why would a man be a bad choice? Why do they need a woman?
I think this would be more accurate with the "a man" part. The spokesperson for women in tech shouldn't be. Women in tech aren't a monolithic group such that a spokesperson is sufficient.
I think the lesson is clear: if you want to help people, listen to them carefully. Vivek Wadhwa got slammed because he could not take criticism from the very people he was claiming he wanted to help: women. It can't be an ego thing.
Swearing off commenting on this issue...you're doing it wrong.