Still Unlocking the Clubhouse

Video

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:31:00 -0500

The full range of diversity in programming

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:33:53 -0500

I recently gave a talk at Software Craftsmanship North America about diversity in technology and programming, specifically gender and specifically in the context of teaching diverse beginners as we do in Girl Develop It Columbus. A lot of follow-up topics and questions came out of it that I felt needed more discussion and clarification. So I will be posting on them here.

When talking about diversity in technology, often the discussion revolves around only one aspect of it: diversity of gender. Which in itself tends to be limited to only one aspect of gender: those who identify as women. This effectively neglects diversity of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or other aspects of gender that encompass the transgender community.

I think there is in fact a single, pragmatic reason for this. Simply put, the issue of women in technology is most accessible to the target audience. Most men in technology (who also tend to be white, straight and cisgendered) have partners, family members and friends who are women and feel connected to the topic through their connections to the women in their lives. Statistically speaking, it’s just more likely those men have those connections than connections to people of different races, etc.

This is not to say that these men, or women who are white, straight and/or cisgendered, don’t care about the full range of diversity. It’s merely to explain why the “woman” aspect tends to bubble up most often. However, it’s also a good reminder that, because of this, we need to work harder to bring this issue to the forefront.

While my own speciality is in issues relating to women, I try to connect them to larger diversity issues as often as I can. Essentially, I consider the basic principles I advocate to be just as applicable to other minority populations. Frankly, I would take it a step farther and include a description of “minority populations” to encompass anyone with divergent background, thought or personality. I know plenty of white, straight, cisgendered men who still have experiences of feeling left out or alienated because their styles don’t align with the dominant culture or zeitgeist in technology. What opens the door for women can open the door for any of these others, as well.

This is exactly why the title of my talk made no mention of women. It didn’t even specifically mention gender. I developed the content of my talk from my experience as a woman and working primarily with educating women, and I’m transparent about that. But I think the lessons learned work for a variety of situations, and I think there is a great deal of potential in the lesson of connecting your own experience to the experience of someone else in a different situation. In that vein, I make efforts to encourage those connections. I think I should make that clearer the next time I give this talk.

How exactly do we go about doing this? Several people asked me specifically what guys can do help open up tech culture, and I’m going to devote another post to that topic. In general, I advocate the principle of appreciating and treating people as individuals, and taking the time to get to know them as individuals - and expecting the same in return.

A few groups, sites, resources, etc. supporting wide diversity in STEM fields (a woefully incomplete list - please contribute suggestions if you have them):

In summary? People are individuals. That’s a cool thing. I think valuing individual experiences, passions and ideas breeds innovation. And I like innovation. Therefore I like individuals. And I want to build an environment where individuality and innovation can flourish.

"This is why I personally care about diversity: it’s the canary in the coal mine for meritocracy...."

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:23:07 -0500

“This is why I personally care about diversity: it’s the canary in the coal mine for meritocracy. When we see extremely skewed demographics, we have very good reason to suspect that something is wrong with our selection process, that it’s not actually as meritocratic as it could be. And I believe that is exactly what is happening in Silicon Valley.”

- Eric Reis, “Racism and Meritocracy”

"First things first. We’ve heard a very old argument raise its head — People can get ahead if they..."

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:15:15 -0400

“First things first. We’ve heard a very old argument raise its head — People can get ahead if they want to. If they’re not getting ahead, it’s their own fault. – I don’t accept that or believe it to be 100% true because of what I’ve experienced and seen growing up. While in many ways I’ve had amazing opportunities in my career, my awareness regarding other people’s opportunities, or lack of them, has not dwindled. I know that my enthusiasm is contagious but the harsh reality is that I can see people judging, comparing and calculating me and others. The comments that have shown up on posts around the NewMe Accelerator (the whole reason there is a CNN documentary), this issue with Arrington and really anytime race comes into play around technology are disturbing. I see people so far removed that they wouldn’t probably dare step out of their homes and away from the keyboard. 4chan’ing at the desk but a coward face to face.”

- Adria Richards

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel..."

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:48:53 -0400

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.”

- Steve Jobs

wearethedigitalkids: A wise CEO of a healthcare company gave me...

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:56:38 -0400

wearethedigitalkids:

A wise CEO of a healthcare company gave me advice I’ll never forget. ‘Just start. Don’t wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you. No one expects you to get it right in the very beginning and you’ll learn more from your mistakes than you will from your early successes anyway. So, stop worrying so much and just look at your best bets and go.’”

-Jacqueline Novogratz

Image borrowed from here.

"If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, we’ve got to open..."

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:19:42 -0400

““If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, we’ve got to open doors for everyone. We need all hands on deck, and that means clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering and math.””

- Michelle Obama, at the press conference for the announcement of new workplace flexibility policies to support America’s scientists and their families.

Links for 1 September 2011

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:32:13 -0400

On tech conferences and the amazing invisible women: “No one’s telling you to kick a qualified man out of a speaking slot just to fill it with a less-qualified woman. But it wouldn’t hurt you to take a minute to see if your definition of ‘qualified’ sounds kind of similar to ‘I’ve heard of him/her before.’”
Doing good to make us better: “Making computer science pink won’t increase the number of women, instead, we need to build up support and encouragement for all students.”
Notes from the classroom- TA’ing at high school comp sci: “The fact that this organization has created a very practical and pragmatic way to introduce already interested young women into programming, is about 90% of the battle. These girls are there, and willing, we just have to provide the time and space to continue their exploring.”
Why women shouldn’t write about why women shouldn’t attend tech conferences.
A technical conference filled with women.
The hive mind needs more women: “The implications of all of this for any company doing online business is clear: optimizing groups with more women and more democratic discussion is just as important as casting your crowdsourcing net far and wide.”

fuckyeahcomputerscience: Female Computer Programmers in the...

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 07:46:26 -0400

fuckyeahcomputerscience:

Female Computer Programmers in the ’60s

“It’s just like planning a dinner,” explains Dr. Grace Hopper, now a staff scientist in systems programming for Univac. (She helped develop the first electronic digital computer, the Eniac, in 1946.) “You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so it’s ready when you need it. Programming requires patience and the ability to handle detail. Women are ‘naturals’ at computer programming.”

"At that same dinner, one African American woman summed up progress in this way: ‘We’ll know we..."

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:52:08 -0400

“At that same dinner, one African American woman summed up progress in this way: ‘We’ll know we have parity when mediocre black women get funding for bad ideas at the same rate as mediocre white men.’”

- “Rebuttal: Make Room In the Bubble For Everyone,” Freada Kapor Klein.

Talking sex and language

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:56:00 -0400

Earlier on Twitter, I linked to this piece by Violet Blue about a controversy within the open source development community about words, gender and sexism. She writes:

“The PyPi community does not have an easy road with this. If someone’s offended, a cry of censorship can make even the most sensible community moderators back away from problems. (Not that, to my knowledge, the Cheese Shop has seen many software packages with names like Manhole or Tinypenis.)

At the same time, as we’re seeing with the News of the World/Murdoch/phone hacking scandal, some will always exist that feel they’re smarter than the rest of us, and don’t need to worry about other people’s problems with their actions - as long as they get theirs. If we don’t think it’s okay, we’re interpreting it wrong, and that’s just our problem.

But in an open source community, I kind of think it’s everyone’s problem.”

Violet Blue handles the entire thing perfectly well, but I wanted to expand on a couple of points.

The problem here is not necessarily one of sex or sexual language. As Violet points out, it’s the people who are more knowledgeable about sex and its community expressions that will understand the implications of naming a library “upskirt.” Upskirt porn is entirely based on non-consent. That’s the point of it. With consent, it’s simply a model posing and the point is moot. So, in this case, the word is directly referencing something that has less to do with sex and more to do with power and, specifically, power over non-consenting women. Even the term “pantyshot,” which is often used in the mainstream tabloids, entails a moment of embarrassment where a women is caught unaware. Also an issue of power, also an issue of non-consent. Throw in the fact that the woman who developed the Upskirt library is a non-native English speaker who didn’t understand the implications of the term she was encouraged to use and we’ve raised exploitation to a completely new level.

I’m happy to describe myself as a sex-positive feminist. Sex shouldn’t be a taboo subject and, within context, its discussion can take many forms. Even humorous ones. But when women aren’t informed and included in that discussion, and the form the discussion takes becomes exploitative rather than empowering – there’s the problem.

Another problem is that talk about sex within geek communities unfortunately often sinks to the level of locker room banter and adolescent fantasy rather than frank, open exchange of experience and ideas. I don’t mind talking about sex. I don’t mind joking about sex. Honestly, of most of the men I’ve met in the community, I’d venture to guess I’m more willing to do it than they are. But we can do it as adults and we can do it without demeaning others. We can do it by elevating everyone, not by dragging someone else down.

Guarding our focus

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 15:07:00 -0400

So I’ve established that I want to involve men in my efforts to encourage women in tech. I’ve already learned, however, that I have to be careful that balance doesn’t tip too far in the opposite direction and cloud the original focus. It’s great, and essential, to have a lot of enthusiastic, expert men willing to teach and mentor. But if I only pull leaders and educators from the same niche group, it begins to perpetuate the same problem I’m trying to solve.

A GDI Columbus student mentioned to me recently that it would be important to her to see more women teaching and in visible leadership roles. It’s interesting how our own micro-level experiment mirrors so accurately the situation so often described at the macro level. How many times is it said that we can’t hire women, or schedule women speakers, because we can’t find enough women to do it? And the women we do have all have the expected reasons not to – time restricted by family commitments, or lack of confidence in their skill levels.

I have definitely observed a difference in how men and women typically act professionally when it comes to their skill level. It’s even only recently I’ve realized the extent of these habits in myself. I’ve noticed I, and other women, tend to hold back if we think we’re not thoroughly experienced in a certain topic. Whereas men tend to jump in and trust, and expect others to trust, their abilities to figure it out. This comes into play heavily when it comes to teaching and speaking. Sometimes merely inviting women in doesn’t do much to change the balance.

The question then is, of course, what will? Even I, hyper-sensitive to these issues, am having trouble providing visible role models¹ in a program designed specifically to increase women’s participation in programming. It’s not even easy for us. Which is why we too have to think carefully about our representation and methodology

In addition to stepping up efforts to reach out particularly to expert women to ask for involvement and to encourage the women already in the program to participate more, I’ve learned we need to keep a hold of our identity and goals. For example, when we started referring to our program often just as GDI (much snappier), more men started to show interest in helping. This is cool. But then I have students wondering where the women like them are. If we go too far in bringing in men to help, we risk creating yet another community where women feel unwelcome. Opening up the boundaries is our overall destination–to men and to all minorities–but we’re not going to get there in one step, and, for a variety of reasons, the first step I’ve chosen is to start with the women.

This is where I determined the value of guarding our focus. Even touches like including the word “girl” and using pink² help brand us, if in a tongue-in-cheek way, as a group of people who are not going to let women get lost in shuffle. That’s the entire point. We’re not going to let women who come to us wanting to work and learn get overlooked, pushed to the back or turned away. Keeping true to our image is more than a tactic. It’s a promise that we’re going to make sure we do what we set out to.

¹ I’ll tackle exactly why visible role models matter in the near future.

² I know women have mixed feelings about these kinds of elements, and I understand why. I myself have gone through a long process of rejecting, rediscovering, repurposing and rejecting all over again many culturally-typical trappings of womanhood. I’ll expand on this in the future.

Links for 2 July 2011

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:42:53 -0400

"I want to increase the number of talented women in tech; I’m tired of being the only woman in the..."

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 10:23:42 -0400

“I want to increase the number of talented women in tech; I’m tired of being the only woman in the room meeting after meeting, job after job. But, we do not help women become successful entrepreneurs by making them think they’re in the club when they aren’t. We help them by setting the bar high, communicating it clearly, recognizing those who have the potential to hit it and respectfully but firmly telling the rest to go home.”

- Lisa Maki, “No “A” for Effort: Train and Study Your Competition.”

"When I had a problem I was stuck on, I would go talk to each of these three people individually. ..."

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 11:13:00 -0400

“When I had a problem I was stuck on, I would go talk to each of these three people individually. Every time, they gave me at least somewhat different answers. Then, I could take the shortcomings of one solution and use information from someone else’s solution to solve it. With all of their advice put together, I was able to build the best possible software. That is why diversity is truly important…at the end of the day, you can use it to drive better business results. Now, I realize that these three people were all men, but I would argue that we did have diversity on our team. In general, having the widest range of types of people on your team will promote more diversity. I don’t just mean gender, race, and age, but the things that are harder to see as well: introverts and extroverts, young people just out of college and single parents (who have to manage their time super-efficiently), people with different thinking styles, working styles, education levels, work experience, etc. Finally, don’t forget that many of us develop software that is used globally or released publically [sic] on the internet for everyone. In that case, having developers that reflect your broad user base is a very good thing. Everyone brings their own perspectives to the table, and (for example) a single mom will understand best what a single mom needs from a dating website or a website that sells diapers online, etc. A diverse workforce creates better software and happier users.”

- Jennifer Marsman

Links for 21 June

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 09:51:00 -0400

Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock (This is a tremendous article, and hits virtually all the points I think are important.)
Nordic Ruby and diversity
To fix the system, coach men on gender issues, too
Study: kids are the road to tech innovation
The Ada Initiative: donate for your daughters

For the boys

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:58:26 -0400

The most important cultural lesson I’ve learned about working with men in technology is that the majority of them either a) don’t realize how their behavior might be adversely affecting women and other “outsiders” and are willing, even eager, to change it, or b) are aware of these issues but don’t know how to broach the topic themselves or aren’t sure what, as white men, they’re “allowed” to do.

There is an almost unbelievable amount of potential wrapped up in this. While I believe a concentrated effort tailored to women (or other minorities) is necessary to a certain extent, any initiative that doesn’t involve men in the process of refactoring existing structures is at best inefficient and at worst doomed.

Here’s the truth: most guys just don’t know. They don’t know how others feel and if they do they don’t know what to do about it. This is a problem. And it’s not just their fault. Those of us who want to shift the balance should approach this problem with the same consideration, fairness and empathy that we want in return.

Maybe I’m just lucky. But, over the course of many years, I’ve consistently encountered and been impressed by men who are open to listening, anxious to help and genuinely desirous of improving the landscape. It’s inspiring. And, guess what? It makes the culture more rewarding for everyone.

Now, it is more complicated once you get into the details of exactly how we do this. It’s a slippery topic. It’s also true that I often see evidence of good intentions that sometimes do more harm than good. Such as when a rush to “encourage women” ends up in giving undue attention to women who aren’t quite pulling their own weight. Listen up, guys – there is absolutely nothing that creates a more hostile environment for the kind of smart, hard-working women you want around than overlooking them for women who take unfair advantage of encouragement. If you do that, you will drive the worthy women away. We don’t want to stock up on women just to have women there. We want to be challenged and earn our places. Because we know women can succeed at this. That’s the whole point. It’s a fine line, I know. But it’s there, and crossing it has unfortunate consequences.

This also dovetails with the question of how to avoid “offending” women. How are men supposed to create a welcoming environment if they don’t understand how to edit themselves? How are men supposed to figure out what they’re doing badly and what they’re doing well and what one woman will like or one woman won’t? It’s kind of overwhelming to even think about.

Men, this is the type of thing we want to help you out with. This is what you should feel comfortable asking questions about and introducing discussions about. There is no one set of rules here that we’re trying to put in place of another, existing set. It’s difficult to navigate all this. We know that. We’re not waiting to jump on you if you make a mistake or a wrong move. We want to talk about it and figure out what to do about it together. Because of that whole “making it better for everyone” thing.

Be authentic. Be honest. Communicate. Take the time to get to know women as individuals and give them opportunities to know you. Because, as far as my own experience has gone, so many of you are really worth knowing, talking to and working with. That’s why we want to do it in the first place.

Talk and action

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:57:00 -0400

I’m tired of discussing women in technology. I really am. As I’ve already pointed out, this discussion has been going on for a long time. It’s been in the tech landscape for well over a decade now. I’ve been talking about it myself for almost as long. And, yet, people seem to just be discovering it. Which prompts more discussion.

I’m not saying that discussion is not important or has no place. What I am saying is that we’re at the point that if discussion isn’t happening as a part of or as a start to realistic and defined courses of action, then we don’t need it.

Enough talk. Enough aimless wondering why it is this way. Enough panels and presentations that tell us why it is this way but don’t offer anything on what to do about it. It’s time to do something.

What can you do? Start learning. Start teaching. Start a class. Start a hack night. If you’re learning, reach out to women in the field who do what you want to do and ask them questions. Ask them to mentor you. If you’re teaching, reach out to women who downplay their interests and skills and bring them into the fold. Demand that the people working in this field start valuing what you have to offer as an unique individual. Make your perceived weaknesses your strengths. Make your own opportunities. In the course of doing all this, you’ll be changing the landscape for others to follow the path you’ve blazed.

Opening the door

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:59:00 -0400

In the summer of 2005, I worked as a counselor in a computer camp for kids at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. At the time, I was struggling to wrap up a rather unsuccessful computer science major at a college in Ohio and increasingly of the belief that it had been a mistake for someone like myself to take on a challenge like that.

At camp, we taught kids ages 7–17 a variety of tech-related topics: web design, video game creation, digital video and programming. I became friends with the counselor who taught the programming class, who was also a female computer science major at Carnegie Mellon. Eventually, we began to talk about our educational experiences. I told her that I was one of two female computer science majors at my school, that I was typically the only girl in classes, that we only had one woman professor in the department (who had a deserved reputation for being flighty). In short, I felt like an outsider. In the beginning, I put a ton of effort into taking my questions to my professors’ offices and asking classmates for help. But I consistently ran into the attitude that if I didn’t already understand this stuff, I shouldn’t be there. No one was ever outwardly rude or mean, and I felt some of them honestly wanted to help. But they were uncomfortable and awkward when dealing with me and I really got nowhere. I had come to the conclusion that not only did I not belong, it was my fault I didn’t.

(An interesting parallel to this, which I didn’t really think about until years later, was that I also worked for over two years in the college IT department. I became one of the most trusted workers, to the point most faculty and staff on campus thought I was full-time staff myself. They asked to speak to me rather than the other technicians because they said they knew I wouldn’t laugh at them or make them feel dumb.)

However, I learned something interesting talking to this woman – a woman who was enrolled in one of the most prestigious computer science programs in the country, who had been raised by professors, including one in mathematics, and who had every academic and aptitudinal advantage I lacked. I learned that, despite all that, she felt almost all of the same things that I did.

This revelation completely floored me. I had just assumed my difficulties were entirely my fault. I didn’t work hard enough and I just wasn’t left-brained enough. While those may or may not be true, I hadn’t examined any of the external factors that could be complicating the situation. Or realizing these external factors could be part of an underlying, pervasive problem in technology education and culture itself.

So I started examining them. My counselor friend from computer camp recommended to me Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing, a book published in 2001 about a research study done on the role of gender in the culture of computing education in the computer science program at Carnegie Mellon. I won’t go into too many details about it because the book speaks for itself. But it delivers some powerful evidence and suggestions about what could be causing the uneven numbers of women in computer science and technology.

I use that tense deliberately – “could be causing.” Because even though this book was published in 2001, and the research done prior to that, this topic continues to generate an unending flow of questions and discussion. Ten years down the road, I’m not sure how much ground we’ve gained.

Recently, I started a program to offer classes and community for women who want to learn how to code. As I progress through the process of organizing and building it, I’m learning that there’s even more to learn about how we approach and teach this, and why there still aren’t answers to some of these questions. So I started keeping a dedicated log of my experiences and thoughts. Maybe something solid will come out of it and help make a better map for navigating this path in the future.