6 ms·

Fallacy of the excluded middle. Just because quotas are a wrong solution doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. A tech conference that ends up with 95% male s

Fallacy of the excluded middle. Just because quotas are a wrong solution doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. A tech conference that ends up with 95% male speakers is Doing Something Wrong. They have no right to be "happy with their process". One of the "correct" solutions has already been discussed in many places - use a name-blinded review process, and make sure your CFP outreach activities include women-intensive groups.

jiggy2011 13y ago
Do you think a name blinded review process would yield a different result? I've never run a tech conference but it would not surprise me if ~95% of submitted technical talks were from men. If you name-blind the review process you would still expect to get 95% men unless there is a higher % of women submitting talks and being rejected because they are women. The quoted article suggests doing the opposite of name-blinding and actively looking for female talks in the pile.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  This boils down to the age-old question; "equitable vs. equal".
- juridatenshi 13y ago
  Blinding combined with active outreach to get more people to submit to a CFP has helped several conferences improve their numbers. GoGaRuCo is the one that immediately comes to mind.
- j_s 13y ago
  I never did follow up to see how DjangoCon 2013 turned out... looks like you're about right. http://2013.djangocon.eu http://2013.djangocon.eu https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5036457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5036457 > Everybody can vote for DjangoCon 2013 presentations (Github required) > The voting is deliberately anonymous at this first stage.
- theoretick 13y ago
  I have sat on organizational committees and name-blinding would not work for some of us for one key reason: We use speaker's name/identity as a criteria for talk selection. Two main examples are whether they have presented before and how "strong" of a speaker they are. We DO use names to discriminate but that often allows us to have "fresh" speakers and keep the lineup somewhat varied. It also allows us to filter for all the other spam-talks; i.e. marketers. It is an issue of priorities but I would easily place quality of presentations over guaranteed blinding to prevent gender-bias selection.
tankbot 13y ago
Strawman: She never claimed the problem didn't exist.
olgagalchenko 13y ago
She didn't say that the problem doesn't exist. Not only that, she proposed 6 solutions to the problem.
bjterry 13y ago
Name-blinded reviews doesn't seem like a good solution for a conference, where a significant part of the appeal of a potential speaker can be their existing fame. They are a business, and name-blinded reviews could cost ticket sales.
- AaronFriel 13y ago
  A mixed solution seems more equitable - if there is a "rockstar programmer" invite them as a "Keynote" or some other more select engagement. Have only a small number of these speakers, and hopefully their credentials speak for themselves. I only wish it was possible for smaller organizations to take advantage of blind review processes for speakers.
- vellum 13y ago
  You could do a first pass where someone make a note that they're famous, without mentioning the name.
- Evbn 13y ago
  And here we see how ridiculous is the claim that technical and educational issues are the drivers of a conference.
rmc 13y ago
use a name-blinded review process What's interesting is when people do the opposite. When they A/B test the name. Same content. Half the people have male names, half female. Now, if gender doesn't matter, and people are judged purely on their achievements, and we are in a real meritocracy, then there should be no difference, right? If there a statistically significant difference in how people treat the male vs. female applicant, then there's some bias going on. Turns out if you do that (e.g. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/201... ), you get men getting more job offers and getting offered more money. And this is scientists judging applicants for a science job! Something is wrong here....
- Tichy 13y ago
  Maybe something is wrong, but I wouldn't blindly assume it's discrimination (especially since the results are the same if women do the hiring). I wish somebody woyuld at least look into possible reasons. Personally I suspect the elephant in the room is motherhood. If there is an x% chance for the recipient of your grant to quit the profession after a couple of years, it lowers the value of your investment quite a bit.
  - mjmahone17 13y ago
    Which means we should allow/push men to take paternity leaves in equal proportion to women taking maternity leaves. It's ridiculous that a) maternity leave is essentially not required in the US, and b) that women are expected to bear additional work-burdens, and men are often not allowed to bear the same child-rearing responsibilities due to lack of paternity leave.
    - makomk 13y ago
      I'll take "problems affecting women that feminism has consistently failed to tackle" for $2,000 ;-) (Seriously, it got a brief mention as such in one of bell hooks' books and everything. The solution, alas, is probably not a simple one.)
natmaster 13y ago
Straw man. The woman who wrote this articles agrees that there is a problem in the industry, but that quotas are not a solution.
- Morendil 13y ago
  Read the article carefully, and quote me the part where she agrees there is a problem. The balance of evidence is that she is dismissive of the problem. She says she disagrees with Debra Mastaler, she uses scare-quotes around the word "bias", all but one of her "solutions" are aimed at female speakers individually, of the "do more to get noticed" variety. (The one standout is her accusation against Forbes Woman.) Nowhere does she acknowledge that a) a number conferences have managed to get much, much closer to parity, without resorting to quotas, and b) a conference that still ends up with 95% males therefore very much has a problem. This is known as "not doing your homework".

jiggy2011 13y ago

Do you think a name blinded review process would yield a different result? I've never run a tech conference but it would not surprise me if ~95% of submitted technical talks were from men. If you name-blind the review process you would still expect to get 95% men unless there is a higher % of women submitting talks and being rejected because they are women. The quoted article suggests doing the opposite of name-blinding and actively looking for female talks in the pile.

sliverstorm 13y ago
This boils down to the age-old question; "equitable vs. equal".
juridatenshi 13y ago
Blinding combined with active outreach to get more people to submit to a CFP has helped several conferences improve their numbers. GoGaRuCo is the one that immediately comes to mind.
j_s 13y ago
I never did follow up to see how DjangoCon 2013 turned out... looks like you're about right. http://2013.djangocon.eu http://2013.djangocon.eu https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5036457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5036457 > Everybody can vote for DjangoCon 2013 presentations (Github required) > The voting is deliberately anonymous at this first stage.
theoretick 13y ago
I have sat on organizational committees and name-blinding would not work for some of us for one key reason: We use speaker's name/identity as a criteria for talk selection. Two main examples are whether they have presented before and how "strong" of a speaker they are. We DO use names to discriminate but that often allows us to have "fresh" speakers and keep the lineup somewhat varied. It also allows us to filter for all the other spam-talks; i.e. marketers. It is an issue of priorities but I would easily place quality of presentations over guaranteed blinding to prevent gender-bias selection.

tankbot 13y ago

Strawman: She never claimed the problem didn't exist.

olgagalchenko 13y ago

She didn't say that the problem doesn't exist. Not only that, she proposed 6 solutions to the problem.

bjterry 13y ago

Name-blinded reviews doesn't seem like a good solution for a conference, where a significant part of the appeal of a potential speaker can be their existing fame. They are a business, and name-blinded reviews could cost ticket sales.

AaronFriel 13y ago
A mixed solution seems more equitable - if there is a "rockstar programmer" invite them as a "Keynote" or some other more select engagement. Have only a small number of these speakers, and hopefully their credentials speak for themselves. I only wish it was possible for smaller organizations to take advantage of blind review processes for speakers.
vellum 13y ago
You could do a first pass where someone make a note that they're famous, without mentioning the name.
Evbn 13y ago
And here we see how ridiculous is the claim that technical and educational issues are the drivers of a conference.

rmc 13y ago

use a name-blinded review process What's interesting is when people do the opposite. When they A/B test the name. Same content. Half the people have male names, half female. Now, if gender doesn't matter, and people are judged purely on their achievements, and we are in a real meritocracy, then there should be no difference, right? If there a statistically significant difference in how people treat the male vs. female applicant, then there's some bias going on. Turns out if you do that (e.g. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/201... ), you get men getting more job offers and getting offered more money. And this is scientists judging applicants for a science job! Something is wrong here....

Tichy 13y ago
Maybe something is wrong, but I wouldn't blindly assume it's discrimination (especially since the results are the same if women do the hiring). I wish somebody woyuld at least look into possible reasons. Personally I suspect the elephant in the room is motherhood. If there is an x% chance for the recipient of your grant to quit the profession after a couple of years, it lowers the value of your investment quite a bit.
- mjmahone17 13y ago
  Which means we should allow/push men to take paternity leaves in equal proportion to women taking maternity leaves. It's ridiculous that a) maternity leave is essentially not required in the US, and b) that women are expected to bear additional work-burdens, and men are often not allowed to bear the same child-rearing responsibilities due to lack of paternity leave.
  - makomk 13y ago
    I'll take "problems affecting women that feminism has consistently failed to tackle" for $2,000 ;-) (Seriously, it got a brief mention as such in one of bell hooks' books and everything. The solution, alas, is probably not a simple one.)

natmaster 13y ago

Straw man. The woman who wrote this articles agrees that there is a problem in the industry, but that quotas are not a solution.

Morendil 13y ago
Read the article carefully, and quote me the part where she agrees there is a problem. The balance of evidence is that she is dismissive of the problem. She says she disagrees with Debra Mastaler, she uses scare-quotes around the word "bias", all but one of her "solutions" are aimed at female speakers individually, of the "do more to get noticed" variety. (The one standout is her accusation against Forbes Woman.) Nowhere does she acknowledge that a) a number conferences have managed to get much, much closer to parity, without resorting to quotas, and b) a conference that still ends up with 95% males therefore very much has a problem. This is known as "not doing your homework".