12 ms·

Why I won't speak at women-only events

94 points by GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago

tehwalrus 13y ago
I've attended several gender balance events (in politics, more than tech) and been one of the 2-3% of the audience who were male. They were some of the best I've been to, and I wish more dudes would turn up and learn from them.
- toble 13y ago
  The few female focused technology events that I have seen promoted locally give off the vibe of a private members club. They don't say it explicitly, but hint with words like attendees are welcome to take their partners etc. It just seems strange to me because other events have nothing like that style of language.
  - lysol 13y ago
    I think that says more about you than them.
    - mantas 13y ago
      How would you feel about men-focused male-in-tech conference? Not so cool, eh?
      - sp332 13y ago
        You know what would make it even worse? Having a note that said the men could bring a woman but only if they're romantically attached. There is no expectation that any women who show up are skilled or even inclined to the topic.
      - theorique 13y ago
        That tends to be the default.
  - tehwalrus 13y ago
    If I'm interested in an event topic (and have time, etc) then I go. end of. Even if I disagree with the majority opinion, it's better to turn up and ask one polite awkward question than to just leave it to people who wouldn't question their own ideas there (making it a less interesting session).
  - king_jester 13y ago
    > They don't say it explicitly, but hint with words like attendees are welcome to take their partners etc. How is an invitation for guests to bring their partners make an event a private club?
    - sp332 13y ago
      It means that the partners wouldn't be invited except they happen to know someone in the club.
theorique 13y ago
She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual assault, legal issues), but those tend to be done best as small groups anyway - it's a lot harder for a 1000 person auditorium to be a true "safe space".
- sp332 13y ago
  That's a danger, but it's not a guarantee. And I think you're not seeing some of the benefits of a single-gender event. For example, Mz pointed out one reason you might want a women-only event: a good reason to have some "ladies only" groups is because of the way a lot of women behave around men, not because of the way men behave around women or because "men are all sexist pigs". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5272532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5272532 That said, I don't think the article is about intentionally women-only events. I think she was planning to talk to men as well, and the men though she wasn't talking to them.
- shubb 13y ago
  How would you feel about an event with a female only speaker list? Instinctively, it raises my hackles, because positive discrimination is still discrimination, but I've seen it work really well in stand up comedy. Women standups only events have a very different feel, but you are also more likely to see women do standup that is normally male territory. So you might see an angry female political shock comic, whereas mainstream female comics tend to do observational humor about life. I'd suggest that there is value in creating a situation where vacuum causes people to fill roles they normally feel they don't fit the expectation for.
  - ckb 13y ago
    Are they all qualified speakers who are insightful and sharing something I can learn from? In that case, I wouldn't mind one bit.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
smegel 13y ago
Sounds like she was living in a real-world circlejerk without realizing it.
raganwald 13y ago
I spoke at SpainJS. It was a small conference, and unsurprisingly, most of the audience were from Spain. I obviously was not reaching "everyone," but so what? I reached 300 people, and the politics of why a conference was put together to appeal to Spaniards (is that a word?) is of no consequence to me. If I were a politician I'd attend Church pancake breakfasts and lunch with the Greek Business Chamber. Humans clump and cluster for all sorts of reasons. I support some, am indifferent to others, and frown at a few more. But in the end, if the people in attendance are people I want to reach, I'll go. If their politics don't appeal to me, I'll avoid discussing the subject. JM2C, I can't tell anyone else what to do.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
  Some might say if your speaking at an audience "reaches" a single person, then you have achieved more than you could have ever asked for.
- scott_s 13y ago
  That's her entire point: the people she wants to reach tend not to be in her audiences.
- stkni 13y ago
  I mostly agree but doesn't that slightly miss the point though? Because I presume you weren't invited to speak at a Spaniard only conference. I'm not particularly sure the OP has had much of an epiphany either. She could've entitled it 'Priest won't be preaching to the choir, anymore'. And it would've had a similar message, but perhaps not reached the top of HN.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  A better analogy might be if you wanted to reach Italians (because you thought Spaniards already completely grasped what you had to say) would you keep going to an event that ends up only being attended by Spaniards. I suspect not.
- mcguire 13y ago
  I'm guessing you weren't trying to convince people to learn to speak Spanish. Edit: Spaniard is indeed a lovely word: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Spaniard http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Spaniard.
ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
I wouldn't believe for a second that Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina have this problem. Parmer's column is accurate but not perplexing given what she said about being the CEO of Lady Geek. Her choice of target market (explained fairly well in its name) defines the context of her target audience.
- VLM 13y ago
  "Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina" Terrible examples. I was motivated enough to wikipedia them to gather the following data. Whitman and Fiorina have no tech background at all and have never worked tech jobs, pure management material all the way. Fiorina is legendary for destroying HP not exactly a glowing endorsement for women in anything. Mayer and Rometty went to school for tech but between the two of them they've only got about 5 years experience in tech/engineering before succumbing to the dark side of management. If anything the message to young women with a list like that is women should get out of tech and into mgmt/marketing/beancounting ASAP because tech is a dead end for women. Now, rather than 1%er management crooks, why not an example of a techie like Limor Fried? There's a real engineer, who happens to be female, someone who would make a good hero for young women in engineering / tech / programming. If you don't know who she is, you should look her up on wikipedia. There are of course a zillion other good techies who happen to be female, but an EE-chauvinist like myself is going to promote another EE. I can think of a relatively famous FPGA dev and many others.
  - ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
    Very fair point. I pointed them out mostly because these are "celebrities" in the tech world that you could easily find giving talks at various venues. Real people who get real work done tend to not have time for such nonsense :) I could/should have noted Mayer only because I consider her to be one of the most influential people in the (FTSE equivalent mentioned by Parmer) NASDAQ. While the jury is still out on her tenure at Yahoo!, several of Google's recent missteps _could_ be attributed to her absence at Big G.
    - 13y ago
3pt14159 13y ago
The reason I don't listen to women in tech presentations: 1. I'm basically not allowed to voice an opinion that isn't completely aligned with the feminist status quo (I believe in equality, fuck me right). 2. I'd rather learn how to build a better emberjs app. Or learn more about thorium. 3. Unlike the vast majority of problems, there are few concrete steps to be taken to correct the imbalances that do exist. Edit: I can't believe I had to self sensor, just to hit the post button.
- smtddr 13y ago
  With this kind of thinking, how will women(or any less-represented group) be able to reach you?
  - overgard 13y ago
    He didn't say he wasn't willing to listen, he expressed that he wanted a forum for equal discussion instead of a one way message.
    - jasonlotito 13y ago
      Seeing that he doesn't attend "women in tech" presentations, how does he know they are all one-way messages? On a side note: considering he's frustrated at self-sensoring himself from saying something he knew was wrong to say in some manner, I'd contend that in an environment where you do not have a chance to review what you say before saying it out loud, he's at least partially responsible for reactions he receives.
      - overgard 13y ago
        Well he didn't say he never attended one, only that he chooses not to now. Anything else is editorializing. I don't know the guy so I can't say anything about his opinions, but I'm amused at how many assumptions people are making about this guy.
        13y ago
rantanplan 13y ago
Men created the problem. Women like her can solve it. I knew it would come to this and other absurdities. All these men, accusing other men of anti-women sentiments, even when there weren't any. Some(mostly men!) have make it a personal crusade to vilify all men by definition. Some men are awful, some women are awful too. This kind of behavior will only sterilize our environments in the worst possible way. I'd like to see more women like her seeing the problem - and men taking notes.
stephengillie 13y ago
I wouldn't speak at male-only events either.
spinachthrow 13y ago
If I had one suggestion for these types of events - focus more on what you're building, less on "issues". Show, don't tell!
parfe 13y ago
The blog post conflates two issues. First there is the societal issue of the gender gap in tech. That involves discussions and education with the community at large regarding why women are underrepresented and how the gap can be closed. The second issue is an implementation of the first. Women only events are one of many contributing solutions to the gender gap. A woman only event ending with an invitation to a larger general event will likely do more to bring women into that event than sitting on a panel with a 95% male audience lamenting the fact that women seems to be missing.
throwwiffle 13y ago
I disagree with this. Only speaking at women-only events is a bad thing, but refusing to speak at women-only events is just as bad. It seems like women act more passive around men (at least in engineering). If there are only women in an audience, they might be encouraged to speak their mind more and feel less awkward about it. Here is an example of women being passive in engineering: An engineering club at my college had 30% to 50% women at almost every meeting. Most of the time, the women didn't do anything for the club's project - they stood nearby, talked, and sometimes cut foam or got something for a guy. This was in a machine shop. If they had put themselves forward and tried to get involved, they would have learned a lot and had more respect from the guys in the process . As it is, I'm afraid their behavior only reinforced the stereotype of "women engineering majors aren't serious" and left them with fewer practical skills than the guys. --- I don't know how effective having a women-only audience and speaker would be at reversing situations like this. If the talk was on "be more assertive" and "here are the potential problems you might face", it might be helpful. men-are-evil and similar lines are not. In the example given, having women-only clubs might help more - if the focus is primarily on building things, learning new tools, or completing some major project. It would increase womens' confidence and their assertiveness, as well as giving them an opportunitity to learn stuff a lot of the guys in the regular engineering club already know - without feeling awkward/stupid/embarassed. Regardless, though, any women-only group opens up the door to women who might be uncomfortable speaking out and asking questions otherwise. Edit: fixing some italics :/

I've attended several gender balance events (in politics, more than tech) and been one of the 2-3% of the audience who were male. They were some of the best I've been to, and I wish more dudes would turn up and learn from them.

toble 13y ago
The few female focused technology events that I have seen promoted locally give off the vibe of a private members club. They don't say it explicitly, but hint with words like attendees are welcome to take their partners etc. It just seems strange to me because other events have nothing like that style of language.
- lysol 13y ago
  I think that says more about you than them.
  - mantas 13y ago
    How would you feel about men-focused male-in-tech conference? Not so cool, eh?
    - sp332 13y ago
      You know what would make it even worse? Having a note that said the men could bring a woman but only if they're romantically attached. There is no expectation that any women who show up are skilled or even inclined to the topic.
    - theorique 13y ago
      That tends to be the default.
- tehwalrus 13y ago
  If I'm interested in an event topic (and have time, etc) then I go. end of. Even if I disagree with the majority opinion, it's better to turn up and ask one polite awkward question than to just leave it to people who wouldn't question their own ideas there (making it a less interesting session).
- king_jester 13y ago
  > They don't say it explicitly, but hint with words like attendees are welcome to take their partners etc. How is an invitation for guests to bring their partners make an event a private club?
  - sp332 13y ago
    It means that the partners wouldn't be invited except they happen to know someone in the club.

theorique 13y ago

She nailed it: it's a waste of my time to be invisible to half the people I need to talk to. The danger with women-only events is that they become perceived as a ghetto. By opening the doors to all, the entire community has a voice, which is as it needs to be if women are to be full, mainstream members of tech communities. There's a place for "safe spaces" if people are sharing extremely personal stories (e.g. sexual assault, legal issues), but those tend to be done best as small groups anyway - it's a lot harder for a 1000 person auditorium to be a true "safe space".

sp332 13y ago
That's a danger, but it's not a guarantee. And I think you're not seeing some of the benefits of a single-gender event. For example, Mz pointed out one reason you might want a women-only event: a good reason to have some "ladies only" groups is because of the way a lot of women behave around men, not because of the way men behave around women or because "men are all sexist pigs". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5272532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5272532 That said, I don't think the article is about intentionally women-only events. I think she was planning to talk to men as well, and the men though she wasn't talking to them.
shubb 13y ago
How would you feel about an event with a female only speaker list? Instinctively, it raises my hackles, because positive discrimination is still discrimination, but I've seen it work really well in stand up comedy. Women standups only events have a very different feel, but you are also more likely to see women do standup that is normally male territory. So you might see an angry female political shock comic, whereas mainstream female comics tend to do observational humor about life. I'd suggest that there is value in creating a situation where vacuum causes people to fill roles they normally feel they don't fit the expectation for.
- ckb 13y ago
  Are they all qualified speakers who are insightful and sharing something I can learn from? In that case, I wouldn't mind one bit.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

smegel 13y ago

Sounds like she was living in a real-world circlejerk without realizing it.

raganwald 13y ago

I spoke at SpainJS. It was a small conference, and unsurprisingly, most of the audience were from Spain. I obviously was not reaching "everyone," but so what? I reached 300 people, and the politics of why a conference was put together to appeal to Spaniards (is that a word?) is of no consequence to me. If I were a politician I'd attend Church pancake breakfasts and lunch with the Greek Business Chamber. Humans clump and cluster for all sorts of reasons. I support some, am indifferent to others, and frown at a few more. But in the end, if the people in attendance are people I want to reach, I'll go. If their politics don't appeal to me, I'll avoid discussing the subject. JM2C, I can't tell anyone else what to do.

ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
Some might say if your speaking at an audience "reaches" a single person, then you have achieved more than you could have ever asked for.
scott_s 13y ago
That's her entire point: the people she wants to reach tend not to be in her audiences.
stkni 13y ago
I mostly agree but doesn't that slightly miss the point though? Because I presume you weren't invited to speak at a Spaniard only conference. I'm not particularly sure the OP has had much of an epiphany either. She could've entitled it 'Priest won't be preaching to the choir, anymore'. And it would've had a similar message, but perhaps not reached the top of HN.
jusben1369 13y ago
A better analogy might be if you wanted to reach Italians (because you thought Spaniards already completely grasped what you had to say) would you keep going to an event that ends up only being attended by Spaniards. I suspect not.
mcguire 13y ago
I'm guessing you weren't trying to convince people to learn to speak Spanish. Edit: Spaniard is indeed a lovely word: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Spaniard http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Spaniard.

ChikkaChiChi 13y ago

I wouldn't believe for a second that Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina have this problem. Parmer's column is accurate but not perplexing given what she said about being the CEO of Lady Geek. Her choice of target market (explained fairly well in its name) defines the context of her target audience.

VLM 13y ago
"Meg Whitman, Marissa Mayer, Virginia Rometty, or Carly Fiorina" Terrible examples. I was motivated enough to wikipedia them to gather the following data. Whitman and Fiorina have no tech background at all and have never worked tech jobs, pure management material all the way. Fiorina is legendary for destroying HP not exactly a glowing endorsement for women in anything. Mayer and Rometty went to school for tech but between the two of them they've only got about 5 years experience in tech/engineering before succumbing to the dark side of management. If anything the message to young women with a list like that is women should get out of tech and into mgmt/marketing/beancounting ASAP because tech is a dead end for women. Now, rather than 1%er management crooks, why not an example of a techie like Limor Fried? There's a real engineer, who happens to be female, someone who would make a good hero for young women in engineering / tech / programming. If you don't know who she is, you should look her up on wikipedia. There are of course a zillion other good techies who happen to be female, but an EE-chauvinist like myself is going to promote another EE. I can think of a relatively famous FPGA dev and many others.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
  Very fair point. I pointed them out mostly because these are "celebrities" in the tech world that you could easily find giving talks at various venues. Real people who get real work done tend to not have time for such nonsense :) I could/should have noted Mayer only because I consider her to be one of the most influential people in the (FTSE equivalent mentioned by Parmer) NASDAQ. While the jury is still out on her tenure at Yahoo!, several of Google's recent missteps _could_ be attributed to her absence at Big G.
  - 13y ago

3pt14159 13y ago

The reason I don't listen to women in tech presentations: 1. I'm basically not allowed to voice an opinion that isn't completely aligned with the feminist status quo (I believe in equality, fuck me right). 2. I'd rather learn how to build a better emberjs app. Or learn more about thorium. 3. Unlike the vast majority of problems, there are few concrete steps to be taken to correct the imbalances that do exist. Edit: I can't believe I had to self sensor, just to hit the post button.

smtddr 13y ago
With this kind of thinking, how will women(or any less-represented group) be able to reach you?
- overgard 13y ago
  He didn't say he wasn't willing to listen, he expressed that he wanted a forum for equal discussion instead of a one way message.
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    Seeing that he doesn't attend "women in tech" presentations, how does he know they are all one-way messages? On a side note: considering he's frustrated at self-sensoring himself from saying something he knew was wrong to say in some manner, I'd contend that in an environment where you do not have a chance to review what you say before saying it out loud, he's at least partially responsible for reactions he receives.
    - overgard 13y ago
      Well he didn't say he never attended one, only that he chooses not to now. Anything else is editorializing. I don't know the guy so I can't say anything about his opinions, but I'm amused at how many assumptions people are making about this guy.
      - 13y ago

rantanplan 13y ago

Men created the problem. Women like her can solve it. I knew it would come to this and other absurdities. All these men, accusing other men of anti-women sentiments, even when there weren't any. Some(mostly men!) have make it a personal crusade to vilify all men by definition. Some men are awful, some women are awful too. This kind of behavior will only sterilize our environments in the worst possible way. I'd like to see more women like her seeing the problem - and men taking notes.

stephengillie 13y ago

I wouldn't speak at male-only events either.

spinachthrow 13y ago

If I had one suggestion for these types of events - focus more on what you're building, less on "issues". Show, don't tell!

parfe 13y ago

The blog post conflates two issues. First there is the societal issue of the gender gap in tech. That involves discussions and education with the community at large regarding why women are underrepresented and how the gap can be closed. The second issue is an implementation of the first. Women only events are one of many contributing solutions to the gender gap. A woman only event ending with an invitation to a larger general event will likely do more to bring women into that event than sitting on a panel with a 95% male audience lamenting the fact that women seems to be missing.

throwwiffle 13y ago

I disagree with this. Only speaking at women-only events is a bad thing, but refusing to speak at women-only events is just as bad. It seems like women act more passive around men (at least in engineering). If there are only women in an audience, they might be encouraged to speak their mind more and feel less awkward about it. Here is an example of women being passive in engineering: An engineering club at my college had 30% to 50% women at almost every meeting. Most of the time, the women didn't do anything for the club's project - they stood nearby, talked, and sometimes cut foam or got something for a guy. This was in a machine shop. If they had put themselves forward and tried to get involved, they would have learned a lot and had more respect from the guys in the process . As it is, I'm afraid their behavior only reinforced the stereotype of "women engineering majors aren't serious" and left them with fewer practical skills than the guys. --- I don't know how effective having a women-only audience and speaker would be at reversing situations like this. If the talk was on "be more assertive" and "here are the potential problems you might face", it might be helpful. men-are-evil and similar lines are not. In the example given, having women-only clubs might help more - if the focus is primarily on building things, learning new tools, or completing some major project. It would increase womens' confidence and their assertiveness, as well as giving them an opportunitity to learn stuff a lot of the guys in the regular engineering club already know - without feeling awkward/stupid/embarassed. Regardless, though, any women-only group opens up the door to women who might be uncomfortable speaking out and asking questions otherwise. Edit: fixing some italics :/