7 ms·

Free Public Speaking Workshop For Women

29 points by DanielRibeiro 13y ago

Mz 13y ago
I am honestly curious if "Badass Lady Dev" and "generally rad person" are at all similar to how male speakers in the tech world are typically described. (I have not been to a tech conference since GIS school. I have been to a lot more urban planning things.) Thanks.
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  Eh, I routinely see descriptions like "Kickass Rockstar JS Hacker-Ninja" (only slightly exaggerated), and titles like "_______ Guru" I do tend to reflexively discount those people.
  - Mz 13y ago
    As a woman who gets "too much" attention at times, I have found it seriously detrimental to try to tell people that I am "awesome" or the like. I find that backfires. People think I have poor self esteem, I am exaggerating, etc. So it concerned me to see the fairly extreme hype for this page. Thanks for replying.
    - chc 13y ago
      Well, there's a difference between describing oneself that way and describing others the same way. Julie describes Mina Markham as a "Badass Lady Dev," while her description of herself is the much more modest "Passion Projects Creator, Developer, and Designer of Websites and Also Slides."
      - Mz 13y ago
        I am well aware of that. I am also aware that women generally have trouble being taken seriously and often feel the need to justify, etc. In my own case, when I state the facts without embellishment, it is often taken as telling tall tales. If I don't state the facts, gee, no one knows what I have done. So I continue to wrestle with how to prove myself or show credentials...etc.
danellis 13y ago
It's a good thing that all men are naturally confident, adept public speakers already.
- bdcravens 13y ago
  I don't think this is any different than other forums for learning skills where it's more or less women-only. (such as Rails Girls)
- chc 13y ago
  It's a good thing nobody said this.
- grinich 13y ago
  This is the kind of troll comment that really makes me cringe. :/ GitHub is hosting a FREE event to support a group of hackers that are under-represented and discriminated against at conferences. How is this anything but wonderful? Stop heckling. Your sarcasm is laced with entitlement and ignorance. It doesn't help anyone.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    As this event demonstrates, men are discriminated against also. And as the op pointed out, many men(like many women) are bad speakers and lack confidence. It is not wonderful that github excludes them. Note: the values driving this post are a respect for individual rights regardless of gender. What are your values? When you clearly state them you will probably understand the point of disagreement.
    - king_jester 13y ago
      The issue isn't that there are men who aren't good at public speaking too, but rather that speaker slots are still dominated by men and men are more visible in the tech community in general. Github is making an effort to provide a public speaking workshop specifically for women because of this. > Note: the values driving this post are a respect for individual rights regardless of gender. I don't see how individual rights has anything to do with this. Github is not obligated to provide a workshop for every person and Github employees have a right to create a workshop that targets women. Nobody is being prevented from running their own workshop or being forced to attend a workshop.
Nursie 13y ago
Meh. The conference scene seems largely a waste of time anyway.
__pThrow 13y ago
This should be an event put on by a women's organization, sponsored by github. As a github event, it is alienating, off putting, sexist, and creepy. Male programmers need public speaking skills just as much as female programmers do. What this tells me for the nth time, is that github as a company has their head wedged, and I would never want a job with them, they are clearly sexist, agenda driven, and whether explicit or not will almost certainly have quotas favoring women developers. Edit: It's a shame downvotes do not require that a comment in reply first be made.
- chc 13y ago
  OK, here's a comment: This is neither sexist nor creepy, and nobody said that male programmers don't need public speaking skills. There are already lots of events that primarily attract male programmers. Do you know what they call those? "Events." It doesn't even need to be stated that men will be vastly overrepresented compared to the general population — that is simply the way it is. Men are already served quite well in the tech world. It is one of the most man-heavy fields in existence. You are not being persecuted here. More generally, this is not a zero-sum game being played between the sexes. It is possible to hurt one sex while helping the other, but the existence of something that benefits women does not automatically threaten us as men. And even worse, this kind of angry opposition to things that benefit women do take from them without conferring any benefit to you. This kind of hostile negativity is not a good thing.
  - __pThrow 13y ago
    I appreciate the response. So you're telling me there are more public speaking workshops for male developers than female developers? I'm not sure I believe that. I think ALL developers could benefit from this workshop. And that inviting all developers would still provide women the skills they need to become successful public speakers. I agree, this is not a zero sum game, but github just turned it into one. If you are a github employee and now have public speaking skills on your resume as well perhaps as a speech or two at a conference, your career will probably do better than the male github employee without, who, contrary to your claims, is underserved with public speaking workshops and the networking opportunities they will provide.
kimonos 13y ago
Nice idea!
rdl 13y ago
This is an awesome way for github to help solve the "women not speaking at conferences" problem -- there are qualified female engineers who have built things, but they tend to not be comfortable presenting, so you end up with a very small number of female speakers who get invited to speak at every event, and who thus turn down a lot of things. (The other stage in the funnel which needs work is the "going into engineering" stage, but that's much earlier.) The other stage to help out would be someone covering travel expenses/etc. for the pool of qualified and willing female speakers to attend events they otherwise might not. I wonder if any tech companies would contribute to that.
reporter 13y ago
I think everyone is digging way too deep into the significance of this event. Public speaking is hard for everyone and most people could benefit from workshops like these no matter the gender. One of the hardest aspects of public speaking is feeling comfortable being the center of attention. I imagine a tech specific speaking workshop, which is open to everyone, would involve the usual gender discrepancy, making standing out more amplified. This group is just one way in which to ease into the uncomfortableness of standing out.
xrctl 13y ago
The amount of spoon feeding women in tech require is staggering.

29 points by DanielRibeiro 13y ago

Mz 13y ago

I am honestly curious if "Badass Lady Dev" and "generally rad person" are at all similar to how male speakers in the tech world are typically described. (I have not been to a tech conference since GIS school. I have been to a lot more urban planning things.) Thanks.

ForHackernews 13y ago
Eh, I routinely see descriptions like "Kickass Rockstar JS Hacker-Ninja" (only slightly exaggerated), and titles like "_______ Guru" I do tend to reflexively discount those people.
- Mz 13y ago
  As a woman who gets "too much" attention at times, I have found it seriously detrimental to try to tell people that I am "awesome" or the like. I find that backfires. People think I have poor self esteem, I am exaggerating, etc. So it concerned me to see the fairly extreme hype for this page. Thanks for replying.
  - chc 13y ago
    Well, there's a difference between describing oneself that way and describing others the same way. Julie describes Mina Markham as a "Badass Lady Dev," while her description of herself is the much more modest "Passion Projects Creator, Developer, and Designer of Websites and Also Slides."
    - Mz 13y ago
      I am well aware of that. I am also aware that women generally have trouble being taken seriously and often feel the need to justify, etc. In my own case, when I state the facts without embellishment, it is often taken as telling tall tales. If I don't state the facts, gee, no one knows what I have done. So I continue to wrestle with how to prove myself or show credentials...etc.

danellis 13y ago

It's a good thing that all men are naturally confident, adept public speakers already.

bdcravens 13y ago
I don't think this is any different than other forums for learning skills where it's more or less women-only. (such as Rails Girls)
chc 13y ago
It's a good thing nobody said this.
grinich 13y ago
This is the kind of troll comment that really makes me cringe. :/ GitHub is hosting a FREE event to support a group of hackers that are under-represented and discriminated against at conferences. How is this anything but wonderful? Stop heckling. Your sarcasm is laced with entitlement and ignorance. It doesn't help anyone.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  As this event demonstrates, men are discriminated against also. And as the op pointed out, many men(like many women) are bad speakers and lack confidence. It is not wonderful that github excludes them. Note: the values driving this post are a respect for individual rights regardless of gender. What are your values? When you clearly state them you will probably understand the point of disagreement.
  - king_jester 13y ago
    The issue isn't that there are men who aren't good at public speaking too, but rather that speaker slots are still dominated by men and men are more visible in the tech community in general. Github is making an effort to provide a public speaking workshop specifically for women because of this. > Note: the values driving this post are a respect for individual rights regardless of gender. I don't see how individual rights has anything to do with this. Github is not obligated to provide a workshop for every person and Github employees have a right to create a workshop that targets women. Nobody is being prevented from running their own workshop or being forced to attend a workshop.

Nursie 13y ago

Meh. The conference scene seems largely a waste of time anyway.

__pThrow 13y ago

This should be an event put on by a women's organization, sponsored by github. As a github event, it is alienating, off putting, sexist, and creepy. Male programmers need public speaking skills just as much as female programmers do. What this tells me for the nth time, is that github as a company has their head wedged, and I would never want a job with them, they are clearly sexist, agenda driven, and whether explicit or not will almost certainly have quotas favoring women developers. Edit: It's a shame downvotes do not require that a comment in reply first be made.

chc 13y ago
OK, here's a comment: This is neither sexist nor creepy, and nobody said that male programmers don't need public speaking skills. There are already lots of events that primarily attract male programmers. Do you know what they call those? "Events." It doesn't even need to be stated that men will be vastly overrepresented compared to the general population — that is simply the way it is. Men are already served quite well in the tech world. It is one of the most man-heavy fields in existence. You are not being persecuted here. More generally, this is not a zero-sum game being played between the sexes. It is possible to hurt one sex while helping the other, but the existence of something that benefits women does not automatically threaten us as men. And even worse, this kind of angry opposition to things that benefit women do take from them without conferring any benefit to you. This kind of hostile negativity is not a good thing.
- __pThrow 13y ago
  I appreciate the response. So you're telling me there are more public speaking workshops for male developers than female developers? I'm not sure I believe that. I think ALL developers could benefit from this workshop. And that inviting all developers would still provide women the skills they need to become successful public speakers. I agree, this is not a zero sum game, but github just turned it into one. If you are a github employee and now have public speaking skills on your resume as well perhaps as a speech or two at a conference, your career will probably do better than the male github employee without, who, contrary to your claims, is underserved with public speaking workshops and the networking opportunities they will provide.

kimonos 13y ago

Nice idea!

rdl 13y ago

This is an awesome way for github to help solve the "women not speaking at conferences" problem -- there are qualified female engineers who have built things, but they tend to not be comfortable presenting, so you end up with a very small number of female speakers who get invited to speak at every event, and who thus turn down a lot of things. (The other stage in the funnel which needs work is the "going into engineering" stage, but that's much earlier.) The other stage to help out would be someone covering travel expenses/etc. for the pool of qualified and willing female speakers to attend events they otherwise might not. I wonder if any tech companies would contribute to that.

reporter 13y ago

I think everyone is digging way too deep into the significance of this event. Public speaking is hard for everyone and most people could benefit from workshops like these no matter the gender. One of the hardest aspects of public speaking is feeling comfortable being the center of attention. I imagine a tech specific speaking workshop, which is open to everyone, would involve the usual gender discrepancy, making standing out more amplified. This group is just one way in which to ease into the uncomfortableness of standing out.

xrctl 13y ago

The amount of spoon feeding women in tech require is staggering.