Notes on ‘I’m a Feminist and so can you!’
I recently spoke at the Nordic.js conference in Stockholm about women in tech — the organizers had seen my “How to get more women in tech in under a minute” Ignite talk and were looking for something that would introduce the predominantly male audience into issues surrounding gender inequality, in an accessible way. I’ll be honest, I struggled with it. How to cover such a serious topic in an upbeat way, without alienating your audience or doing a disservice to the issue?
I got a lot of positive feedback after the talk. I do worry that I didn’t push hard enough. Did I waste the opportunity? Indeed I received criticism that I was too easy on the audience, that my suggestions could lead to men developing a sense of self-congratulation without actually implementing real change or engaging in educating themselves further.
I firmly believe that you have to start somewhere, if I can get a room of mostly men to feel comfortable with the notion of privilege and patriarchy, then that’s something, but it’s certainly not enough.
With that in mind, here are my lightly annotated slides with suggested reading for anyone wanting to dig deeper.
If you want to help make tech (and all other industries) more equal, start by educating yourself.
Thank-you to the Nordic.js team for organizing such an amazing conference, for how easy they made it for me to bring my baby along, and most of all, to the audience for listening so attentively.
Here the video, slides and notes below:
I’m a feminist. And so can you, whomever you are.
Just last week, Emma Watson made a compelling speech for why men should care about gender equality, watch it. This echoes Germaine Greer’s argument from the Female Eunuch (a canonical feminist text) that sexism also imprisons men.
I’d also suggesting reading this assessment of Emma Watson’s speech by Mychal Denzel Smith on Feministing that considers how comfortable men should be with feminism.
I don’t explain for why diversity is good for business anymore because well, I shouldn’t have to. Alice Bartlett,a front end developer at the UK Digital Service gives more depth to this argument here.
There are, give or take, 3.6 billion women on the planet. There is no linear narrative of feminism. Gender equality is deeply connected with issues of race, class, income inequality… Feminism is essentially one lense for social justice. There are numerous schools of thought under the feminist umbrella. Feminists disagree with each other all the time. Thats good (and part of the nature of the left). All of the ways in which oppression is inextricably linked is referred to as “Intersectionality” — Read black feminist, Ava Vidal’s view on intersectionality or, for an example of current discourse, this recent Salon piece by Brittney Cooper on white vs. black feminism.
Can we all agree that the level playing field just doesn’t exist? The meritocracy is a myth. Nick Hanauer, an early investor in Amazon, gives his take on income inequality.
Privilege exists — everyone likely has some, though more (white heterosexual men, for example) have far more than others. You can’t change your privilege, but you can examine it. Be more mindful of the doors that opened for you without effort and consider what others had to exert to get to the same place. Here’s a primer on privilege.
Faruk Ates has some great thoughts on this subject — here is a quote from his post “New code of character”
It’s also worth reading his piece on being told to check your privilege. To me, telling someone to “Check their privilege” is a really insensitive way of saying “You are being insensitive.” Avoid it if you can. If someone tells you to, though it may have been thrown as an insult, take it as an opportunity for self-examination. You might very well learn something about yourself and others.
Bias also very much exists in all of us, explicitly and implicitly. Take Harvard’s Project Implicit bias test to discover yours. Oh, and don’t forget about confirmation bias as well!
The Patriarchy is a system of oppression. It can manifest itself loudly through acts of explicit violence, but can also take the form of “death by a 1000 papercuts.”
The patriarchy exists because we let it exist though our day to day actions — our words, our deeds and our thoughts. Take a moment to read this article written in the wake of the Isla Vista shootings last spring by Katherine Cross examining the insidiousness of the patriarchy.
All of this comes strait from Kate Losse’s post “The myth of magical futures.” Read it, then read it again.
It is not the job of a marginalized person to educate you about their inequality, it’s up to you to listen, because they are speaking. There are so many compelling voices to be heard from people who don’t look like the average Stanford grad/founder. Find them. Read them. Educate yourself on the multiple ways in which other people’s experience differs to yours.
Here are a few great places to start:
Model View Culture — a must for anyone in tech. Get your company to subscribe to it.
Racialicious — Race and Pop Culture
Feminist Frequency — Home to Anita Sarkeesian and her examination of video games and women
Feministing — Young feminist thought
Black Girl Dangerous —Queer and trans people of color’s voices
Bitch Magazine — Thoughtful feminist response to pop culture
Believe marginalized people when they talk about their experiences. Period.
Unfortunately I can’t find Anita Sarkeesian’s talk from xoxo fest on her experience with the misogyny she’s faced since examining video game culture. Here’s the best summary I found on it, and where I got the quote from.
If you have an audience, amplify the voices of those who aren’t heard as much.
Anil Dash only retweeted women for a year — read his take on why and what impact it had on him. And then read his response to the backlash.
“I never realized the impact of being the only woman in the room until I wasn’t.” — Martha Kelly
Make sure that women and other marginalized people in your organization are given the room to speak. If they are interrupted in meetings, ask others to let them speak. If they don’t speak up, ask for their opinion. If they are shy, learn more about to make meetings more productive for introverts and extroverts alike. Make sure there is truly room at the table for all.
Language is a reflection of the society in which we live — if we want to change our world, we must change our language to reflect the values we want, not the reality we face. Speak thoughtfully and with respect.
Speak up for those who are not there to speak up for themselves, or cannot speak up for themselves. Here’s a general quote on the role men can play by Bell Hooks. I highly recommend reading more of her work, for example, this critique of Lean In.
Organizational culture should be the shared values and practices of an organization that are ALIGNED TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES and foster a strong sense of integrity and trust amongst employees. Culture is not a reason to hire drinking buddies, play ping pong every night together or exclude talented people. There’s a big difference.
Shanley Kane, founder and editor of Model View Culture has published a collection of her essays on startup culture as an ebook — buy it and read it.
HR should be there to protect employees. If your company’s HR staff are not doing that, demand better. Shanley Kane wrote an exceptional piece on HR in start-ups and how it can go terribly, terribly wrong.
Be the change you want to see in the world — by showing sympathy and compassion you demonstrate that it is possible.
Educate yourself. As a human, you are always learning, while you can’t always be perfect, you can try to do better.
If you have additional links that you think can add to this, please send them to me via twitter — @bougie. The last time this was updated was September 29th, 2014. By the time you read this, many of the links may feel out-dated.
Here’s my post talk-interview
