We need allies, not saviors
I recently received several emails from a young male entrepreneur asking to interview me for a blogging project about women in tech. This was my response. It has been lightly anonymized, since my intent isn’t to shame the individual or even the project, but to shed light on a common “ally” pitfall and explain my hesitance in participating in something like this. To learn more about how men can be better feminists, check out this article, which touches on some of the same points.
Hi Neil, while I appreciate you reaching out, I’m not interested in participating.
I want to strongly suggest you reconsider this project. In your announcement of the project, you acknowledge that “until now I have made no significant contribution to solving [gender inequality in tech] despite having worked in tech for an entire year.”
I have been in tech for ten years, and have been a vocal advocate on this topic — as have many of the women you say you’re planning to interview. It’s not a good look for a very young and inexperienced (only one year in tech! and zero years advocating for women!) man to come into a feminist space — one in which women are already organizing, telling stories, and advocating for themselves — in order to take a spotlight position and proclaim that you’re going to “help” us. You may feel your intentions are selfless, but even so, this project serves to elevate your personal profile (and you’ve already sent me a link to your personal bio, although it doesn’t appear to include any qualifications related to this topic). You freely admit that you know almost nothing about gender inequality in tech, and you haven’t done any work in this area before. So why should women trust you to tell our stories on our behalf? Moreover, why would you assume women need your help telling our stories? You’re at the pre-introductory level when it comes to education on this topic, yet you’re applying for a role as professor. (And speaking of lack of depth, 100 15-minute interviews in ten days isn’t sufficient to understand women’s experiences beyond a superficial level.)
Will these women be compensated for their time? Have you done any prior research? Have you written about this topic before, citing women’s work? Have you done any other work to help women in this area? Your post explicitly says the answer to that last question is no…and it appears that’s likely the answer to these other questions, too.
Yes, women need men’s support as allies, but centering yourself as our advocate is very different. It would be ill-advised to attempt something like this before you’ve spent a significant amount of time listening to women, doing the research, and advocating from the sidelines. (And when I say listening to women, I mean seeking out, reading, and sharing materials that are already out there — rather than expecting women to take time out of their busy schedules to have a personal one-on-one interview with you.) Even if you’ve done all that, many women, myself included, don’t believe men should be centering themselves in feminist movements, period.
Some ways you can be an ally to women in tech: cheer us on, share and amplify the work and writing and advocacy women are already doing, speak up about unfairness in your workplace. It doesn’t appear you’ve done any of that. I realize this email may seem a bit harsh, but hopefully it brings you closer to understanding the difference between being an ally to women versus trying to be a savior. Again, I urge you to reconsider this.
Regards,
Kelly Ellis
P.S. When you’re contacting technical women via email, it’s not lost on us when the included links are clearly tracking whether or not we open them. It’s kind of creepy.
Hat tip to Tori Scallan for the “allies vs saviors” wording.
