Checking My Privilege
By now there can’t be many people in the tech world that haven’t heard about or read Susan Fowler’s article :
I didn’t want to write a virtue signalling, #JeSuisSusan, type of post, but this did get me thinking about what it must be like to experience this kind of discrimination, and what struck me was that I have no idea. From a theoretical perspective I understand, but practically I have zero experience.
If my CV doesn’t get me an interview, I don’t get offered the job after an interview, or I miss out on a promotion, it never occurs to me for one second that this might be because of who I am rather than the skills and experience I bring. And there’s a good reason for this. It’s not because I’m above such things, accepting of the way that the dice are loaded, or that I’ve manned up and taken it on the chin.
It’s because that will never, ever be the case. As a middle aged, straight, able-bodied, white man I’ll never be judged on my ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender. I’ll always be judged on what I’ve done — how I’ve completed the tasks that I’ve been assigned, how I performed during the interview etc.
I also won’t be marked as a troublemaker as Susan Fowler no doubt is perceived by many. In fact if I raise issues, they are likely be taken seriously because I am perceived as having no axe to grind — I won’t be seen as the problem, but someone trying to find a solution.
“Check Your Privilege” was a term that I particularly disliked when I first heard it, and I’m still not a fan. When I didn’t know what it meant, I assumed it was a bald statement that everything people like me have has been served up on a plate and we’ve never known the struggle. But it isn’t. It’s about recognising that while I may have worked hard to get where I am, others have worked just as hard and faced additional challenges. Sometimes many, many challenges, and continue to face them. Those who have faced challenges also have to check their privilege, as while they may have been discriminated against in one area, others have faced discrimination in multiple areas. (I’m still not a fan of the phrase, as it still sounds unnecessarily confrontational and can feel dismissive, but it’s not all about me!).
This week I attended the London Women in Tech Salesforce User Group screening of the Stemettes documentary, Eat. Sleep. STEM. Repeat., which gave me more reason to think about the position of privilege I’ve occupied for some considerable time.
The documentary was about the outbox incubator, where every week, 45 young women spent the 2015 summer holidays working on their innovative STEM business ideas. When I was their age I was in a microcosm of this, albeit not in the least business focused and far less advanced, as you would expect of the late 1970s/early 1980s. A lot of my spare time was spent with like-minded mates, programming computers, figuring out how to attach peripherals, writing device drivers etc. (We also played a lot of video games and dungeons and dragons, so pretty much the definition of geeks. I was also a prop forward and captain of the senior school rugby team, which reminds us that stereotypes are rarely helpful!).
Nobody organised or formally supported this. Not because we weren’t worthy or considered not to have a future in computing, but because we didn’t need that. Nobody was telling us we couldn’t do it, all the big names in computing were the pretty much older, American versions of us, and it never occurred to us for a moment that we shouldn’t. This was our position of privilege — not being held back in any way and fitting right in.
I’ll be continuing to remind myself to check my privilege, lest I turn into a high performing jerk that thinks because I’m good at my job that gives me carte blanche to treat people different to me like shit.
I’m better known in the Salesforce community as Bob Buzzard — Umpteen Certifications, including Technical Architect, 5 x MVP and CTO of BrightGen, a Platinum Cloud Alliance Partner in the United Kingdom who are hiring the best people, regardless of who they are or where they are from.
You can find my (usually) more technical thoughts at the Bob Buzzard Blog
