Had a very productive week. SproutRobot is coming along great. We did our first bit of usability testing today, which felt just fantastic. We got a lot of good info about what needs fixing, but I think we also got a glimpse of how great this product will be. Very excited.
A little scared about how all of this is going to work out, but feeling blessed and stoked.
So, another tech conference presenter has taken it upon himself to include a pornified image of a woman in a talk. Fighting ensued.
Hoss, the dude who gave the talk, says:
“I would like to point out that, at the time of writing this, I have received considerably more positive feedback on my Flashbelt presentation than negative. This affirmation includes female attendees going out their way to stop me at the conference and thank me openly for my presentation.”
and
“I can be crude and my presentations can be risqué but I am neither sexist nor a misogynist. I am concerned that my presentation is being described as being loaded with both. Not guilty. I have a strong willed wife and two young daughters – I wouldn’t last two minutes with the merest hint of misogyny.”
Here’s the thing.
Tech is a community where women are marginalized. There can be as few as 1 woman out of 100 at a talk. This means that the audiences are predominantly men, and the women present are, generally speaking, women who have acclimated to men’s bullshit. You simply won’t last in most of these communities unless you have pretty well-honed defense mechanisms for dealing with crap. Generally the only women left in the room are pretty battle-hardened ladies, or they’ve adopted a pretty male gaze, or whatever. They’ve got a way to get by in a harsh environment.
Given that, the fact that most of the men and women at your talk think it is great and not at all offensive doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t mean your talk isn’t extremely alienating to a large portion of the population. It means the women who would be alienated are already alienated from the community.
You’re not pushing them out, you’re just keeping them out.
And that’s where it gets weird. If you want a marginalized group to grow, you have to start listening very carefully to marginal opinions. You can’t sit on your ass, satisfied with your 99% approval rating. You have to lose sleep about the 1%. You have to worry about the one person who had to close their browser when they read about your talk because they got flashbacks. You need to worry about that 1% because in that 1% is where you’ll find the clues to why 49% of the population didn’t come to your talk in the first place.
Or you don’t. But don’t pretend you give a shit about gender issues if you’re going to marginalize those voices.
I am so excited about the Open Source Bridge conference! Here’s the first bits of their introduction:
Open Source Citizenship
What are the rights and responsibilities of an open source citizen? We’re exploring what open source means to us, what it offers, where we struggle, and why we do this day in and day out, even when we’re not paid for it.
Innovative Track Structure
Our session tracks are technology agnostic, based around shared community experiences and focus on the similarities between projects, not the differences. View the tracks.
All-Hours Hacker Lounge
The geekery doesn’t end when the sessions do. We’re also running a 24-hour hacker lounge for code sprints, bug bashes, bouncing ideas, starting new projects or just mingling and taking in the vibe.
100% Volunteer-Run
Your software is peer-produced. Why not your conference? Open Source Bridge is pioneered and planned by a team of open source developers and technologists. What’s more, we’re building an open source application to manage talk proposals.
Here’s the letter I just wrote them:
Dear Open Source Bridge,
Let’s see, skills… I have a computer science degree, a masters degree in Human-Computer Interaction Design, and I’ve been doing professional web development part or full time for the last 10 years or so. I’m very proficient with both PHP and Ruby, (pretty good with Java, C, and C#, and okay with Objective-J and Mac App development) and I’m a fast learner. I can do graphic design, ui design, software engineering, and coding.
I’m also happy to do whatever… food stuff, greeting, etc, etc. I’ve volunteered at a couple of conferences… a Boston GNOME Summit a number of years ago, and the SIGCHI Conference in ‘05 or so.
I’m very commited to openness… to Software Freedom as well as challenging power structures. I am pro-feminist and anti-racist and excited about checking my privilege and doing other things to make computing spaces more open. I just gave a talk tonight at my local Ruby Users Group (SDRuby) called “Just a Joke? Sexism and the Ruby Community”.
I saw the announcement for this conference a while ago when reading about the whole Matt Aimionetti GoGaRuCo debacle, and forgot about it, and then realized this week while preparing for my talk that I’d really like to be there. I live in San Diego and don’t have much money, but I figure I’ll find a way up there somehow, if I can get a volunteer position and not have to pay the registration fee.
My timing is flexible… I could come up a couple days before the conference! Or whatever! Just say what would be helpful for you!
Love,
Erik Pukinskis