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.
Thanks so much for this post. I think you’ve really hit the nail on the head. I’ve linked it from the Geek Feminism Wiki at http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Flashbelt_slide_show
I’ve heard that Hoss named himself that to boast about the size of his penis (hung like a hoss). Is that true?
SuzieOnStilts: I wouldn’t be surprised, but…. well, I’m not sure I want to know.
THANK YOU for this post. As a woman in the tech industry, I get so turned off by how much my colleagues apparently don’t want me here – the ad pages in WIRED look like the back of a lad mag. Objectification does matter, it does marginalize.