Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

LJ — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:56:18 GMT

You're missing one major point that I think is so omni-present and scary that women don't even acknowledge it much themselves. To do so would imply that "it could happen to you." I'm talking about the actual and potential threats to women's safety (physical, professional, psychological) that are totally real but which we refuse to really address (or use victim-blaming to avoid): linux.conf.au, Kathy Sierra, Skud, Elevatorgate, and so on and on and on.

That is something men really don't fear. It doesn't even appear on their radar, like the danger in walking to the corner store after dark. When women put themselves out there in a field dominated by men, they risk greater attack generally, not just as a representative of the gender. It isn't an irrational, perceived fear: they are in fact subject to greater attacks, more personal attacks, more invasive attacks than men are. You could google or bing the studies that document this phenomenon.

And while it might be less-than-common to experience rape and death threats, it is not at all uncommon to sit in a presentation by women and hear men mocking, dismissing, ignoring, talking over, or otherwise denigrating the speaker in gendered ways. Those are the lucky ones.

While it's good to talk about the things we as women have control over, it's not helpful to ignore the things we don't. The latter is more damaging and pervasive.

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

Dorothy — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:24:14 GMT

(I landed here from another blog talking about the imposter syndrome.)

Has anyone mentioned the "second shift" problem in this discussion? Despite a lot of progress over the years, women still perform a disproportionate percentage of "household management" duties. (In addition to the standard cooking, cleaning, laundry, and childcare routines, women also take on more of the work maintaining relationships: coordinating activities, attending social obligations, "being there" for friends and family, etc. This leaves women with a lot less free time than men in equivalent occupations.

If the boss considers presenting at conferences to be "off book" or "on your own time", a large part of the problem could be that women literally can't find the time. You might get a better response rate if you approach women whose companies specifically allow employees to use work time for career development activities or preparation for technical conferences.

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

Michael — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:38:28 GMT

My wife is a brilliant attorney and I see all the issues you highlight with her and her work environment. I work in privacy and security and I'm happy to say that women are very well represented in the privacy field. And the field is better of for it.

My wife constantly undervalues her skills (and I see women do it all the time). When I watch her work and tackle a program, I am amazed at how brilliant she is. She's a lot more intelligent than I am!

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

karen — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:29:49 GMT

Ingram Micro will be a primary sponsor for the first Women in IT awards in Canada.

This initiative not only recognizes the brilliant women in IT who have gone unnoticed to date, but it also spotlights the importance of having more women in IT.

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

invalidname — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 02:44:08 GMT

One thing that impressed me at CodeMash, and that I've commented on before, is that it seemed there are far more female coders in the MS technologies than I tend to see elsewhere.

I met few women developers when I worked in Java, and the situation isn't much better in the iOS/Mac camp (although that world has a number of small shops where women are represented as designers, co-owners, managers, etc., so you get more women speaking at iPhone conferences, but they're seldom coders, or they're just getting into it). I've never figured out why it is that there seem to be more women banging on C# and .NET than Java or Objective-C, and I'd be interested to know if others have seen the same thing, and have any idea why that would be the case.

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

Martin English — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 12:29:50 GMT

Hi jennifer,

I understand that your working environment may be more 'hard-core' development etc than what most of us do. I'm heavily involved in SAP. For some ideas / networking around getting more women involved in conferences and making presentations, chase up @marilyn_pratt or @nathomson - They both work for SAP USA, who are promoting women in their developer / user community (see grannimari.blogspot.com/.../ada-lovelace-day-and-sap-community.html for an example)

The SAP User Group (ASUG) had a very well attended Women in Leadership breakfast seminar at the lats conference (may 2011) - See www.enterpriseirregulars.com/.../sap%E2%80%99s-sapphirenow-women%E2%80%99s-leadership-summit

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

Cori Drew — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 06:07:53 GMT

What a fantastic, poignant & well-written post!

Your insights are so relatable. Your last paragraph ("I have sometimes wondered if it was...because the organizers want to have some female speakers.") sums up what inspired my first blog post in March of this year: truncatedcodr.wordpress.com/.../what-me-interesting-are-you-crazy-or-just-being-kind I'm working hard right now on my journey to prove to MYSELF that I'm different - and not just because I stick out like a sore thumb :-) It's definitely a journey.

Thanks again for writing this. I have followed you on Twitter for a while and have so much respect for you.

I find it very important to have great role models. Thank YOU for being one.

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

Amrita Joshi — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:10:00 GMT

Great article thanks for writing it. I think another major reason technical women don't speak at conferences is that (in general), women in the workforce are not at good as promoting themselves, advertising successes etc. Speaking at conferences is one form of personal promotion. I have been asked a few times to speak but many times turn down offers b/ i just dont make the time for this type of activity, admitingly making the mistake of missing out on a good opportunity to promote myself and my company b/ I am focused on "my real job."

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

Srilu Balla — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:07:26 GMT

Excellent Post. I am a female and I am about to give my first presentation and obviously freaking out. Your blog was helpful, but the cartoon puts too much responsibility as if I am representing the whole women clan. Loved your post and suggestions. Thank you.

re: Why are more women not speaking at technical conferences? Insights from the WiT discussion at CodeStock

jennmar — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:47:50 GMT

@Sudukie - I'm glad that you attended your goddaughter's birthday party. Work/life balance is important, and you definitely prioritized it correctly. :) I didn't really get into the whole "Are we asking too much of women?" conversation, but this does relate...you certainly don't have a responsibility to be at every conference! I look forward to reading your blog post. Keep in mind that I don't agree with all of the points above, as I tried to call out in the first paragraph. When writing this post, I was torn between including everything in the spirit of including all points of view, or removing some thoughts that I disagreed with because it's my blog and I didn't want to defend them. I decided the right thing to do was go with diversity :) and include everything.

@Lisa - congratulations! Very cool.

@Zuly - I completely agree that there is a larger issue of too few women in the tech field. For this particular session at CodeStock, instead of tackling that huge problem, we decided to focus the conversation on a smaller sub-issue (lack of female speakers) so that we might be able to come up with more concrete, tangible solutions. But you're right; there is a larger issue.

@Ren - thanks!

@Mike Molnar - Thanks for your participation in the talk and your insight around the xkcd comic. (I was actually looking forward to re-reading through a bunch of archived xkcds in order to find it, but unfortunately a Bing search for "xkcd girls math" turned it up as the first result.) :) I appreciate you continuing the conversation with your additional thoughts above!

One last thought (and this is the opposite side of the coin): when I am accepted to speak at a technical conference, I have sometimes wondered if it was because my talks are really valued or because the organizers want to have some female speakers. That's not a great feeling either.