Citing a well-established inequality—whether it’s a matter of race, gender, or just two numbers—is not evidence of bias on the author’s part. It’s stating that a bias may very well exist, and that we should not be comfortable with that.
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Leah Reich
There is something wrong with that.
What matters isn’t someone’s gender or skin color in the way you’re looking at it, in some essentializing way, as if “female” defines me anymore than “white” defines me. Rather, the fact of my being white and female, just the same as the fact of your being whatever you are, deeply affects your experiences in the world, and to argue otherwise is disingenuous. You bring these perspectives, your experiences in the world, your triumphs and your social and cultural wounds, to the work you do. For all of us, but especially for those of us who are designers, this is important to remember: We cannot challenge our work if we are surrounded by people whose experiences and opinions mirror our own. We cannot make sure the designs that are affected by the world in which we live in and which in turn will affect the world will evolve if we do not force ourselves to evolve.
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matthewtrow
One thing I’ve always noted about design agencies – both ‘traditional’ and digital – are the stereotypical roles.
I’ve often wondered why this is the case, but ultimately, it’s indicative of your experiences at conferences.
For the most part, the vast bulk of the job applications for web development and design jobs are males.
Is this because the profession is openly hostile toward female candidates?
Is it because females in general don’t find the profession appealing?
I don’t know the answers, I just observe the stereotypes.
I’ve worked in many agencies over the years. In all that time, I’ve only worked with a single female developer. The design world fairs a lot better, generally having a more healthy mix of genders, but it’s still male dominated.
The female role at the agencies I’ve worked for tend to be admin or management based. Account managers for the most part.
If the diversity at the agency level isn’t addressed, then it seems logical this lack of diversity filters through to all other levels.
I can hazard a guess that this lack of diversity starts way back in the education system and perhaps it’s here that change is required to level the playing field?
This article covers a tremendous amount of ground. On the whole, I absolutely agree with Sara’s points. However, as with most pleas for improving “behavior”, the argument is explicitly one-sided.
Having been on the receiving end of astonishing vitriol over having inadvertently caused offense as a conference speaker and someone who’s name graces the list of sexism offenders referenced in this article, I will state without hesitation that the responsibility for “improving” our community rests equally as much with the people who claim offense.
Bad behavior isn’t the exclusive domain of true asshats and condemned conference speakers. If we are going to be honest with ourselves, we have to accept that the issue of inclusivity is not one side of one story.
I took on this toxic topic earlier this year with a series of articles I posted on my blog.
“Part 1 of 3: The Art of Bullying”:http://www.16toads.com//journal/comments/passionate_sanctimony_part_1_the_art_of_bullying
I believe that many of the responses to my comment here and all of the incoming volleys on Twitter on this matter have departed from the specific context and passage I cited. Let’s maintain context here.
There was no reference in the cited passage that those circumstances were the result of deliberate anti-female or anti-diversity bigotry. I took issue with the passage as quoted. There is no benefit to be gained by inventing a context that was not expressed in that passage.
If we are to follow the logic expressed by many in this row, it is that the mere fact someone is a white male in a diverse culture is inherently damning and implicitly racist. Please follow the logic of your ideas here. Thanks.
Surely we can all agree that bigotry of any kind is despicable. Let us not invent it where it does not exist or use it to attack a different sort of bigotry. Thanks!
…is that people complain about it. The comment by Mr. Rutledge is typical of those who think that talking about exclusion is itself exclusion. This can be seen across discussions of race, gender, and sexual orientation.
It is intended to establish an equivalence between the victim and the victimizer and needs to be roundly shouted down whenever and wherever it appears.
They say, “Don’t say anything unless you can improve the conversation.” That is, unless you have a point to make or valuable information to pass on, it’s better to remain quiet and not obstruct the flow of information with poor replies that state nothing new or merely pat the original author on the back with unvarying praise.
But I’m going to go ahead and say that this has been one of the best write-ups on the topic that I have read, and the author does deserve praise for that. And the readers deserve praise for reading it. And the people who do something productive with this sound advice and information deserve the highest praise I can offer.
In the future, I will not attend a conference that doesn’t have a policy of conduct. I will put my money, and my speaking engagements, where my mouth is, and I will point conference organizers who have no such policy here.
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Cori J.
Hear hear, RachelNabors. From now on, I will abstain from conferences that don’t have a policy of conduct. I will also contact the conference organizers personally to suggest that they write one and present a plan to effectively implement it.
Furthermore, while I don’t rule them out, I am very reticent to attend conferences that have a lineup comprised of fewer than 30% women.
In most cities, that unfortunately includes An Event Apart.
Oh boy. I don’t really want to jump into this but here it goes…
Andy, you have several times said that there is an issue of context in how people are responding to you. The flaw I see with that is you yourself pulled a quote out of context of the rest of the article. Sara specifically addressed the “All the women we asked said no” portion later in the article.
Consider whether women might be declining your invitation to speak for “reasons you hadn’t considered”:http://rel.ly/2012/09/conference-organisers-a-point-for-your-consideration/ , and address those, too.
Perhaps she could have fleshed that out a bit further than just linking to another article, but it was addressed. That’s context.
Additionally context: this article is about what we can do to make things better. If a conference has an all white & male lineup, that may not be as good as it could be. How do we make it better?
This isn’t good enough.
I think you condemned the quote you pulled without considering the context of the rest of the article.
The words ‘respect’ and ‘empathy’ have popped up a few times in this conversation, and I want to elevate them: respect and empathy are both essential skills that we as individuals and we as a community need to practice in order to design better communities.
I want to be clear: Having empathy does not excuse poor behavior, nor does it absolve the actor of responsibility for said behavior, not even a little bit. Respect does not mean remaining silent.
Look, broadening community is hard. Increasing diversity is hard. It’s challenging. It’s confronting. It’s messy. And in the process, I guarantee that we will offend each other. Not because some of us are angels and others are asshats, not because we intend to be unkind or rude or bigoted or racist or sexist or ageist or insert-other-ist-here, but because we each are the product of—and see the world through the lens of—our own lived experiences. And when we individually fail to see the world through someone else’s eyes, we collectively fail.
So, let’s start by recognizing that those places where we cause and take offense are the places where our community’s hard work begins.
We must call each other out when we say or do or fail to do the right thing. We are accountable to each other, and we should hold each other accountable.
But in those uncomfortable moments, show respect for each other. Demonstrate empathy for one another. Assume good intent. Ask rather than accuse. Listen. Be humble.
Let’s remember that we are all here because we are builders and learners and makers and doers. We adopt new tools and techniques on the daily; let’s adopt new perspectives, too.
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sibweber
Andy questioned whether speaker quotas for minority groups wouldn’t simply be turning the problem on its head. While it may seem that way, it may be a necessary to select speakers based on ‘arbitrary race and gender quotas’—just to get the ball rolling.
Minority quotas serve one very important purpose: They encourage other members of that minority group to join in an activity. In this case to speak or to enter the industry in the first place. If we’re new to something, we all look for others who are like us to make us more comfortable in the new environment.
Here’s a quick example from my own life: I only entered the web design industry very recently, after a career in marketing. When I considered the career change I was quite frightened by the fact that everybody seemed to be at least 10 years my junior (I’m 39). Of course there are people my age but they just disappeared in the masses of 25-year-olds! However, when I looked at conference line-ups (conferences and books are the public face of the industry) I saw that there were people my age among the speakers and when I started following them on Twitter I found more people my age, as well as people who had made the switch later in life like me. This was a huge encouragement for me to take the leap into a new industry. And I would like to get into public speaking one day, so here is a potential future speaker who is a member of two minority groups: female and soon 40+.
I am pretty sure that there are enough really smart people out there who are not white and male and who could be encouraged to speak at conferences. It’s really important that they do because they encourage other to do so, too.
If you know people who would be qualified to speak and who belong to a minority group, please encourage them to speak. Conference organisers: Please scout hard for minority group speakers. And if you get a negative reply, try to find out why—perhaps you can do something to change their mind (see Relly’s very good article).
It may seem silly to artificially create diversity, but I’m sure that if we do that for a while it would change things in the long run.
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CarrboroChris
The worst outcome I’ve witnessed of the the lack of XX chromosomes on the podium at conferences is that if women are represented, they sometimes make an effort to be just as “bad” as the men, peppering their language with f-bombs and sex jokes. Women, and smart men, don’t need to drive their language into the ditch to get our attention. Isn’t it about time we all grow up?
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Jerrold Maddox
An invitation to anyone who is interested to participate in this project.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/ordinary/design.html
It is an attempt to make the web available to anyone, anywhere, on anything – regardless of any disabilities, and limitations of screen size and bandwidth they may have.
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Don_U
Gosh the hipsters might beat me up but…
If your locale does not scale to diversity it just does not scale.
I live in a less than diverse climate. This is the native social structure here. This has its drawbacks as a less than diverse culture we suffer with a lack of depth, scope and scale. But it is not about race or gender it is a lack of diversity in people.
Diversity should be about what people bring to the table not gender or race and trying to make a “happy place” or a “right place” does not work. I am a 50 something designer and I am excluded from the mainstream because I have not graduated in the last 10 years. It is creepy.
You can not make diversity happen it has to be native to be honest. If some climates choose to pass on a diverse cultural space they miss out on what it can bring to the table but their level of diversity is unique to them. Good or bad.
Yet another thoughtful, quality post from A List Apart. Thank you, Sara. It takes courage to bring these things up, and it is so much easier to just let it go.
In any public conversation about gender or racial inclusiveness, it seems there are always a few white men who get quite angry and defensive, vitriolic at worst, but usually employing cold logic to prove their point, and usually poor logic. These are men who are taking the conversation personally. I think it’s reasonable to want to defend oneself when one feels attacked, but I would love to find a way to get these men to stop, breathe, an open themselves to the larger conversation.. I think most of them would agree, if they felt safe, that diversity is a positive thing, and that we all have a role to play in supporting it. Personally, I would much rather these been men be a part of the solution, and have positive relationships with them. But we can’t work on a solution without clearly pointing at the problem.
To those men who are willing to see the problem, get past that initial burst of defensiveness, and add their voices to the causes of tolerance and diversity, thank you, too. That also takes courage.
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Don_U
The issue is not with “angry white guys”. IT IS OURCULTURE. The web business did not invent this climate. As a male (the last time I checked) this goes on all over. I find the frat house behavior repugnant and disgusting. That being said I find it equally disgusting that we go out of our way to make people feel wanted. That act in itself is patronizing and belittles people you are trying to include. IT IS PANDERING. Till the natural discourse changes nothing will change. This true for both sides of the fence.
Faruk Ate? cruxwireweb and @sibweber I really appreciate your comments. While I cringe at the word “quota,” the rationale remains important. I’d like to see this happen without rules dictating it does—instead having really passionate people (who see the value) make sure that it does.
I started writing a response to these comments and in particular @Andy Rutledge, but it got pretty lengthy so I turned it into a blog post: http://triciarosetty.com/a-response-to-universal-design-ir/ I’d love to hear people’s responses.
Diversity should be about what people bring to the table not gender or race
Actually, different genders and race are very good things for providing diversity. Diversity of backgrounds, of lifestyle, of upbringing, of cultural impressions, these are what bring diverse points of view to the table, and the very best way by far to get the greatest diversity in views is by finding people of obviously diverse nature. (also: studies have found that a ratio of ~60% women in a group produces the best and most creative output)
You can not make diversity happen
This is very demonstrably false. Just look at what Pierre Trudeau did in Canada during his term, and the multicultural nature of Canada today.
That being said I find it equally disgusting that we go out of our way to make people feel wanted. That act in itself is patronizing and belittles people you are trying to include. IT IS PANDERING.
No, that’s not what pandering is. Making people feel wanted is called being inclusive, showing empathy, or simply not being an asshole. Pandering is expressing views based on what your audience wants to hear, whether or not they are your actual views. Pandering typically involves lying, and betraying one’s true thoughts. So I wonder why you’d call it pandering…
bq. Till the natural discourse changes nothing will change. This true for both sides of the fence.
The only group in this debate that has a tendency to get emotional, aggressive and/or hostile is the people defending the status quo, the people who try to fight positive action and change. People like Andy Rutledge. This is not a matter of “both sides are misbehaving” — that’s bullshit. One side is making reasoned, well-researched, fact-based arguments. The other side—which, in this current discussion, you have made yourself part of—is using theory and unsubstantiated claims to argue against the mounting evidence.
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sformisano
DISCLAIMER: I always enter these discussions because I have a genuine interest in finding out different perspectives on these problems, and eventually receive answers that can convince me my perspective is flawed. I often got insulted and misinterpreted, so my stance on personal attacks is ignore. I welcome and encourage any other kind of confrontation.
——-
@Faruk Ates: you make some very good points which help making your position very clear. Yet there are a few reasons I’m still not 100% sold on these types of debates.
Whichever arguments is brought to the table, I can’t help but get this feeling of tokenization and quotas when it comes to issues like the Brit Ruby fiasco. I’ll elaborate on this one: the IT community is still predominantly male, that’s how it is for now. Is it really impossible that among X available speakers, all the most interesting candidates for the lineup were men? Does a 100% white men lineup necessarily mean that the criteria for choosing the speakers lineup is flawed?
Assuming my premise could be true, is your point that the organisers would’ve HAD to keep looking for women (or anything but white men) not with a tokenization attitude, but with the confidence that the diversity would have improved quality of the talks without any doubts?
I also often feel like all this stuff is not that different from being condescending towards women.
Let’s assume there are 20 slots available for speakers. You’ve filled 19, all men so far, and you have two candidates available for the last slot, a man and a woman.
The two professional profiles, however, reveal that the male candidate is likely to deliver a more relevant, more interesting talk to the crowd.
From your comment I’m guessing your position on this would be rejecting this construct all together, i.e. a similar situation would never verify itself and if someone does believe to have this kind of scenario in front of him, his reasoning is flawed because he’s been influenced by all sorts of factors to have a certain perspective and see things in a certain way.
The shift that needs to happen when it comes to IT and technical professions should begin from how we educate our children. This is an emblematic, remarkable example of what I mean http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16029337/goldieblox-the-engineering-toy-for-girls
To offer a bit of the background forming my perspective, I currently live in Naples, Italy.
Down here, anything that’s IT related is considered to be a male profession, to the point that women who show any kind of interest on the field are often discouraged by friends (female friends!) or simply seen as weirdos. IT universities are literally “womenless”.
Do I know any good solutions? Of course I don’t, it’s definitely not a simple problem. But do I think that a men only speakers line up is undeniable proof of discrimination? Sorry folks, I just can’t see it.
There are still mostly men in our industry, I am confident that picking a technical topic for a conference and looking for non white men candidates can still be a daunting, frustrating task.
Thanks for taking the time to ask for elaboration and providing relevant scenarios to address. I’ve put my responses inline. Since this has become such a big and arguments-laden response I will also repost this comment in full on my own blog:
Whichever arguments is brought to the table, I can’t help but get this feeling of tokenization and quotas when it comes to issues like the Brit Ruby fiasco.
This is understandable, but try to reframe it in your mind; think of it all not as “quotas” (or tokenization) but as a passion for seeing diverse viewpoints fairly represented on a stage. Sure, some organizers may feel “obligated” to try and include diverse speakers, but others are disappointed (with themselves and the status quo) if they can’t produce enough diversity to suit their wishes.
the IT community is still predominantly male, that’s how it is for now. Is it really impossible that among X available speakers, all the most interesting candidates for the lineup were men?
No, this is entirely possible. With a small sample size from a male-dominated industry, getting all men is an easily replicable scenario. However: who says that all guys actually are the “most interesting candidates”? Whose standard is that by? Because I can promise you that I won’t find an all-male (and all-white) lineup “most interesting” at all, as a conference attendee. Because I would argue that, no matter what they’re speaking about, I’d feel like I’m getting a homogeneous point of view presented to me.
Does a 100% white men lineup necessarily mean that the criteria for choosing the speakers lineup is flawed?
Yes, it means that the conference organizers’ perception of “best” is biased. Or that they were just really lazy, at best.
It doesn’t mean the speakers or the organizers themselves are flawed, but it does mean all of the following things:
The system in which we all exist is flawed (tech is male dominated, but far too big an industry for that to be an acceptable balance, thus it is flawed);
The process of selecting speakers did not take the flawed system into account, resulting in systemic biases in favor of the dominant demographic;
Unconscious biases may have made the process of selecting speakers even worse.
Assuming my premise could be true, is your point that the organisers would’ve HAD to keep looking for women (or anything but white men) not with a tokenization attitude, but with the confidence that the diversity would have improved quality of the talks without any doubts?
Having diversity for diversity’s sake is no guarantee of quality. However, as I hope I’ve now sufficiently explained, looking simply for your own definition of “quality” and not putting in a conscious effort to also find diversity, does effectively mean that your quality will come from a very homogeneous point of view, and this has historically and statistically been proven to actually reduce quality. Study after study finds that greater diversity in a group’s membership improves the quality of their collective output.
I also often feel like all this stuff is not that different from being condescending towards women.
Not sure what to do with this. Why do you think it’s condescending? Working hard to ensure diversity is not like saying “here you go women, have some speaker spots too”; it’s saying “dear women: we really value your input as well, please share it with us.”
Let’s assume there are 20 slots available for speakers. You’ve filled 19, all men so far, and you have two candidates available for the last slot, a man and a woman.
The two professional profiles, however, reveal that the male candidate is likely to deliver a more relevant, more interesting talk to the crowd.
From your comment I’m guessing your position on this would be rejecting this construct all together, i.e. a similar situation would never verify itself and if someone does believe to have this kind of scenario in front of him, his reasoning is flawed because he’s been influenced by all sorts of factors to have a certain perspective and see things in a certain way.
I won’t reject that construct, or that scenario. It’s perfectly realistic. My point is that in order to get to such a scenario, you have already gone through a flawed process. Already you have failed to actively reach out to (enough) women, and failed to introduce a diversity of selection in your own process of qualification.
If you as a conference organizer are in such a position, all the steps you’ve taken so far have had an element of mistake to them. You’ve ignored or missed every opportunity to introduce diversity into the mix. I don’t attribute this to malice, and neither does almost anyone else. This is virtually never an intentional scenario for conference organizers to find themselves in. They also don’t necessarily want such a scenario, either. The problem lies in them not knowing, or not caring enough, how to avoid it. Plenty of resources exist online to avoid such a scenario, so every time it does happen, it is a failing on the organizers’ part.
The shift that needs to happen when it comes to IT and technical professions should begin from how we educate our children. This is an emblematic, remarkable example of what I mean: “Goldieblox”:http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16029337/goldieblox-the-engineering-toy-for-girls
Goldieblox is a great example of how we can start to address the systemic sexism that permeates our society for the generations to come. It is but one step of many thousands we need to take, however, if we wish to establish a more meritocratic, equal and fair industry anytime soon.
Down here [in Naples, Italy], anything that’s IT related is considered to be a male profession, to the point that women who show any kind of interest on the field are often discouraged by friends (female friends!) or simply seen as weirdos. IT universities are literally “womenless”.
That’s something that will need to be addressed with some major cultural reform, which won’t come easily, knowing Italy and its cultural views on women. (not saying you share those views; I’m sure you know what I mean)
But do I think that a men only speakers line up is undeniable proof of discrimination? Sorry folks, I just can’t see it.
This will perhaps be the most informative part, then: there is an important difference between systemic discrimination and active discrimination.
The latter is something that is done consciously, and by individuals. It is when people say or do things that is harmful, that suppresses or diminishes groups.
Systemic discrimination, on the other hand, happens through no one person’s fault. It is not something anyone individually should be blamed for, because it is a result of a system that doesn’t actively police itself well enough. It is the result of a culture that gets created through inaction, rather than action. It is when you take a group of 20 individual men, ask them if they’re sexist, they all say no and genuinely feel that way, but then when you put all 20 together in one room, the culture that emerges feels openly hostile to certain women, and they will not feel welcome to enter it.
This is not because all those 20 men are “secretly sexist” or anything like that. Quite likely, not a single one of them is. It’s because they were not consciously trying to make sure women would also feel welcome in the group, and at face value, they are now a group of men that some women will simply not feel like they are welcome in.
This phenomenon also explains the level of butthurt expressed by some men when dealing with this topic: they get offended and have a hard time believing that people could think of them as not welcoming to women. “Of course I’m welcoming to women!” they decry. But the reality is, when a large group of people is very homogeneous, it simply does not appear to be inclusive to people on the outside. This is a shallow, superficial thing, but that’s the problem: if your group appears to be unwelcome, then it is inevitable that some people will not even bother to try and find out if you really are.
And that’s the great loss here: those people cannot be blamed for their caution, but we all miss out on their input and their voice, because they won’t attend. History explains and justifies their caution; that’s why conference and event organizers carry so much responsibility in choosing their lineup: they set the tone for how their event is perceived on the outside.
If you’re a white man, you will probably have no superficial problem seeing other white men as speakers. But if you’re any other demographic in any way at all, seeing white men over and over and over again will start to wear you down and make you wonder if this community is really as inclusive as it claims to be. And, even worse, it’ll justifiably make some people wonder if this community actually values other people’s points of view as much as those of the white men.
If you wish to claim you value everyone’s points of view equally regardless of race or gender or what-have-you, you need to actively work on representing a diversity of views if you’re organizing an event with people speaking to an audience. Because if you don’t, you’re sending an implicit (and probably unconscious) message that you think white men have the most valuable points of view. And while that’s probably not true, it reveals your biases as well as your lack of effort, still making you look pretty bad.
In closing, to address the BritRuby case specifically: when faced with a situation like BritRuby’s, which is very close to the hypothetical 19-out-of-20 men scenario from above, the way you react to and handle this kind of criticism is far more important than whatever failing took place that caused it.
Garann Means mentioned the case of LXJS in “her blog post on BritRuby”:http://www.garann.com/dev/2012/hostess-and-britruby/ which was a fantastic way for a conference organizer to react to criticism of all white male speaker lineups (not even addressed to them specifically). BritRuby, with their canceling of the event and the blaming of those who expressed their opinions for it, falls squarely in the Worst Possible Way To Handle It-category. BritRuby’s organizers could have reacted very differently, and then none of this would have been a big deal, and the event would still be planned. The loss of the event and its hypothetical value to the community is entirely, 100% their own fault.
A colleague suggested that I post here to share my perspective as someone who’s had some success organizing inclusive conferences. Disclosure: the author of this article is [another] friend and colleague of mine.
When I read the fallout from Sara’s article, the main area of disagreement seems to be whether an all-white-male lineup demonstrates a [de facto] discriminatory organizer policy (it does, even though the organizers are probably not misogynists). If you are genuinely interested in this question, and like @sformisano above it throws up issues of “tokenism” and affirmative-action-type dilemmas for you, I recommend you read everything “Faruk Ate?”:http://farukat.es/ has written on this topic. If he can’t convince you, I suspect you’re not listening.
Here’s what I’ve learnt about organizing inclusive conferences:
If you put the work in, it’s possible to organize inclusive speaker lineups
When you do that, it improves attendees’ perception of quality (in the talks overall)
It also raises the stakes for attendees, because they feel more like participants than spectators
So far I’ve organized one conference (with Destry Wion and Randall Snare): Content Strategy Forum 2011, and I’m working with my colleagues at Brain Traffic on a second conference, Confab London coming up in March 2013.
For CS Forum, we made inclusion an explicit aim of the conference, and worked hard at it. The formula is simple:
Have a female keynote
Announce invited speakers who are female
Run an open call for speakers which explicitly mentions inclusion. One of the fields on the submission form asked for recommendations of people who are under-represented at conferences (for us to approach).
Select speakers from the open call using a number of different criteria. For example, we wanted a mix of countries, backgrounds, etc.
“Here’s the lineup we ended up with”:http://2011.csforum.eu/speakers
A good mix of genders, some non-white faces. I’m sure I can do better in the future, of course—e.g. more diverse ethnicity, including disabled people, different educational backgrounds, etc. etc.
When I worked with Brain Traffic to bring Confab (the Content Strategy Conference based in Minneapolis) to London, we used a similar strategy, and we got a lot of love (on twitter at least) for “the inclusiveness of our lineup”:http://confabevents.com/events/london-2013/speakers/
Yes it’s hard work, but in the medium term it’s also good for business. Just one example. Imagine you are a female German web professional, and you look at the “Confab London 2013”:http://confabevents.com/events/london-2013/speakers/ lineup. Wow, there’s an awesome German woman presenting! People like me! Now contrast that to an all white, all male, all English-speaking line-up. Less attractive, and you’d have immediate concerns about whether you’d be welcome there.
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Matt Fitzgerald
I agree with Andy Rutledge. All white men are not the same. I could cry over being discriminated against because I am short (5’7” 130lb). I could fill the page with stories of how I was assumed to be fragile, weak or otherwise less able than my taller and larger peers. I could tell you how I was given less chances to make mistakes (because one mistake up was sufficient evidence of my lack of ability); or, how I had to prove myself worthy in order to be included.
I could have let those experiences turn me away from pursuing what I loved. I could have complained and probably been made fun of, ultimately to not be included anyway. But you know what I did? I worked extra hard. I made less mistakes. I held myself to a higher standard. And I earned the respect I deserved for my ability.
It would be nice if we could all live by the Golden Rule: Treat others as you have them treat you. Maybe someday. Trying to force people to do it will not work.
Oh, but my opinion doesn’t count because I am a white male.
Thank you for writing such an honest and thought-provoking article, Sara. I’m thrilled to see this conversation happening here on A List Apart. This is not an easy conversation to have, so I commend you for sticking your neck out. And while I agree with some comments and disagree with others, I respect everyone’s opinion and am again glad that this issue has been raised.
As a woman in this field, and as an emerging public speaker, this article hits close to home. I can certainly empathize with Sara’s perspective. The vast majority of interactions I’ve had with men throughout my career have been overwhelmingly positive, productive, and professional. But while it hasn’t necessarily happened at conferences, in my 8 or so years working as a designer, I’ve been blatantly hit on by (married) male superiors, bullied into doing unpaid freelance work for a superior’s cronies, ridiculed for carrying what was perceived as a “just in case I end up at some dude’s house tonight” overnight bag to work, and asked if I “like porn” by men I barely know at happy hours. At larger conferences such as SXSW, I see “booth babes” and ads objectifying the female body to promote the latest and greatest technology. There’s a pervasive and alienating brogrammer culture that still exists in our field, and we’ve got some work to do, both at conferences (and beyond) to move on from it.
The good news is that we have come a long way. Tolerance for sexist or otherwise offensive behavior is dwindling. And there’s been a huge push to make the field more welcoming to those who are not white men. At conferences, anyone at the lectern is perceived as an expert or a leader, so it’s been wonderful to see more female speakers, speakers of color, and non-US speakers as each year progresses. Diversifying the speaker roster is not easy, but it can be done. At this year’s JSConf EU, planned efforts to recruit more female speakers “paid off in a roster of 25% female speakers”:http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got-25-percent-women-speakers.html . This is fantastic for everyone, not just women in our field.
In addition, every employer I’ve worked for has had an explicit anti-sexual harassment policy. It was very clear to me who I could go to should I encounter such a problem. I’m glad to see this idea carried over to the conference space. We need to work together to prevent the conditions that make anyone feel excluded or mistreated, but we also need to implement a course of action to deal with it when it does happen.
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Don_U
So you are saying that within a subgroup of say white guys that could not be diverse. Since when do I share the same values or ideas than say a white guy in California? The concept that we share the same thing or are the same thing because of like gender or race is, well, bigoted at the very least.
REALDIVERSITY can not be defined by a study are we sure that a 60% make up of a given group insures diversity.
Government can not regulate something that has to happen naturally. I am a liberal, I have tons of friends that are conservative. They come from diverse backgrounds and have diverse ideas. This did not happen because governance told me to be friends it is because I made the effort.
My wife is finishing up her degree. I was talking to her adviser who happens to be African American and the first man to play baseball in a local league. He was featured in the local paper during “Black History Month”. What he said about it was, “I don’t want to be known as a black man who played baseball. I want to be known as a MAN who played baseball”
Any argument you may have has been laid moot by that last bit of insight.
Hello, commenters! I’ve been remiss in not taking part in this conversation over the past few days, but to be honest I’ve been a bit overwhelmed—thankfully, less by the bits of vitriol I’ve seen sprout up, and more by the thoughtfulness nearly all of you have had in your responses, here and around the web. In fact, here are some follow-up pieces, if you missed them:
Margot Bloomstein wrote about “Using Math to Prop Open the Door”: http://appropriateinc.com/ideas/math-to-prop-open-the-door/
Tricia Rosetty wrote “A Response to Universal Design IRL”: http://triciarosetty.com/a-response-to-universal-design-ir/
Squirrel & Moose recorded a podcast called “Do Not Feed the Trolls”: http://3rdaverad.io/shows/squirrel-and-moose/episodes/do-not-feed-the-trolls/
Faruk Ates explained “The Problem with a Slate of White, Male Speakers”: http://farukat.es/journal/2012/11/673-problem-slate-white-male-speakers
Apologies if I’ve missed some here. It’s been a crazy week trying to keep up.
While I may disagree with some of you, one thing I hope we can mostly agree on is that these are complex issues—issues not as simple as saying we need more women or black people or non-Americans in a conference. I embrace that complexity—welcome the gray areas—because it’s those gray areas that force us to think critically about our values and our actions, and to be, above all, empathetic.
That said, there are many ways in which discrimination happens, and also many ways in which diversity happens. White men can be discriminated against for a wide range of reasons (income level, region, language, education, etc. etc. etc.). However, we’re still largely operating within a societal structure designed by and for white men. If we continue to create events that only cater to white men, then we perpetuate that social structure—and we lose out on the ideas and innovation we could be getting from others, if we _actively_—not passively—welcomed them in. This doesn’t help anyone.
Thank you all for reading carefully, discussing passionately, and sharing mostly productive, constructive comments. Carry on.
Great post on how the design and rules of a community will lead to particular behaviours, and how as a designer or organiser one must be mindful in order to combat this!
One thing that keeps coming up again and again I find is the issue of discussion. One only has to look at the comments on YouTube or Facebook or news websites to see some of the filthiest, most vile and horrid human communications. This is accepted without question in the name of “free speech” without any thought about how some of this abusive, libellious, bigoted, offensive content affects the community.
I guess what I mean to say is that I think “Discuss this article. We reserve the right to delete flames, trolls, and wood nymphs.” is the right sort of approach to fostering meaningful and appropriate culture in a community based around a website.
Additionally, I find it very interesting that although there have been many white males who have been on both sides of the “is having mostly white males a problem” discussion on this article, close to 100% of the people who think the problem of “white male privilege” is unimportant or non-existent are white males.
I guess it’s a good example of various psychological biases including fundamental attribution error, status quo bias, defensive attribution hypothesis, egocentric bias, ingroup bias, just-world phenomenon, outgroup homogeneity bias etc.
Essentially, if you’re not being discriminated against or are part of the dominant group, it is harder to see that others are being discriminated against- though not impossible of course, as we see that many of the white males have agreed with Sara. It is also harder to see that exclusion of others might be a problem if you have a different viewpoint and do not belong to the dominant group. In addition, people tend to attribute their own success more to personal strengths, their own failures to outside forces, others’ successes to outside forces and others’ failures to their personal weaknesses.
Certainly the idea that one’s own position in life is not 100% earned by personal strengths and that there may be others who are more deserving but are discriminated against is a difficult one to actively accept and the cognitive dissonance often (though not always) leads to the belief instead that the less powerful groups in society are truly less deserving and that that is why they are not achieving. And that redressing the balance is in some way causing “reverse discrimination” when it is actually redressing a gross imbalance or injustice.
The part about the discrimination against webbies outside the USA definitely resonates with me.
From the statistics which never cover my geo location to the lack of services and apps because it’s not offered in my country, it’s obvious that the web has a long way to go yet.
As for your personal incidents of harassment – they were totally unacceptable but I think after expressing yourself here you’d know how to deal with those in the future.
For any conference organizer who can, a concerted effort to include those outside of your continent will not only move us closer to the ideal of an all inclusive web but in the long term will actually satisfy even your most mundane capitalist needs.
So.. as the world becomes even smaller what is required is a little more consideration, more respect and a wider frame of view – all of which doesn’t require any technological advancements.
Reading through the aggressive comments leaves me feeling cornered, and not as open as I felt immediately after reading the article.
Sara, I appreciate what you wrote. It takes courage to share an observation, as it opens you up to subjective-discussion. And the packaging on your message itself, gets ripped to optimized-shreds.
As a man who minored in women’s studies in graduate school, I found there to be a fine line of discussion about bigotry and sexism that was difficult to have in large groups, and could often only be had one-on-one. Communication, concern, empathy, and understanding of the mutual parties are of paramount importance, in order to not have individuals feel attacked.
It takes guts to share your stories. I’m glad you did. It has me thinking. I hope, if nothing else, it has others thinking, as well. Cheers, Sara.
Thank you, Sara. It takes courage to bring these things up, and it is so much easier to just let it go.
In any public conversation about gender or racial inclusiveness, it seems there are always a few white men who get quite angry and defensive, vitriolic at worst, but usually employing cold logic to prove their point, and usually poor logic. These are men who are taking the conversation personally. I think it’s reasonable to want to defend oneself when one feels attacked, but I would love to find a way to get these men to stop, breathe, an open themselves to the larger conversation.. I think most of them would agree, if they felt safe, that diversity is a positive thing, and that we all have a role to play in supporting it.
Thanks for sharing Sara, it is great to hear another woman in the web design industry share her experiences. Good on you for championing diversity, creativity and originality.
43 Reader Comments
Back to the ArticleMat Marquis
Andy Rutledge:
That’s pretty textbook false equivalence, man.
Citing a well-established inequality—whether it’s a matter of race, gender, or just two numbers—is not evidence of bias on the author’s part. It’s stating that a bias may very well exist, and that we should not be comfortable with that.
Leah Reich
There is something wrong with that.
What matters isn’t someone’s gender or skin color in the way you’re looking at it, in some essentializing way, as if “female” defines me anymore than “white” defines me. Rather, the fact of my being white and female, just the same as the fact of your being whatever you are, deeply affects your experiences in the world, and to argue otherwise is disingenuous. You bring these perspectives, your experiences in the world, your triumphs and your social and cultural wounds, to the work you do. For all of us, but especially for those of us who are designers, this is important to remember: We cannot challenge our work if we are surrounded by people whose experiences and opinions mirror our own. We cannot make sure the designs that are affected by the world in which we live in and which in turn will affect the world will evolve if we do not force ourselves to evolve.
matthewtrow
One thing I’ve always noted about design agencies – both ‘traditional’ and digital – are the stereotypical roles.
I’ve often wondered why this is the case, but ultimately, it’s indicative of your experiences at conferences.
For the most part, the vast bulk of the job applications for web development and design jobs are males.
Is this because the profession is openly hostile toward female candidates?
Is it because females in general don’t find the profession appealing?
I don’t know the answers, I just observe the stereotypes.
I’ve worked in many agencies over the years. In all that time, I’ve only worked with a single female developer. The design world fairs a lot better, generally having a more healthy mix of genders, but it’s still male dominated.
The female role at the agencies I’ve worked for tend to be admin or management based. Account managers for the most part.
If the diversity at the agency level isn’t addressed, then it seems logical this lack of diversity filters through to all other levels.
I can hazard a guess that this lack of diversity starts way back in the education system and perhaps it’s here that change is required to level the playing field?
Paul Burton
This article covers a tremendous amount of ground. On the whole, I absolutely agree with Sara’s points. However, as with most pleas for improving “behavior”, the argument is explicitly one-sided.
Having been on the receiving end of astonishing vitriol over having inadvertently caused offense as a conference speaker and someone who’s name graces the list of sexism offenders referenced in this article, I will state without hesitation that the responsibility for “improving” our community rests equally as much with the people who claim offense.
Bad behavior isn’t the exclusive domain of true asshats and condemned conference speakers. If we are going to be honest with ourselves, we have to accept that the issue of inclusivity is not one side of one story.
I took on this toxic topic earlier this year with a series of articles I posted on my blog.
“Part 1 of 3: The Art of Bullying”:http://www.16toads.com//journal/comments/passionate_sanctimony_part_1_the_art_of_bullying
Andy Rutledge
I believe that many of the responses to my comment here and all of the incoming volleys on Twitter on this matter have departed from the specific context and passage I cited. Let’s maintain context here.
There was no reference in the cited passage that those circumstances were the result of deliberate anti-female or anti-diversity bigotry. I took issue with the passage as quoted. There is no benefit to be gained by inventing a context that was not expressed in that passage.
If we are to follow the logic expressed by many in this row, it is that the mere fact someone is a white male in a diverse culture is inherently damning and implicitly racist. Please follow the logic of your ideas here. Thanks.
Surely we can all agree that bigotry of any kind is despicable. Let us not invent it where it does not exist or use it to attack a different sort of bigotry. Thanks!
kevdog
…is that people complain about it. The comment by Mr. Rutledge is typical of those who think that talking about exclusion is itself exclusion. This can be seen across discussions of race, gender, and sexual orientation.
It is intended to establish an equivalence between the victim and the victimizer and needs to be roundly shouted down whenever and wherever it appears.
RachelNabors
They say, “Don’t say anything unless you can improve the conversation.” That is, unless you have a point to make or valuable information to pass on, it’s better to remain quiet and not obstruct the flow of information with poor replies that state nothing new or merely pat the original author on the back with unvarying praise.
But I’m going to go ahead and say that this has been one of the best write-ups on the topic that I have read, and the author does deserve praise for that. And the readers deserve praise for reading it. And the people who do something productive with this sound advice and information deserve the highest praise I can offer.
In the future, I will not attend a conference that doesn’t have a policy of conduct. I will put my money, and my speaking engagements, where my mouth is, and I will point conference organizers who have no such policy here.
Cori J.
Hear hear, RachelNabors. From now on, I will abstain from conferences that don’t have a policy of conduct. I will also contact the conference organizers personally to suggest that they write one and present a plan to effectively implement it.
Furthermore, while I don’t rule them out, I am very reticent to attend conferences that have a lineup comprised of fewer than 30% women.
In most cities, that unfortunately includes An Event Apart.
philiprenich
Oh boy. I don’t really want to jump into this but here it goes…
Andy, you have several times said that there is an issue of context in how people are responding to you. The flaw I see with that is you yourself pulled a quote out of context of the rest of the article. Sara specifically addressed the “All the women we asked said no” portion later in the article.
Perhaps she could have fleshed that out a bit further than just linking to another article, but it was addressed. That’s context.
Additionally context: this article is about what we can do to make things better. If a conference has an all white & male lineup, that may not be as good as it could be. How do we make it better?
I think you condemned the quote you pulled without considering the context of the rest of the article.
Ruthie BenDor
The words ‘respect’ and ‘empathy’ have popped up a few times in this conversation, and I want to elevate them: respect and empathy are both essential skills that we as individuals and we as a community need to practice in order to design better communities.
I want to be clear: Having empathy does not excuse poor behavior, nor does it absolve the actor of responsibility for said behavior, not even a little bit. Respect does not mean remaining silent.
Look, broadening community is hard. Increasing diversity is hard. It’s challenging. It’s confronting. It’s messy. And in the process, I guarantee that we will offend each other. Not because some of us are angels and others are asshats, not because we intend to be unkind or rude or bigoted or racist or sexist or ageist or insert-other-ist-here, but because we each are the product of—and see the world through the lens of—our own lived experiences. And when we individually fail to see the world through someone else’s eyes, we collectively fail.
So, let’s start by recognizing that those places where we cause and take offense are the places where our community’s hard work begins.
We must call each other out when we say or do or fail to do the right thing. We are accountable to each other, and we should hold each other accountable.
But in those uncomfortable moments, show respect for each other. Demonstrate empathy for one another. Assume good intent. Ask rather than accuse. Listen. Be humble.
Let’s remember that we are all here because we are builders and learners and makers and doers. We adopt new tools and techniques on the daily; let’s adopt new perspectives, too.
sibweber
Andy questioned whether speaker quotas for minority groups wouldn’t simply be turning the problem on its head. While it may seem that way, it may be a necessary to select speakers based on ‘arbitrary race and gender quotas’—just to get the ball rolling.
Minority quotas serve one very important purpose: They encourage other members of that minority group to join in an activity. In this case to speak or to enter the industry in the first place. If we’re new to something, we all look for others who are like us to make us more comfortable in the new environment.
Here’s a quick example from my own life: I only entered the web design industry very recently, after a career in marketing. When I considered the career change I was quite frightened by the fact that everybody seemed to be at least 10 years my junior (I’m 39). Of course there are people my age but they just disappeared in the masses of 25-year-olds! However, when I looked at conference line-ups (conferences and books are the public face of the industry) I saw that there were people my age among the speakers and when I started following them on Twitter I found more people my age, as well as people who had made the switch later in life like me. This was a huge encouragement for me to take the leap into a new industry. And I would like to get into public speaking one day, so here is a potential future speaker who is a member of two minority groups: female and soon 40+.
I am pretty sure that there are enough really smart people out there who are not white and male and who could be encouraged to speak at conferences. It’s really important that they do because they encourage other to do so, too.
If you know people who would be qualified to speak and who belong to a minority group, please encourage them to speak. Conference organisers: Please scout hard for minority group speakers. And if you get a negative reply, try to find out why—perhaps you can do something to change their mind (see Relly’s very good article).
It may seem silly to artificially create diversity, but I’m sure that if we do that for a while it would change things in the long run.
CarrboroChris
The worst outcome I’ve witnessed of the the lack of XX chromosomes on the podium at conferences is that if women are represented, they sometimes make an effort to be just as “bad” as the men, peppering their language with f-bombs and sex jokes. Women, and smart men, don’t need to drive their language into the ditch to get our attention. Isn’t it about time we all grow up?
Jerrold Maddox
An invitation to anyone who is interested to participate in this project.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/ordinary/design.html
It is an attempt to make the web available to anyone, anywhere, on anything – regardless of any disabilities, and limitations of screen size and bandwidth they may have.
Don_U
Gosh the hipsters might beat me up but…
If your locale does not scale to diversity it just does not scale.
I live in a less than diverse climate. This is the native social structure here. This has its drawbacks as a less than diverse culture we suffer with a lack of depth, scope and scale. But it is not about race or gender it is a lack of diversity in people.
Diversity should be about what people bring to the table not gender or race and trying to make a “happy place” or a “right place” does not work. I am a 50 something designer and I am excluded from the mainstream because I have not graduated in the last 10 years. It is creepy.
You can not make diversity happen it has to be native to be honest. If some climates choose to pass on a diverse cultural space they miss out on what it can bring to the table but their level of diversity is unique to them. Good or bad.
cruxwireweb
Yet another thoughtful, quality post from A List Apart. Thank you, Sara. It takes courage to bring these things up, and it is so much easier to just let it go.
In any public conversation about gender or racial inclusiveness, it seems there are always a few white men who get quite angry and defensive, vitriolic at worst, but usually employing cold logic to prove their point, and usually poor logic. These are men who are taking the conversation personally. I think it’s reasonable to want to defend oneself when one feels attacked, but I would love to find a way to get these men to stop, breathe, an open themselves to the larger conversation.. I think most of them would agree, if they felt safe, that diversity is a positive thing, and that we all have a role to play in supporting it. Personally, I would much rather these been men be a part of the solution, and have positive relationships with them. But we can’t work on a solution without clearly pointing at the problem.
To those men who are willing to see the problem, get past that initial burst of defensiveness, and add their voices to the causes of tolerance and diversity, thank you, too. That also takes courage.
Don_U
The issue is not with “angry white guys”. IT IS OUR CULTURE. The web business did not invent this climate. As a male (the last time I checked) this goes on all over. I find the frat house behavior repugnant and disgusting. That being said I find it equally disgusting that we go out of our way to make people feel wanted. That act in itself is patronizing and belittles people you are trying to include. IT IS PANDERING. Till the natural discourse changes nothing will change. This true for both sides of the fence.
trosetty
Faruk Ate?cruxwireweb and @sibweber I really appreciate your comments. While I cringe at the word “quota,” the rationale remains important. I’d like to see this happen without rules dictating it does—instead having really passionate people (who see the value) make sure that it does.I started writing a response to these comments and in particular @Andy Rutledge, but it got pretty lengthy so I turned it into a blog post: http://triciarosetty.com/a-response-to-universal-design-ir/ I’d love to hear people’s responses.
Faruk Ateş
@Don_U:
Actually, different genders and race are very good things for providing diversity. Diversity of backgrounds, of lifestyle, of upbringing, of cultural impressions, these are what bring diverse points of view to the table, and the very best way by far to get the greatest diversity in views is by finding people of obviously diverse nature. (also: studies have found that a ratio of ~60% women in a group produces the best and most creative output)
This is very demonstrably false. Just look at what Pierre Trudeau did in Canada during his term, and the multicultural nature of Canada today.
No, that’s not what pandering is. Making people feel wanted is called being inclusive, showing empathy, or simply not being an asshole. Pandering is expressing views based on what your audience wants to hear, whether or not they are your actual views. Pandering typically involves lying, and betraying one’s true thoughts. So I wonder why you’d call it pandering…
bq. Till the natural discourse changes nothing will change. This true for both sides of the fence.
The only group in this debate that has a tendency to get emotional, aggressive and/or hostile is the people defending the status quo, the people who try to fight positive action and change. People like Andy Rutledge. This is not a matter of “both sides are misbehaving” — that’s bullshit. One side is making reasoned, well-researched, fact-based arguments. The other side—which, in this current discussion, you have made yourself part of—is using theory and unsubstantiated claims to argue against the mounting evidence.
sformisano
DISCLAIMER: I always enter these discussions because I have a genuine interest in finding out different perspectives on these problems, and eventually receive answers that can convince me my perspective is flawed. I often got insulted and misinterpreted, so my stance on personal attacks is ignore. I welcome and encourage any other kind of confrontation.
——-
@Faruk Ates: you make some very good points which help making your position very clear. Yet there are a few reasons I’m still not 100% sold on these types of debates.
Whichever arguments is brought to the table, I can’t help but get this feeling of tokenization and quotas when it comes to issues like the Brit Ruby fiasco. I’ll elaborate on this one: the IT community is still predominantly male, that’s how it is for now. Is it really impossible that among X available speakers, all the most interesting candidates for the lineup were men? Does a 100% white men lineup necessarily mean that the criteria for choosing the speakers lineup is flawed?
Assuming my premise could be true, is your point that the organisers would’ve HAD to keep looking for women (or anything but white men) not with a tokenization attitude, but with the confidence that the diversity would have improved quality of the talks without any doubts?
I also often feel like all this stuff is not that different from being condescending towards women.
Let’s assume there are 20 slots available for speakers. You’ve filled 19, all men so far, and you have two candidates available for the last slot, a man and a woman.
The two professional profiles, however, reveal that the male candidate is likely to deliver a more relevant, more interesting talk to the crowd.
From your comment I’m guessing your position on this would be rejecting this construct all together, i.e. a similar situation would never verify itself and if someone does believe to have this kind of scenario in front of him, his reasoning is flawed because he’s been influenced by all sorts of factors to have a certain perspective and see things in a certain way.
The shift that needs to happen when it comes to IT and technical professions should begin from how we educate our children. This is an emblematic, remarkable example of what I mean http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16029337/goldieblox-the-engineering-toy-for-girls
To offer a bit of the background forming my perspective, I currently live in Naples, Italy.
Down here, anything that’s IT related is considered to be a male profession, to the point that women who show any kind of interest on the field are often discouraged by friends (female friends!) or simply seen as weirdos. IT universities are literally “womenless”.
Do I know any good solutions? Of course I don’t, it’s definitely not a simple problem. But do I think that a men only speakers line up is undeniable proof of discrimination? Sorry folks, I just can’t see it.
There are still mostly men in our industry, I am confident that picking a technical topic for a conference and looking for non white men candidates can still be a daunting, frustrating task.
Peace.
Faruk Ateş
@sformisano:
Thanks for taking the time to ask for elaboration and providing relevant scenarios to address. I’ve put my responses inline. Since this has become such a big and arguments-laden response I will also repost this comment in full on my own blog:
This is understandable, but try to reframe it in your mind; think of it all not as “quotas” (or tokenization) but as a passion for seeing diverse viewpoints fairly represented on a stage. Sure, some organizers may feel “obligated” to try and include diverse speakers, but others are disappointed (with themselves and the status quo) if they can’t produce enough diversity to suit their wishes.
No, this is entirely possible. With a small sample size from a male-dominated industry, getting all men is an easily replicable scenario. However: who says that all guys actually are the “most interesting candidates”? Whose standard is that by? Because I can promise you that I won’t find an all-male (and all-white) lineup “most interesting” at all, as a conference attendee. Because I would argue that, no matter what they’re speaking about, I’d feel like I’m getting a homogeneous point of view presented to me.
Yes, it means that the conference organizers’ perception of “best” is biased. Or that they were just really lazy, at best.
It doesn’t mean the speakers or the organizers themselves are flawed, but it does mean all of the following things:
Having diversity for diversity’s sake is no guarantee of quality. However, as I hope I’ve now sufficiently explained, looking simply for your own definition of “quality” and not putting in a conscious effort to also find diversity, does effectively mean that your quality will come from a very homogeneous point of view, and this has historically and statistically been proven to actually reduce quality. Study after study finds that greater diversity in a group’s membership improves the quality of their collective output.
Not sure what to do with this. Why do you think it’s condescending? Working hard to ensure diversity is not like saying “here you go women, have some speaker spots too”; it’s saying “dear women: we really value your input as well, please share it with us.”
I won’t reject that construct, or that scenario. It’s perfectly realistic. My point is that in order to get to such a scenario, you have already gone through a flawed process. Already you have failed to actively reach out to (enough) women, and failed to introduce a diversity of selection in your own process of qualification.
If you as a conference organizer are in such a position, all the steps you’ve taken so far have had an element of mistake to them. You’ve ignored or missed every opportunity to introduce diversity into the mix. I don’t attribute this to malice, and neither does almost anyone else. This is virtually never an intentional scenario for conference organizers to find themselves in. They also don’t necessarily want such a scenario, either. The problem lies in them not knowing, or not caring enough, how to avoid it. Plenty of resources exist online to avoid such a scenario, so every time it does happen, it is a failing on the organizers’ part.
Goldieblox is a great example of how we can start to address the systemic sexism that permeates our society for the generations to come. It is but one step of many thousands we need to take, however, if we wish to establish a more meritocratic, equal and fair industry anytime soon.
That’s something that will need to be addressed with some major cultural reform, which won’t come easily, knowing Italy and its cultural views on women. (not saying you share those views; I’m sure you know what I mean)
This will perhaps be the most informative part, then: there is an important difference between systemic discrimination and active discrimination.
The latter is something that is done consciously, and by individuals. It is when people say or do things that is harmful, that suppresses or diminishes groups.
Systemic discrimination, on the other hand, happens through no one person’s fault. It is not something anyone individually should be blamed for, because it is a result of a system that doesn’t actively police itself well enough. It is the result of a culture that gets created through inaction, rather than action. It is when you take a group of 20 individual men, ask them if they’re sexist, they all say no and genuinely feel that way, but then when you put all 20 together in one room, the culture that emerges feels openly hostile to certain women, and they will not feel welcome to enter it.
This is not because all those 20 men are “secretly sexist” or anything like that. Quite likely, not a single one of them is. It’s because they were not consciously trying to make sure women would also feel welcome in the group, and at face value, they are now a group of men that some women will simply not feel like they are welcome in.
This phenomenon also explains the level of butthurt expressed by some men when dealing with this topic: they get offended and have a hard time believing that people could think of them as not welcoming to women. “Of course I’m welcoming to women!” they decry. But the reality is, when a large group of people is very homogeneous, it simply does not appear to be inclusive to people on the outside. This is a shallow, superficial thing, but that’s the problem: if your group appears to be unwelcome, then it is inevitable that some people will not even bother to try and find out if you really are.
And that’s the great loss here: those people cannot be blamed for their caution, but we all miss out on their input and their voice, because they won’t attend. History explains and justifies their caution; that’s why conference and event organizers carry so much responsibility in choosing their lineup: they set the tone for how their event is perceived on the outside.
If you’re a white man, you will probably have no superficial problem seeing other white men as speakers. But if you’re any other demographic in any way at all, seeing white men over and over and over again will start to wear you down and make you wonder if this community is really as inclusive as it claims to be. And, even worse, it’ll justifiably make some people wonder if this community actually values other people’s points of view as much as those of the white men.
If you wish to claim you value everyone’s points of view equally regardless of race or gender or what-have-you, you need to actively work on representing a diversity of views if you’re organizing an event with people speaking to an audience. Because if you don’t, you’re sending an implicit (and probably unconscious) message that you think white men have the most valuable points of view. And while that’s probably not true, it reveals your biases as well as your lack of effort, still making you look pretty bad.
In closing, to address the BritRuby case specifically: when faced with a situation like BritRuby’s, which is very close to the hypothetical 19-out-of-20 men scenario from above, the way you react to and handle this kind of criticism is far more important than whatever failing took place that caused it.
Garann Means mentioned the case of LXJS in “her blog post on BritRuby”:http://www.garann.com/dev/2012/hostess-and-britruby/ which was a fantastic way for a conference organizer to react to criticism of all white male speaker lineups (not even addressed to them specifically). BritRuby, with their canceling of the event and the blaming of those who expressed their opinions for it, falls squarely in the Worst Possible Way To Handle It-category. BritRuby’s organizers could have reacted very differently, and then none of this would have been a big deal, and the event would still be planned. The loss of the event and its hypothetical value to the community is entirely, 100% their own fault.
Jonathan Kahn
A colleague suggested that I post here to share my perspective as someone who’s had some success organizing inclusive conferences. Disclosure: the author of this article is [another] friend and colleague of mine.
When I read the fallout from Sara’s article, the main area of disagreement seems to be whether an all-white-male lineup demonstrates a [de facto] discriminatory organizer policy (it does, even though the organizers are probably not misogynists). If you are genuinely interested in this question, and like @sformisano above it throws up issues of “tokenism” and affirmative-action-type dilemmas for you, I recommend you read everything “Faruk Ate?”:http://farukat.es/ has written on this topic. If he can’t convince you, I suspect you’re not listening.
Here’s what I’ve learnt about organizing inclusive conferences:
So far I’ve organized one conference (with Destry Wion and Randall Snare): Content Strategy Forum 2011, and I’m working with my colleagues at Brain Traffic on a second conference, Confab London coming up in March 2013.
For CS Forum, we made inclusion an explicit aim of the conference, and worked hard at it. The formula is simple:
“Here’s the lineup we ended up with”:http://2011.csforum.eu/speakers
A good mix of genders, some non-white faces. I’m sure I can do better in the future, of course—e.g. more diverse ethnicity, including disabled people, different educational backgrounds, etc. etc.
When I worked with Brain Traffic to bring Confab (the Content Strategy Conference based in Minneapolis) to London, we used a similar strategy, and we got a lot of love (on twitter at least) for “the inclusiveness of our lineup”:http://confabevents.com/events/london-2013/speakers/
Yes it’s hard work, but in the medium term it’s also good for business. Just one example. Imagine you are a female German web professional, and you look at the “Confab London 2013”:http://confabevents.com/events/london-2013/speakers/ lineup. Wow, there’s an awesome German woman presenting! People like me! Now contrast that to an all white, all male, all English-speaking line-up. Less attractive, and you’d have immediate concerns about whether you’d be welcome there.
cobber
I know we as “people” are infatuated with pretty things, but if I see another website with grey background and grey text I will throw up in my mouth.
Something as simple as adequate ensuring adequate levels of contrast goes a long way to ensuring people can consume your content.
Matt Fitzgerald
I agree with Andy Rutledge. All white men are not the same. I could cry over being discriminated against because I am short (5’7” 130lb). I could fill the page with stories of how I was assumed to be fragile, weak or otherwise less able than my taller and larger peers. I could tell you how I was given less chances to make mistakes (because one mistake up was sufficient evidence of my lack of ability); or, how I had to prove myself worthy in order to be included.
I could have let those experiences turn me away from pursuing what I loved. I could have complained and probably been made fun of, ultimately to not be included anyway. But you know what I did? I worked extra hard. I made less mistakes. I held myself to a higher standard. And I earned the respect I deserved for my ability.
It would be nice if we could all live by the Golden Rule: Treat others as you have them treat you. Maybe someday. Trying to force people to do it will not work.
Oh, but my opinion doesn’t count because I am a white male.
Jessica Ivins
Thank you for writing such an honest and thought-provoking article, Sara. I’m thrilled to see this conversation happening here on A List Apart. This is not an easy conversation to have, so I commend you for sticking your neck out. And while I agree with some comments and disagree with others, I respect everyone’s opinion and am again glad that this issue has been raised.
As a woman in this field, and as an emerging public speaker, this article hits close to home. I can certainly empathize with Sara’s perspective. The vast majority of interactions I’ve had with men throughout my career have been overwhelmingly positive, productive, and professional. But while it hasn’t necessarily happened at conferences, in my 8 or so years working as a designer, I’ve been blatantly hit on by (married) male superiors, bullied into doing unpaid freelance work for a superior’s cronies, ridiculed for carrying what was perceived as a “just in case I end up at some dude’s house tonight” overnight bag to work, and asked if I “like porn” by men I barely know at happy hours. At larger conferences such as SXSW, I see “booth babes” and ads objectifying the female body to promote the latest and greatest technology. There’s a pervasive and alienating brogrammer culture that still exists in our field, and we’ve got some work to do, both at conferences (and beyond) to move on from it.
The good news is that we have come a long way. Tolerance for sexist or otherwise offensive behavior is dwindling. And there’s been a huge push to make the field more welcoming to those who are not white men. At conferences, anyone at the lectern is perceived as an expert or a leader, so it’s been wonderful to see more female speakers, speakers of color, and non-US speakers as each year progresses. Diversifying the speaker roster is not easy, but it can be done. At this year’s JSConf EU, planned efforts to recruit more female speakers “paid off in a roster of 25% female speakers”:http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got-25-percent-women-speakers.html . This is fantastic for everyone, not just women in our field.
In addition, every employer I’ve worked for has had an explicit anti-sexual harassment policy. It was very clear to me who I could go to should I encounter such a problem. I’m glad to see this idea carried over to the conference space. We need to work together to prevent the conditions that make anyone feel excluded or mistreated, but we also need to implement a course of action to deal with it when it does happen.
Don_U
So you are saying that within a subgroup of say white guys that could not be diverse. Since when do I share the same values or ideas than say a white guy in California? The concept that we share the same thing or are the same thing because of like gender or race is, well, bigoted at the very least.
REAL DIVERSITY can not be defined by a study are we sure that a 60% make up of a given group insures diversity.
Government can not regulate something that has to happen naturally. I am a liberal, I have tons of friends that are conservative. They come from diverse backgrounds and have diverse ideas. This did not happen because governance told me to be friends it is because I made the effort.
My wife is finishing up her degree. I was talking to her adviser who happens to be African American and the first man to play baseball in a local league. He was featured in the local paper during “Black History Month”. What he said about it was, “I don’t want to be known as a black man who played baseball. I want to be known as a MAN who played baseball”
Any argument you may have has been laid moot by that last bit of insight.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Hello, commenters! I’ve been remiss in not taking part in this conversation over the past few days, but to be honest I’ve been a bit overwhelmed—thankfully, less by the bits of vitriol I’ve seen sprout up, and more by the thoughtfulness nearly all of you have had in your responses, here and around the web. In fact, here are some follow-up pieces, if you missed them:
Apologies if I’ve missed some here. It’s been a crazy week trying to keep up.
While I may disagree with some of you, one thing I hope we can mostly agree on is that these are complex issues—issues not as simple as saying we need more women or black people or non-Americans in a conference. I embrace that complexity—welcome the gray areas—because it’s those gray areas that force us to think critically about our values and our actions, and to be, above all, empathetic.
That said, there are many ways in which discrimination happens, and also many ways in which diversity happens. White men can be discriminated against for a wide range of reasons (income level, region, language, education, etc. etc. etc.). However, we’re still largely operating within a societal structure designed by and for white men. If we continue to create events that only cater to white men, then we perpetuate that social structure—and we lose out on the ideas and innovation we could be getting from others, if we _actively_—not passively—welcomed them in. This doesn’t help anyone.
Thank you all for reading carefully, discussing passionately, and sharing mostly productive, constructive comments. Carry on.
snipergirl
Great post on how the design and rules of a community will lead to particular behaviours, and how as a designer or organiser one must be mindful in order to combat this!
One thing that keeps coming up again and again I find is the issue of discussion. One only has to look at the comments on YouTube or Facebook or news websites to see some of the filthiest, most vile and horrid human communications. This is accepted without question in the name of “free speech” without any thought about how some of this abusive, libellious, bigoted, offensive content affects the community.
I guess what I mean to say is that I think “Discuss this article. We reserve the right to delete flames, trolls, and wood nymphs.” is the right sort of approach to fostering meaningful and appropriate culture in a community based around a website.
snipergirl
Additionally, I find it very interesting that although there have been many white males who have been on both sides of the “is having mostly white males a problem” discussion on this article, close to 100% of the people who think the problem of “white male privilege” is unimportant or non-existent are white males.
I guess it’s a good example of various psychological biases including fundamental attribution error, status quo bias, defensive attribution hypothesis, egocentric bias, ingroup bias, just-world phenomenon, outgroup homogeneity bias etc.
Essentially, if you’re not being discriminated against or are part of the dominant group, it is harder to see that others are being discriminated against- though not impossible of course, as we see that many of the white males have agreed with Sara. It is also harder to see that exclusion of others might be a problem if you have a different viewpoint and do not belong to the dominant group. In addition, people tend to attribute their own success more to personal strengths, their own failures to outside forces, others’ successes to outside forces and others’ failures to their personal weaknesses.
Certainly the idea that one’s own position in life is not 100% earned by personal strengths and that there may be others who are more deserving but are discriminated against is a difficult one to actively accept and the cognitive dissonance often (though not always) leads to the belief instead that the less powerful groups in society are truly less deserving and that that is why they are not achieving. And that redressing the balance is in some way causing “reverse discrimination” when it is actually redressing a gross imbalance or injustice.
WebLove
The part about the discrimination against webbies outside the USA definitely resonates with me.
From the statistics which never cover my geo location to the lack of services and apps because it’s not offered in my country, it’s obvious that the web has a long way to go yet.
As for your personal incidents of harassment – they were totally unacceptable but I think after expressing yourself here you’d know how to deal with those in the future.
For any conference organizer who can, a concerted effort to include those outside of your continent will not only move us closer to the ideal of an all inclusive web but in the long term will actually satisfy even your most mundane capitalist needs.
So.. as the world becomes even smaller what is required is a little more consideration, more respect and a wider frame of view – all of which doesn’t require any technological advancements.
unconventure
Reading through the aggressive comments leaves me feeling cornered, and not as open as I felt immediately after reading the article.
Sara, I appreciate what you wrote. It takes courage to share an observation, as it opens you up to subjective-discussion. And the packaging on your message itself, gets ripped to optimized-shreds.
As a man who minored in women’s studies in graduate school, I found there to be a fine line of discussion about bigotry and sexism that was difficult to have in large groups, and could often only be had one-on-one. Communication, concern, empathy, and understanding of the mutual parties are of paramount importance, in order to not have individuals feel attacked.
It takes guts to share your stories. I’m glad you did. It has me thinking. I hope, if nothing else, it has others thinking, as well. Cheers, Sara.
taran
Thank you, Sara. It takes courage to bring these things up, and it is so much easier to just let it go.
In any public conversation about gender or racial inclusiveness, it seems there are always a few white men who get quite angry and defensive, vitriolic at worst, but usually employing cold logic to prove their point, and usually poor logic. These are men who are taking the conversation personally. I think it’s reasonable to want to defend oneself when one feels attacked, but I would love to find a way to get these men to stop, breathe, an open themselves to the larger conversation.. I think most of them would agree, if they felt safe, that diversity is a positive thing, and that we all have a role to play in supporting it.
Design Junction
Thanks for sharing Sara, it is great to hear another woman in the web design industry share her experiences. Good on you for championing diversity, creativity and originality.
jeandorosh
Useful one. I have to translate this for the ru-net ))
G+1 from me.