
Here are 588 women in the UK who could speak at your tech event - ohjeez
https://www.techworld.com/careers/here-are-uk-women-who-could-speak-at-your-tech-event-3645661/
======
brink
Is there any evidence to show that men in general are working to keep women
out of the tech sector? From what I've seen, any woman who wants to commit to
learning and getting a job has been completely free to do so. For example; my
sister, who's a software engineer because I got her into it years ago. And
from what I've seen; nothing has stopped her. It just seems to me that women
in general aren't interested in the field, and I'm not sure of the specific
reason for it at this point.

~~~
sundaeofshock
Yes. I suggest doing a google search for why there are so few women in tech;
you will plenty of articles, including some that point to recent studies. For
example:

[https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/stanford-research-
explains-...](https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/stanford-research-explains-
lack-of-women-in-tech-men-make-them-unwelcome-before-they-even-apply.html)

It’s also interesting that your sister’s experience is reflective of the
findings in various studies. Would your sister have pursued tech without your
support?

~~~
maccio92
I've worked in companies both in the mid west and in Silicon Valley. I think
this culture is much more pervasive in the valley. In most other parts of the
country where normal people work, women are accepted just as well as men. In
fact, every company I worked for in the mid west had a reasonable amount of
women, whereas the Silicon Valley companies had very few if not at all.

------
asien
The author of this post is doing a huge disservice to the almost 600 tech
experts listed.

She is clearly suggesting that we should invite these experts not because they
are experts but because they are women.

How acceptable is that ?

Hence , I will never get why tech industry believes so much it must be so «
inclusive ».

Okay then , can we have the same thing for female dominated industry ?
Sociology , Education , Nurses ? Where are the articles complaining about
those sectors being crowded with the opposite sex ?

Why on earth do we have conventions with « Women who codes » but not «Women
Carpenter » or « Women BrickLayer » etc... or those jobs degrading or
something ?

Tech is the only sectors that believes it is so ahead in terms of values that
it’s « okay » to choose people based on criterias like gender or ethnicities
similar to google hiring scandals[0], and call that « Progress », and «
Inclusiveness »

Sometimes I wish I was in the valley to work for top companies , then this
type of articles pops up and it reminds me that I would have an arguments with
nearly every co-workers on this topic almost every day.

An expert should be invited because he has dedicated a portion of his career
studying a problem in depth and has come up with solutions or concepts that
help elevates the debate , of which he is willingly to share this knowledge
with an audience.

An expert should never be invited because of his or her gender or other
criterias outside of his/her work.

[0][https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/ex-recruiter-
accu...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/ex-recruiter-accuses-
google-hiring-discrimination-against-white-asian-men-n853601)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
> Hence , I will never get why tech industry believes so much it must be so «
> inclusive ».

Because being exclusive on the grounds of race, gender or age is against the
law? All of those are illegal in the UK where the speakers are based.

More diversity in the workplace also makes them more enjoyable places to work.
They may also bring different experiences and points of view in how a site or
piece of software may be most useful, leading to more success in the market. A
market where women occasionally buy things too.

Same for conference speakers. I want to hear perspectives that I cannot have
had. There'd be no point going if everyone had my white middle aged male point
of view. I want to understand and see the opportunities I'd otherwise miss,
the UX, marketing or expectation differences between generations, gender or
regions.

I'm surprised we still have this conversation, sadly.

~~~
0db532a0
Got any proof on that market success? I still haven’t seen any. There are
plenty of fields that do just fine without explicitly encouraging a balance of
women while still being inclusive to women who show merit.

~~~
planetburgess
Even the simplest Google search would answer this for you. But here's a recent
example [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-
et...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/business-ethnic-
gender-diversity-performance-levels-better-study-workplace-office-
mckinsey-a8166601.html)

~~~
0db532a0
“McKinsey’s research found that diversity has the most obvious impact on
financial performance when it is found in executive teams and roles that are
directly in charge of generating revenue.”

Here are the ratios of men to women in the boards of directors in the top
three companies by market cap in the world:

Apple: 3/15

Amazon: 2/9

Alphabet: 2/11

~~~
planetburgess
Just imagine how much _better_ those companies could be if they had more
diversity.

------
meghan-maternie
To all the men saying/thinking “hey this isn’t equal and maybe women just
aren’t as good at tech,” I invite you on a journey with me back to my first
basketball game in the 4th grade.

I had seen sports my whole life but had never played them, and was also very
good at being a good little girl. So while I got that sports was a competition
(duh), in my first game I was dumbfounded as to how I was supposed to compete,
because I was supposed to be nice and kind and not cause trouble. I literally
passed the ball back to my teammates every time.

After the game, my Dad pulled me aside and said what would become a
catchphrase of his and would change my life: “Meghan, be aggressive.”

This was mind blowing. No person, no movie, no tv show had told me in the 90s
that I could (and should!) be aggressive. And still be a good girl.

Two years later, I was the kid on the team that came close to fouling out bc I
would use the box out very enthusiastically. My dad never stopped telling me
to be aggressive. I ended up an all state field hockey athlete in high school,
primarily because of my skills as a defender who was not afraid to get in the
way.

For those who say women are predisposed biologically to not be good at things:
Do you think my biology changed? Was I always born an aggressive woman, or was
it a learned behavior? This example is a microcosm of thousands of other
examples from a life where the messages one absorbs can shape action. (Others:
Had I never been sexually propositioned by sources as a reporter, would I have
been more aggressive about who i invited to drinks? Or in tech world, if a
woman wasn’t the only woman on their team/division/whatever for the past few
decades, would they have stayed longer?) If you want to measure my
testosterone, fine, but please also control for the fact that I never got any
sort of message about how it could be a good thing if I was aggressive until I
was 10 (plus a million other things like that.)

On the topic of bring more gender parity to nursing and teaching, please do. I
would love to see more male engineers give up six figure salaries to learn
what it takes to be a nurse or a teacher and wonder why they make so much less
in return. Perhaps it’s because things considered “women’s work” was never
highly valued to start?

~~~
belorn
> “hey this isn’t equal and maybe women just aren’t as good at tech,” ...
> "women are predisposed biologically to not be good at things"

No one has said that. Please assume some good faith that when people say they
don't want speakers to be selected based on gender, it means they don't want
speakers to be selected based on gender. There is not a single comment under
this article that has said or implied that there are difference in the ability
of men and women to perform skillfully with technology tasks.

> On the topic of bring more gender parity to nursing and teaching, please do.

Sure, lets bring in a universal affirmative action law that dictate that any
industry that has more than 60% women or men must apply affirmative action for
any new hire. I would enjoy to see that experiment. For reference, the top 3
most gender segregated professions (99.4% or higher) in Sweden a few years ago
was midwife, dentist nurse, and stone layer. Engineers didn't even breach top
50, and is pretty average in gender segregation.

~~~
roguecoder
Why would you expect her to assume good faith of men arguing against her
inclusion? Especially when we know that men from white nationalist groups have
purposefully infiltrated technical spaces in order to fight the inclusion of
women and underrepresented racial minorities?
([https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-
snuc...](https://www.thestranger.com/news/2017/10/04/25451102/we-snuck-into-
seattles-super-secret-white-nationalist-convention))

These men are making a _political_ argument, not an intellectual one. They are
arguing that nothing should be done in the face of obvious injustice. If they
cared to read it, there is significant peer-reviewed work that says they are
wrong, but because they are making a political argument not an intellectual
one evidence does not matter. Expertise does not matter. Has any one of these
guys offered a shred of evidence for their beliefs? Have any of them offered
the credentials that qualify them to opine on this topic?

Someone who comes in and says "you shouldn't use C because it is slow as shit"
wouldn't be taken seriously or treated as though they were arguing in good
faith. Neither should these obviously-wrong dudes.

Just like with Holocaust deniers, engaging with these people only legitimizes
them and their politically-motivated beliefs. (See for
[https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-
subre...](https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-
banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html) effective strategies to
engage with people who are arguing for political reasons.) To do otherwise
demands that women participate in their own marginalization, which explains
why most of them don't bother and just quit, creating an echo chamber where
men can keep reassuring themselves that these political beliefs are more
important than facts. Frankly, it is a disgrace that Hacker's News is willing
to host this tired bullshit, and YC should seriously consider the impact doing
so has on their brand.

~~~
belorn
When it comes to gender segregation we are all marginalized in one place or an
other. That is what 88.6% gender segregation for women and 88.4% gender
segregation for men means in raw Swedish data.

There is no data to support that affirmative action is an effective strategy
in dealing with this problem. There is also no support to the idea that a
failure with inclusions is the reason why 88.6% women and 88.4% of men work in
gender segregated professions here in Sweden. The very little of real
scientific data, in the several research studies I have read, is ones that
simply say that people feel more confident being around people who share the
same trait as themselves. Multiply that effect with every challenge a person
goes through from selecting a professions to being a student to graduation to
seeking a job to staying in a professions for several years and what we get is
a significant increase risk for members of the minority group to not select
the profession or quit.

A solution need to fit the problem. 88.5% of the population has ended up
gender segregated in Sweden. Is the method that the article suggest an
effective strategy for that goal, and if so where is that evidence? Someone
suggested that gender difference in preference is the cause but similar the
data I have read on preference differences are not significant enough to
explain such extreme segregation that exist here. The parent posts here
suggest misogyny, which then would imply misandry to explain why an equal
amount of men do not end up in professions dominated by women, but that seems
poorly supported by peer-reviewed work that looks to explain gender
segregation in general.

But as I suggested above, I would not mind seeing a experiment where people
tried applying affirmative action as a general solution to fix gender
segregation. Similar ideas has been tested before in smaller scales, like
Sweden when it tried to do it in higher education. They had to scrap it
because a court deemed it discrimination to give benefits to individuals based
on gender, even if they were a minority. Norway is currently testing a
different version, which will be interesting to see develop. I do expect it to
run foul of the same issue as here in Sweden but they do have different laws
and their relation with EU laws is complicated.

~~~
meghan-maternie
Some data for you: 100 years ago, I couldn't vote in the United States. 50
years ago, my best shot at not living in poverty would've been marrying well.
25 years ago, starting and running a company would've been preposterous.

100 years ago, could you vote? 50 years ago, could you pursue a career and
succeed on your own merits versus seeking a spouse? 25 years ago, were men
starting companies?

Do you think perhaps that history contributes to the "failure with
inclusions"? Do you think women ended up dominating careers like midwifery and
nursing because they all just happened to realllllllly like that? Or because
that was available to them to have some agency over their lives?

~~~
belorn
100 years ago men were forced at gun point to put on a military uniform, and
fight and die in wars. The agency of individuals during world war 1 and world
war 2 was nothing like today.

Womens right to vote in the United States was largely pushed around 1910
because the government ran out of men to send to the frontline and wanted to
create a draft for women. In order to do so however the argument went that it
would not be fair to force women to fight the war unless they also had a vote.
If I remember the dates right, in early 1914 the changes was put to the house
of representatives but the decision but was postponed and then the war ended.
The discussion of a draft for women ended, but the right for women to vote
continued and in 1920 the nineteenth amendment was ratified.

If I lived 100 years ago and had a choice between voting and being forced at
gun point to the trenches to die, I would not pick voting. Dieing in war is
not my cup of tea and the probability of survival was not great during world
war 1. A mans life a 100 years ago was that of extreme variance where we
remember the few individuals that had many children and lived a long life, and
the rest died horrible with no agency and is long forgotten.

------
tachion
I would include Magda Jadach, Raspberry Pi Foundation software developer,
speaker at various conferences regarding teaching kids how to code:
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/magdalenajadach/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/magdalenajadach/)

------
adamrezich
Have each of these women been repeatedly rejected from giving talks at
conferences or something?

~~~
roguecoder
If you aren't aware, usually a significant portion of speaking slots are
filled because organizers reach out and solicit speakers. Indeed, I don't know
of many conferences that could fill their schedule if they relied exclusively
on inbound speakers, and doing it that way would be a recipe for having the
same twenty dudes speak each year, which isn't going to create the best
possible event for attendees.

------
nablaoperator
Speak about what?

------
lbj
Everybody's free to submit a talk to mostly any event. If women feel like
doing that less so than men, I don't see why thats a problem.

~~~
tzar
An argument like this generalizes into: everybody's free to do anything and
there are no problems. At least you included “I don't see”.

