

How one woman got 50% female speakers at a tech conference - shandsaker
http://www.attendly.com/how-one-woman-defied-the-gender-gap-by-achieving-a-5050-gender-ratio-at-a-tech-conference/

======
Narkov
“get as many women on stage as I possibly could.”

Isn't enforcing a gender ratio just more gender discrimination? How is "we
need more $x" any less discriminating than "we need less $y"? You are just
discriminating against the other gender.

Counting a 50/50 gender split as a win is silly if you have put together a
shitty conference just to satisfy some ratio. Why not have the best person for
the job? I don't care if you are male/female,
black/white/pink/purple/transparent, straight/gay/transgender,
human/animal/robot/script, able bodied/disabled or anything in between....put
the best person in the job - that is real gender equality.

~~~
metajack
She knew the issue was the lack of submissions, so she worked hard to get lots
of talk submissions from women. When she actually selected the talks, she did
so without knowledge of the person's gender. She got the ratio she wanted by
encouraging submissions, not by enforcing a quota.

~~~
Narkov
"She got the ratio she wanted"

That's my issue - the ratio _she wanted_ just perpetuates this gender
discrimination. Unless the gender ratio of expert speakers in this industry is
somehow exactly 50/50, she has discriminated against one gender just to
satisfy her magical ratio.

Whether she did this blind to the applicants gender is of no consequence - she
thinks it was a win when IMHO, is just gender more discrimination.

~~~
fatbird
Her blind judging produced an even gender split. How are men discriminated
against?

~~~
betterunix
Is it unfair to point out that discrimination is evident if the proportion of
women speakers at the conference is not equal to the proportion of female
experts in the field? That the general population is a little over half women
does not imply that every profession's demographics are 50/50. Before claiming
that the _true_ problem is that women are less likely to apply and therefore a
system based on people applying of their own accord must be flawed, perhaps we
should first take a look at the demographics of the field itself (and
eventually we'll have to go all the way back to middle school, when girls with
a talent for math or technical subjects seem to suddenly lose interest).

~~~
fatbird
In this (and other similar) case(s), we can conclude that there's no
difference between male and female speakers, since the gender ratio resulting
from blind judging matches the submission pool. In other words, there's no
essential gender difference in technology, there's just a demographic artifact
of sexism.

So if the larger demographic continues to mirror that artifact, that's not an
argument for reproducing that artificial split in the conference. Indeed,
taking care to mix the submissions pool to reflect the larger gender split
does nothing but perpetuate an artificial and historical and culturally driven
imbalance, when we can clearly see that no essential difference between the
sexes exists. It's not discriminatory to balance out a contingent happenstance
that doesn't accurately reflect essential differences.

A bit shorter: There's nothing discriminatory about the removal of undeserved
advantage.

~~~
betterunix
"It's not discriminatory to balance out a contingent happenstance that doesn't
accurately reflect essential differences."

It is when you are doing something that gives people a career boost, and being
a speaker at a conference is definitely a career boost. If you keep targeting
a minority in some field to speak at conferences, then the members of that
minority will have an advantage in advancing their careers -- they are being
given more of a voice than other people. If the imbalance in the field itself
is large, which is the case in technical fields, then that minority is getting
_more_ of a boost.

In other words, what you are doing is trying to hide the fact that you are
giving an advantage to a particular group. It is no different than asking GRE
questions about polo.

"A bit shorter: There's nothing discriminatory about the removal of undeserved
advantage."

That is not what happened here. Nobody had an undeserved advantage _in the
conference admissions process_ ; the problem lies elsewhere. Conference
speakers are a surface-level problem.

If you start in a field where women and men are equally represented, but where
men dominate conferences, this sort of thing might make sense. You are
starting in a field where that is not the case, painting a "fix" on the
surface of it, and calling it a victory. It's not a victory, it is
discrimination, and the effort spent on this farce should have been spent on
solving the broader demographic problem (but I suspect that the author of the
article has run out of ideas on how to solve that problem, and has instead
chosen something easier to work on).

~~~
fatbird
If you're saved from competing against a certain number of potential
competitors in getting accepted to a conference, you have an advantage. If
you're saved from such competition because of historical demographic
imbalances, you have an undeserved advantage, and removing that advantage is
not discriminatory, any more than forcing the conference organizer's nephew to
go through the blind judging process is discriminatory. Or do you think
systemically mitigating nepotism is discriminatory to those with familial
connections?

Perhaps a different question is in order: If men have an advantage in getting
selected for conferences because they're men, then do you think the blind
judging is discriminatory? After all, it removes an advantage they have.

I've responded elsewhere about how diversity at conferences assist in
addressing the root cause of the imbalance. I would observe here that your
prescription to address it in middle school rather than at conferences is too
cute by half: lack of female participation at conferences is part of the lack
of participation in STEM generally that serves to dissuade girls in middle
school from continuing in STEM.

~~~
betterunix
"lack of female participation at conferences is part of the lack of
participation in STEM generally that serves to dissuade girls in middle school
from continuing in STEM."

Do middle school girls go to conferences? Do they read conference proceedings?
_Are they even aware of conferences_?

~~~
fatbird
I've replied to this in responses to you elsewhere.

------
metajack
“If your system of finding worthy students or speakers to promote is to have
them come to you and ask, but a solid body of research shows that women won’t
do so, you’ve institutionalized a gap”

This applies just as much to finding employees. The resumes don't just appear
out of thin air usually, and it's no excuse to say you just didn't get any
from women.

I myself used this excuse in the past, but I hope not to make any excuses in
the future.

~~~
smokeyj
Investing time to target a certain demographic seems discriminative to the
excluded demographics. If equality is the goal, this seems hypocritical.

~~~
fatbird
Not when the targeted demographic is historically under-represented. Making an
effort to include those who wouldn't be is not the same as reducing
submissions from those who are normally included.

~~~
smokeyj
How does a demographic become a)targeted, and b) under-represented? It comes
across as arbitrary. Especially in the context of running a business to
deliver value.

I think if you see all people as just people, a notion like "targeting a
demographic" comes across as racist / sexist / and plain old discriminative.
But that's just one opinion.

~~~
fatbird
A demographic gets targeted just because it's under-represented. Women are
under-represented in STEM for historical reasons that amount to widespread
sexism.

You suggest gender-blindness is the solution. I don't disagree that such
blindness is a worthwhile goal, but to simply say "let's all be gender blind
now" without addressing an existing under-representation just cements the
imbalance. Demographics realities have inertia. Women don't go into STEM just
because that's not something 'that women do'. It's only appropriate to be
blind once the imbalance is wiped out.

That's not to say that affirmative action as previously imagined is the right
way to address the imbalance--it's been shown not to be for a variety of
reasons. But as this shows, and as GoGaRuCo shows, when you eliminate gender
advantages for men, women are selected equally in blind judging, so there's no
essential difference between men and women, just an historical artifact worth
eliminating.

~~~
smokeyj
I don't accept the notion of a demographic being "under-represented". I think
it's arbitrary and you haven't addressed it. There is no "correct" amount of
representation, and trying to offset workforce statistics due to some
misplaced sense of morality is hardly altruistic. If people are discouraging
women from STEM, address that. If people are racist, address that. You feel
there's too many white people in your office? The answer isn't affirmative
action, it's to quite being a racist. There's no such thing as too much of a
race (unless, you're a racist).

To say more women should be in STEM is sexist. I mean, if more women get into
STEM, great. But to say an entire sex _should_ do something is nonsensical.
It's entirely possible they don't _want_ to study stem. It's possible they
value other knowledge that is equally important. To say that they're _under-
represented_ is to belittle what individuals choose to do with their lives.

~~~
fatbird
The problem is that the imbalance is what's discouraging women from entering
STEM careers; addressing it just means doing things like this conference is
doing to increase female participation.

 _But to say an entire sex should do something is nonsensical. It's entirely
possible they don't want to study stem._

You realize these two sentences contradict each other, I hope. You say that
it's non-sensical to discuss what the entire sex should do, then try to talk
about what the entire gender may or may not want as a reason for (or against)
acting.

 _To say that they're under-represented is to belittle what individuals choose
to do with their lives._

No, it doesn't, because it doesn't require any individual to do anything, or
to give an individual responsibility for what the entire gender does.

When I talk about "under" represented, I mean that absent the historical
injustice of sexism, you would see a different gender balance. And as this
conference and GoGaRuCo demonstrate, when you control for the historical
imbalance, women and men are selected equally to speak in a blind process,
thus showing equal ability, if not interest; it's reasonable to assume that
after correcting the historical artifact, gendered participation ratios would
be much closer.

I've already agreed that affirmative action isn't the answer, but this--
community outreach, basically--isn't affirmative action in any sense.

~~~
Gormo
> The problem is that the imbalance is what's discouraging women from entering
> STEM careers

I hear this quite a bit, but it always seems to be asserted without
substantiation. What evidence is there that it's true?

And, more importantly, if we're going to make distinctions between individuals
based on their membership in putative demographic categories, why not also
distinguish between those who internalize that demographic category as part of
their identity, and those who do not? It would seem that an inhibition to
pursue one career or another due to demographics would likely indicate that
one is part of the latter category; but would we not be more likely to prefer
the former category, and want to work people who assert their own ambitions
without allowing themselves to be constrained by internalized abstractions?

------
azakai
> In her own words: “I always end up sitting in a room listening to the same
> four straight white men agree with each other on some panel.”

How does she know they're straight? Does she know each and every one of them
on a very personal basis?

------
grannyg00se
It's impressive that she went through all of that extra effort to solicit
submissions from a particular group and then didn't give any special
preference to that group when accepting submissions.

~~~
joeco
Almost incredible. Or is it uncredible? I always confuse the two.

~~~
grannyg00se
I'd go with the former :)

------
mhb
_Saturday’s New York Times carried an article “How to Attack the Gender Wage
Gap? Speak Up”, pointing out that women earn only a fraction of what men are
paid. The Times cites some numbers: “77 cents for white women; 69 cents for
black women. The final dollar — so small that it can fit in a coin purse,
represents 57 cents, for Latina women.”

While for the non-profit organization described in the article this is seen as
a problem, a profit-minded business owner might see this as an opportunity.
Why not find an industry with mostly male employees, offer jobs at 57 percent
of the current wages in that industry, attract an all-Latina workforce, and
crush the competition with labor costs that are a fraction of those in the
rest of the industry?_

[http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/12/17/profit-
opportu...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/12/17/profit-opportunity-
if-women-earn-less-than-men/)

------
jimzvz
How could the selection process be gender blind when she knew some of the
applicants? Surely she would be able to tell who each individual was when she
was going through the applications.

------
wfox
Now we need one woman, one black and one homosexual getting 50% speakers of
each group at a tech conference.

~~~
fatbird
Which isn't a problem if you have blind judging of submissions--just make sure
that your submission pool is diverse, and pick the best papers without
reference to race, orientation, or gender.

~~~
betterunix
..and if the field itself has a diversity problem, then what do you do? This
is not a conference-level problem; it is a problem that starts _much earlier
in life_ and which will only be fixed _by solving it earlier in life_. Go to
middle schools and figure out why girls who were doing well in math and
science in elementary school suddenly lost interest in those subjects, and
once you have worked your way from there to having more diversity in technical
professions, we can talk about whatever diversity problems are left at
conferences.

~~~
fatbird
It may not be a conference level problem, but diversity at the conference
level can go a long way to showing girls in middle school that STEM careers
are viable for them. We know that a lot of the reason girls drop out along the
way just is the perception of STEM as a male dominated field (and paralleling
that, in countries like China where it's not considered strictly male, we see
high female participation).

~~~
betterunix
"diversity at the conference level can go a long way to showing girls in
middle school that STEM careers are viable for them"

When was the last time you saw middle school students wandering around at a
conference?

"We know that a lot of the reason girls drop out along the way just is the
perception of STEM as a male dominated field"

Yes, clearly that's part of the problem. So why didn't the organizer of this
conference go out of her way to invite middle school girls to see all the
women she managed to get into the conference?

When I was an undergrad, the EE department had a problem: the policy of
doubling female enrollment each year had to be revised to having female
enrollment at all. Part of the solution was to print new admissions pamphlets
that showed equal numbers of men and women, and equal numbers of white, Asian,
and black people (none of these proportions even remotely reflected the
reality of the department) smiling while working on their breadboard projects
(also somewhat disconnected from reality). This is forgivable, of course, for
the following reasons:

    
    
      1. It is an advertisement.  Advertisements always paint a rosier picture.
      2. Nobody received any sort of career boost from being featured in the pictures.
      3. The pamphlets were sent to high schools, which is exactly who the department needed to target to meet the goal of increased female enrollment.
    

Compare that to the conference:

    
    
      1. Conferences are not advertisements for a field or job (usually)
      2. Being invited to speak at a conference is a career-booster
      3. The demographics at a conference have no impact on middle or high school girls' attitudes about math and science.

~~~
fatbird
I'll ignore your more ridiculing arguments.

You continue to try to locate the problem in middle school while removing any
means, direct or indirect, of addressing it. As you observe, speaking at a
conference is beneficial to one's career; fostering female participation in
conferences advances the careers (and visibility) of females in the field
generally. You don't need to bus in a bunch of twelve year old girls and point
at the female speakers. You just need the field itself not to look so totally
male. In medicine, rising female participation outside of nursing has
demonstrably accelerated the rate of female participation since the 1970s. The
same can happen in the rest of the STEM field. It's obviously not a turnkey
solution, but is valuable as part of a general attempt to diversify the field.

