
47% of applications for our Hacker Retreat were women. Here is how we did it - AlexeyMK
https://medium.com/@casey_rosengren/how-we-got-47-female-applicants-for-our-hacker-retreat-430b8a13a6fc
======
angersock
A general comment, likely grounded more in my own frustration and :

When did we become so concerned with awesome vacation getaways with code
happening and less with, you know, programming?

I think it's awesome that there are people who have the free
money/time/resources/independence to go spend 12 weeks hacking in the tropics,
but unless we see some baller results I can't help but shake the feeling this
is an experience for trendy kids and not for the hardworking, overweight,
overscheduled neckbeard.

I hope you folks are able to publicize a bunch of cool stuff that comes out of
this! That might give it a bit more street cred.

~~~
tptacek
Are you sure the word "neckbeard" is really one you wanted to use here?

~~~
notduncansmith
Yeah, I meet the overworked and overscheduled parts (and couldn't afford to
spend a month hacking on open source in the tropics), but I'm not overweight
and certainly don't have a neckbeard. I get that "neckbeard" is more of a
cultural term than a literal one, but it seems like even that interpretation
has taken on a more pejorative bent lately.

~~~
tptacek
I just meant that they may have inadvertently re-introduced gender into the
discussion.

"Neckbeard" is definitely a pejorative term, but that's not in itself a huge
problem.

~~~
notduncansmith
Ah, I missed that subtle point. Very astute.

------
Alex_The_Chan
I've always been uncomfortable about the idea of addressing imbalance by
focusing and targeting ONLY the minority. I like your analysis and process of
reworking your site to be more appealing to everyone. In fact, I think I'll
apply now :D

------
jonleung
I like how this article focuses on things you can do now to even the gender
balance, rather than just lamenting the broken pipeline.

------
ankitshah
Love how this is tactically oriented and not just an expose of stuff that
happened to work.

------
caser
This is what we learned - what did we miss?

Anyone else out there with similar or conflicting experiences?

------
sergiotapia
Why do we need 50/50 ratios?

~~~
FD3SA
I wonder why we never see articles about the gender imbalance in investment
banking, underwater welding, or trucking.

~~~
EliRivers
I know why. It's because you _didn 't bother looking_. I found some on
trucking and banking within ten seconds of starting to look.

------
jqm
Do one thing and do it well. This is a motto for more than UNIX in my opinion.

Are you hacking or are you retreating and obtaining social justice? Because
meanwhile, real hackers are really hacking and they generally don't care about
gender ratio nor group retreats to Costa Rica.

Don't think this is a dig just at this conference either. I get irate when I
see fireman in uniform out collecting for charity and things like cowboy or
biker churches. Fireman should be fighting fires. Churches shouldn't have
anything to do with cowboys nor bikers (not a church attender...just something
personally annoying I noticed).

Separate your concerns and you won't lose sight of the proper function of each
component. Just my opinion. Others may feel differently.

~~~
AlexeyMK
Fair enough. For us, the thing we are trying to 'do well' is to build the sort
of community that we'd enjoy living in while we work on our various projects.
Perhaps it's a point of personal preference, but we enjoy living within a
diverse community.

Disagree with our values or priorities? No worries - start your own flavor of
community project and let's exchange notes. Ain't the free market grand.

~~~
jqm
Well I wish you the best of luck. I'm sure there are plenty of people with
whom this project will jive.

I don't see it. But I'm in my 40's, have no tattoos, no fedora, a normal
haircut and no beard so I don't know that diversity extends far enough for me
anyway. For me, hacking is not about vacation nor social engineering and never
the twain shall meet. But style preferences may vary. If it works for others,
by all means disregard and carry on. I'm not intending to start a community.
There are already plenty of those that grew organically over the decades where
I live. I generally turn up my nose at them as well, so don't take it
personally. Making a better living space is a laudable goal.

------
socialengineer
+1 rming the picture of four dudes playing foosball

~~~
DanBC
I agree it's not a great picture.

One of the things that makes it a poor choice is that one of the people is
probably female but she's been cropped almost out of the image.

------
rickyPanzer
awesome work!

------
vezzy-fnord
Good work. My only objection is the endorsement of the Geek Feminism Wiki,
which is an unreliable source.

~~~
AlexeyMK
Do you mind going into a bit more depth here? The GFW was pretty useful re:
the references it pointed us too. What makes it unreliable?

(genuinely curious, clearly still learning here)

~~~
vezzy-fnord
1) The editorial guidelines
([http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Meta:Editorial_guidelines](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Meta:Editorial_guidelines))
state:

    
    
         While citations are preferred wherever
         possible, we do not require them. Much
         of our wiki is primary source material,
         sometimes added anonymously in order to
         avoid backlash against the whistleblower. 
         Original research is welcome.
    

2) The Geek Feminism Wiki, although simply referring to itself as "feminist",
subscribes to a particular form of third-wave poststructural feminism that is
not so much concerned with equity, as it is preoccupied with dubious and
subjective gender politics. Indeed, their editorial guidelines outright say
"[We]... accept each person's self-reporting of their feelings and lived
experiences as valid". Ultimately, this leads to a lot of bias,
misrepresentation and is only a specific feminist viewpoint.

~~~
slvv
Is there an alternative that you think is better? Also, is their "version" of
feminism a problem since they're so clear about what it is? It doesn't seem
like they're hiding their perspective at all, so readers can decide how to
interpret based on that knowledge.

~~~
makomk
Their version of feminism isn't all that clear at all from the description.
Essentially _all_ forms of feminism that revolve around women's "feelings and
lived experiences" use them to prop up their underlying ideological beliefs -
the only feelings and lived experiences that are accepted are the ones that
confirm their ideology.

You can see this in the list of out-of-scope items. For example, no "apologia
for misogynist, anti-feminist, oppressive, or other harmful actions or ideas"
is allowed - in practice this tends to include stuff like having an unfeminine
attitude to sex and sexuality, doing sex work, being friends with anyone who
does, opposing bans on it, being kinky, or complaining about any bad
experiences you've had with other mainstream feminist women including
systematic online and offline harassment (which is a serious problem for some
groups of women).

If you think about the guidelines it's easy to tell they exclude some women's
feelings and lived experiences, but there's no way to tell which. The linked
page makes it sound like the policy affects oppressors when it's mostly those
who are worst off that get screwed.

~~~
king_jester
> You can see this in the list of out-of-scope items. For example, no
> "apologia for misogynist, anti-feminist, oppressive, or other harmful
> actions or ideas" is allowed - in practice this tends to include stuff like
> having an unfeminine attitude to sex and sexuality, doing sex work, being
> friends with anyone who does, opposing bans on it, being kinky, or
> complaining about any bad experiences you've had with other mainstream
> feminist women including systematic online and offline harassment (which is
> a serious problem for some groups of women).

Am I misunderstanding you? If your point of view is against sex work and
"unfeminine" attitudes towards sex (wtf does that even mean anyway), it seems
to me that you are being misogynist and quite possibly oppressive. I don't
doubt those people exist, I've met quite a few of them, but that doesn't say
anything directly about what the geek feminism wiki does and represents.

> If you think about the guidelines it's easy to tell they exclude some
> women's feelings and lived experiences, but there's no way to tell which.
> The linked page makes it sound like the policy affects oppressors when it's
> mostly those who are worst off that get screwed.

Is there any evidence to suggest that geek feminism wiki does that? Are
viewpoints on sex work or sexuality skewed towards one point of view, or are
there many points of view about those subjects on the wiki?

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_If your point of view is against sex work and "unfeminine" attitudes towards
sex (wtf does that even mean anyway), it seems to me that you are being
misogynist and quite possibly oppressive._

No, that's just sex-negative feminism. It's pretty common. In fact, the two
major opponents to pornography have always been the conservative right and the
feminist left. Opinion on BDSM is usually a litmus test for sex-positivity or
sex-negativity.

As a whole, GFW appears to be sex-positive, with a few caveats as to how it
understands objectification.

------
cantastoria
_Harassment includes verbal comments that reinforce social structures of
domination related to gender, gender identity and >expression, sexual
orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion,
sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following,
harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other
events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention._

And who gets to determine if I'm doing any of these things? The conference
organizers? If I attend this conference, how can they assure me that I won't
be at the mercy of conference attendees that suddenly decide I'm harassing
them simply because I say something within their vicinity they disagree with a
la Adria Richards?

Although I guess Richards would have been taken to task for "harassing
photography". Although by that point it would have been too late anyway.

The problem with these speech codes is that they're just as easily used as a
way to silence and shame people who's views differ from those of organizations
like geekfeminism (i.e. not radfem).

You don't have to be a feminist to treat women respectfully.

~~~
tptacek
This comment has practically nothing to do with the article. As usual, any
submission concerning improving the ratio of women to men in our industry
immediately becomes a coatrack for digs about "radfem".

For those of you who read the comments before clicking through to the article:
this one is a list of things an event organizer did to try to boost attendance
among women. None of them appear at all controversial. The "code of conduct"
section this commenter takes issue with is table stakes at most major
conferences. But that doesn't mean rude commenters will miss an opportunity to
beat a dead horse.

~~~
cantastoria
Ah in gallops tptacek on his trusty steed. Dead horse indeed.

 _As usual, any submission concerning improving the ratio of women to men in
our industry immediately becomes a coatrack for digs about "radfem"._

Just because they don't appear controversial to you doesn't make it so. And am
I not allowed to take issue with the "table stakes"?

~~~
idlewords
The problem is you're hijacking a thread about specific, quantifiable steps
that one group took, and the results they achieved, in order to spin the kinds
of hypotheticals that have a proven track record of spiraling off into wank.

Don't do it. Write a blog post or something. Call your mom.

~~~
cantastoria
I'm doing nothing of the sort. The code of conduct was clearly cited as one of
the steps taken. I have issue with that step. And I have as much right to
comment here as you do. You're free to ignore me. Please do.

