C. M. Rubin: The Global Search for Education: Women - Part 3
The Adulterous Behavior 30% Of People Won't Admit To
So, apparently, this afternoon's much ballyhooed Women in Tech panel at TechCrunch Disrupt (a conference in San Francisco for Silicon Valley types, execs and innovators in media and tech) was what we will politely call "a [poop] show."Starting around noon Pacific time, Twitter lit up with the hashtag #ladypanel with such sentiments as "Feel bad for smart panelists that got run over." This j-hole linked to some Internet page about female hysteria. Lit up, I tell you!
The back story: A couple of weeks ago, in a Wall Street Journal article called "Addressing the Lack of Women Leading Tech Start-Ups" Mediaite's Rachel Sklar addressed the lack of women leading tech start-ups.
Specifically, she suggested that the next TechCrunch conference should spotlight women in the field. (Sklar noted in a subsequent Mediate post that, of 84 speakers at the last TC Disrupt conference, only eight were ladies.) A Twitter feud between Sklar and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington followed.
Nerd fight?! Somebody hold my retainer!*
*it's the cool-kid kind with glitter inlays. My mom will kill me if I lose it.
Arrington TOTALLY got back at Sklar by asking her to come to the conference and be on a panel -- hosted by TechCrunch reporter Sarah Lacy. That's like inviting Kimmy Gibbler to a panel on Annoying Friends of Your Older Sister, hosted by Stephanie Tanner.
The panel also featured Bntr's (and Texts From Last Night co-founder) Lauren Leto, Samasource's Leila Chirayath Janah, Sara Chipps of Girl Developer IT, Cyan Banister of Zivity, and Michelle Greer of SimpleSpeak Media. As a woman in tech myself, (I HTML'd those italics) it's OK for me to note: They all have really nice hair. (Bold tags -- all me.)
So, OK, what's the worst that could happen? It's not like they'd get up there and make women look like we hate each other or anything.
Oh, wait.
Moder-hater Sarah Lacy brought the hostile, opening the panel by saying she didn't think there should BE a panel at all. THEN Cyan Banister was all, "This is dumb, I don't want to be here either." (I'm paraphrasing.) Mmmm, memories of liberal arts college!
Michelle Greer brought up Farmville; the average player is 43 and female, she notes, but the architects of Internet software are mostly male. And if there are mommy bloggers, why can't there be mommy coders? Eeeeeesh. Sarah Lacy fumed in a vest. Rachel Sklar defended herself. ("I just read that only 12 percent of computer engineering degrees are awarded to women." Lacy: "We all know stats are problematic.")
Then the talk moved to whether asking women to be on the all-women panel was, in itself, discriminatory. Cyan said that there might be some people in the audience who weren't women, but had also experienced discrimination. Like "Italians"?
Rachel Sklar was like, "I'm Jewish," and then someone else retorted, "I'm technically Native American enough that I could technically be considered part of a tribe!" (I don't know who -- the camera was off and I had trouble distinguishing separate voices in crowd noise.)
But, basically, nothing was really established, except for the fact that now I ALSO want a burgundy blazer with a subtle puff at the sleeves.
We are obviously brutally impressed with all of these women. And they deserved to be on panels at the conference. But, uh, why hold a panel for women about the need for a panel of women populated mostly by people who don't want a panel for women? Additionally, wouldn't it have been better if they talked about, uhhhhh, tech? And not panels?
Not to quibble, but when I want to see a panel about whether we should have panels, I will go to PanelCon.
Man, this why they won't let us be president. We bring emotions into everything! I mean, have you seen my nemesis Mark Zuckerberg at a tech conference? He just sits there like a robot. I'm pretty sure at the last panel he was on, he did that trick where he stabbed himself in the thigh and didn't flinch.
I mean, shouldn't we be careful, as women? They just created the artificial ovary, guys! If they teach it to make brownies and play Farmville, men won't need us anymore.
Anyhow, it's a good thing we solved the crucial problem of Women Not Being in Tech.
But don't take OUR word for it. Let's go to the tape.
Full disclosure: Our parent company, AOL, announced today that it has acquired TechCrunch. Group hug!
Julieanne Smolinski is Lemondrop's articles editor. Her hair is ok.
Comments:
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Tuesday 28 September
By Remy
Lets first start with the insanely dumb question if people are shocked that there are more men than women in tech and leadership positions in tech. I think the point in awareness is totally missed. No we aren't shocked because its a truth, that's like asking are we shocked that there have been more white presidents than any other race, no we aren't shocked because we know there has been, but at the same time it's a shocking fact. I run a website geared towards promoting and encouraging more African Americans to pursue technology, and I can tell you first hand that raising awareness is not about exclusion, it's not about that we need someone's help, it's about face time and setting the stage for the next group of African American technologist or in this case women technologist. How are we ever supposed to usher in the new generation when the face time is at a minimal. For some of these women to sit there and berate the other for trying to bring a issue such as lack of "face" time to the forefront is classless. It seems like the other women don't want the "damsel in distress" tag, which is totally understandable, but raising awareness has nothing to do with females appearing weaker or in need of help. All these women seem to be very strong and intelligent people but some are a little naive. They live in a world of as if, as if because they have had a good road in the IT field that there aren't 100 women behind them that haven't because of their gender. They act as if sexism doesn't exist in the IT field. It's ok to bring awareness to an issue such as this. No one is asking for a hand out from anyone, all i see is someone saying hey, there are more women in tech out there so there should be more "face time" given. I firmly believe that if more face time was given on a more equal basis then more women and African Americans would enter the field of Technology. Bringing awareness to this issue is not a bad thing.
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Tuesday 28 September
By Michelle Greer
Thanks for the comment on our hair.
I was a little dismayed that the actual founders of startups weren't really acknowledged on the panel. It's like no one cared to hear how any of us got there.
My point with the "mommy coders" thing is that it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to code--just the desire to learn it. Coders should be ubiquitous. I wouldn't complain as it would make the code I source out just that much cheaper.
Anyway, it's over and I'm happy about that.
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Tuesday 28 September
By Sarah
To be totally honest this panel was more than just a disappointment it was both damaging to those women in the tech industry and moved people's expectations of women in technology backward. It stereotyped them as catty, juvenille and uninformed.
I'm glad I wasn't on the panel. Honestly this panel should have been about inspiring more people into technology as a whole with a focus on how to get there and steps to take to be great in tech. Being a female is only a small part of being successful in this industry. Sure there are specific differences such as maternity leave but let's work that issue seperately.
The fact is this was uninspiring and quite frankly more than disappointing. Whatever happened to these women that made them lose their way I will never know. They need to get a grip and if they want to make a difference in this industry regarding numbers of women in tech, start acting with some dignity and self control. Show why you should be held as a positive role model for young people! Do good! And when doing events where you have the ability to make a positive difference create a positive call to action that everyone can do, both men and women. At the end of the day this isn't a women's issue this is an industry issue and it needs everyone to inspire and encourage!
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Tuesday 28 September
By Alexis Ceule
OMG, thanks for the blow by blow and ultimately, the great laughs! Love the retainer reference. : )
@AlexisCeule
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Tuesday 28 September
By Remy
I guess my point is how do people expect women to have the desire to learn to code if all girls see when they grow up is a bunch of men. People want to act as if it doesn't play into the psyche of a young female or African American but it does. Case in point, my wifes cousin was interested in computers. He attended a pretty good academic school. When he entered the class he saw all white guys. He said they looked at him funny and he looked back at them and then walked out. Yeah some of the fault lies with him, I am not denying that but you can't also deny that if there were more African American faces, even a teacher who was African American, that the same action would have occurred. It's all about "face" time.
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Tuesday 28 September
By Ryan Henson Creighton
i like your writing style, Julieanne. You're funny. i like funny.
i'll offer that i'm a white male and i code. i tried to teach my wife how to code so that she could help with the family video games business, but her heart wasn't in it. i really hope i can convince my two daughters to enjoy it because, like Michelle says, it'd be nice to have less expensive labour when i need something coded.
... add to that the fact that women get paid 20% less than men for doing the same jobs, and it's a win for daddy! HIYO!
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Wednesday 29 September
By matbo
I have to disagree with you. I though Rachel was being obnoxious and hating and a lot of women made very good points about being recognized for their work and not because they were women.
As a women in math and since IT I know what it's like to be few women among many men. And yes it's hard, people value you less. I've had women tell me stories of how in class the teacher would only help the guys and ignore the girls. And I've been singled out during lectures that maybe I should create games for girls, since the example we saw failed (games do not interest me, and half the girls in my class were playing DOOM and Halo at the time, not purple moon).
Men in my class would retort that the reasons the sims (with 43% of players being women) was selling so well was that a lot of women don't know how to download games.
I do not feel sorry for men in any way and I do not believe "boys will be boys" and luckily a lot of men laughed away that comment, but like Lacy said, it just made all of the girls look at each other and agree to work that much harder.
Do I think the panel was necessary, yes and no. They should have had a clear focus and discussion point and they shouldn't have had that interrupting woman there who, in my opinion, disrupted the conversation from going anywhere. She had some good points, starting the discussion is good, but I agree that a large part of it is letting women fight for themselves - no hand outs and no special face time because of gender, race handicaps and what have you.
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Thursday 30 September
By tiffany
Kudos to TechCrunch for pulling a classic bigot move: include the minority, set that person -- in this case, a panel -- up to fail, then when it does say, "SEE? It's not ME (or the industry), It's THEM." Stay classy Mark Arrington.
It was amazingly clear that Arrington and TechCrunch didn't care about the issue before. But the goal of this panel was mockery. Period.
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Thursday 30 September
By aitchee
It's "Mediaite," not mediate. Mediaite is yet another website about the media and related fields. Doesn't anybody ever check "facts" anymore? Wouldn't have been hard to figure that out.
And far more importantly, geeky engineers have no social skills and are afraid of women. They're at the mercy of their hormones more than women and so they only see women as sex objects, not colleagues. Feminism does not RIP.
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Thursday 30 September
By tiffany
Except, y'know, when they're heterosexual women or gay men. Way to stereotype there!
Thursday 30 September
By VP
I attended the conference and had a booth that prevented me from attending the panels, but I made sure that the one panel I was going to see was this one. As a young woman in tech, I wanted to be empowered my other women who had been super successful in this world that I wasn't that familiar with, and on a daily basis where I watch the men making all the decisions in my company, with a board of directors of all men as well, I wanted to see how I too could bust through the challenge of being heard as much as men.
Needless to say within minutes my face was hot with embarrassment as I watched every stereotype be filled about women. Catty, bitchy, & not on a united front. I wanted to see women unite for once - instead of compete, and instead all I saw was a pathetic display of projection and attacking. I wanted to march up to the microphone and tell everyone to shut up because not only were they embarrassing themselves, but they were embarrassing me.
Everyone on that panel who made it what is was (not the sweet women who weren't really trying to be aggressive, but the ones who couldn't realize that their should have been a certain level of professionalism) should be super disappointed in themselves. Did you ever think that the point might have been to empower other women? Well, instead you failed. You made me feel humiliated for all of us.
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Friday 01 October
By JeffTech1967
Wow! Here's what hit me about this whole thing: Degrees are not AWARDED (Rachel Sklar), they are earned. The women that work in my very technical organization are top notch and have EARNED their degrees. In my mind there is no sexual bias when it comes to technical careers - if women want to get in the field, they should go to school and get the degree. We cannot change the fact that women have historically shied away from technical careers. As time progresses, I expect more and more women to enter the field. More power to them. This whole panel set women back, in my opinion.
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Monday 04 October
By maraia
what a statement am first a cs and last a woman!! sounds to me like look if I made it to hear you can make it too, and look down to the mass that cannot get through. what an individual indeed..
Applauds to TechCrunch for setting up the joke. Did they give extra bonus to the monsterator for each hostility she was burping? According to her we should be thankful for all the sexism that challenge us to become successful like her (and obviously extra counter constructive and authoritative). Not mentioning the raising hands call, how a radical democratic gesture of her, o la la! Talking about building up instead of complaining about gender (non-)parity in the IT, her attitude leads only how to trash the movement.
Moreover, tech is a big umbrella covering many many different disciplines. Luckily you don't need a computer scientist degree for all single tech field you enter! This I call science fetishism. And what was the argument about looking at the wrong ratio fix? Sounds like we first go through the class revolution and then we look into sexism. Well it hasn't worked that far in any struggle (democratic/socialist/communist/anarchistic), and thus it can only sound as a cliché.
IMO I wouldn't accredit the failure to female emotions. I mean have you seen the Oprah show with Mark Zuckerberg preaching about how everyone deserves a good education and flattering his own monetary pledge into Newark schools. How philanthropic and sensitive is he! in this panel I see all misery going down to the moderator and the tactics behind the specific mixing of the chosen representatives.
We need debates on the lack of women in tech because increasing awareness builds up for better parity in the field and does away with lame arguments (aka if we are not socked with the fact, we shouldn't discuss about it).
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Saturday 09 October
By fedora
how embarrassing - hard to believe this was for real.
smells like orchestrated by males.
~ i hope, quickly, a group of focused, professional tech
Females organize a similar event and show how truly
harmoniously Females collaborate together.
the sooner we stop allowing males to set the rules
and standars the quicker the subject of gender will
no longer be brought up and be used to set us back...
very sad day..
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Thursday 23 December
By Anne C. Kerns
Any panel that has a moderator that
a) doesn't want to be there
b) doesn't think there's a need for a panel
c) doesn't moderate
is obviously a recipe for disaster.
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