Earlier this year I withdrew from a conference because the organizer refused to implement a proper code of conduct (eventually he put up something but he refused to specify unacceptable behavior). I did not expect this to be such a contentious decision or one I would have to be reminded of nearly 6 months later. However last week the conference organizer shouted out to women who weren’t there – including me, and another woman who had dropped out for the same reason.
I also didn’t expect my objection to that to be so contentious. Currently there is some not-fun stuff happening (I don’t even know how much) and I am in a state of social media lockdown as an act of self-preservation.
If you want to support me personally:
Supportive messages are great! I’m really appreciating all the love.
Invite me to speak at your event (with a code of conduct!) next year. I have 4 of 6 slots left for 2016, two talks prepped and other topics I’m excited to share.
If you want to support more inclusive conferences:
Take Ashe Drydens CoC pledge and take it seriously. Ask for a code of conduct. Make sure it is meaningful (see the model one). Do not attend or speak if there is not one. You will miss out on some opportunities this way, but decide that opportunities that are not inclusive are not opportunities you want.
If you want to support inclusiveness in tech:
Financially support a diverse founding team today. My personal pick right now are the Tinsel headphones, but there are many more.
I am not a professional inclusivity advocate: I am a software engineer. I care about inclusivity because it is part of being a decent human being, and fundamental to the kind of engineering leader I aim to be. Whilst I am having a less than fun week, I do not anticipate this having a long term effect on my career.
One thing I have heard from many women over the last day is “thank you for doing this for all of us”. I take a stance on this because I can, and this is not true of everyone. If it’s true of you, I invite you to join me and the many other people who work continually so that asking for a code of conduct is reasonable, is easy, until eventually, no one needs to ask anymore because it’s as much part of running an event as booking a venue and ordering food.
Earlier this year I pulled out of a conference because the organiser and I disagreed on code of conducts. Specifically I thought there should be one, and he did not. He did eventually add one, but refused to define unacceptable behaviour. Myself and another woman pulled out.
This whole experience was really upsetting to me, not least of which was my own screw up. I had looked at other people speaking and assumed they would only be speaking if there was a CoC. I was wrong. I want people to be able to safely make this assumption if I am speaking, though.
I’m thinking about this right now for two reasons. The first is that I’m in DC right now at an event I’m speaking at because of this whole thing – I reached out to someone to try and help the other woman who pulled out find an alternative venue for her talk, and the person I reached out to ended up having us both speak at the conference he was organising.
The second reason is because this debate has come up again in recent weeks. Men who have clearly put a lot of thought into what it takes to run a good conference don’t see the value in a code of conduct and would like everyone to know why.
I do not believe that a code of conduct raises the top bar of an inclusive event. I do believe it is a new minimum. I don’t believe that it promises that women and marginalised groups will be safe at an event, just that it is a statement that says that we should have a right to expect to be. I believe that setting that kind of expectation has power.
Is it enough to guarantee safety? Of course not, but to say that because it is not a guarantee it is worthless is intellectually bankrupt. A timetable is not a guarantee that you will get to your destination on time. A seatbelt is not a guarantee that you will survive an accident.
We have a list of of rules for humans, we call them laws. They exist worldwide, and between countries they are broadly similar. And yet we have vastly different rates of breaking those laws worldwide. That doesn’t mean laws are worthless. It means laws are part of a complex system where multiple factors affect the outcome.
In any complex system, there is no one clear answer to anything. There are various levers that we manipulate, to varying and complex effect (see: Thinking in Systems).
In the conference ecosystem, the code of conduct is one lever.
It’s existence is insufficient but I have come to find the arguments against it meaningful. Because when a man tells a woman that his feelings are more important than her logic, that’s sexism. When he tells her that he knows better than her what she needs, that’s sexism. When he tells her how she should feel, that’s sexism.
What if she feels safe when she shouldn’t? Judging from the levels of domestic violence and the fact that most violent crime against women is committed by people they know, we can conclude there is an epidemic of women thinking they should be safe when in fact they are not. That is not acceptable. We should say that is not acceptable. A code of conduct is not to tell women they should feel safe when they in fact cannot be safe, it’s to say that people should have the expectation of safety, and that deviations from that are unacceptable.
I don’t feel safe because there is a code of conduct. But I tell you one thing that makes me feel unsafe – men who will endlessly, vociferously argue against them. Maybe a code of conduct isn’t meaningful. But at this point, refusing to listen, refusing to have one. Well, that is.
I was annoyed recently, because a conglomerate organising a conference pinged us (and every other group that might yield “diverse” speakers) to promote their CfP… three days before closing. I sent them a series of comments on how leaving it to the last minute like that wasn’t helpful. As Chiu-Ki put it “we’re not a magic solution that materialize women in 3 days armed with topics to submit”. They didn’t respond, of course.
Anyway, I was thinking about this again, because this week I’ve been at 360iDev. I’ve had a great time – I learned a lot, I met some great people, and my talk went pretty well. Also a lot of friends were here too, which is always great.
And like… compare and contrast. Because at this event there were women speaking, there were women attending, there were women volunteering. I don’t know what the percentages were, but what I noticed was that at every point there were women. I was never the only woman watching a talk, for example. There were people of color.
We were still in the minority, for sure, but I felt like we were better than welcome – we were expected. Which was pretty cool. I know the organizers have been working for a long time to make this the case (and have had a code of conduct since 2012, for example), and continue to (part of the reason they hosted our workshop was they thought it might yield more speakers for next year). And I guess all I can say is: it’s clearly working.
Earlier this year Chiu-Ki plotted to improve the number of women speaking at DroidConNYC, it’s been really great too see women tweeting about how much her encouragement made a difference. All that grassroots work, and it’s 22%. Which doesn’t seem that high – it’s certainly lower than I want to see – but it’s a great start, and one that I hope the organizers will build on.
Achieving this was a lot of work, and started months in advance. Not three days.
When it comes to speaking at a conference which involves some travel costs, there are four* main options:
The conference pays.
The company you work for pays.
You pay.
You don’t go.
The Conference Pays
I think this, announced up front, is the most inclusive option because it means you don’t have to talk about money. Sometimes it’s capped, and sometimes it comes in the form of an “honorarium” which you can use to offset your travel costs. If those things are transparent, you can figure out what’s an option for you… or not.
There’s a second option which is they will cover “if necessary”. This ranges between checking a box on application, or asking. I think it’s always reasonable to ask.
The Company Pays
There are two main reasons why companies cover the costs of having employees to speak at conferences.
It’s part of the employee personal development (e.g. there’s a budget for a fixed amount or for one conference a year).
It’s part of a strategy to recruit developers: either for jobs, or for adoption of company products (developer relations).
Use of this reasoning varies from “we think it is the right thing to do because (1) and (2)” to “this is part of our recruitment strategy”.
Many big companies cover these kind of things, but not everywhere. Having to admit that $brandname company won’t cover travel can feel like saying “the place where I work values neither my professional development nor giving back to the community” – embarrassing. Because it’s rarely talked about we don’t really know whether this an accurate reflection of company policy… or more common than we imagine.
This also often comes with constraints on what you say, requirement for advanced views of slides etc. Focus on recruitment ROI can also mean restrictions on what you wear (not inclusive, my favourite outfits rarely include branded tshirts and on stage it’s reasonable to carefully consider what you’re wearing).
This is less inclusive because it involves asking. I once had a manager who worried that it was “unfair” that I was using the development program to cover that kind of thing… when the men on my team didn’t. Some conferences offer the option where you get credit for “sponsorship” if your company covers it. I think this strikes a nice balance. If you’re at an unsupportive company or have an unsupportive manager, you can avoid asking. If you’re not – great. The conference cuts their costs, the company gets exposure. Win win.
You Pay
Clearly this is an option** – tech (in particular developer) salaries are in general good and some conferences view speakers paying their way as part of the “giving back to the community” on top of giving a talk.
But: pay isn’t equitable and the pay gap in tech is actually larger (2013 study reported that the gap has disappeared, but a more recent 2015 article reported that men made 61% more than their female peers), and there is also a racial pay gap. And consider that the typical time that a woman woman stays in tech (10 years) is comparable to that of a pro footballer (8 years) – very relevant to financial planning (I have found no data on retention by race). Both of these things effect the level of disposable income for underrepresented groups in tech.
This is the least inclusive option, because it means that people are likely to have to pass up on opportunities due to financial constraints. Financial constraints that may well be the result of structural unfairness in the industry.
You Don’t Go
This falls under the list of options because it is always an option. You’re not obliged to say yes to every invitation. It can seem like you’re missing out on the opportunity to give a talk, learn, or connect people. But I’ve come to view it as the opportunity to instead say yes to an event where they value being inclusive, and respect my time.
Of course this is an easier decision at the 10th speaking opportunity than the 1st. And easier again at the 100th.
Decision Time
For individuals: it may suck but these are your options, and now you get to pick one.
For conference organisers: please consider how the way you approach travel costs effects your inclusivity.
If you’re looking for speaking opportunities that cover your travel costs consider subscribing to Technically Speaking. We send out a no-more-than-weekly tech-focused newsletter with curated resources about public speaking and CfPs. Whether travel costs are covered is highlighted, and heavily weighted in whether we include them.
* There’s actually a fifth option which sometimes applies: scholarships. I’m not going to go into these here because they are a complex topic with a variety of options. The only comment I will make on scholarships is if they involve you paying upfront and then claiming the money back, it’s not inclusive of people who either cannot up front the money, or do not have a credit card that will up front the money. If relying on a credit card it can be anxiety inducing if it takes a while for payment to come through.
** For freelancers or small business owners the distinction between “you pay” and “the company pays” is blurred, and it’s important to note that expecting companies to pay means skewing against small organisations. For me the main difference for costs I have to cover myself now (as opposed to when I worked for a company that didn’t cover these kind of costs) is that by making is a business expense it comes out of pre-tax rather than post-tax income.
When I decided it was time to leave my corporate tech job, I made an 18 month plan. One key item on it: speaking at conferences.
I prepped one talk (building it off some of my more popular blog posts), and submitted it to a number of places, hoping it would be accepted at one of them. Actually it was accepted everywhere I submitted it, and I got invited to give it as well.
But here’s something it wasn’t: cheap. I had pretty low expectations for myself and wasn’t sure of my value, so I submitted to places that didn’t cover travel costs and had to pay them myself. Because the company I worked for wasn’t generally supportive of giving external talks (other than Token Women talks), I took vacation days. I also got speaker coaching, which I used to improve my narrative and my confidence.
I thought this would be the kind of thing that would be interesting to track, so made a spreadsheet. As a result, I have a total cost of what I called “The Year of Being Visible”. This is travel and hotels not covered by conferences, speaker coaching, and extra haircuts.
Here it is: GBP 2528.14. USD 3767 at the current exchange rate.
What is not included: vacation days taken. Food (I figured I was going to be eating anyway). Some flights (twice I was able to get part way there on flights covered by work things). Time.
Things I Learned
The biggest thing I learned over the course of the year of being visible, was that I could totally be a public speaker. That I could give talks that people loved. That I could use this to see more of the world.
Because where I used to work was very insular, I had rarely attended conferences. I discovered that attending these conferences was one of the biggest perks of speaking – I learned so much from other talks, met so many great people and really felt a lot better about the tech community and particularly men in the tech community. In part I think this is because of the abundance mentality – if I do a great talk, it doesn’t take away from anyone else’s. Also I felt safer in conferences with Code of Conducts (especially when I had seen them be enforced) than I used to at work.
I learned how to ask for things that officially aren’t covered, and started negotiating more.
My main tip is to find your story, the one that only you can tell. Maybe something you’ve already been tweeting or writing about that is already resonating with people.
Get help. If I was to redo this on a budget, speaker coaching is the one thing I wouldn’t cut completely. There are people kind enough to offer free office hours for this, and conference organisers who are willing work with potential speakers to help them submit. I’d replace further flung trips with local meet-ups instead.
Like a lot of people, I took the Code of Conduct pledge (so I was really pleased to see GHC add one this year), firstly because I see it as a sign that the event is committed to making it a welcoming space for women, and I do really only want to attend events where that is the case. Secondly, because I want to support the general idea that events should have Code of Conducts.
A common thing to hear when organisers are thinking about a Code of Conduct is that it can be taken as a sign that things do happen there and make people more worried about stuff happen.
This blows my mind, because as a woman in a male dominated industry I’ve found the default to be that something happens. I expect something to happen. That doesn’t mean that it’s something appalling, or dangerous, or that I am constantly braced for it (although in certain situations or after a bad run of events I have totally been in this place – and it is not healthy). It usually mean that whenever something does happen, I’m unsurprised.
Honestly, the surprise is usually when the organisers deal with it really well.
I have called out things to organisers at three conferences. Two as a speaker, one as an attendee. Every time, I’ve been really happy with how things were dealt with and found the experience reassuring.
The Code of Conduct may have little effect on what happens. The process and rationale for calling things out is the valuable part. And for me at least, a well handled minor incident actually makes me feel safer than nothing at all.
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