Accidentally in Code

Tag: grace hopper

A Small Internet Kerfuffle

Credit: @concernedfems

Background

Last week after a series of twitter rants, I wrote up what concerned me about the “Male Allies” panel at GHC (Grace Hopper Conference) this year. A surprising number of people read and shared it, and whilst (of course) some people disagreed, or thought that ABI (Anita Borg Institute) does so much good it’s not helpful to criticise them, it was in general well received.

Last night (Wednesday, the first day of the conference) was the panel. Of course, I went. Of course, I livetweeted it. Others joined in on the hashtag and there was a game of bingo (the person who shouted bingo, if you find me, I’d like to buy you a beverage) and you can find the storify here: I captured as much as I could but I’m sure I have missed some things.

To be clear, I did not create the bingo card. One of my friends did, and I’m so proud of her for being so brilliant, and so hilarious. And I wish I had had time to play but I was frantically typing throughout!

The Good

The best thing, is that I do believe that ABI listened. Barb Gee opened mentioning my blogpost, and affirming her commitment to tackle what I had characterised as the hard problems, saying she wasn’t in the business of window dressing.

Regardless of what these men came out with, and yes a lot of it was unimpressive, I think it’s good that they showed up. I hope that aside from this time on stage, they are spending the rest of the conference listening to the many fantastic women who are here in Phoenix this week.

Another good and helpful thing to come out of it, was bits of data. Intuit haven’t revealed their diversity numbers yet (encourage them to do that!) but GoDaddy did in advance, albeit with an extremely unfortunate title. Intuit did reveal the attrition rate of their female employees (8%) and we discovered the number of men at GHC this year, 483.

The Expected Bad

Pipeline. Pipeline. Pipeline. This is an ongoing annoyance for me, that I rant about regularly. When men talk about why there are so few women, they always talk about the pipeline to the point of completely ignoring the high attrition rate that comes from women leaving the industry. That attrition rate has come to feel far more relevant to me. The pipeline is convenient because it can be addressed by throwing money at it, and because it doesn’t require the level of introspection that examining behaviour within your organisation or doing the hard work that culture change requires. Of course the pipeline also asks that women work on recruiting girls into this toxic environment.

Lean In. Honestly I was a little shocked at how up front this was, the open admission that you just need to work harder and be much better than your peers to survive. Of course they neglected to mention that this is whilst dealing with the overhead of continual micro-aggressions (they’re just being nice!), the odd headline-incident, and adding in the time requirements for all that Corporate Feminism (pipeline!) too.

Cookies for trying. The Facebook guy did admit they weren’t exactly winning at this, but one point made in the GoDaddy article about their numbers was that 18% was one percent better. There are so many things to object to here. Firstly, is that 1% statistically significant? Can we get a p-value? Secondly, it’s not clear that the numbers released are comparable, as the definition of “technical woman” varies (some companies claim Eng/PM/UX, some are broader) and operating in different countries will have significant effects on your numbers (India and China do better, Australia and the UK seem to do worse, for example). Also claiming to reflect graduation rates when graduation rates have been declining for decades and a company is not entirely made up of new grads feels intellectually dishonest.

The Unexpected Bad

My conspirators were asked not to hand out bingo cards. Whilst as a speaker myself and someone who has been harassed as a result, I sympathise with the fear of heckling. But, I think they could have embraced it more. The bingo card was created because women thought they had a good idea of what these men would say, and if these men had come out with genuinely new and insightful things and no-one got Bingo, no-one would have been happier than us.

Unconscious Bias Training. Much was made of this, and now a version of it is being run at Facebook. Personally, I have read much of the original literature on this and when I interview I put in significant time to de-gender feedback (and even being well read on this topic, I often find things). But running it as a course, scares me. Firstly, what is the quality of the facilitators running it? What level of expertise do they have? Secondly, when you create an environment where you ask people to confront the thoughts that they don’t articulate, some of them likely articulate some of those thoughts – how is this addressed, and how do the women in the room feel when that happens? Thirdly, a study suggested that anti bullying education helped bullies be more effective, does that apply here? Without data, it will be hard to say.

I know a woman. There’s a joke that men care more when they have daughters, and it’s good for pay equality at companies when a CEO has a daughter. This came up repeatedly (not just daughters, but also wives and moms and sisters), and it’s pretty depressing. There are a lot of single men, and men without female relatives in the tech industry, and that requirement is not encouraging for hope that they will start to care about their fellow human beings.

Framing as rejection of men. There was a theme in some of the messaging around this panel that we needed to involve men in the conversation, like that was a point that needed answered. I don’t know any women that dispute this. It’s more a question of which men, where, and how. I think it’s good that these men had a conversation on a stage, but did it have any effect in reaching other, less enlightened men? Maybe, there is a better stage.

#MoreThanWords

TW: Mention of Sexual Assault.

ABI tried to engage with the community on Twitter last week, with the hashtag “#MoreThanWords”. When I think about men in tech using more than words, I think about sexual assault. Which is possibly because I’m jaded, or a cynic, or because I am one of many woman in tech who was sexually assaulted by a tech dudebro.

But I get their point. And I agree, that talking is insufficient, and real allies do.

Earlier this year (before I left), I wrote an internal rant on quitting what I termed “Corporate Feminism”, which was popular to the point where some women there still recognise me from it. Essentially because 1) pipeline (focus on recruitment over retention), 2) bad career move, 3) tiring. And one of the things that Alan, who was on the panel, does, is he listens to internal rants and he read it, posted a thoughtful response, and did something.

So I ran into him ahead of the panel and warned him of the livetweeting, and he mentioned that post and that people were taking advantage of what he had done, and continues to do (clearly, I should have quit Corporate Feminism years ago).

The point of this story is, I wasn’t particularly impressed by what these men said, and the numbers at the companies they represent are abysmal, so let’s not let them pat themselves on the back yet. But what really matters is what they go back to their organisations, and do.

The Concerned Feminists are watching.

October 9, 2014
Why Are We Still Geeks – Panel at GHC

Credit: Flickr / Fortune Live Media

Marie Klawe

Been worried about image in the media for 20 years. Been working on it, but no progress. But “if you don’t even try, you definitely won’t succeed”. Had many failures, but getting closer to success.

There used to be very few female lawyers and doctors, now it’s 50%. Still not reaching power – see the low number of female deans of med schools. In the 1970s, there were TV shows with male and female factors, and male and female lawyers – e.g. LA Law. They were portrayed as people making a difference, with interesting jobs and personal lives. They were attractive, and empathetic. Women flooded into these professions, and girls doing well thought about law and medicine as their careers.

Now it’s forensic shows.

Being a doctors or a lawyers isn’t really as interesting, not as interesting as CS. High levels of debt, long time to qualify, and lousy pay. There are more opportunities in CS than forensics.

Media portrayal dramatically affects high school students. It really matters. Even if you really like CS, other people have the image that it is boring and uncreative – that matters.

This underrepresentation is not just technical women, but women in general. The Gina Davis studies found that men are the main characters, and women are dressed sexily. Also technical men – see NCIS are portrayed as having no social like. They are OK-looking, but dress nerdy. Big Bang Theory – love the show, but it’s doing a terrible disservice to science and engineering. In Friends, Chandler had a job so boring that none could remember what it was. It was “data processor”, essentially CS. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is great with computers, but also really weird.

Mid-1990s, met a NBC exec for saturday night movie series. Told him that they needed movies and series showing women as engineering, empathetic and doing interesting things with their lives.

Raised money for a pilot, wrote it, working with a CS person turned screenwriter. They were jumping out of helicopters, no connection. Saw it wasn’t going anywhere.

Mentions a TV series showing computer scientists doing interesting fun things. Email from Bob Quin – Rush. Startup in Sillicon Valley. Loved it, sent it to 20 people. Brad Weshler Co-CEO of IMAX, passed it on again – loved it. Went nowhere, have to get a channel to pick it up.

It will eventually happen. People now realise that tech is changing the world.

Megan Smith and people at Google are doing things, but personally out of ideas.

Tried hard! Emailed with James Cameron. But getting nowhere.

Brenda Laural

Founder of Purple Moon – amazing woman, my favourite panelist this year.

The Star Trek reboot. Hated turning women from competent into a “wimpy slut”.

Start at home, looking at the GHC 2012 image – there are power and racial issues there. Changes it up to put the Black woman in the centre, speaking, and gives the Asian woman Glass so “she has something to look at” (original shows her staring into space).

We are responsible for our own representation – likes the way we look.

Put out and hold up our self-representation. Deny power to the spectacle (how we look, speaks).

There’s an inverse relationship between family income and desire for a Louis Vuitton bag amongst high school girls.

Do great work and get noticed for it. Self promotion is good.

Taking action – Wikipedia Storming (FemTechNet).

Kim Surkan

Hard not to feel disempowered when talking about women in the media. Unclothed. Objectified.

Feminist Media Studies is growing. Media consumption is growing. Average is now >7 hours a day (much of it while multitasking).

Stereotypes affect perceptions and performance. Self-fulfilling prophecies.

Easier to protest a bad image, than an image that isn’t there.

So much time on the TV/internet, that the space between lived reality and media is blurred. Result is decreased self-esteem.

“Stepping out into your world, found your world is troubled” – on women in CS. BS levels in CS are declining.

Women in the 1940s were part of the war effort, lots of women working at Bletchley Park.

There is and extreme culture of sexism and anti-Feminism in CS, especially in gaming. The shift from geek to bro, supposed to appeal to younger men, it seems sexier. Women are 5% of people starting tech companies, the rise of frat culture in Silicon Valley. Recruitment materials alienate women, and hackathons, like TC disrupt.

When women complain, they become the targets of hate speech. E.g. Anita Sarkesian, and Adria Richards.

Women are reluctant role models, like Marissa Mayer.

The backlash effect is harnessed to benefit, but why do women need to turn to kickstarted to start their companies?

March 28, 2014
Megan Smith on Moonshoots at GHC 2013

Note: I had a hard time taking notes on this talk because Megan speaks really fast, and jumps around a lot. Her joy and excitement for technology was so apparent – there is no way I can capture that. You can watch the video here.

Megan starts with a video – we are a species of moonshots. It’s a good way to set the stage for her talk.

She talks about this idea of a heroic engineer, and that the 21st century is about creative collaboration. More about wondering around than leaning in.

Passion, obsession and love for technology – shows a picture of a robotics conference as an example.

On finding your passion – feel the power of what it is to invent things. Because “in effort, there is joy”. Tech is hard work, but there is joy.

Tells the story of George Washington Carver. A former slave, who became a plant doctor. Invited to University, he saw the South was devastated by monoculture, and invented things from peanut and sweet potato.

As a freshman at MIT, Megan worked with the space team in the shop. They built underwater test equipment, to test what humans can do in space.

Advice: life is who you travel with. So find astonishing people and hang out with them.

Worked on IBM material surface and cleaning technology in California. Only woman on site. Riggers stared at her. Eventually they started showing her things – the flip side of people staring at you can be great.

How networked we are as humanity. The Google Science fair is full of kids leveraging the internet. We can work with people in remote places because of connectivity. She showed MapMaker, and people in Lahore drawing themselves onto the map.

Khan Academy is evolving education. Classes are so victorian! This was the beginning of MOOCs (massive open online courses) – flip the classroom, learn at home and collaborate at school. Mentions the CS4HS work on curriculum.

The extension of one laptop per child is kids without teachers – give them tablets, and let them teach themselves until the internet comes. Pushing not just for schools, but for new, innovative learning.

Connectivity in Africa is really changing things. See blog post by David Sengeh, Transforming ‘Aid in Africa’ into ‘Made in Africa’. Things don’t just happen – people do things. Bringing ideas and trying to help is well meaning, but does’t respect social fabric. Think of the French in the American Revolutionary War – they were more like angel investors. That model of change – be more like the French.

Shows update of internet connectivity – points out how many people are still to join us. The Silk Road was a trade route, but also a route for social innovation. It’s still an important network. The Erie canal was crazy but cut prices, and also helped with civil rights work.

Seneca Falls was the first women’s rights event. There was the Declaration of Sentiments, declaring for out rights. The men shut women out, so the women decided to collude. This was first wave feminism, when women went from being considered property to being able to vote.

Second wave – Gloria Steinem, and women at the Boston marathon (account of the first woman to run it)

Today Sheryl is amping the conversation about getting out of deep bias. Technical women have largely been invisible, we need to become visible. Talks about the Makers videos.

We need to fix the historic technical record, women are the founders of history, their stories are just untold. Talks about the ENIAC programmers, who later it was claimed were models in the picture! The documentary is coming. Women have always been part of the industry. Katherine Johnson calculated Appollo trajectories. We need to know about these women who have always been there.

Bletchley Park was half women. It is a profound diversity story, the Nazi’s built the “perfect machine” but a crazy group of misfits, they win. Cutting the war by two years, and saving 14m lives.

Gina Davis institute research investigates the media bias for children. Lots of princesses were women, but not a lot of computer scientists. Children need to see the truth, they need to see that we exist.

Women Techmakers at IO, realised that only slides with pictures of men and cats, women wouldn’t feel included. It’s about ambient belonging – unconscious bias. The physical environment influences people’s choices of university.

Google[x] has hardware and software. Skunkworks. They work on moonshots. Like the self driving car – this combines strength in geo with the strengths of people winning the DARPA challenge.

Glass is heads up display. Shows video (teacher using Glass to show his advanced physics students glass, video on what it fees like to wear Glass).

Project Loon – bringing internet to rural edge case places. Balloons are cheaper than satellites.

Makani power – kite based windmills.

Solve for [x].

It’s a moonshot factory, like the Willy Wonker labs. Looking for the 10x, not the 10%. Try to say 2/3 “yes and” and 1/3 “yes but” – more time building up than tearing down.

What’s your <X>? Find your passion, combine it with hard work – you’ll be unstoppable.

February 28, 2014
Brenda Chapman at GHC 2013

This talk – by the woman behind Brave (Amazon) was absolutely on of my favourite ever GHC talks. Warm, and funny, and inspiring. Talked about some difficult things, but overall positive.

Scared to come to GHC, because she’s a technological dinosaur. Pixar was full of smart people, but kids. She was in the kids group. It hasn’t been easy but it has been fun.

Passion is an intense desire and enthusiasm for something. Brave was a passion project.

Storytelling is her passion, but she had worked on other people’s passion. Brave combined 3 loves – fairytales, scotland, and her daughter. Her daughter inspired the character (she’s 14 now). Also loved working with Billy Connolly.

What if you don’t have passion? Talks about working on the Prince of Egypt – someone else’s passion project. Was nervous because it’s got god in it, and this is Hollywood. But dug deep and searched for the human side of the story – it’s a story about two brothers.

The screen freezes and she asks “is there a technical person here” – so funny (of course a man goes to help). Takes questions whilst things are being resolved.

The relationship in the Prince of Egypt is between two brothers. Play on tragedy.

Perseverance – keep going no matter what, despite setbacks.

Tells story of getting into Cal Arts. Devastated when she was rejected, but her mom pulled her out of it. Said have another year and try again. She tried again a year later and was accepted. One of five women in a class of 34. Three glorious years, and put together portfolio with story real and note saying she wanted to do story eventually. Her film was nothing like the others. It was about an old lady who was alone on her birthday. She was nervous about submitting it, but Disney liked it and she got hired as a story trainee. She was happy for about three seconds, until she was told she was hired because she was a woman.

“I want to be hired because of my talent and my abilities, not because of my genetalia”. They had been getting flak for poor diversity in story, and she was the right price. They could send her away after six months and get another token.

Didn’t like it, but had a foot in the door. Worked hard to prove to them, and herself, that she deserved it.

The men were very inclusive, wanted to see what she could offer. They were supportive, she was very lucky. The first scene she did by herself was part of your world reprise in the Little Mermaid.

Got so into it, Ariel is a bit anorexic – kept drawing her neck. She’s singing and singing. Showed the scene and people were howling with laughter, saw it objectively, had neck like a giraffe. When they saw it again, had to laugh, they had just chopped the neck and taped it. Liked the expression, worries that they wouldn’t get it with another person drawing.

Showed the scene where the guy was washed up on the beach.

Got promoted to journeyman story artist. Still at the bottom of the totem pole, but not because of being a woman, but because of having the least experience.

Shows the scene with the eagle worried about the eggs (with the tiny boy – not sure what movie?) It’s beautiful.

Worked on Beauty and the Beast. Had a mentor, Roger, who went on to direct the Lion King. Belle in Beauty and the Beast was the first Disney princess that had yelled at her prince.

Showed us the original storyboard.

Wanted to trying being head of story, was feeling more confident, was going to do Swan Lake but it got canned because another company did Swan Princess.

Went to work on King of the Jungle. Got head of story, Roger was directing. Reworked the story, found passion for it, and it became the Lion King. Lion King was the B project, the A project was Pocahontas. It was a very green team, but they worked really hard, gave extra because it was their first gig.

The procession of animals at the beginning was saved by the music.

That took her to opportunities. Opportunities come from choices and luck, take them as the come. If you’re not sure, are you willing to never have that opportunity again? If you’re OK with that, pass.

Went to Dreamworks, starting on the ground floor. After someone left, she wasn’t sure. Got the opportunity to direct. Went to start story department, but he had other plans.

Started looking for other opportunities when projects started to feel the same. Universal, Sony, eventually Pixar, where she got to work on her passion project (Brave).

Change often comes when you don’t want it. Sometimes happy, sometimes lousy. But have to be open to it. The cliches are true, if she hadn’t been open to change, wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work on films. The ups and downs are worth it.

Brave was incredible. Her first computer graphics project. But it had a rough ending – change when she didn’t want it. Painful.

Opened up opportunities. Working for herself, a book, writing, speaking. Also developing a new project.

Change is important, accept it. You don’t have to accept how you’re treated, but accept change and move on.

Passion helps get through other sones. Helps lead other people. Has passion in leadership – make people feel like they are contributing. Know other people have better ideas, make what we have theirs. Make them feel ownership, feel proud of it.

Talked about Passion, Perseverance, Opportunity, and Change.

Passion comes through. The consumer will feel it, it’s a pure thing.

The fifth element is Resilience. Come through hard times. Women have to have it. Insecure people will be mean, backstabbing. handle it in a positive way. Handle it by standing up for ourselves – and others. Whether we fail or succeed, this gives us self respect. Responsibility to show young girls that, examples of failures as well as of successes.

Tells the story of her mother – this is lovely – reluctantly raised by her grandparents. Met a teacher who saw potential no-one else had ever looked for. Wanted to teach her. Grandparents though she was putting ideas in her head, and had the teacher fired. She was allowed to finish the year, and taught with grace, dignity, and compassion. Left the impression of resilience, and saw her as someone special. Her mom got a college education at age 60, after her husband (Brenda’s father) died. Cooking was her art, profession and passion. She had resilience, and taught it to Brenda, too.

Responses to Questions

As the only woman in the room, it’s hard to champion a non-traditional princess. Difficult in some places, but stuck to her guns – this got her taken off the movie after a while. A comment from a male exec, “How are we going to sell a movie about two women arguing”.

(I bet no man said that about 12 men arguing).

Look at what you’re doing and what you’re enjoying the most. She realised what she really loved was creating the story.

On getting kicked off the movie: “I wouldn’t do anything different”.

It’s harder to do independent animation. People trying not to work on standard fare, want to do something different for kids.

February 21, 2014