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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
> 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?
It's not unfair to point that out; it's merely wrong to "point that out".
Any number of contingencies could yield a distribution of speakers at a conference whose sex ratio doesn't neatly align with the corresponding ratio in the population of experts, however that's defined. The existence of such a distribution of speakers is not in itself evidence of discrimination on the basis of sex.
Discrimination on the basis of sex is, however, present in any situation in which the sex of applicants was in any way considered as a criteria of their admission to the conference. This is the definition of discrimination.
In other words, by considering individuals' sexes at all, one is actively engaging in sex-based discrimination. It's absurd to suggest this as the remedy to a situation that isn't necessarily the result of discrimination.
The only way to ensure that no discrimination takes place is to stop looking at the sex ratio of conference attendees in the first place, as it's no more relevant than distribution of shoe sizes among attendees.
Selecting the best person for the job isn't discrimination but IMHO, celebrating a 50/50 split is discrimination if that isn't the natural gender split.
WTF is a "natural gender split"? This is a cultural problem, and that culture like to hide behind a supposed nature which in large parts really just is learned behaviour, resulting from that culture.
As this case and others (c.f., GoGaRuCo, which uses the same method) shows, the natural gender split is 50/50. When the submissions pool is 50/50, and they do a blind judging of the submissions, they end up with a 50/50 split in speakers. In other words, they keep demonstrating that there is no essential difference in technology based on gender. When they hide from themselves the gender of the speaker, they end up choosing equally from men and women.
The fact she selected the talks without looking at the gender is great, and I missed on my first read (woops, I blame HN encouraging fast replies for more karma).
With only 18 applications and with her specifically encouraging people that she knew to apply it must be very likely that she knew who the individual was when going through the applications. So even though she claims that it was gender blind, it wasn't really.
She went out of her way to convince a particular demographic group to make submissions. That is where the discrimination lies.
Let's put it this way: if I went around giving extra encouragement to white men to apply, and then proudly announced that I had a blind review process, would you deny that there was discrimination? What exactly is the difference?
I recently attended 2 birthday parties for young kids, one on a weekday and one on a Saturday afternoon. The first, was mostly mothers, immediate family and their kids. For the second, the couple went out of their way to make sure that men could come to the birthday party. They send out adult invites encouraging alcohol beverages to be brought, and called all their women friends and asked them firmly to bring their boyfriends. I brought mine, who was begrudgingly included because of his perception it would be full of kids and women but he ended up having a wonderful time talking to other men (as well as hanging out with kids and their toys and of course some classic kids party food). Is this discrimination on the couple's part to try and reach past a culture of birthday parties full of just mothers and their kids?
See, the difference there is that the kids parents are already half men, half women. Professional technology workers are not half women, and unlike a child's birthday party, being invited to speak at a conference is a career-boosting event.
If disproportionate representation is not discriminatory, what exactly is it?
> the kids parents are already half men, half women.
Biologically yes, but there is a wide range of single/mixed parent families and I disagree that the similarities are far different in terms of the need to make an emotional call for attendance.
If the review process was blind and the proposals were evaluated on their merits alone then in the selection process would have removed the author's demographic as a discriminating factor. The sample itself would likely be skewed (as in the discussed example), but as long as the speakers gave interesting, relevant presentations I don't see the issue.
I'll agree that there was obvious discrimination in who she personally sought out as speakers, but when it came time to select speakers for the event she didn't turn men away for being men or select women because they were women. She didn't sacrifice the quality of her conference to showcase women speakers, and each candidate that did apply had a fair shot as becoming a speaker. Personally, as it was her conference I don't see a problem with her seeking out the people she wanted to hear from for submissions; it appears it was discrimination based on the quality of the submissions that was the deciding factor, and for me that's what really matters.
In other words, instead of ending discrimination, we should just pile more layers of it on top -- rather than paint your white car pink, you'll load your white car into a pink 18-wheeler and just drive that to work, proudly proclaiming that you have diversity in your color choices (and then one day, someone will point out that you don't have a rainbow-colored ride, so you'll load your pink truck on a rainbow-colored train and demand that someone lay tracks from your house to your office).
I don't think ending discrimination is a simple thing and that in this case increasing the visibility of female experts in an area can have nontrivial antidiscriminatory effects (e.g. encouraging young women to go into an area, making women feel more comfortable at a conference, etc.) even if it involves positive discrimination.
Anyway, I'd still be interested to hear from you how (following your metaphor) you would suggest to dismantle the white car directly.
Correcting an imbalance is not the same as unbalancing something.
Looking to increase X at Y's expense is only discriminatory against Y if Y's current state is deserved. Unless you're prepared to argue that men deserve all the slots at a tech conference, it's not discriminatory to enlarge the applicant pool to seek greater female representation.
GoGaRuCo famously achieves high female participation with blind judging of submissions, simply by making sure that the applicant pool has a large number of women through efforts to reach out to, and evangelize in, female tech communities. Is that discriminatory against men?
The selection process was gender-blind. At no point did she enforce a gender ratio; it just worked out that way.
It is entirely fair to count that a 50/50 split as a win if you have a theory that gender is irrelevant to whether they are the best person for the job. (If you have a theory that the split ought not to be even, well....)
"(If you have a theory that the split ought not to be even, well....)"
Well...what? My theory is that the demographics of speakers at a conference should be equal to the demographics of the field itself. If the field is 95% men and 5% women, just how many women should we expect to see on a panel of ten speakers?
"The selection process was gender-blind"
Sure, but so what? She went out of her way to convince women to apply and did not do so for men. Masking that sort of discrimination with a gender-blind selection process is just as dishonest as masking the bias towards white upper-class men in university admissions by pointing to a blind review process.
I agree. However, the majority of speakers end up being male, white, able bodied. The question is, are these the best people for the job, or just the easiest to get to fill your slots?
It is unfortunately hard to know the answer to that question. Possibly the only way to find out is to get more speakers outside this group and see how well they are received.
>How is "we need more $x" any less discriminating than "we need less $y"?
If $x already experiences discrimination that is beyond the control of the organizer, the organizer discriminating against $y merely helps to balance things out.
Also, in this case gender was not considered in candidate selection.
My definition of "best person" has nothing to do with gender. This article is suggesting getting a gender balance is a win when selecting people to speak.
“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.
If one want to enforce a policy to include demographics in ones recruitment process, the following large demographics should also be considered:
People of color.
Immigrants.
Those of young age.
Those of old age.
While women is clearly the largest demographic in that group, each listed group is commonly put in an disadvantage when applying for work. Outreaching to each of those groups is also the only way to get a work place that includes a fair portion from each demographic, as they are used to being denied and thus do not apply for as much work as white middle aged men.
One should also want to consider people previously convicted of a crime, as that is a very large demographic in the US and is one which also have a very hard time finding jobs. Many have given up on ever finding a good job, and do not apply for higher paying jobs even if they got a higher education that would qualify them for hire.
What you're doing is called "appeal to ridicule", but I can think of worse things than reaching out to all those communities, seeking greater participation. Ex-convicts might be at a disadvantage in expertise, and so fail to get selected in blind judging. But old grey unix neckbeards would probably be really interesting, and in every Aaron Swartz thread it gets mentioned that he was meaningfully involved in the RSS process at 14.
You can try to call it an appeal to ridicule, but I too would like to see more companies and conferences trying to reach out to communities which are used to be denied and thus do not actively seek as much opportunities for the risk of failing. Reaching out is a positive thing to do to society. Its altruistic and can bring positive rewards in return. While I would not want to claim that other people must do it, the reaching out that the author did has an positive net effect on society and I assume the conference itself.
I did not include ex-convicts as a joke. Many people get locked up falsely, and even more get locked up because they enter a plea barging that they shouldn't have. Many of those has some kind of higher education, but is put in an disadvantage because of some real, or imaginary mistake in their past (like downloading a song at age 9). Assuming that those people can't do work beyond sweeping floors, or that they have nothing to contribute to a conference is discrimination without basis.
As to the young and old, I too would like to see less agism in the work place and conferences. Old grey unix neckbeards tend to only be acceptable in some places. In regard to the type of conference the article discuss, game developer conferences, I think old grey unix neckbeards and 14 year old developers are a rare sight and clearly underrepresented.
Pointing out that there is more than one form of group under discrimination is not an appeal to ridicule, and it does not lessen the acts done by the author in the article. Rather, the method used by the author is an effective method to address discrimination without causing further discrimination by the act of exclusion.
Indeed. A good way to increase diversity in hiring is to set a rule: your hiring process isn't done until you've received a minimum number of applications from various demographics that are underrepresented.
You still pick the best applicant from all submissions, but it forces you to make sure that news of your position spreads into more than just the usual communities.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> A demographic gets targeted just because it's under-represented.
How are these demographic categories themselves not entirely arbitrary? How is analyzing a demographic category as though the definition of that category were preemptively relevant not an exercise in question-begging?
If you conducted a study that indicated that people with odd-numbered shoe sizes were "under-represented", would you begin targeting that "demographic"? Why would you have been looking at people's shoe sizes in the first place?
If acceptance decisions were made based on gender, that would be discrimination.
The article doesn't say that.
"To keep the selection process fair, Courtney chose applicants based on their pitches only, without looking at the speaker’s identity or gender. The result was a 50/50 split between male and female speakers, which she counted as a success."
It baffles me how you can consider men an "excluded demographic" in this scenario.
Disproportionate representation is fair (only) if the criteria of discrimination is justifiable.
An obtuse example: Gifted & hardworking athletes are disproportionally over-represented at the olympics, vice gifted + lazy, non-gifted + lazy, and non-gifted + hardworking ones.
In either case, how is what the woman did with this conference a good thing? On the one hand, she categorized people as "male or female" and on the other she created a situation where there were a higher proportion of women speaking at the conference than were even in the field.
No, I am talking about the disproportionate representation at the conference itself, because the field itself is what lacks diversity. Fix the diversity problem within the field, and if after that the conferences lack diversity, we can fix that problem too.
“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”
It's also a worthy goal to find out (1) why women don't ask and (2) work to encourage women to do that asking.
The more forward momentum is built, through efforts such as this, the less of a problem this is in the future.
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.
That's the same approach Caltech took when it first started admitting women in 1970. Things get socially very awkward and uncomfortable for everybody when you have a school where almost all students live on campus and socialize primarily with fellow students, and the male/female distribution is severely unbalanced, and so getting more women was a priority.
Gender was not considered when deciding on an applicant, but they made quite an effort to get more qualified women to apply, and to get those who did and were offered admission to choose Caltech.
This isn't the fastest way to balance the population (when I was there, 10 years later, they were only up to 15-20% women, and are up to around 40% now), but it allowed them to keep their high standards.
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?
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.
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.
..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.
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).
"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.
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.
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.