[trhway]

>I am an expert on many things - women in tech isn't one of them (other than the fact that I have been one for a long time).

multi-year experience with something frequently makes an expert or at least gives others a good reason to suspect so. Have you never stated how many years you do PHP/MySql/whatever in order to communicate your experience level?

[dragonwriter]

Assuming the experience being a woman in tech gives you particular expertise relating to the situation of women in tech is, pretty much, the same thing as assuming that because you knew one black person for many years, you are an expert on black people -- it relies on a "what's true for one member of the class is true for all members of the class" stereotyping.

[trhway]

>Assuming the experience being a woman in tech gives you particular expertise relating to the situation of women in tech is, pretty much, the same thing as assuming that because you knew one black person for many years, you are an expert on black people

no. It is, pretty much, the same thing as assuming that because you are a black person, you are an expert on black people - pretty reasonable assumption at least to some degree.

[dragonwriter]

> It is, pretty much, the same thing as assuming that because you are a black person [for many years], you are an expert on black people

That's the same stereotyping assumption as the one I suggested. I've been a member of my race and gender my whole life (obviously!). I am expert on my experiences, and have opinions (some of which are pretty well grounded in other knowledge I have, from formal education and elsewhere, that is more general than my personal experience) on how my race and gender relate to those experiences.

But it would be grossly stereotyping my race or gender to assume that I was an expert on my race or gender generally to assume that I had general expertise on the experience of people of my race or gender (or even only those of my race or gender in my career field.)

[snipeyhead]

Precisely. I'm an expert on being this particular woman in tech - which is a far cry from knowing what it's like to be other women in tech. Our stories are widely varied, and my experiences are not an accurate reflection of many other women in tech. I do not speak for them, only for myself.

[pavement]

I think it would've been pretty awesome if you proposed a slide deck composed purely of vaguely captioned images, and then got up there, and derailed the talk for 90% of your alotted time by just delivering an off-topic talk regarding subject of your choice (maybe something highly technical and intimidating). All the while clicking through slides as if they related to your spoken word, and then at the end, summed up with the sentiment you expressed in this post on your site. And then, when you open up the floor for a Q&A session, respond to any questions with markov-chain generated non-sequiturs.

In my book, that would be a great talk. The more extemporaneous, the better.

Maybe that's a little anti-social, but remember that in comedy, a joke that bombs can be entertaining all by itself. And if your worried about losing your nerve, when the moment arrives, and it's time to be beligerent, just do a couple of shots before you get on stage.

...on the other hand, if the talk gets a positive response, you'd probably have another problem on your hands: being asked to come back and give the same talk again. One way to curb that would be to pre-record your protest and just play the recording into the microphone.

[snipeyhead]

I had thought about it, trust me (in very much the way you're describing, funnily enough) :) But ultimately, it's their conference, and they do have the right and the responsibility to schedule the sessions they feel will be most valuable.

Not to mention that if I pulled that stunt off, I probably wouldn't be invited to speak at many conferences anymore, because organizers aren't fans of loose cannons. But really, I didn't feel the need to be a dick about it. Their loss. I give a pretty good presentation. shrug