My company also runs digital conferences and she's frequently spoken at our events - and I'm very thankful it wasn't one of ours where the sleazeball stuff happened.
From a purely pragmatic perspective (i.e. what, as organisers, can we do about sleazeballs) I'm fascinated by two aspects of my own personality:
- on the one hand, I skew towards believing that individuals are entirely responsible for their own actions. If someone's a sleazeball at one of our events, that's entirely his fault (I would obviously react badly if I witnessed it or knew it was happening in real time)
- on the other hand, I'm into game theory and behavioural economics and I wonder how we can structure things so that we reduce the occurrence of this kind of thing. I'd love to hear ideas for tactical things conference organisers can do to filter and constrain ridiculous behaviour...
I'm more talking about the kind of harassment that Jane describes happening in the bar / at breaks in the conference etc.
That way the sleazeballs will acknowledge that their atitude is hurting his image.
So if this were a post about how they couldn't make a business deal or get funding or were at a disadvantage because they had a woman on their team, it would be as compelling to me as some of the other stuff I've read recently.
But: it's primarily about jackasses with no social skills, and there are tons of those in technology circles. People who interact with electronics more than other people are more likely to have all the social graces of a meadow muffin, and I don't think that's a solvable problem in society this year or next.
It sucks that she had to deal with those people. It sucks that they focused on her gender or attractiveness and said stupid things instead of having a conversation about one of her interests. Still, this is mostly a case of nerds behaving badly more than anything else.
I'm also pretty lukewarm on her feelings about “the sexiest women in social media”. Taken seriously, she's right on all her points. Taken in good humor, I find it about as offensive as sexy firemen calendars (i.e., not at all offensive, just all in good fun).
Doesn't enough evidence of sexism and racism constitute a problem already?
>> I'm also pretty lukewarm on her feelings about “the sexiest women in social media”. Taken seriously, she's right on all her points. Taken in good humor, I find it about as offensive as sexy firemen calendars (i.e., not at all offensive, just all in good fun).
The difference being that firemen calendars are advertised to be in good fun, whereas "sexiest women in social media" is advertised as sexy women in social media.
These people should be pariahs in their industry, but somehow they're not. That does not reflect well on the culture, and says there is a serious problem.
(Edit: By the way, I have asperger's syndrome and seriously deficient social skills, and I've said stupid things a few times to women when my mouth got ahead of my brain, but nothing even remotely like the creepy "It's not fair!" guy or the threatening "hook up" guy.)
Thanks Jane for writing this up. Important.
The rewards would be (male) peer approval and easy relief during presentations, whereas right now there seems to be little risk of either law suit or peer reprehension.
So, since these guys don't really think of women as people, they don't see any harm done.
It's actually a horrible picture of just how much non-empathic an adult can be and still function well in our culture.
The fastest way to revert this is to get many male tech guys to acknowledge the problem enough to publicly reprehend them. That way the rewards are thinned for the sexist presenter. He may carry on to be a jerk, but won't gain as much from being a public jerk.
These men don't distinguish from the booth babes, strippers etc (who have chosen the model industry) and the women that they work with, that are their peers in the tech industry.
I think the worst part is when you point out you don't want to be addressed according to your appearance, these are the guys that claim their remarks were some kind of backhanded compliment!
Perhaps naming and shaming those involved in the more threatening, dangerous and scary encounters would be a deterrent or a warning sign at least.
I work in the tech industry & as yet to have never had a comparable encounter, though there have been general annoyances in the workplace that I've put a stop to early on.
Should I ever have such an experience I'd be sure to speak up about it.
A lady has a deeply unpleasant encounter with some some jackass, and also notices that in an industry which is mostly men, you get some creeps putting together sexist things like the "sexiest women in technology".
But: what's the relationship with this to technology conferences, other than: you're going to meet a lot of men? What's the take-away here for the tech industry? What does she want us to /do/ about this?
Not accept that this is just the normal stuff that happens when guys get together. Show our peers that it is not ok to treat women like sex toys.
1. She is in tech. 2. In tech conferences, companies tend to use scantly dressed women to advertise their booths. Connection between the product they are selling and the external looks of the model presenting it is non-existent. Therefore it is about objectifying women for the sake of marketing. It should stop.
We make friendship with woman and the lineage continued because of woman.
When one woman dies, we seek another one, we are bound with the world through woman.
Why should we talk ill of her, who gives birth to kings?
The woman is born from woman; there is none without her.
Also, out of curiosity, would you be in favor of anti-female sentiment in a future with the technology for asexual male reproduction?
