Women in tech: we’re training men to resent us

How a personal hero gave me the scare of my life and challenged me to really listen

Massive shout out to all the women who walked through decades of hate with their heads held high

Last year an unpleasant young man published some very upsetting things:

For weeks, rebuttals and dissections of the above “manifesto” seemed to clog every tube in the internet. Yet, despite the volume of conversation, the messages were surprisingly homogeneous. Responses fell into one of two categories:

The “correct” category: “James Demore is AN EVIL, IGNORANT, RACIST, SEXIST IDIOT and he should be punished to protect good people from his dangerous ideas”

“James Demore is AN EVIL, IGNORANT, RACIST, SEXIST IDIOT and he should be punished to protect good people from his dangerous ideas” The “incorrect” category: “James Demore is a PERFECT ANGEL MARTYR who sacrificed himself for free speech and truth so that I could come forward and share exactly why I think that less qualified minority doesn’t deserve what they have”

These responses almost universally contained extreme emotional reactions. Unsurprisingly, no one was moved by the other side.

In response to a different event I published an article directed at young women in tech:

And in it I wrote the following:

First and second wave feminists built up young women to be strong and capable members of society. The problem is that somewhere along the line- we left the men behind. We left them out of the conversations and in our absence their resentment grew.

In that article, I discussed my concern that a quiet resentment is growing among men in tech directed at anything labeled “diversity”. This week that concern turned into a bulldozer that rolled right over any emotional distance I had on the subject when the following article surfaced online. I saw the title and the reference to the infamous “James Demore” and rolled my eyes, but it wasn’t until I saw the name of the author my heart sank.

Yes, that article is about me. It’s about women I call colleagues, friends, students, family. The author, Stuart Reges, is the head lecturer for the University of Washington’s introductory programming program. The program that is the foundation of my entire career. Not only was Stuart one of my first cs teachers, but he hired me into my first management position, and this year helped hire me to teach at my alma matter.

Before I was even able to open the article I was practically hysterical. What if I open this and it turns out my secret teenage fears were true all along? That the man who took a chance on me when no one else would thinks I’m not qualified to do the thing I love to do.

IF YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR PLEASE KEEP READING!

Because that’s what I did. I took a deep breath, printed that shit out, and with trepidation I sat down to read what one of my heroes thinks of me as a woman in tech.

I will get to the article, but here is my biggest take away from this experience:

In our work to protect and empower those that are historically oppressed, we have trained those outside that group to resent us and the work on which we have focused so intensely.

It is painstaking work to build a culture of inclusivity. Work easily undone with a single bad experience. Our knee-jerk reaction is to protect what we have built by emotionally rejecting ideas that threaten our approach. This emotional rejection is often so strong we force those ideas into hiding. Hidden away from our mainstream discussions of diversity these ideas grow into monsters, ready to surface at unexpected moments.

Yes, we have created our very own Boggarts.

If you do not recall/had a life in 2004, a Boggart is a creature of the Harry Potter universe that immediately takes the shape of whatever frightens you most. As the story goes, the only way to defeat a Boggart is by exposing it, allowing it to take its scary shape, then calmly forcing it to take a shape you find hilarious. The message being “the only way to fight your fear is to face it head on and take ownership of your reaction” blah blah blah kid’s story. Harry finds himself incapable of overcoming the Boggart because every time he tries, he becomes so overwhelmed by fear he literally passes out, much to his embarrassment. His classmates instead face the Boggart, realize it’s a simple shapeshifter easily transformed into something charming with a bit of understanding and sunlight.

Get it?

I found myself staring at the title of Stuart’s article, afraid to read it. The mounting stress in my brain compelled me to dismiss the entire thing as “sexist nonsense” and just move on.

But that’s not me. That’s not how I would want people to read my posts. Instead, I pushed through and read every word, and I am so very glad I did. When I read Stuart’s article, it was clear that my initial reaction was silly, and all too common. This man, who I know is brilliant and thoughtful, writes how his ideas have been repeatedly dismissed and attacked simply because they stirred up strong feelings.

By bringing my Stuart Boggart into the light and choosing not to indulge my initial reaction I had the opportunity to actually hear what he had to say. Here are my best attempts at thoughtful responses to some of those points:

1.Stuart incorrectly uses the word “diversity” as synonymous with “gender equality”. At one point in the article Stuart does assert the following definition:

diversity has its usual dictionary definition of having a variety of individuals, which implies racial, ethnic, and gender diversity but also political and religious diversity.

I appreciate the inclusion of political and religious diversity, but other than this single line there is no mention of outreach to any group other than women. This is an extremely frustrating exclusion of the real complexity we face in working to bring the massive economic opportunities of Computer Science to those for whom it would make the biggest impact. For the sake of argument, I will accept his narrowing of “diversity” to only the work to include predominately white, middle class women in tech. I promise to dissect this painfully common mistake in a later post.

2.Stuart is not a sexist and does not argue that women are any less capable of being successful in tech than men are. Instead, he is deeply interested in understanding the nuances of a very complex problem:

The more I study the gender gap in computer science the more I become convinced that there are no simple answers.

This is what makes him a charming Boggart and not a terrifying demon. This is the shared ground on which we can have a productive conversation. He literally finishes his article with a plea for conversations and his openness to be wrong. Snape in a silly hat.

3. Stuart offers a number of personal observations on which he builds conclusions about why women don’t want to code. I am dubious as to how many experiences he is drawing upon:

[Emily] Chang and I clearly know different people because the women I talk to who are working in Silicon Valley are enjoying their experiences as software engineers… the vast majority of women work at companies that make significant efforts to provide a supportive work experience

YIKES! How big is his sample size? Boy, I wish I knew these people, but Stuart might want to do some more digging… Also, I have not personally read Emily Chang’s book “Brotopia”, but a New York Time’s review calls it “well researched” so I am gooooing to assume she’s using a bigger sample size than “women Stuart has asked if they like their jobs”. #sorrynotsorry

4. I found many of Stuart’s examples of women simply choosing not to pursue CS superficial. He seems too willing to accept that in the absence of obvious barriers, women are free to make choices based only on personal values. No real investigation into why woman make these choices.

As Khazan says in the conclusion to her article, “it could just be that, feeling financially secure and on equal footing with men, some women will always choose to follow their passions, rather than whatever labor economists recommend. And those passions don’t always lie within science.”

Or maybe… as educators we are failing to help all students understand how Computer Science as a skill set can service any passion. I believe the traditional way of teaching Computer Science makes it hard for students to see it as anything other than a dry, laborious vehicle to building operating systems or video games. I include myself in this group of ineffective educators. Colleen Lewis, a professor of computer science at Harvey Mudd, has published some interesting research on this topic: Deciding to Major in CS Fitting in CS when the Stereotypes Don’t Fit

5.This leads me to my favorite part of Stuart’s article, the distinction between two disparate approaches to diversity: “the Equity Agenda” vs “the Equality Agenda”. He makes this distinction in reference to building diversity within the University of Washington’s Computer Science major, which is very competitive for admission. Stuart applies his own definitions to these terms, which can be a bit confusing for those familiar with the traditional ‘equity vs equality’ definitions from the Interaction Institute for Social Change.

Stuart explains the “Equity Agenda”:

For them, diversity involves a commitment to righting the wrongs of the past… ‘equity’ has the specific meaning of working to dismantle existing power structures as a way to redress privilege.

This approach advocates that institutions must not only correct for a lack of privilege, but for a surplus as well, often illustrated with the following cartoon:

In this approach, there is awareness that the same solution will not produce equal outcomes for everyone. Instead when designing solutions, a solution must be tailored to an individual’s needs to produce equal outcomes. Though he does not state how he feels about this approach, Stuart does assert that instead he considers himself an advocate for what he names the “Equality Agenda”.

I favor what I call the ‘equality agenda’ … to see the most talented and passionate individuals joining us regardless of their life circumstances or unalterable characteristics…

A quick reading of this might lead you to believe that he is advocating for the following approach:

This may appear more “fair” as it gives all students equal resources, but it still leaves the historically disadvantaged behind. Clearly, this approach does not work, BUT Stuart includes the following clarification of his “equality” approach.

The equality agenda, then, is about encouragement and removal of artificial barriers.

I read this as Stuart asserting that we must instead eliminate systematic barriers to achieve equality. This ensures that the institution is not passive, simply pulling from the students that self-select and prepare their applications. Instead an institution must also be actively invested in discovering and developing students who are equally talented but less likely to find their way into the pipeline. Theoretically this ensures that nothing stands in the way for those that do have the passion and talent regardless historic levels of opportunity or access. It is not equality of outcome but equality of opportunity that is the focus.

Therefore, I am going to conclude that what Stuart is actually describing is what we might refer to as the “liberation agenda”:

This nuance thus becomes EXTREMELY important as it truly represents the ideal, a system that enables all to come as they are and still be equally successful. Instead of focusing on developing diverse students into a good fit for a single system, the focus is on fixing the system to enable a diverse group of students to thrive.

If I have accurately interpreted his meaning, on this, Stuart and I are in perfect agreement.

For the remainder of the article Stuart asserts that in a truly liberated state, the fundamental differences between men and women means that a 50/50 distribution is neither achievable, nor desirable.

[Equity Approach] proponents don’t demand equal outcomes but instead use unequal outcomes as evidence that there is more work to be done… until we reach perfect gender parity, they will continue to argue for more diversity programs for women.

I agree that the population distribution of an institutions doesn’t need to perfectly match the make up of the general population. However, I do not believe we have sufficient knowledge to know what the correct distributions are. Maybe an ideal ratio doesn’t even exit?

I share this frustration with institutional obsession around “quotas”. It feels dismissive of the complexity of human choice. I know it is difficult to measure “diversity”, but a single percentage representing how many members happen to have lady parts seems to be more about giving institutions an easy answer to critiques than a tool for improving actual diversity.

6. Finally, Stuart brings up a point that is both new to me (yay, new ideas!) and also goddamn terrifying:

I worry that lack of progress will make us more likely to switch from positive messages about women succeeding in tech to negative stories about men behaving badly in tech, which I think will do more harm than good.

“Do more harm than good”?! No kidding! That would be a ridiculous leap of logic. I am no where near that sort of thinking, where does this worry come from? Is this what men have been thinking when we force them to sit in silent agreement? Do men in our industry feel that we view them as personally responsible for the inequalities we are trying to fix? No wonder they resent us!

This brings me to a new realization: while I have been telling women we need to include men in the conversation, I have completely neglected how my messages could interpreted by those to whom they are not directed. Let me take this opportunity to clarify:

I do not blame individual members of a majority as directly or maliciously responsible for systematic inequality or discrimination.

Caveat: Sure, some men do “behave badly” because, well, some people are awful! However, in my personal experience discrimination is most typically born of a.) ignorance and b.) systematic issues. Often both.

Let me leave you with this: if you feel your opinions on diversity are either “unpopular” or “unheard” or worse “censored”, I promise I still want to hear them. This doesn’t mean I will agree, or that I think “freedom of speech” means “freedom from all consequences”. Let me be a “safe space” (yeah, I know you hate that word) to discuss otherwise outlawed ideas. I believe safe spaces must be built not by the exclusion of tough conversations, but by a shared empathy and commitment to treat one another not as cartoons, but as real live humans.

So to address Stuart’s final conclusion:

O ur community must face the difficult truth that we aren’t likely to make further progress in attracting women to computer science.

Maybe he’s right. Or maybe we need to work together to get more creative. I can promise you- I am fully committed to investigating, experimenting and inventing as many ways as I can to ensure that no one is unfairly left behind. I hope you’re all with me, because it’s going to take all of us to build a community that includes all of us.