Share this post1. I know that my mediumsplaining misogyny adds zero value, so consider this a personal vent rather than a serious attempt to contribute to the conversation.
2. There's a giant misogyny problem in tech, and in the San Francisco Bay Area. I've seen more catcalling here than anywhere else I've ever lived, and been on the periphery of more conversations predicated on traditional gender role assumptions and casual objectification.
2a. That doesn't mean there aren't awesome, progressive people in California; obviously, there are a lot of them, including all of my friends here. And to be clear, I love living here.
2b. I was a teenage boy, and although I've always tried to be respectful of others, I've definitely said some things about people that I'm not at all proud of now. I also know that I'm writing from a position of privilege which is not always visible to me, and while I try not to be a part of the problem, sometimes I probably am.
3. With all of this said, I think it takes a serious lack of self-awareness to get up on a podium at an internationally-famous event and present an app called Titstare.
4. Titstare is disgusting but fleeting. What I care more about is how the wider problem affects my industry, my profession, the environment I live in, and therefore pretty much my entire life. Not to mention the lives of people I care about.
5. Apparently some people need this spelled out: women are not somehow biologically less suited to working in technology, or the sciences, or mathematics. It's worth checking out how the genders break down at, say, a high school level for those things, globally. Or, you know, just using a little common sense and working it out for yourself.
5a. Here's something else that shouldn't need saying: the glass ceiling is a ridiculous relic that should make us all ashamed. I'm a strong believer in equalizing maternity and paternity leave as one way of bringing it to an end. Women are not worth less in the workforce than men. This disparity is not merit-related.
5b. And by the way, the whole concept of a meritocracy is bullshit. It's built on an empathy void, and completely ignores individual context and history.
6. I don't want to work or live in all-male environments, or any other kind of monoculture. I would rather that smart, awesome people who can contribute amazing things didn't feel like they aren't welcome.
7. I honestly believe that a huge part of the problem is that a lot of people in tech are incapable of feeling genuine empathy for people from other contexts. I don't think they can put themselves in someone else's shoes, and see things from their point of view. This is a learned skill, and it is valuable: not just for preventing yourself from being hateful to others, and being a decent human being, but also for your startups, too.
8. Another common geek trope is to be deliberately controversial to get a rise, and to publicly wonder why people are so sensitive. Here is why people are so sensitive: because the controversial things you are saying are tantamount to persecution. Can't understand why that might be hurtful? There's that empathy void again.
9. But without wanting to diminish the previous points, all of this pales compared to the out-of-the-blue requests for sex, the dehumanizing comments, the rape jokes, the abusive emails, the sexual assaults, and the day-to-day slights and injustices that I honestly wouldn't have believed any functioning adult human would stoop to. I can't mediumsplain this, or mansplain it, or explain it, or even come close to understanding why this kind of stuff exists. I can put myself into the shoes of the abusers here - and they are abusers - to try and determine their motivations, but the best I can think of is that it's some kind of sick power game. It's so completely broken as to defy belief, but I do believe it, of course. I don't know how you go about correcting someone who thinks that any of this is in any way okay.
10. These aren't fucking revelations, people. Our industry is supposed to be building the future. I don't want to live in a world where people are discriminated against because of their gender, sexuality, ethnic background, context or class. Solving that for the world is a hard, disruptive problem. Solving that in our industry seems doable. We're not doing a very good job of it so far though.
11. I'm sorry / not sorry for this vent. Selfishly, I wanted to write something down, but there are lots of people who talk about these issues in an informed, eloquent way, which I haven't here. @shanley's Twitter feed is a great jumping-off point; I've learned a lot from the resources and issues she links to.
