A Tipping Point for Women in Tech? Here's hoping.
by Virginia DeBolt

Once upon a time there was a fellow who had a presentation to give at a tech conference. He planned to talk about code and databases. He thought it would be a good idea to make his presentation interesting, since his topics were a bit of a yawn. He decided it would grab attention and be funny if he interspersed images of women in pornographic poses among his slides of code and bullet points.

It did grab attention. But it wasn't funny.

That fellow was Matt Aimonetti. The tech conference was the Golden Gate Ruby Conference. The presentation opens with this image:

opening screen of the Matt Aimonetti presentation

Here's the full presentation: CouchDB: Perform like a pr0n star. I suggest you look through the slides and form an opinion of your own before reading on. It is enlightening to read the comments following the presentation, too.

There weren't many women in the audience, but there were women in the audience. This was a national conference, not a gathering of teenager boys in a smelly upstairs bedroom. The women in the audience found the slides objectionable. Quite a few of the men in the audience did, too.

The first comments about the presentation, naturally, appeared on Twitter. Use the hashtag #gogaruco if you'd like to read through them all. Notable among those tweets was this one by dhh:

tweet by dhh

Who is dhh? The creator of Ruby on Rails!

dhh Twitter profile

Yes, the creator of Ruby on Rails thought it was funny. He wasn't the only male who defended the presentation as edgy and funny and appropriate.

Rails activist Mike Gunderloy didn't agree. In fact, in A Painful Decision, he said,

There has been some discussion in recent days in the Rails community about appropriate conference presentations, whether women feel welcome in the Rails community, and related issues. I don’t intend to review the entire mess here - you can find it if you want it. For what it’s worth, I think the original presentation was an inappropriate and regrettable mistake. However, far more disturbing to me are the reactions to the discussion on the part of some of the Rails community.
. . .
But unfortunately for me, in parallel to the public discussion there have been private ones. I can’t reveal details without breaking confidences, but suffice it to say that a significant number of Rails core contributors - with leadership (if that’s the right word) from DHH - apparently feel that being unwelcoming and “edgy” is not just acceptable, but laudable. The difference between their opinions and mine is so severe that I cannot in good conscience remain a public spokesman for Rails.

So, effective immediately, I’m resigning my position with the Rails Activists.

Aimee, a Rails programmer herself, writes at A little place of calm. Here's part of her reaction in Distressing times for the Rails community.

Unexpected pornography at a professional conference surprises me, shocks me a little. I wonder whether Matt Aimonetti, at any point during the preparation of that presentation, thought "This is likely to offend some people", and if so, whether Matt decided not to care.

The refusal of some Rails representatives to even acknowledge that there is a problem angers me.

Aimee's comments seem relevant to an article by Raina Kelley in Newsweek called Generation Me.

Perhaps, one day, we will say that the recession saved us from a parenting ethos that churns out ego-addled spoiled brats. And though it is too soon to tell if our economic free fall will cure America of its sense of economic privilege, it has made it much harder to get the money together to give our kids six-figure sweet-16 parties and plastic surgery for graduation presents, all in the name of "self esteem." And that's a good thing, because as Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell point out in their excellent book "The Narcissism Epidemic," released last week, we've built up the confidence of our kids, but in that process, we've created a generation of hot-house flowers puffed with a disproportionate sense of self-worth (the definition of narcissism) and without the resiliency skills they need when Mommy and Daddy can't fix something.

I extrapolate from this discussion of a narcissism disorder among a percentage of generation me to mean that perhaps a certain breed of geek thinks that his opinions are universal and no one could possibly be offended by what he finds funny. The Rails community needs a dose of reality to wake them from their narcissistic adolesecent male world view.

Matt Amionetti did respond to the uproar he wrought, on his blog The Merblist in On Engerdering Strong Reactions.

To start with, I would like to make it clear to everyone that I do sincerely care about the larger gender issues that my presentation touched off. I have also replied and otherwise corresponded with everyone who has contacted me about my presentation, just as I have tried to reply to all of the blog posts that have been brought to my attention. At this point, however, it is clear that this issue has grown too large to be resolved through one-on-one contact, hence this public statement.

He says that the conference organizers warned conference goers that materials in his presentation might be offensive to some, so anyone who came did so after being warned and knew what they were getting into. He plans to attend a panel about Women in Rails at an O'Reilly Rails Conference on May 5. The speakers at this panel discussion are all women: Desi McAdam (Hashrocket Inc and DevChix Inc), Sarah Mei (LookSmart), Lori Olson (Dragon Sharp Consulting). (That would be an interesting place to lurk.)

Liz Keogh read Matt's justification for his presentation and wrote a brilliant analysis of how the brain associates information. Her article is I am not a Pr0n Star: avoiding unavoidable associations. I hope you read all of it. Here are some highlights.

The human brain consists of a bunch of neurons, between which connections and pathways are built. Those pathways form associations. There are associations of which we’re conscious, associations of which we’re not conscious, and a blurred space in between.
. . .
Human beings learn associations by - amongst other things - proximity; either in time, or in place. That is; they will build associations more easily if two or more things are experienced close together.

If you’ve watched Matt’s slideshow, and you find yourself using CouchDB on a project in the future, will you be thinking of his slideshow? It was very memorable. I think I will find it hard in the future to disassociate that slideshow from the featured product. That’s a conscious association I’ve built. I’m aware of it.

There’s a subconscious association going on in that show, too; another proximity which is harder to spot. We’ve just experienced words of technology - key phrases like scalability, REST, public interfaces - with images of women whom we’re told are available for visual sexual gratification. There are a few men in some of the images; they appear to me to be in positions of power and influence. The images of women, on the other hand, tend to be submissive. So we’re learning, subconsciously, that women associated with technology are also associated with sexual gratification and submissiveness. (The only strong women in the slideshow are associated with conflict, which we try to avoid.)
. . .
If you were sitting in Matt’s presentation, or have experienced similar presentations or associations in the past:

  • you might consciously choose to wear a topless women on your t-shirt, because your brain subconsciously confirms that it’s acceptable.
  • You might expect women to be more submissive; to accept delegated tasks more easily, or question process less, or accept lower pay.
  • You might find it uncomfortable to have a female manager or team lead.
  • You might cause the women around you start dressing in less feminine ways, to distance themselves from any association.
  • You might erroneously think you have a chance of scoring with your female colleague (notwithstanding cases of genuine mutual attraction).
  • You might not expect the woman on your team to be able to teach you anything new.

And, if you’re Matt, or one of the many commenters whose opinions I’ve read, you might not completely understand the backlash.

Two bloggers have published compilations of some of the comments and tweets on the slide presentation. Burningbird published her collection in Open Arms. Hackety gathered even more comments in A Selection of Thoughts from Actual Women. These are helpful compilations of comments.

One of the many women who commented was Sarah at the evolving ultrasaurus. She was one of the women who were actually at the conference. She posted gender and sex at gogaruco.

What most pisses me off is that I had to write this blog post, instead of one about Ruby & CouchDB, which is a far more interesting topic.

It isn't just the Rails community. A friend of mine recently got what she thought was friendly mentoring from a famous-name male in the tech world. She was dismayed when she discovered that he expected sex in return for the career advancement help. When she refused, he started naming names of women in tech who supposedly did offer up the requested sexual favors. He regards the women in tech as his for the plucking and thinks he is perfectly justified in behaving that way. (This is a married man, by the way.) My friend will write about this herself once she cools down a bit, but it does bring up the question of whether it's more than just the objectification of women but outright exploitation that keeps women away from conferences.

Years of discussion about the minuscule showing of women at tech conferences, the dearth of women in computer sciences, and the lack of sensitivity toward women and minorities by conference organizers has not come close to galvanizing opinion like this one act of monumental unenlightment at a Rails conference. I hope both women and men will continue to make their voices heard on this issue until finally, FINALLY, the men in tech start to hear what the women in tech are saying.

I hope women are saying something like this: "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!"

--
Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt (view blog) on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 5:34am

Comments

 

Mad as Hell? No, Just Really Tired

As a woman in tech, the whole thing makes me really tired.  I live with this on a regular basis.

In the summer of 2007, I was at a 3 day Rails event and was horrified by how few women were there (3 in a crowd of 200) and how weird my interactions were with many of the attendees.  I was told numerous times that I was just a "designer" and made things pretty. Yet, there were male web designers there who were making the switch over to development, just as I was at the time, and they were not belittled by the Java guys who were switching over to Rails.

In contrast, I attended DjangoCon 2008 last September and there were over 20 women in a crowd of 200,  everyone was friendly and treated each other as equals. It was a very comfortable developers conference.  I am sad that I am not able to attend DjangoCon Europe this upcoming week.

 What is the difference between the Rails community and the Django community that I won't go to Rails events anymore, but I look forward to Django events?  I will offer a few contrasts:

1) The Rails Core team are billed as rock stars, particularly DHH, much of this is marketing & promo as the core folks themselves were nice and personable when I spent time with them.  The Django Core team are mostly all very nice folks who don't really have rock star billing and don't seem to care or to be seeking it at all.

2) Other than Amy Hoy, the Rails community doesn't have many prominent women or women who are willing to come out of the trenches.  I don't know who and how many women are contributing to Core in the Rails community.  The Django community has had quite a few women on board as contributors to core at the LWJ and has new women join and who are actively participating in moving the community forward (Julia Elman, Leah Culver, et al).  

3) The Django community is a great mixed bag of Python programmers, web designers, and various newspaper folks who have come together to create a great framework for programmers, designers, and folks who want to create web apps and content in a rapid fashion. The Rails community is mostly programmers and some web designers/developers who are working rapidly to create web apps.

 To the outsider the above may not sound much different, but to me, as a woman, I feel much more welcomed in the Django community and am thus have been using Django & Python to create web apps the last 8 months rather than Ruby on Rails. I want to create great web apps, not feel like a second class citizen in the greater community, or be belittled for how cute it is that a nice, little "designer" is trying to code a web app.

For a much better breakdown, from folks in the Rails Community, about how the Rails community is making it difficult for women to participate, I recommend the links in the metafilter post about Matt's presentation.  While there are many who don't see what is wrong about a bit of good, fun objectification of women at a professional conference, there are many folks in the Rails community who do object and who would like to see the Rails community drop the rock star / cowboy macho thing and take themselves seriously as professionals.

 

Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen

Submitted by msjen on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 07:41
 

Thanks for your insight

and for sharing your experience with the men of the Rails and Django communities.

The metafilter link is a real eye opener. Thanks for that.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 08:48
 

If it had been a picture of Johnny Holmes
however...

I'm 52. I've been in tech for about 15 years, albeit in product management. I have a pretty thick skin for all this stuff. I see most developers as kids, boys who are missing a part of their growth pattern. So fine. I could have been OK with the porn metaphor, but I am not OK with a photo of a nearly naked piece of female anatomy up on the wall. And all these guys wanting to say its OK is just them wanting validation for the part of the male growth pattern they have not yet experienced. That part where you become a man rather than a boy.

http://amidlifeofprivilege.blogspot.com

Submitted by LPC on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 08:54
 

Its a misunderstanding about what is
offensive...

Its interesting that that apology really reveals a misunderstanding, which possibly also reveals how that presentation came into being in the first place. 

Matt Aimonetti seems to think that the problem is that people were offended by pictures of naked women.  Much in the same way, say that people were offended by Robert Maplethorp's photos of explicit gay sex.  In that case, having a warning up on the gallery door that you were about to see something that might shock you was an apropriate response.  And gallery goers who went and looked, and then complained - well - what do you expect?

In this case, the anger is not caused by prudery.  What is upsetting is not the edgy nature of the images (hardly more shocking than many a advert for jeans or deoderant)

The anger is caused by the way in which the presentation speaks from a position of such supreme arrogance. That all the old and tired cliche's are considered to be funny, or edgy. That boy's only sniggering humor presented in a professional conference. The revelation that in this speakers world, there is absolutely no space made for you - if you happen to be a woman.That attitude that if you dont find it funny, you should just shut up.

Its not about being shocked by pornography at all. In fact, the question should not be - is pornography acceptable in a professional conference.  The question should be - is thoughless sexism acceptable in a professional conference.

 

Submitted by mashadutoit on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 11:54
 

A very good point

you've made. And you are exactly right. Thanks for commenting.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 13:34
 

I wish you could lurk, too.

As one of the speakers at the Women In Rails discussion panel, I would welcome any further constructive comments on this issue, although I doubt the panel will lack for material at this point :-)

Lori M Olson

Consultant Developer, Gadget Geek

I blog here

Submitted by wndxlori on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 12:18
 

I hope you

have a great response to your panel. And if Matt is there in the audience, as advertised, I hope he truly gets what you have to say. I sincerely do wish I could be there to see you in action!

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 13:37
 

I find it ironic that

I find it ironic that another talk occuring at the same time is titled "Rails is from Mars, and Ruby is from Venus" and has the following description:

 Rails Is from Mars, Ruby Is from Venus

Rails Has Opinions and Ruby Likes To Talk
Ruby Loves You But Sometimes You Drive Her Crazy
Ruby Likes It When You Do Things Her Way
Rails Performance Enhancement (or, Don’t Be Premature)

 

Submitted by shelleyp on Mon, 05/04/2009 - 05:48
 

I can't stop

giggling.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Mon, 05/04/2009 - 05:58
 

I'll be there

I'm going to be at the Rails conf in Vegas. I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop over the next week. As long as I've been in tech, this discussion has been in full force, both in my own experience and others.

 

Looking forward to seeing how far we've come, or not.

 

Lori, can't wait to meet you!

Leslie: Developer @ Catapult Web Development 

Submitted by mrsflinger on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 12:03
 

Will you or Lori or

some of the other women who will be attending make sure that BlogHers get a link to any posts about the event? I'd love to hear about it.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 13:40
 

I'll try, Virginia

If all else fails, I'll pass them on to you!

Lori M Olson

Consultant Developer, Gadget Geek

I blog here

Submitted by wndxlori on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 14:52
 

Like msjen, the danger is that I'm filled
with ennui, not anger

As I wrote about last year, after what I considered to be a stunningly inappropriate presentation at a media/marketing conference where the audience was nearly half women, I'm tired too.

I don't understand how it's controversial to say that images of women in porn are not appropriate for a technical talk at a conference. or that video of ever-more-scantily clad women servicing adolescent-minded grown men is not appropriate for a media/business talk at a business conference.

Really, how is that difficult to understand?

And yet it is. Still. Each and every time. 1979. 2009. Doesn't seem to matter.

Hence my ennui. :(

Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com

My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!

Submitted by Elisa Camahort on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 12:04
 

Tired of it, or bored with it

I think (I am not a psychiatrist, nor do I play one on TV) that the struggle for equality has failed so many times that we internalize the pain and take it out on ourselves as depression or hopelessness, when in fact a little hot anger would be perfectly appropriate.

BlogHer is a great example of an appropriate response.

There are conferences where this has become a non-issue. For example, SXSW, where a male organizer, namely Hugh Forrest, has managed to create a exciting and helpful event that is friendly to all.

Anybody organizing a conference should have this refrain in his head, "What would Elisa, Lisa, Jory or Hugh think about this?"

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 13:58
 

Thanks for bringing up Hugh

After the first BlogHer, Hugh had us bring a full track of five sessions to SXSW (2006). That year was their biggest yet in terms of both female speakers and female attendees. Since then I have served on the programming advisory committee for SXSW and can tell you that, like BlogHer, Hugh and SXSW care about the twin attributes (and non-mutually exclusive attributes, contrary to what some seem to claim) of diversity AND competence, qualification and creativity.

The values of Hugh and the SXSW conference are on full display when you attend, as it is by far the most diverse business or tech conference I have ever attended. not to say it's perfect or perfectly representative.

But it clearly works. And they, I should point out, are like BlogHer in that they have grown every year. I think being obviously welcome to diverse perspectives and attendees has got to be one reason why!

Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com

My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!

Submitted by Elisa Camahort on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 14:18
 

Tired, yes

And ANGRY and sad and disgusted.

For me, and admittedly from the outside, what's most telling is that although the analogy was porn, from what I've read there weren't any half-naked submissive images of men in the presentation. So then it was sexist and it was more about showing half-naked women to titillate, not about showing porn images to make some bizarre point. (Edited to say: Which, of course, would still be completely unprofessional.) A huge part of the problem for me with the use of naked or half naked images of women in advertising, etc. is that there aren't any corresponding images of men in the same position. Almost all the billboards I see every day that feature titillating images are of women. It's bullshit.

If sex sells, well then show us both sexes.

If I was at this presentation, I suspect I would have felt frozen in my seat feeling smaller and smaller and more disgusted and more angry and more helpless with every minute. But having thought and thought about this for days now, I have made a conscious decision about what I will do if I ever find myself in this situation. (Here's hoping not!)

I will stand up. In the middle of the room, in the middle of the presentation, I will stand up, and I will remain standing unless removed. If people like Matt Aimonetti believe that women exist to be objectified, then surely someone like him won't mind if I stand up so my place in the room is clear for all to see.

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess.

Submitted by Liz Rizzo on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 12:09
 

A Gandhi-like

protest that could be very effective.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 13:43
 

Legal issues

I am surprised and confounded that no one at the conference has sought out the legal side of the obvious sexual harrassment.

Submitted by Adriennevh on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 12:13
 

Do you think

there's a legal case there? I'm not sure how that would work.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 14:07
 

I do

And his pitiful disclaimer is not worth the snot he wrote it with.  Just because he said it might be offensive, he didn't make the same information/material in a trianing/educational setting available another way.  Ergo, you don't go, you don't learn.  So you must be subjected to his idiocy if you want to learn what is being taught.

 

I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on tv.

Submitted by Adriennevh on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 14:33
 

Had to write a little post about it.

Title: This should not be a controversial post

Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com

My BlogHer profile truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!

Submitted by Elisa Camahort on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 12:42
 

Thanks for the link

to your excellent post, Elisa.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 13:45
 

Excellent writeup, Virginia.

Excellent writeup, Virginia.

Submitted by shelleyp on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 18:28
 

Thanks

:)

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 19:16
 

Wow!

Weary and angry and amazed.  Unfortunately, talking about these sorts of issues seems to never work on the people who most need to hear the excellent analysis of your post and the comments above.  Certain men simply shut down when women are telling them their truths, opinions, and - heaven forbid - feelings.

This is one of the reasons I stopped doing diversity work and attending most diversity conferences.  The people who attend got it, the people who didn't come or were forced to come didn't.  It seems that every few years something like this happens.

Sexual images - which these were - are not appropriate at a professional confrence.  He could have been edgy by using images of people's feet.

It would be wonderful if women could flood these sorts of conferences, owned half of all the companies (if not more) and changed this crap inside out.

BTW - thanks for the info about SxSW - I've heard wonderful things about it from many quarters.  Nice to see that it's great because of thoughtful, responsible leadership.

blog.candelariasilva.com

examiner.com/x-2478-Boston-Domestic-Issues_Examiner

Good and plenty!

Submitted by Candelaria Silva on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 04:54
 

In your experience

with diversity work, did it make a difference to call people out by name?

I hesitated about naming the presenter and also about naming @dhh in this post. I don't know them, they may be very nice men. But in the end, I did name them.

Maybe this uproar won't convince every man who was at GoGaRaCo, but it may convince these two (in spite of the lame apology that was posted).

On the other hand, the predatory male who approached my friend has been called out before by name by other women, and he's still at it.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 06:31
 

Outrageous not just for women.

In the tech communities where I work, the people in the community have a wide diversity of backgrounds. We have youth (legal minors) who contribute code. We have people from all faith traditions who do great work on the project. (We also have progressive sex therapists and adult web site creators in the community, too!)

It's a shocking embarrassment. The disrespect toward women is obvious to me, but the other effects of this kind of presentation also need to be stated. If I were the parent of a young contributor and I were chaperoning my child at the conference, I might reconsider whether this community was suitable for my child. If I were a Muslim or Christian developer, I might feel marginalized and out of place. And for what? I'm put off not for any substantive difference about beliefs, development strategy, etc., but just because some guy on stage thinks he has a funny joke.

Is there any way we can address these issues in the moment? I feel like if I had been at the presentation, I would have had a hard time not standing on my chair and shouting.

Submitted by bangpound on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 06:08
 

Not just for women

You commented, "Is there any way we can address these issues in the moment?"

Your idea about standing on a chair and shouting, or Liz's idea about just standing up and being seen are both good ideas. So often we just sit there and hide. Maybe we should stand up and shout.

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer CE
Web Teacher
First 50 Words

Submitted by Virginia DeBolt on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 06:23
 

A dignified stand

Thanks for pointing me to Liz's comment. Probably shouting isn't helpful... standing up would be a strong signal.

Standing up in a presentation will take courage and confidence, but it also signals to others who may be unsure or lacking confidence that their reaction is not isolated. We also can leverage the real time communication tools that are often employed at tech conferences -- Twitter, IM and IRC -- to get other perspectives.

The tactic of disruption by standing up or on a chair is probably a good one, and it's useful to agree on this before the time comes to do it!

There also needs to be an understanding of threshold (i.e. when to stand up vs. when to confront the speaker after his/her presentation), and this will vary by community and context.

Submitted by bangpound on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 07:41
 

The image that made me the angriest

http://amidlifeofprivilege.blogspot.com

 

The image that made me the angriest was the one on scalability. Not pornographic per se. A little chick, arrow, a phalanx of young women. Quite obviously, chicks. A commodity. Something to portray multiples, fungible, blade servers, racks and racks of them. And I use the word rack advisedly.

Submitted by LPC on Sun, 05/03/2009 - 10:00
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