{"id":6852,"date":"2017-07-05T15:55:09","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T19:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/?p=6852"},"modified":"2017-07-05T15:55:09","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T19:55:09","slug":"tech-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/archives\/2017\/07\/05\/tech-culture.html","title":{"rendered":"Tech Culture Can Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

We need: Recognition, Repentance, Respect, and Reparation.<\/em><\/h3>\n

To be honest, what surprises me most about the current conversation about the inhospitable nature of tech for women is that people are surprised. To say that discrimination, harassment, and sexual innuendos are an open secret is an understatement. I don\u2019t know a woman in tech who doesn\u2019t have war stories. Yet, for whatever reason, we are now in a moment where people are paying attention. And for that, I am grateful.<\/p>\n

Like many women in tech, I\u2019ve developed strategies for coping. I\u2019ve had to in order to stay in the field. I\u2019ve tried to be \u201cone of the guys,\u201d pretending to blend into the background as sexist speech was jockeyed about in the hopes that I could just fit in. I\u2019ve tried to be the kid sister, the freaky weirdo, the asexual geek, etc. I\u2019ve even tried to use my sexuality to my advantage in the hopes that maybe I could recover some of the lost opportunity that I faced by being a woman. It took me years to realize that none of these strategies would make me feel like I belonged. Many even made me feel worse.<\/p>\n

For years, I included Ani DiFranco lyrics in every snippet of code I wrote, as well as my signature. I\u2019ve maintained a lyrics site since I was 18 because her words give me strength for coping with the onslaught of commentary and gross behavior. \u201cSelf-preservation is a full-time occupation.\u201d <\/a>I can\u2019t tell you how often I\u2019ve sat in a car during a conference or after a meeting singing along off-key at full volume with tears streaming down my face, just trying to keep my head together.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s at stake is not about a few bad actors. There\u2019s also a range of behaviors getting lumped together, resulting in folks asking if inescapable sexual overtures are really that bad compared to assault. That\u2019s an unproductive conversation because the fundamental problem is the normalization of atrocious behavior that makes room for a wide range of inappropriate actions. Fundamentally, the problem with systemic sexism is that it\u2019s not the individual people who are the problem. It\u2019s the culture. And navigating the culture is exhausting and disheartening. It\u2019s the collection of particles of sand that quickly becomes a mountain that threatens to bury you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s having to constantly stomach sexist comments with a smile, having to work twice as hard to be heard in a meeting, having to respond to people who ask if you\u2019re on the panel because they needed a woman. It\u2019s about going to conferences where deals are made in the sauna but being told that you have to go to the sauna with \u201cthe wives\u201d (a pejoratively constructed use of the word). It\u2019s about people assuming you\u2019re sleeping with whoever said something nice about you. It\u2019s being told \u201cyou\u2019re kinda smart for a chick\u201d when you volunteer to help a founder. It\u2019s knowing that you\u2019ll receive sexualized threats for commenting on certain topics as a blogger. It\u2019s giving a talk at a conference and being objectified by the audience<\/a>. It\u2019s building whisper campaigns among women to indicate which guys to avoid. It\u2019s using Dodgeball\/Foursquare to know which parties not to attend based on who has checked in. It\u2019s losing friends because you won\u2019t work with a founder who you watched molest a woman at a party (and then watching Justin Timberlake portray that founder\u2019s behavior as entertainment).<\/p>\n

Lots of people in tech have said completely inappropriate things to women. I also recognize that many of those guys are trying to fit into the sexist norms of tech too, trying to replicate the culture that they see around them because they too are struggling for status. But that\u2019s the problem. Once guys receive power and status within the sector, they don\u2019t drop their inappropriate language. They don\u2019t change their behavior or call out others on how insidious it is. They let the same dynamics fester as though it\u2019s just part of the hazing ritual.<\/p>\n

For women who succeed in tech, the barrage of sexism remains. It just changes shape as we get\u00a0older.<\/p>\n

On Friday night, after reading the NYTimes article on tech industry harassment<\/a>, I was deeply sad. Not because the stories were shocking\u200a\u2014\u200afrankly, those incidents are minor compared to some of what I\u2019ve seen. I was upset because stories like this typically polarize and prompt efforts to focus on individuals rather than the culture. There\u2019s an assumption that these are one-off incidents. They\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

I appreciate that Dave and Chris owned up to their role in contributing to a hostile culture. I know that it\u2019s painful to hear that something you said or did hurt someone else when you didn\u2019t intend that to be the case. I hope that they\u2019re going through a tremendous amount of soul-searching and self-reflection. I appreciate Chris\u2019 willingness to take to Medium<\/a> to effectively say \u201cI screwed up.\u201d Ideally, they will both come out of this willing to make amends and right their wrongs.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, most people don\u2019t actually respond productively when they\u2019re called out. Shaming can often backfire.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons that most people don\u2019t speak up is that it\u2019s far more common for guys who are called out on their misdeeds to respond the way that Marc Canter appeared to do, by justifying his behavior and demonizing the woman who accused him of sexualizing her. Given my own experiences with his sexist commentary, I decided to tweet out in solidarity by publicly sharing how he repeatedly asked me for a threesome with his wife early on in my career. At the time, I was young and I was genuinely scared of him; I spent a lot of time and emotional energy avoiding him, and struggled with how to navigate him at various conferences. I wasn\u2019t the only one who faced his lewd comments, often framed as being sex-positive even when they were an abuse of power. My guess is that Marc has no idea how many women he\u2019s made feel uncomfortable, ashamed, and scared. The question is whether or not he will admit that to himself, let alone to others.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not interested in calling people out for sadistic pleasure. I want to see the change that most women in tech long for. At its core, the tech industry is idealistic and dreamy, imagining innovations that could change the world. Yet, when it comes to self-reflexivity, tech is just as regressive as many other male-dominated sectors. Still, I fully admit that I hold it to a higher standard in no small part because of the widespread commitment in tech to change the world for the better, however flawed that fantastical idealism is.<\/p>\n

Given this, what I want from men in tech boils down to four Rs: Recognition. Repentance. Respect. Reparation.<\/p>\n

Recognition.<\/strong> I want to see everyone\u200a\u2014\u200amen and women\u200a\u2014\u200arecognize how contributing to a culture of sexism takes us down an unhealthy path, not only making tech inhospitable for women but also undermining the quality of innovation and enabling the creation of tech that does societal harm. I want men in particular to reflect on how the small things that they do and say that they self-narrate as part of the game can do real and lasting harm, regardless of what they intended or what status level they have within the sector. I want those who witness the misdeeds of others to understand that they\u2019re contributing to the problem.<\/p>\n

Repentance.<\/strong> I want guys in tech\u200a\u2014\u200aand especially those founders and funders who hold the keys to others\u2019 opportunity\u200a\u2014\u200ato take a moment and think about those that they\u2019ve hurt in their path to success and actively, intentionally, and voluntarily apologize and ask for forgiveness. I want them to reach out to someone they said something inappropriate to, someone whose life they made difficult and say \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Respect.<\/strong> I want to see a culture of respect actively nurtured and encouraged alongside a culture of competition. Respect requires acknowledging others\u2019 struggles, appreciating each others\u2019 strengths and weaknesses, and helping each other through hard times. Many of the old-timers in tech are nervous that tech culture is being subsumed by financialization. Part of resisting this transformation is putting respect front and center. Long-term success requires thinking holistically about society, not just focusing on current capitalization.<\/p>\n

Reparation.<\/strong> Every guy out there who wants to see tech thrive owes it to the field to actively seek out and mentor, support, fund, open doors for, and otherwise empower women and people of color. No excuses, no self-justifications, no sexualized bullshit. Just behavior change. Plain and simple. If our sector is about placing bets, let\u2019s bet on a better world. And let\u2019s solve for social equity.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of respect for the women who are telling their stories, but we owe it to them to listen to the culture that they\u2019re describing. Sadly, there are so many more stories that are not yet told. I realize that these stories are more powerful when people are named. My only hope is that those who are risking the backlash to name names will not suffer for doing so. Ideally, those who are named will not try to self-justify but acknowledge and accept that they\u2019ve caused pain. I strongly believe that changing the norms is the only path forward. So while I want to see people held accountable, I especially want to see the industry work towards encouraging and supporting behavior change. At the end of the day, we will not solve the systemic culture of sexism by trying to weed out bad people, but we can work towards rendering bad behavior permanently unacceptable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We need: Recognition, Repentance, Respect, and Reparation. To be honest, what surprises me most about the current conversation about the inhospitable nature of tech for women is that people are surprised. To say that discrimination, harassment, and sexual innuendos are an open secret is an understatement. I don\u2019t know a woman in tech who doesn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2041,516,1746],"class_list":["post-6852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-harassment","tag-sexism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6853,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6852\/revisions\/6853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}