Comments on: JAOO and Women: Attendance at Conferences http://sarahtaraporewalla.com/thoughts/women-in-it/jaoo-and-women-attendance-at-conferences/ Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:50:32 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Dahlia http://sarahtaraporewalla.com/thoughts/women-in-it/jaoo-and-women-attendance-at-conferences/comment-page-1/#comment-5593 Dahlia Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:10:51 +0000 http://sarahtaraporewalla.com/thoughts/?p=273#comment-5593 Personally I feel that we've beaten the feminist-horse down to a lump of dead flesh already (forgive the morbidness). Crying discrimination isn't going to get women into a better place than they were before, and I agree with Vicki that positive discrimination is still discrimination which is why I shun any sort of move that encourages that behavior. Women and men are inherently and vastly different and therefore measuring them on the same scale would just be doing both genders injustice. You've pointed one difference out quite adequately, where the female would generally feel more hesitance than the male. Though that is a generalized problem for females, it could also be a problem for a particular individual, regardless of gender. With regards to your point about whether or not it could be a female trait, you might be right because I feel the same way too, but I take it as a challenge for me to better myself to a point where I feel confident enough to give a presentation, or if I was thrown into a situation where I had to do it and there was no way out :) either way would work I think. The efforts to encourage more women to venture into IT are laudable but we should also be careful not to do it at the expense of men. I think it's definitely possible to weasel out the reasons why women shy away from this profession and to do so without waving that feminist flag. Personally I feel that we’ve beaten the feminist-horse down to a lump of dead flesh already (forgive the morbidness). Crying discrimination isn’t going to get women into a better place than they were before, and I agree with Vicki that positive discrimination is still discrimination which is why I shun any sort of move that encourages that behavior.

Women and men are inherently and vastly different and therefore measuring them on the same scale would just be doing both genders injustice. You’ve pointed one difference out quite adequately, where the female would generally feel more hesitance than the male. Though that is a generalized problem for females, it could also be a problem for a particular individual, regardless of gender.

With regards to your point about whether or not it could be a female trait, you might be right because I feel the same way too, but I take it as a challenge for me to better myself to a point where I feel confident enough to give a presentation, or if I was thrown into a situation where I had to do it and there was no way out :) either way would work I think.

The efforts to encourage more women to venture into IT are laudable but we should also be careful not to do it at the expense of men. I think it’s definitely possible to weasel out the reasons why women shy away from this profession and to do so without waving that feminist flag.

]]> By: Vicki http://sarahtaraporewalla.com/thoughts/women-in-it/jaoo-and-women-attendance-at-conferences/comment-page-1/#comment-5573 Vicki Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:16:29 +0000 http://sarahtaraporewalla.com/thoughts/?p=273#comment-5573 It's an interesting topic... I'm torn between the idea that it's discrimination to try to get extra women to conferences just because they're women (positive discrimination is still discrimination) and the idea that maybe there are things that are keeping women away. It does sound like you guys are having more of a problem in IT than us in UX... we have a lot more women though. In terms of the speaking thing... I also thought "I don't know enough to present", but then I attended a conference and realised that I do actually know enough to talk about something interesting - everyone has their own area of expertise or interest that other people don't know about. I've been running short talks every second Friday at my workplace - company-wide invitations, everyone's encouraged to get up and speak for 6 minutes about a topic of their choice (work-related or not), and the only caveat is that it has to be at a level that everyone across all disciplines can be interested in it (ie no talks that would only be interesting to someone in your discipline). People are really concerned at the start and say things similar to what you were saying - "But I don't know what people would be interested" or "I don't know enough to talk about it" or "everyone knows that". Once they give a talk, they realise though that everyone doesn't know it, and everyone appreciates the time to share the knowledge. Interesting progression ;) It’s an interesting topic… I’m torn between the idea that it’s discrimination to try to get extra women to conferences just because they’re women (positive discrimination is still discrimination) and the idea that maybe there are things that are keeping women away.

It does sound like you guys are having more of a problem in IT than us in UX… we have a lot more women though.

In terms of the speaking thing… I also thought “I don’t know enough to present”, but then I attended a conference and realised that I do actually know enough to talk about something interesting – everyone has their own area of expertise or interest that other people don’t know about.

I’ve been running short talks every second Friday at my workplace – company-wide invitations, everyone’s encouraged to get up and speak for 6 minutes about a topic of their choice (work-related or not), and the only caveat is that it has to be at a level that everyone across all disciplines can be interested in it (ie no talks that would only be interesting to someone in your discipline). People are really concerned at the start and say things similar to what you were saying – “But I don’t know what people would be interested” or “I don’t know enough to talk about it” or “everyone knows that”. Once they give a talk, they realise though that everyone doesn’t know it, and everyone appreciates the time to share the knowledge. Interesting progression ;)

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