technology

Changing Tech Culture’s Attitude Towards Women

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com  Steve’s Tumblr)

Management consultant Erwin Van Der Koogh wrote an essay on tech and how women are treated, “This industry and living life on the lowest difficulty setting,”  Go read the entire thing, but he pretty much sums it up by noting that at a tech conference his worst fear is making a mistake, but a female colleague’s worst fear is sexual assault and harassment.

It pretty much sums up issues of women in tech in that they face inordinate issues men don’t face, and these issues are pretty horrific.  When people say white male is the lowest difficulty setting in, say, tech, that’s because we’re not facing the same challenges.  We’re playing a game with infinite lives; women are playing Dark Souls III.

His experiences and those of the woman he writes about are not alone.  I’ve talked about bias in tech to a room nodding sadly.  Everyone in tech who listens can hear stories about sexism.  Just watch the news in tech, and stories of bias pop up repeatedly.

It’s wrong.

It’s wrong on any number of ethical levels, moral levels, societal levels, and civic levels.  Bigotry of any kind is corrosive, acid on the soul, eating away decent things.

It’s wrong in tech, an industry that should put ideas and work and creativity first – but too often doesn’t.  When someone’s gender matters more than their work, then that’s anathema to what we’re supposedly about.

And as a white guy – and if you’re one of me in tech – as Erwin points out, we need to make an effort to solve it.  I’ll put it simply – we’re having a comparatively easy time, we have the (at times unwarranted) attention, so we have the ability to make a difference, and we should.  Else we’re letting our industry be something it shouldn’t be, as well as letting our fellow techs drag themselves down with their own bias.

Tech should be what we think it is.

 

Erwin proposes solutions where we work on ourselves, which is vital.  Start with yourself – I can thank my lucky stars I had several female managers and co-workers that helped me see sexism and deal with it.

I’d say we also need to call out sexism in tech when possible, be it in person or on Twitter or whatever.  Just get into the habit of it.

However a big thing we should do is change the culture of tech.  To do that, there’s plenty of places to get involved in REALLY changing the culture – the organizations.  If you want to make a difference promote these or help out.  We change the culture by getting involved and supporting women getting into tech – and staying there.

  • Girl Develop IT – A nonprofit that provides accessible programs for women who want to learn coding.
  • Girls Learning Code – A Canadian non-profit that focuses on helping young women learn technical skills in a supportive atmosphere.
  • Girls Teaching Girls To Code – A Bay Area program where women in CS teach Bay Area high school girls to code.
  • Grace Hopper Celebration – Produced by the Anita Borg institute, this is a celebration of women in computing.
  • Ladies Learning Code – A Canadian non-profit that focuses on helping people learn beginner technical skills in a comfortable, social way.
  • Made With Code – Promotes women in coding with projects, events, and mentoring. Has several alliances and supporters.
  • Mothercoders – An organization focused on helping mothers get tech-savvy and up-to-date for this economy
  • National Center For Women And Information Technology – Focuses on correcting gender imbalance in technology, and bringing the balance of diversity to the industry.
  • Rails Girls – A worldwide group that works to empower women with technology.
  • The Ada Initiative – An organization that supports women in technology, with a heavy emphasis on codes of conduct, training, and an embrace of open source.
  • Tech Girls Canada – Provides national leadership for the various industry groups in Canada encouraging women in tech careers.
  • Girls Make Games – A series of international summer camps encouraging girls to explore the world of video games.

The resources are there.

– Steve

Technology, Humanity: Values And What We Value

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OK let me wade into the Paul Graham clusterbumble.  For those who haven’t kept up, Graham made a rather bizarre post about economic inequality that pretty much got him roasted like nuts by various people.  Though I think he sort of meant well, it was a bizarre case of self-aggrandizement, ignoring actual inequality issues, and defending some wealth inequality in a way that amplified the other problems of his “position”.  It was, to be charitable, a piece by someone wanting to sound smart and informed and revealing the opposite.

One of the place where his walnuts got toasted was over at Medium, where “Holly Wood” noted his defense’s problems, and this quote stood out, as noted by my good friend Serdar.  In a nutshell it caught everything wrong with the elitist ideas in Silicon Valley (not I don’t say “of” Silicon Valley since it’s a lot more diverse here than people realize).:

You end up going to absurd lengths to rationalize mediocre ideas because they happen to make tons of money instead of questioning the legitimacy of a system that confers so much value on to stupid things. To stay consistent, you have to defend the logic that the creepy women who founded Peeple contribute more value to society than literally thousands of 4th grade teachers.

 

Serdar rightly notes that this leads us to the uncomfortable position of having to evaluate our values.  Some of our values may not just be bad ideas, they may be actively harmful.

Ultimately our values dictate what we value.  What we think is important affects what we seek out, do, and create.

And, right now, too much tech – too much of society – is based around the idea of the almighty dollar as the arbiter of value over all else.  It doesn’t take much effort to realize that if you ultimately value ‘someone making a ton of money, hopefully me’ it says that your values . . . really aren’t that valuable.  It’s just numbers and pieces of paper being pushed around and biggest pile wins.  It’s trite, meaningless, and damned dangerous when we have other issues to solve and more important things to pursue.

It’s time for technologists – including myself – to ask what our values are and take action to keep, expand, and enhance what is truly of value.

Know what?  The whole pile-of-money-is-best idea is a bad idea.  All it leads to is less  and less people with more and more money, stabbing each other in the back to get to the top of the mountain while everything buns.  You can pretty it up anyway you want, but that’s what money-is-all – an all-to-common value held by people – leads to.  A deathmatch where nothing is left.

Not particularly valuable is it?

As Anil Dash notes in his own essay, it’s time to make our technologies, companies, and what we do with them more humane.  He’s damned right on this.  If technology is only about the biggest pile of money, then it’s worthless, valueless.  It’s just a way station among meltdowns and moneygrabs.

And you know the whole idea that Silicon Valley is a bunch of bloodsucking neo-libertarian asses?  Not true.  Not even some of the people we think are that way.  All of us here are people, and a lot of us are trying.

But I think we need to consider our values. And that should be humanity first, because we’re all human, and it’s better to be human together than inhuman rushing to be last man standing on the then-worthless pile of benjamins.

– Steve

 

 

 

Make It So: Procedural Jogging

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The exercise treadmills at my apartment complex are pretty neat – beyond a variety of options (including a game of Solitaire), they have an option to show a video that simulates walking at a location. Basically it gives you something to look at beside your heart rate, has interesting historical notes, and provides an interesting experience. Running indoors can be a might boring, and it’s an appreciated addition I take advantage of because, hey, when am I going to get to jog through scenic parts of Germany.

But it’s the same few tracks. So one day while using the treadmills I began thinking about how it could be more interesting. This conflated with my love of procedurally generated environments, including “walking simulator” Proteus and the amazing environments of the upcoming “No Man’s Sky.”

Then I asked why can’t someone create a Procedural Environment generator for these Treadmills?

Imagine this. You can select from some common setups, or tweak them from the start, and then have the display screen walk you through a generated environment. Maybe you want a desert or a forest, a sci-fi landscape or a fantasy land – set it up and explore as you exercise.

There you go. Every Treadmill trip is a new experience. One day you may walk across a ruin-filled desert, the other up a green mountain path. Maybe you’ll take a run through the Dwarf Kingdom or across an unknown world. Every time it’s different even if you choose the same basic settings.  It’d add a lot to the experience.

Now imagine taking this farther.

Perhaps you could have generated narratives, notes, or events. A bit of history-that-never was pops up here and there. A little note about the properties of an imaginary plant appears. A starship streaks across the sky and crashes nearby. The trip can feel like you’re in a real, living place.

On top of this, perhaps add a bit of gamification. Every now and then you may find an option to climb a stairway or open a door or turn left or right. The trip becomes even more engaging as you have power to affect what you see next – and you never know when the next option will pop up.

Finally, perhaps you can save your experience to share with others, even if it’s just writing down a code. Other people can see the same sites you did – and if there’s options, you can re-explore an old new world differently.

Go on people, Make It So.

  • Steve