Grace Hopper Conference

[audette]

So, this hit the news last week, and a colleague asked me about it today.  Basically, it's _meant_ to be a women-only (or nearly there, as in, very few men) tech conference.

But...  apparently this year some guys figured out they could register as women for the event, and showed up in droves, causing headaches all over.


www.npr.org/2023/10/05/1203845886/women-tech-conference-men-grace-hopper



Thoughts?  How should the org that runs this conference respond?

[goldengirlz]

Whoa! I did not hear about this, but my company sends a huge number of people to this conference every year.

This paragraph:

“Women were disproportionately affected by those cuts, making up 69.2% of all tech layoffs, according to The Women Tech Network. And that's on top of the industry's ongoing gender imbalance. Women hold just 26% of jobs across all STEM occupations and even less — 24% — in computer fields, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Department of Labor.”

Just goes to show that most of the jobs held by women in tech are not technical jobs (but marketing, recruitment) and therefore the first to get cut in a layoff.

[moreace01]

I hadn't heard about this either - but I was OOO/country for the last few weeks. I didn't hear this report from the folks at my company who attended.

I guess to goldengirlz point - there are so few women in tech and this is one of the few safe spaces for us to network and try and grow our careers. It's maddening that men used this event as an opportunity to advance their own careers when the whole industry is set up for them to succeed. I'm also extremely disheartened (although sadly not surprised) to hear reports of harassment and men pushing women out of the way. That behavior is partially the reason the conference exists in the first place.

As for inviting men to the conference - I want to say that I have no problem with men to attend and listen to what women have to say. That means they need to take a back seat, listen and act as actual allies instead of focusing on themselves.

[pixy0stix]

The men who attended really did a good job of proving *why* safe places for women need to exist. What utter manchildren.

[goldengirlz]

This was a top post on this topic on the tech gossip app Blind:

As a men I completely support those guys. They allow non binary people to enter the conference then why not just represent as non-binary.

Let’s be honest, there is no need for conference just for women because if it was opposite, just for men, then it would be sexist. Just because you are a women, doesn’t give you the right to talk to big firm recruiters. Guys work just as hard and they don’t get that chance.

If we are talking about equality then make competition fair for everyone.

It sickens me that these people could literally be my chickenshit coworkers.

[onthemove]

We’ve had this issue with a Women in Aviation Conference. Once they started having airlines there for recruiting/hiring vs informational, there were equal number of men. But they weren’t there to attend the conf to listen and learn, they only went to the hiring fair. It was so demoralizing, and I wasn’t even looking for a job! I think it’s like 6-12% of airline pilots are women.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Oct 11, 2023 12:19:40 GMT -5 moreace01 said:

As for inviting men to the conference - I want to say that I have no problem with men to attend and listen to what women have to say. That means they need to take a back seat, listen and act as actual allies instead of focusing on themselves.

We have a huge conference for women every year at work and men can attend, but it's made pretty clear that they are expected to be quiet and listen and learn only. Every year I've gone there's been a handful of men. Definitely less than 5% of attendees.

[nothingcontroversial]

I found this excerpt interesting:

Some of the attendees said they felt like the organizers had prioritized profit over people, registering more attendees than they had the capacity to handle, then subjecting women and nonbinary workers to a familiar feeling of needing to compete with men.

"You're basically paying hundreds to do the same thing that you're experiencing in the industry, trying desperately to get your resume everywhere," said Agnes Lu, a master's student in computer science at Northeastern University. "It feels like we were tricked."


So, shame on the conference organizers.

Also, of course people are going to screw over other people in order to get an "advantage" for limited opportunities (or perceived limited opportunities). 

[Deleted]

Oct 11, 2023 18:38:35 GMT -5 nothingcontroversial said:

So, shame on the conference organizers.

;

I wonder, what could they have done though? These men lied on their registration and said they were female or non-binary. Maybe the organizers registered too many people for the space, but I don’t know that there’s much they could have done about people lying on their registration.

[aurora]

Oct 11, 2023 12:53:20 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

This was top post on this topic on the tech gossip app Blind:

As a men I completely support those guys. They allow non binary people to enter the conference then why not just represent as non-binary.

Let’s be honest, there is no need for conference just for women because if it was opposite, just for men, then it would be sexist. Just because you are a women, doesn’t give you the right to talk to big firm recruiters. Guys work just as hard and they don’t get that chance.

If we are talking about equality then make competition fair for everyone.

It sickens me that these people could literally be my chickenshit coworkers.

My perception as a woman in a very male-dominated field is that there are a growing number of men convinced that it's actually men who bear the brunt of discrimination, largely citing the fact that safe spaces for women exist. They refuse to understand that things like subconscious bias even exist and that gender-based (and race-based) affinity groups and events are barely scratching the surface toward evening the playing field. It's so disheartening.

[jlt19]

Oct 11, 2023 20:39:24 GMT -5 aurora said:

Oct 11, 2023 12:53:20 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

This was top post on this topic on the tech gossip app Blind:

As a men I completely support those guys. They allow non binary people to enter the conference then why not just represent as non-binary.

Let’s be honest, there is no need for conference just for women because if it was opposite, just for men, then it would be sexist. Just because you are a women, doesn’t give you the right to talk to big firm recruiters. Guys work just as hard and they don’t get that chance.

If we are talking about equality then make competition fair for everyone.

It sickens me that these people could literally be my chickenshit coworkers.

My perception as a woman in a very male-dominated field is that there are a growing number of men convinced that it's actually men who bear the brunt of discrimination, largely citing the fact that safe spaces for women exist. They refuse to understand that things like subconscious bias even exist and that gender-based (and race-based) affinity groups and events are barely scratching the surface toward evening the playing field. It's so disheartening.

It’s the anti DE&I craze. They always felt that way, they just feel safer saying it out loud.

[pixy0stix]

So the males think their resumes aren't going to be viewed negatively when they've crashed a female/nonbinary event? I'm having trouble seeing the rationale.

[basilosaurus]

To be clear I liked goldengirlz post for the line about chicken shit coworkers, not for the stupidity that man felt entitled to share.

I've been in both tech and nursing, so about as opposite as you can get with gender imbalance. Unfortunately entitled men exist everywhere. You still hear about reverse discrimination.

Even in the 90s I heard my generally supportive encouraging dad unintentionally demean my applying to engineering schools by saying he'd have a harder time than I "these days" because he's a white Christian male. Nevermind that I outperformed him on every metric (oh they rescored the sat was his excuse).

Not for the first time I dream of a world without men. I can get a ladder and bob, so without height (my extremely average in America height is equal to or taller than most here anyway) and their junk, what else are they really offering? Assistance with overhead bins?