Must It Always Be About Sex?

Why do some people keep talking about diversity? Who cares if we're all the same? So long as we're not technically discriminating against anyone, that means we're good, right? If we only get applications from white dudes, that must mean that white dudes are the only ones out there. Right? Right?

When we feel threatened, we find comfort among people who seem most like us. As specialization increases in the community, we glom on to people who look like us, talk like us, and think like us. There's safety in a crowd. But there are real dangers in becoming too much alike: monotony breeds more monotony. Real innovation happens when you think different than everyone else. What happens when we ruthlessly eliminate different thinkers, as we winnow the stack of resumés to those that seem most likely to "fit in"?

Come to this talk to find out what you can do to diversify - yourself, your organization, and your peers - and how you can help grow a better, stronger, more diverse community.

Transcript

1. Must It Always Be About Sex? Joshua Wehner @jaw6 Friday, September 30, 2011
2. What Diversity Problem? Friday, September 30, 2011
3. •In 2009, girls represented 18% of the AP Computer Science exam-takers. •Women hold more than half of all US professional occupations, but only 25% of computer-related occupations •In 2009 women earned only 18 percent of all CS degrees. In 1985, women earned 37 percent of CS degrees. http://www.ncwit.org/about.factsheet.html Friday, September 30, 2011
4. icons by http://www.iconbuffet.com RubyConf 2010: 39 / 750 5.6% Female Friday, September 30, 2011
5. icons by http://www.iconbuffet.com RubyConf 2011: 30 / 500 6% Female Friday, September 30, 2011
6. Stats from http://www.flosspols.org/ - icons from http://www.iconbuffet.com Open Source: 1.5% Female Friday, September 30, 2011
7. More black people have died from lightning than have become professors of computer science. http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/computer-science/ Friday, September 30, 2011
8. http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2008/barack-obama-on-november-4-2008/ Friday, September 30, 2011
9. When a family owns only one computer, more often than not that computer is put in the bedroom of the oldest boy. http://www.marieclaire.com/career-money/advice/sue-gardner-tech-executive Friday, September 30, 2011
10. http://implicit.harvard.edu Friday, September 30, 2011
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14. That’s Not My Name •Black-sounding names are 50 percent less likely to get a callback than white- sounding names with otherwise identical CVs. •Men who include a photo with their CV increase their chances of getting a callback. However, even attractive women decrease their chances by 20% http://www.trajectoryofeverything.com/2011/02/hiring-bias.html Friday, September 30, 2011
15. But Why should I care? Friday, September 30, 2011
16. Is This Your Idea of the Mobile Web? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_phones Friday, September 30, 2011
17. http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/documents/pubsSommersDeterminants.pdf Friday, September 30, 2011
18. Patents created by mixed- gender teams are more often cited, a sign of their innovation and usefulness, yet women have been involved in only 9% of all US patents. http://www.ncwit.org/about.factsheet.html Friday, September 30, 2011
19. "Trying to fit in" - andrewmalone - http://flic.kr/p/9jE5AC Friday, September 30, 2011
20. People experiencing fear are less creative in problem solving... Fear makes you more careful in your work, but it also makes you less willing to take risks, try new ideas, and make progress. http://blog.valerieaurora.org/2011/05/20/on-the-necessity-of-assholes/ Friday, September 30, 2011
21. 75% 25% Family Workplace Culture 3,700 women engineers who had left the field Stemming the Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering - Nadya Fouad and Romila Singh - http://www.studyofwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NSFreport2 Friday, September 30, 2011
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23. What can WE do? Friday, September 30, 2011
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25. Work After Work •Married women spend 3x - 7x more hours on cleaning & laundry than their husbands •7 / 10 married men agreed “child- care should be shared equally” - but 2 / 3 of moms said they took care of child-care http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/courses/knowbody/f04/web2/sansell.html Friday, September 30, 2011
26. https://twitter.com/garannm/status/53131501725954048 Friday, September 30, 2011
27. Language Matters We are determined to deliver superior medical treatment tailored to each individual patient We are committed to providing top quality health care that is sympathetic to the needs of our patients http://today.duke.edu/2011/05/jobad Friday, September 30, 2011
28. http://xkcd.com/378/ Friday, September 30, 2011
29. • Likes people and enjoys communicating with them and understanding how they think. • Can put him or herself in other people’s shoes and reliably imagine how they might react to different parts of the UI. • Applies consistent effort and recognizes that working in a way that promotes long term productivity will yield better results. • Shares credit with the entire team or entire internets. Better Programmer? http://www.stubbornella.org/content/2010/07/26/woman-in-technology/ Friday, September 30, 2011
30. If people do things extraordinarily well but persistently demean others, they ought to be treated as incompetent. “The No Asshole Rule” - Robert Sutton The “No Asshole” Rule Friday, September 30, 2011
31. Develop a culture where people know when to argue and when to stop fighting and listen to other people. Fight as if you are right, listen as if you are wrong. “The No Asshole Rule” - Robert Sutton Friday, September 30, 2011
32. assert things_that_dont_really_matter. include?('syntax differences') things_we_can_learn_to_tolerate. should have_one('personal preferences') Friday, September 30, 2011
33. emma reading the newspaper - dsevilla - http://flic.kr/p/3UPdQ6 Friday, September 30, 2011
34. Stop counting There are 43 photographs in this newspaper. Friday, September 30, 2011
35. Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky-its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html Friday, September 30, 2011
36. "The fork in the road" - i_yudai - http://flic.kr/p/4xU5Vx Friday, September 30, 2011
37. Dunechaser - http://flic.kr/p/51ntpR Friday, September 30, 2011
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40. http://rubyonrails.org/core Friday, September 30, 2011
41. http://tinyurl.com/how-computer-scientists-look This is What a Computer Scientist Looks Like Friday, September 30, 2011
42. Once and for all we must recognize that the heart and soul of discrimination, the last refuge of the bigot, is to say that those who are discriminated against deserve it because they are less good. http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html Friday, September 30, 2011
43. •Reprogram or remove all assholes •Anonymize applications & proposals •Spend more time outside your comfort zone •Be weird Friday, September 30, 2011
44. http://www.eniacprogrammers.org/ Friday, September 30, 2011
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48. Must It Always Be About Sex? Joshua Wehner @jaw6 Friday, September 30, 2011