I’m writing this quickly, and may come back to edit later, but wanted to get my thoughts down:
Recently, Clay Shirky asked why the women he teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Department at NYU don’t seem able to self-promote their capabilities in the technology sector as well as the men he teaches. I’ve had occasion to work with Clay at ITP in the past, and I know he is an incredibly decent and deeply fair person. Maybe that’s why I was surprised to be so frustrated by what he wrote.
Clay is probably right to suggest that to if you are a young professional who wants to get ahead in the areas like social media, you are probably going to need to be able to self-promote. Where he’s wrong is in his answer that women need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and stop being ‘nice.’ This advice isn’t just condescending as hell, it also exhibits a pretty massive blind spot to the historical lack of women role models in the tech sector.
Yes, I know there were always women in computing. I also know that once computing became associated with programming and the ENIAC was developed, you could count on two hands the amount of women employed in computer programming. There’s an old saying that the children of cops want to be lawyers, the children of lawyers want to be judges, and the children of judges want to be on the Supreme Court. Until the last generation, the daughters of female tech sector workers at best hoped to move up from the typing pool. There were almost NO women we could watch laboring in boardrooms, backrooms, locker rooms, pool rooms—all the places corporate culture power plays take place.
But rather than staying stuck in history, let’s imagine a future in which things for women in the tech sector move forward, rather than staying the same (or moving backward.) Let’s go one step further and imagine what a strong, secure, female role model in a computer-related industry might be like.
In the Victorian Age, people became obsessed with the idea that technological history might yield a "New Woman"--independent, autonomous (and to be fair, often the site of derision.) Let's imagine what a sort of "New Woman" might emerge from a tech sector with female leadership for more than a generation or two. What sort of statements would she be able to make about herself? What would be her ethical code?
In the spirit of hippy-dippy hopefulness, and with a tip of the hat to Peggy Macintosh, I provide ten statements coming from such an imaginary ‘new woman’ of the future. Truthfully, I have yet to meet a woman (myself included) who has been fortunate to claim even three of the statements. I’d be interested in how other people react to this thought exercise, which I blame on New Year optimism as much as anything else.
TEN STATEMENTS FROM A ‘NEW WOMAN’ OF THE TECH SECTOR
1. As a child, I had regular contact with a female role model--a grandmother, mother, aunt, sister, or older friend—who worked the industry in which I now find myself working (in a position other than support staff).
2. As I grew older these women professionals became unofficial mentors to me. They offered me opportunities to observe their worlds at a safe distance or even officially through mechanisms like internships, demonstrating how one exhibits professional codes of conduct and effectively networks with those outside one’s own family.
3. As a student, I routinely noticed that there were large numbers of female teachers and professors teaching subjects that interested me and were considered to be valuable and ‘job worthy.’
4. As a student, I was fortunate enough to be counseled by a teacher, advisor, or internship coordinator who facilitated regular group activities involving myself and other young women training in my field. Rather than competing with one another, we began thinking of ourselves as an ‘old girls club.’
5. As a graduate, I feel comfortable asking some of these women from my past to recommend me in at least two categories: as a rising ‘star’, and as a decent colleague capable of acting in a group’s best interest.
6. As an employee, I’m pleased to say that the place I work employs fairly equal amounts of men and women in technical, ‘creative’, managerial AND service roles.
7. As a work colleague, I believe I am where I am today as a result of others’ concerted acts of care and education on my behalf. I don’t think it’s a sacrifice to work for and with other people: I think it’s a gift given back in honor of those who got me where I am.
8. As a spokesperson for my industry, I question moments when I seem the token women on a panel, or (even stranger) why so many discussions about ‘what women want’ seem dominated by men. No, it’s not something I like. Yes, I worry I won’t be asked back. I do it anyway, because it’s my responsibility. Let someone call me ‘that bitch’; I can take it. I was raised right.
9. As a teacher, I understand that my students’ perceptions of their abilities often maps to larger questions regarding gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, and age (among others.) These aren’t topics reserved for classes called ‘identity politics’ and ignored in ones with titles like ‘information society’, ‘digital media’ or even (God help me) ‘universal design.’ If you really want to get to why someone undersells their technical prowess, you are going to have to engage with some basic facts of peoples’ histories; these personal facts are almost always the stuff of political discourse.
10. As a grandmother/mother/aunt/sister/friend, teacher/mentor, I believe in holding out my hand to other women BEFORE it’s asked for, and keeping it out past the point it is self-effacingly rejected, or bitchily refused. I know that for most women, the only thing harder than asking for help is staying around to offer it after it’s been rebuffed.
Recently, Clay Shirky asked why the women he teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Department at NYU don’t seem able to self-promote their capabilities in the technology sector as well as the men he teaches. I’ve had occasion to work with Clay at ITP in the past, and I know he is an incredibly decent and deeply fair person. Maybe that’s why I was surprised to be so frustrated by what he wrote.
Clay is probably right to suggest that to if you are a young professional who wants to get ahead in the areas like social media, you are probably going to need to be able to self-promote. Where he’s wrong is in his answer that women need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and stop being ‘nice.’ This advice isn’t just condescending as hell, it also exhibits a pretty massive blind spot to the historical lack of women role models in the tech sector.
Yes, I know there were always women in computing. I also know that once computing became associated with programming and the ENIAC was developed, you could count on two hands the amount of women employed in computer programming. There’s an old saying that the children of cops want to be lawyers, the children of lawyers want to be judges, and the children of judges want to be on the Supreme Court. Until the last generation, the daughters of female tech sector workers at best hoped to move up from the typing pool. There were almost NO women we could watch laboring in boardrooms, backrooms, locker rooms, pool rooms—all the places corporate culture power plays take place.
But rather than staying stuck in history, let’s imagine a future in which things for women in the tech sector move forward, rather than staying the same (or moving backward.) Let’s go one step further and imagine what a strong, secure, female role model in a computer-related industry might be like.
In the Victorian Age, people became obsessed with the idea that technological history might yield a "New Woman"--independent, autonomous (and to be fair, often the site of derision.) Let's imagine what a sort of "New Woman" might emerge from a tech sector with female leadership for more than a generation or two. What sort of statements would she be able to make about herself? What would be her ethical code?
In the spirit of hippy-dippy hopefulness, and with a tip of the hat to Peggy Macintosh, I provide ten statements coming from such an imaginary ‘new woman’ of the future. Truthfully, I have yet to meet a woman (myself included) who has been fortunate to claim even three of the statements. I’d be interested in how other people react to this thought exercise, which I blame on New Year optimism as much as anything else.
TEN STATEMENTS FROM A ‘NEW WOMAN’ OF THE TECH SECTOR
1. As a child, I had regular contact with a female role model--a grandmother, mother, aunt, sister, or older friend—who worked the industry in which I now find myself working (in a position other than support staff).
2. As I grew older these women professionals became unofficial mentors to me. They offered me opportunities to observe their worlds at a safe distance or even officially through mechanisms like internships, demonstrating how one exhibits professional codes of conduct and effectively networks with those outside one’s own family.
3. As a student, I routinely noticed that there were large numbers of female teachers and professors teaching subjects that interested me and were considered to be valuable and ‘job worthy.’
4. As a student, I was fortunate enough to be counseled by a teacher, advisor, or internship coordinator who facilitated regular group activities involving myself and other young women training in my field. Rather than competing with one another, we began thinking of ourselves as an ‘old girls club.’
5. As a graduate, I feel comfortable asking some of these women from my past to recommend me in at least two categories: as a rising ‘star’, and as a decent colleague capable of acting in a group’s best interest.
6. As an employee, I’m pleased to say that the place I work employs fairly equal amounts of men and women in technical, ‘creative’, managerial AND service roles.
7. As a work colleague, I believe I am where I am today as a result of others’ concerted acts of care and education on my behalf. I don’t think it’s a sacrifice to work for and with other people: I think it’s a gift given back in honor of those who got me where I am.
8. As a spokesperson for my industry, I question moments when I seem the token women on a panel, or (even stranger) why so many discussions about ‘what women want’ seem dominated by men. No, it’s not something I like. Yes, I worry I won’t be asked back. I do it anyway, because it’s my responsibility. Let someone call me ‘that bitch’; I can take it. I was raised right.
9. As a teacher, I understand that my students’ perceptions of their abilities often maps to larger questions regarding gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, and age (among others.) These aren’t topics reserved for classes called ‘identity politics’ and ignored in ones with titles like ‘information society’, ‘digital media’ or even (God help me) ‘universal design.’ If you really want to get to why someone undersells their technical prowess, you are going to have to engage with some basic facts of peoples’ histories; these personal facts are almost always the stuff of political discourse.
10. As a grandmother/mother/aunt/sister/friend, teacher/mentor, I believe in holding out my hand to other women BEFORE it’s asked for, and keeping it out past the point it is self-effacingly rejected, or bitchily refused. I know that for most women, the only thing harder than asking for help is staying around to offer it after it’s been rebuffed.