Sunday July 24, 2005
Sunday July 24, 2005 Michael Lewis is one of my heroes. He wrote a book that I love. But that's not why. He's my hero because he described something that was previously invisible to me - in such a compelling, eloquent way that I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack truck.
At OSCON, I'll be part of the Women in Open Source panel, organized by my friend Danese Cooper. When I said "yes" to the invite, I felt obliged to point out that in my 16 years in software, I've steadfastly tried to be gender-blind, so that I wasn't sure what value I would bring. Sure I'm a woman, but so what? I've deleted invites to all "Women in Technology" meetings and I've never attended a WITI or Hopper conference. So, big uh-oh. What to say? The wheels in my head began to turn.
Tim Bray got me thinking with his Analysts and Sex writeup - where he paraphrased the bold question he and the other 11 Sun CTOs were asked by an analyst: "Why am I looking at twelve middle-aged white guys?" I'm sure this triggered much private discussion, but not much visible public debate. Too delicate an issue, perhaps? Tim went on to blog, "But the gender thing hurts. Obviously, it’s not just Sun; I get to sit in a lot of rooms-full of senior people trying to do industry leadership, whatever that means, and there are lots of times when there aren’t any women, or just one or two, and THAT SUCKS. Even if there weren’t the ethical issues, in case you hadn’t noticed we’re still suffering from a general talent shortage in this business, and it’s not very smart to only draw from half the population."
A bit later, I was deciding what job to take next and I considered leaving Sun. Tim Bray and I chatted about ideas and he later sent me an email (presumably with the 12-middle-aged-white-guys thing in mind): "I am tempted to impose on my relationship with Jonathan and Greg to say 'uh guys, I think we have a problem here.' It occurs to me that if I were giving that narrative, something along the lines of 'And then there's Claire, who just finished delivering us a major miracle, and who is casting about and could easily be picked off by a competent outside recruiter' would fit in very smoothly. But of course I won't without your say-so."
Well, I said no. I didn't want special attention because I was a woman. I went on to share with Tim the story about a compliment I'd received years before - my then-VP said I was the "one of the best female managers." What kind of dumb left-handed compliment is that? I strive to be a good manager, even a damn good one, and wanted gender to be irrelevant. I ended up doing myself no favors by asking if I was the best brown-eyed manager or brown-haired manager...
Next, I remembered my freshman year at Brown when a bunch of the guys on my floor told me, point blank, in a mean, ugly, condescending way - to drop out of engineering because "girls weren't smart enough". Then I flashed forward to one of my first CS classes on data structures and algorithms - the putdowns gently spinning in my mind, not yet purged - and I wondered if the class would be too hard. Well, one of the head TAs in that class was a woman, and when I saw her, I thought, if she can do it, then so can I. So I kicked butt. And I TA'ed the class the next 2 years as well.
So what did Michael Lewis say that hit me like a truck? Yes, it was in Moneyball - which I've talked about before. It sounds even better read out loud:
"The inability to envision a certain kind of person doing a certain kind of thing because you've never seen someone who looks like him do it before is not just a vice. It's a luxury. What begins as a failure of imagination ends as a market inefficiency: when you rule out an entire class of people from doing a job simply by their appearance, you are less likely to find the best person for the job."
Where is this stroll down memory lane going? That you can't ignore the gender biases. Nor should you, if you want things to get better. (I have a daughter and I want things to improve before she grows up.) We need to talk about the failures of imagination - rather than sweep them under a rug. And it's not just about being fair, it's about being competitive.
So there. I do have something to say. The OSCON panel is about Women in Open Source, though, not Women in Technology. Should be interesting.
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(2005-07-24 23:45:32.0) Permalink Comments [3]
