Gender bias at industry conferences
Anil Dash: “Do you want to learn about the future of web applications? If so, when choosing an event, you might want to make sure it’s one that cares about including speakers based on merit, instead of based on arbitrary gender qualifications.”
I’ve struggled with this off and on for a while. While I know that the tech industry is heavily skewed towards men, I’ve been reluctant to think that it is because women have been excluded on purpose. But Anil’s post makes a good case- the content that he’s proposing is clearly of interest and there is not enough of it at the events I’ve attended int he past couple of years. After so many years and so few examples of prominent women that have been heralded it doesn’t seem to be an accident.
Another point that’s related to this theme. Shelley was right about the recent female Turing Award winner. Event after the story hit TechMeme, there was almost no discussion. Gender bias? It really isn’t up for debate.
Anonymous peer review can really help with merit determinations. If you don’t know someone’s gender, nationality, affiliation, etc. when they propose a talk at a conference, then you can really make honest assessments of whether their talk is worth hosting and publishing in the proceedings. This works fairly well in scientific publishing, why should it work any less well in the computer industry?
Of course, this assumes that the conference is being run in a fashion similar to a scientific conference…