RailsConf
May 18th, 2007 by
desi
I am currently attending RailsConf and while I think the ratio is still really low there are actually quite a few women here. I am trying to personally meet as many of them as possible but I might miss a few so those of you who I haven’t met please try to find a DevChix to find out more about us. The women who have been involved in DevChix will have the logo on their badges so feel free to talk to any of us, we are a very friendly bunch.
Also I figured that I would post my spill here for those who don’t get a chance to talk to one of us or who just didn’t want or have time to listen to me. (I can be long winded sometimes)
The about page explains how it came about.. mostly from RubyConf two years ago and various user group meetings that I attended but I didn’t explain the WHAT we are all about.
My goal you ask? WORLD DOMINATION! hehe I kid but only partly.
There are many reasons why this group is important the least of which is to provide a support network to other women developers in the community. I don’t want to bash men in any way so I won’t. I will say that it is nice to have other women I can ask questions and other women to bounce ideas off of just for the simply fact that it is less intimidating. The problem is what women do I have to ask? What women do I have in the industry to look up to? There just aren’t that many. There are many reasons why they are not here but it doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t here. I personally need someone to ask questions.. sure I can ask my male coworkers and I do but sometimes I would ask a question much sooner if I simply had a woman to ask. My coworkers are awesome, they teach me a great deal, and I am very happy to have those guys but having some women around would be nice too.
So they aren’t there.. how do I fix that? Well do something to help bring women to the industry. It isn’t an over night fix.. it isn’t something that will just happen without some sort of pushing…. how do we do that?
One idea DevChix has is to provide mentoring and leadership to the community. Start mentoring from professional to professional to college to highschool to middleschool to elementary school. Help the women we have in development now and get things started young to help the future. Confidence is a difficult thing for many women developers. Most that I have met and talked with didn’t start programming until highschool some even college… many of the men I have talked to started programming sometime between 10 and 14. That is a big difference. Women are much further behind by the time they enter the work force and that can lead to a lot of different feels and situations that I wish we just didn’t have to deal with. That isn’t an excuse just trying to help put things in perspective. I want to help young girls become interested in computing and development through mentoring and teaching. This in turn will help those young women be just as confident and knowledgeable as their male colleagues. Hopefully in 10 or 15 years, when I go to a conference, I can look around and say “There is no need for DevChix anymore, the see-saw is balanced”.
Another reason why the group is important is because it gives those women who want to have a voice but are not comfortable with putting themselves out there so openly a place to have a voice without as much worry about attacks and targeting. I do also encourage women who want to have a more public facing image to do so as well. I want the DevChix to make the DevChix what we need it to be.
We have many many goals and ideas so if there are any women developers interested in joining the group then please seek one of us out. For the guys who want to be supportive of us.. WE LOVE YOU ALL for you it and thank you. You too can come talk to us anytime.
Desi (oh and for those at the conference THIS is what I look like.)
May 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Maybe I’m naive, but I will never understand what the big deal is with people complaining that there aren’t enough women or minorities in a profession. It just seems to me that if they were interested in the field, they’d pursue it. It’s 2007. I don’t really think there’s much of anything stopping them from going to college and signing up for the CS program.
I’m all for diversity, but not forcing it just to tweak some stats.
May 19th, 2007 at 1:25 am
As promised. Come check out RubyChicks
May 21st, 2007 at 2:06 pm
I’m surprised that site hasn’t been taken down or given over to actual women who can do something positive for the community.
I have yet to talk to any women who felt that it did anything less than embarrass and humiliate them.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Justin,
This is my take on it: If diversity is a good thing, then it’s something we have to fight for because uniformity is self-perpetuating. A ‘boys club’ is neither appealing to women nor easy for them to join, so it’ll stay a boys club until someone does something about it.
Yes, any woman can go sign up for a CS program. But at this point few will, and it’s significantly due to the lingering imbalances and stereotypes in the field. For some reason, it seems that the imbalances in the community are even worse than what’s in the colleges. It’s not just the conferences… the first time I went to a language users group, I was the only woman out of 25-30 people. The first time I went to a Rails training event, I was one of two women among 75 people. When you have it like that, it’s easy to feel out of place and even kind of intimidated.
Software is used by all different types of people, so all different types should be writing it. There are so many problems yet to be solved and so many solutions to be improved, we need as diverse a range of viewpoints and styles as we can get.
May 24th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
To clarify, my comment was referring to the RubyChicks site which does in fact appear to be on hiatus now.
May 25th, 2007 at 11:28 am
topfunky the guys who put up RubyChicks have said they would give the domains over to the DevChix group and have taken it down until we can find something that would be beneficial for women to use it as. They were actually very nice to me when I spoke to them about it.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Justin,
Having recently (well a few weeks ago, anyways) attended a BarCamp event in which decidedly inappropriate behavior occurred, I think it’s safe to say, that despite the year being 2007, not everyone is as considerate as they should be. I won’t go into details about what occurred, but suffice it to say, the few women who actually were present were incredibly uncomfortable with the situation, and I would be very surprised to see any of them make an appearance at any subsequent BarCamp events that take place at RIT.
I don’t deny that general disinterest and possibly even the social stigma of geekery plays a much larger role in the one-sided ratios, but people need to understand that their behavior has a significant effect on people and how welcome they feel. In retrospect, I probably should have stood up and made a fuss about what was going on, and if I ever see something like that occur at a (un)conference again, I will. Hindsight is 20/20. But I’d be a lot happier if I never have to. Because this is 2007.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:50 am
I have to thank DevChix for existing because it’s another birds-of-a-feather group to stay current with dev trends, swap tips & tricks of the trade, and also, socialize/network with like-minded peers!
Quick plug for any women in technology, business, and entrepreneurship, I co-founded a women’s group in the Silicon Valley called Women 2.0 and we bring developers together with product managers and idea people to build good stuff, from projects to tech startups!
Check us out if you can at http://www.women2.org
Cheers!
Angie Chang
Women 2.0
Co-Founder and Coordinator
http://www.women2.org
January 13th, 2012 at 2:03 am
I find that women developers are generally respected and heard by employers but it’s hugely not true for any informal communities or events, which are an important part of professional development. If an informal group perceives that it’s ok to turn down or ignore somebody who’s not “like us”, they do. It’s particularly true for online communities and open source projects, I’m not surprised of Z-generation girls not interested in CS. Another factor, informal groups are even more male dominated then the industry in general. In Silicon Valley tech groups I often was the only female developer for 60-70 people, or one of 2-3 for 160-180 people. Guys walking next to me, over me, approaching and greeting other guys… It’s like feeling non-existent. I’m not a fan of segregation saying females should only talk to other females, but what to do if boys clubs are so self-centered? Guys, please, don’t just lecture about the field, and then go back to your club. Don’t skip greeting and talking to females at an informal meeting, they are not a piece of furniture here. Gals, for us it would be useful to increase our presence at all kinds of events.