[Edit: A commenter has informed me that I misidentified the college of one of the presenters. The presenter is from the University of St. Francis in Ilinois, not St. Francis University in Pennsylvania. I've made the correction below. Thanks to Anita for this correction, and my apologies to her and St. Francis University of PA.]
I went to a technical (web-related) conference in Gettysburg, PA last week. While the subject matter was of interest to me, I did have some … issues.
First, a few observation about the town.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a higher concentration of Confederate flags anywhere in the US, including the South. There’s history, of course, but really, do we need Confederate flags flying on every other knick-knack store? Or posted in the windows? Or on t-shirts?
A local paper reported that the local school district has repeatedly denied a bilingual (Spanish / English) charter school’s application to operate in the district. (*All* of the school’s students would spend half of each day in Spanish-language immersion.) The charter-school staffers have contorted themselves to try to meet the arbitrary, shifting “requirements” of the school district. It looks to me like the school board is just plain racist (”can’t have our kids learn Spanish, they might think that those ev0l brown people are humans!”), they just don’t come out and *say* it.
On to the “welcoming committee”: I arrived in town just as school let out, and there was a long line of school buses on the other side of the street. Some young-ish guy darts out from between the buses, in front of my car. I slammed on my brakes. He got mad at me for daring to not hit him, and yelled “You have the right of way, BITCH!!!” Well, at least he got my gender right. (Somewhat related story: A rather butch woman that I know was called “faggot” by somebody. She responded, “You’re almost right!”)
On to the conference.
Among the attendees, men outnumbered women three to one, and the men generally had positions with more authority and visibility. In the sessions and keynote speeches that I went to, there was one woman presenter (out of about a dozen presenters; some of the sessions had more than one).
The racial imbalance was even more intense. About 95% of the attendees were white, and the only POC were east or south Asian. All of the presenters that I saw were white, as were all but one of the college I/T staff on hand (one guy, in desktop support, was Black). Is it the location in Gettysburg? The culture at the college and the conference? The I/T field itself? I’d guess it’s a combination; the proportion of women and POC in I/T is quite low to begin with, but I’ve rarely seen such a lily-white crowd.
For myself, I felt out-of-place. Most people conformed pretty closely to majority-culture norms in dress and presentation; most men were appropriately masculine, and most women appropriately feminine and conventionally attractive. The few young, non-macho men and non-heteronormative women seemed mostly uncomfortable and quiet. I felt very out of place with my black-and-orange hair, facial piercings, and low-rise jeans, and I definitely got some hostile vibes.
There were a few sessions I want to mention. One was presented by three men. All of them were very macho, using sports and armed-forces metaphors all over the place. One in particular was verbally abusive towards many of his co-workers (who were in absentia). He called one developer who was struggling with a programming problem a “jerk” and “idiot”. He then stated that some other developers had concerns about a particular piece of software and dared to ask questions about it. The presenter referred to them, in a very derisive and mocking tone, as “a bunch of geeks”. I walked out at that point.
Out of about 15 attendees, there were only two women, including myself. The other woman walked out after less than ten minutes. I left after about half an hour. I guess there were so few women there because this guy has a rep. Note: He was from University of St. Francis in Illinois, and an I/T manager. I can’t imagine it’d be a good experience working in that department.
The next session was also presented by a man (from University of Georgia). It was the only session that I went to where women attendees outnumbered men. The presenter was respectful of everybody, female and male, including myself (he did gender me wrong, but I do present kind of androgynously and have a deep voice, so that’s a common mistake people make). I suspect that he, too, has a rep — a much better one.
I noticed that the one woman who presented (from Southwestern University in Austin, TX) did not seem very self-confident, as compared to the men. It’s not suprising; white, middle-class women are largely acculturated to be self-doubting and reticent, and some are more successful at overcoming that than others; on the other hand, men don’t *have* to overcome that; their self-confidence is rewarded continuously. The presenter’s job was quite difficult; she had one year to implement a major software package and do a lot of customization, by herself, with little support from her department; as part of that, she had to learn several programming languages in a trial-by-fire fashion. It was an incredible accomplishment, something that she rightly can take pride in, and it pisses me off that society puts so much pressure on women to downplay their own intellectual accomplishments and lose their self-confidence, especially in male-dominated fields.
