Why Grace Hopper 2023 Was Very Upsetting
Grace Hopper is an annual conference for women, and non-binary people in technology, geared toward providing networking opportunities, support to build professional skills, and empowering women and non-binary people.
I have seen tons of LinkedIn posts and TikToks online showcasing men breaking lines and pushing women, and non-binary people to get their resumes in front of a recruiter. I have heard complaints of men pulling women’s hair and following them to their rooms, groping them, etc. How is this acceptable?
I understand the frustration of new grads in tech right now. All of us have worked so hard for our CS degrees, and the current job market for tech is tough. This year was riddled with massive layoffs from big tech companies, which has increased competition for jobs. I understand the frustration.
But, pushing others down so you can climb up is just not the way to start your dream career.
The big argument I have heard about supporting men going to GHC is that ‘just because you are a woman, does not give you the right to talk to big recruiters. Men worked just as hard and didn’t get these opportunities. Why are you killing the competition, make the competition fair for everyone”.
Well, that is the problem. If the competition was the same for everyone, these conferences would not exist. It is BECAUSE the competition is NOT FAIR that these conferences exist.
Conferences exist to solve a specific problem and address a specific issue.
The Grace Hopper Conference exists to empower women in tech because Tech is heavily male-dominated and harbors a toxic culture for women.
From a young age, women are pushed aside in STEM, silenced, and assumed to be not as “smart”. You hear things like ‘women are emotional’ and not ‘logical’. In addition to this, industries like tech are very unwelcoming to women. Why?
- Stereotypes are rampant within these circles. It takes a lot for a women to prove her worth in the tech industry because everyone there automatically assumes she is not ‘smart’. It is now up to her to prove that she, in fact, can actually problem-solve and code. Plus you grow up not seeing many women in tech, so as a kid you end up internalizing these stereotypes
- Disrespect: we are always disrespected in industry and classrooms. We get consistently interrupted and spoken over by men. Speaking from personal experience, in most of my presentations, I have been spoken over, not being able to highlight my own features, even if I did all the work for the feature being spoken about. And yes, I did try my best to raise my voice and get a sentence in as much as possible. That is just frustrating
- Communication and Social Interaction: It is harder for women and non-binary people to communicate simply because the industry is filled with guys. Guys connect with other guys well. They get along naturally talking about common interests like sports, talking about video games, etc. They have so many opportunities to network and make connections. Women don’t have that. They often don’t find other women to connect with. And they find it hard to connect with guys since guys don’t recognize them as equals.
- Places like hackathons never feel welcoming to women: this is also well known, hackathons are also dominated by men and not very friendly to women, propagating the same stereotypes and behavior. Again speaking from personal experience, my first hackathon was a horrible experience for me because my group kept making sexist jokes calling it ‘dark humor’. I took it for a while, but it became toxic and kept interfering with my work, and when I tried to stand up for myself, I was once again made fun of for being ‘uptight’. Even though I had literally helped these people with assignments multiple times, I constantly was told “Get the snacks cause you belong in the kitchen”, and “Clean the wrappers, because that’s your job”. Of course, this was all a “joke”, but you can see why it gets annoying after hearing it for the 10th time. There was no respect for me there. So I left. I was there to build stuff too, just like they were, but I bet you they had a completely different experience than I did.
This is why it is hard for women to get into industries like tech. Which person would willingly choose to be disrespected and undermined despite putting in the effort and building their skill? Which person would willingly choose to work in an industry where you are isolated, and constantly have to prove your worth? This is why most women leave Tech and other male-dominated industries. After a point, it becomes hard to bear the constant lack of respect and constant demeaning. This is in addition to the isolation you feel at work because you cannot socialize with anyone. The struggle becomes just not worth it, and women decide to leave. Many women would love to work in Tech, but they find the odds stacked against them to begin with and lose hope.
Does this sound like a level playing field to you? All of the above points don’t even take into consideration the fact that a lot of women are not even allowed to work or study or make a life for themselves.
So a conference like GHC and events by SWE (Society of Women Engineers) is to solve exactly this problem. It is to provide a place for women to network with other women in their professional fields. It is to help each other build skills exchange tips and learn and be inspired by other women in the field. It is to finally be in a place where people understand where you are coming from. It is all in the hope that one day we won’t need conferences like this and office spaces and classrooms will be enough to provide the support that people need to do their jobs and advance their careers.
Saying that this specific conference is unfair is ridiculous because the point of a conference is to address a specific problem. Here the whole point of the conference is to to solve the problem of the tech industry being unwelcoming to women. There are many specialized conferences like MILCOM, Black Hat USA, etc. These focus on specific issues/topics. That's what conferences do. They bring together people to help solve a problem together. Now think about this in a political setting, imagine we had a conference to discuss the regulation of AI, and it was bombarded to discuss Taxes, Climate Change, or any other issue being debated because all issues deserve equal recognition. Does that make any sense?
Yes, big companies come to these conferences, just as they do go to other conferences that are completely open to everyone.
Also, note that these companies are also trying to rectify this problem because they see women in senior roles quit, they see women unhappy and unmotivated to work because of culture in tech. They are actively trying to change that by seeking women who have not had a voice before.
Besides, you as a man are welcome to attend, come for the right reasons, and understand the point behind the conference. Don’t come out of selfishness. Treat people with respect, and kindness, there is no need to push people down to prop yourself up. That is not success, that is simply, as you call it, ‘killing your competition’.
Here are some LinkedIn posts by women who attended GHC explaining their experience:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7113208273813532672/
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anitab-org_ghc23-activity-7112825848944070656-R9BN/
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anitab-org_ghc23-activity-7112825848944070656-R9BN/
Response by AnitaB.org: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anitab-org_ghc23-activity-7112825848944070656-R9BN/
I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and please reach out to me if you want to discuss more about this (please be civil).
