#diversityfail: Guys talking to guys who talk about guys — and Chris Anderson’s FREE (DRAFT)

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14 responses to “#diversityfail: Guys talking to guys who talk about guys — and Chris Anderson’s FREE (DRAFT)”

1. 

   jon

   July 8, 2009

   * more accurately, present themselves as male via their names and preferred gender on Facebook. Putting my research hat on, here are the details: 6 guys (Christian, Steven, Dan, william, Ian (“him”), Anton, Jules, Eric (“him”), Alex, David, Hamilton, Vada (“him”), Juha (“him”), Linus, Marcello, Steve. Five exceptions: Leah, Martha, atomi, Arisey (a company), and Fun Facts (an aggregator)). So depending on how you count ambiguous cases, it’s probably at least 75% male. And the ratio is even higher if you count by words — many guys post multiple times, and the average length of their posts is much higher than the non-guy-posts.

   ** as I write this, the people @chris1a has mentioned most recently on Twitter are @alexiskold, Mark Cuban, @ajkeen, @om, @mathewi, @SteveCase , @dirkliedtke, @Casablanca, Marc Andreessen, @andrewbusey, Brad Feld (@bfeld), John Gapper, Seth Ditchik (aka @wanderingeditor), @jeffjarvis, Andrew Sullivan, @anildash, @jason_pontin, @jayrosen_nyu and so on. [This includes retweets, replies, and references by name.] His blog is almost as extreme.>You can see similar patterns in many of the guys Alex and Chris talks to as well.

   *** including me, extensively, for example n comment threads of Gender, race, and power in online discussions and Collaborative empowerment on Twitter.

   **** in contrast to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s unpredictable Black Swan. In a “rich get richer” system a black swan will generally reinforce existing dominance structures in the matrix of oppressions. The intentionality of a pink swan leaves open the possibilities for more significant transformation.

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2. 

   Alex Iskold

   July 9, 2009

   With all due respect, I disagree. It is not my job to reach out. My job is to summarize the debate that I found, sorry I missed NYTimes article.

   In terms of reaching out, thats what links are for. If you want to join the conversation, blog and link and people will link back.

   And as the last point, VP of Engineering in my startup is a woman, so I think I am pretty covered on that front.

   Alex

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   1. 

      Eve E

      July 10, 2009

      With all due respect Alex,
      The point is that you are obviously not connected to a diverse network. So the “debate that YOU” found is not necessarily reflective of the broader debate going on in the world about your topic. Reaching out is what anyone interested in creating effective, interesting, and comprehensive summaries would do. Talk about blind spot. yikes.
      We had a VP or two at Microsoft too. That doesn’t mean all the guys could sit back and consider their bases covered. Eve

      Reply
   2. 

      jon

      July 14, 2009

      From Twitter, after I sent Eric the link to Alex’ comment:

      

      Reply
3. 

   jon

   July 10, 2009

   Thanks for the reply, Alex. Looks like we see things differently. If women don’t blog and link as you demand, then you won’t get their perspectives. Building a diverse team at your company is a great thing; it may or may not be enough to make up for the lack of diversity of your own conversations.

   jon

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4. 

   jon

   July 10, 2009

   There’s been a bunch of conversation on Twitter as well. I excerpted a chunk of it here. Here’s another excerpt, a conversation between Alex and Allyson Kapin (aka @WomenWhoTech); the most recent tweets are at the top.

   

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5. 

   Harry Waisbren

   July 11, 2009

   This is an important issue Jon, and making ground on it is a big part of why I’m so excited to be taking part in the #p2 effort!

   I thought this point was particularly important:

   “Shireen Mitchell (aka @digitalsista) of Social Media Women of Color describes this as a “your problem not ours” attitude: we can’t find them, so it’s not our fault. Intelligent women with plenty to say on this subject are out there, and easy to find if you make the effort. If you don’t bother, who else is responsible?”

   This is entirely true, and it is something that I am very appreciative of you helping me realize about myself. Sadly, searching out for diverse opinions–particularly women–is not nearly emphasized enough in our culture. The information revolution of the internet should represent a culmination of the efforts for the silenced to be heard, and although we have made incredible ground in this regard, there is still very far to go.

   When it comes down to it, it’s a question of priority. We see this in the progressive blogosphere especially, where linking to women and minorities is not privileged nearly enough. Such links should be considered activism in and of themselves as it’s helping a more diverse group of people join the public sphere in a more meaningful manner.

   More varied opinions and distinctive voices in a democracy helps us all. Here’s hoping we can increasingly promote the importance of this as well as create better tools that will help speed this effort along!

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   1. 

      jon

      July 12, 2009

      

      Reply
      1. 

         jon

         July 12, 2009

         Thanks for the comment, Harry! Kay Steiger’s The “new” new left is white, male is a great example of this kind of behavior in the progressive blogosphere,, and there are a lot more references on the Diversity Online page on the #p2 wiki and the comments of Gender, race, age, and power in online discussions, chapter n. And you make a great point: being conscious of this tendency and writing your posts to counter it and have a more diverse set of links is a form of activism.

         Reply
   2. 

      jon

      July 12, 2009

      A Twitter discussion between Harry and Shoq — most recent tweet at the top:

      

      For those of you joining the story in midstream, there was a fierce power struggle on the #p2 Twitter hashtag back in April, with Shoq proposing that #p2 should drop diversity as a goal in what most people saw as a power struggle pitting him against me and #p2 hashtag co-founder Tracy Viselli. (#p2 and prioritizing diversity has my views on why this was so vital.). At the April 30 tweeting #p2 decided to keep its diversity focus and expand its charter to also be an umbrella tag. It was more complicated than that, complete with a lot of hashtag drama (there’s details on the #p2 wiki if you care) and me publically calling Shoq on sexist comments several times. In other words we have a history here.

      Reply
      1. 

         jon

         July 12, 2009

         Shoq,

         Just because it’s your experience on Twitter doesn’t mean it’s everbody else’s. For example, MarkosM’s, JoeTrippi, and DavidSirota’s twitter profiles exhibit the same “guys talking to guys about guys” phenomenon with the tech clique I talked about above. The Men follow men study in May showed that men were more likely to follow men than they were to follow women; since the two genders tweet at roughly the same rate, this means guys are talking to guys more than they’re talking about women. So if you can’t see the #diversityfail on Twitter, try looking harder.

         And as to your confusion, there are plenty of women who discus bias and under-representation on Twitter. If you’ve only heard about it from me and other guys so far, try listening harder.

         jon

         Reply
6. 

   myrnatheminx

   July 12, 2009

   Perhaps Shoq doesnt follow most of the women who discuss the issue

   Reply
7. 

   jon

   July 14, 2009

   Thinking more about the parallels between the technology world and the progressive political world …

   When Tracy Viselli and I started up the #p2 hashtag, we highlighted the opportunities for engaging with women, people of color, and many other groups that are significantly under-represented and under-recognized in the big blogs of the progressive blogosphere. And gee, guess what, that’s exactly what happened. From the beginning, we were talking with people from #rebelleft and #fem2 and Social Media Women of Color etc. etc. Cognitive evolution and revolution has several other examples, including the birth of the #diversityfail/#diversitywin hashtags.

   In the tech space: the “big blogs” are overwhelmingly white- and male-dominated. As Alex’ quote above illustrates, they don’t see it as their responsibility to seek out other perspectives. Startups and VCs and the mainstream media follow the big blogs for news — see NY Times technology editor Damon Darlin’s Naked Lunch comments here. So the collective blind spot is reinforced.

   Sounds like a job for Twitter 🙂

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8. 

   jon

   July 18, 2009

   I checked out the index and acknolwedgements chapter of Free. Over 95% of the names in the index are male; the exceptions I found are Linn Ball, Sheryl Crowe, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Sarah Lacy, Meg Ryan, and Oprah Winfrey, each mentioned on only one page. Other than his wife Anne, and the pulibicity team at Wired (led by Alexandra Constantinople and Maya Draisin), everybody Chris acknowledges is male. Looks like the Twitter feed and blog were accurate: Chris really doesn’t like to talk about women.

   The people he credits as shaping his intellectual thinking are former Wired editor Kevin Kelly, Mike Masnick of Techdirt (the same Mike that Alex quoted and linked to defending Chris from Malcolm’s attach), Hal Varian, and George Gilder, who “remains a huge influence on my thinking”.

   Why yes, now that you mention it, this is the same George Gilder who Susan Faludi described in Backlash as “America’s #1 anti-feminist”. Emily White’s Techno-tyrants from Seattle Weekly has a brief summary of Gilder’s views on gender, including

   In a book called Sexual Suicide, Gilder argued that women’s liberation would lead to the end of the human race. If women achieved economic equality, a “social breakdown” would result. “Women control not the economy of the marketplace but the economy of Eros,” Gilder wrote. “A marginal bias in favor of men in the labor force will best promote econmic and social order.”…

   His views on women haven’t changed, either. “You know there is actual difference between male and female brains,” he told me from his study, his wife downstairs clattering dishes. Asked why there are so few women in the tech world, George said, “Well, there are women. They are just mostly in personnel and marketing. They do better there.”

   Of course Gilder has other claims to fame as well, for example his classic 1999 quote “I don’t think internet valuations are crazy”. Oops. And where did he say that? In an interview by Kevin Kelly in Wired’s special issue on “Ultra-prosperity”. Small world 🙂 In the interview, Gilder adds “The gap between rich and poor is not widening.” Yeah. Right.

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