"The turtles will never willingly relinquish power."

Burningbird has written an excellent and demanding essay, "When We Are Needed", examining the hurdles for women working in the male-dominated IT industry. I say "demanding" because when I printed it out it came to a whopping 35 pages (with comments section and with one-inch margins, not the smaller column format at her blog). There is a lot that could be commented upon, but I just want to highlight a few bits here and there, including on point she makes later in the essay about the upcoming Blogher event.

The piece by Shelley (aka Burningbird) is formidable and of publishable quality. With a few editorial tweaks, it could be submitted to a tecchie journal, or a feminist journal, such as Signs or Differences. Her essay is challenging in that it asks tough questions and doesn't necessarily answer them. Here's one: "Do we women want to compete more, or do we want to get men to compete less?" (I don't know, but I can't imagine men giving up competing to any degree any time soon.) Some of the best writing does this, it agitates the reader into wanting more - more information, more answers and, by the end of this essay, more justice.

So where are the women in technology? Why aren't there more of us? I actually agree with all the opinions expressed on this issue: Dori, who says there are no jobs for women; Roy Mark, who says women are rejecting the male culture; and Antonella, who says the industry isn't of sufficient interest to women. All of these are driven from one simple fact: when there is a need in the industry, women are welcome. When there isn't a need, it's Rosie the Riveter pack up your rivet gun and get out, all over again.

She takes an historical approach in a well-researched section about women's participation in the workforce, particularly during World War II. All of it well worth reading. The historical approach works because fundamentally very little has changed in attitudes about gender and male-dominated industries since WWII. Although women have moved into the workforce, the same (backward) forces are largely still intact.

Here's another paragraph:

We're still not rocking the boat. We're still the prairie pioneer who stops a fire and births a baby in the next moment, content with out role and our differences, and our quiet way of bringing about change. We're demure in describing our accomplishments, and deprecating to a fault. We have never, as Yellin discovered, tried to write our place in history. We have never competed with men for recognition.

We have rarely competed with men, period.

A good point, but this seems to blame women a bit too much. The problem with the act of competing is that it's a gendered and public endeavor.*

Blogher and Sponsors: Is it a "Get out of Jail Free" card?

Consider the sponsors of the BlogHer event. Most are technical companies. Yet of these companies only a few have employed women engineers, and among those that have, women make up 20% or less of the total.

Marc Canter talks about buying a ticket for him and his wife yet Marc's own Broadband Mechanics employs no women technologists. Six Apart? As far as I know, it also doesn't employ any women engineers, though many of the support staff are women. SocialText has one woman, a VP of Marketing.

[...]

Yet does sponsorship of BlogHer give each of these organizations a "get out of trouble with women free" card? Hard to say.

And of the men who we've reached out to, who have written glowing things about how great this conference is gong to be: how many have expressed their oh so sincere regrets about not attending? Doc Searls, Dan Gillmor, Glenn Reynolds, David Weinberger, Robert Scoble, to name a few.

That ambivalent "hard to say" can be read two ways: one is that, literally, it is hard to say, because, sponsors are part of what's making this conference possible. How much can you bite the hand that feeds you? Burningbird, without actually coming out and saying it, brings up the hypocrisy of male-exclusive or male-dominated companies showing up at the Blogher event. Her point is valid and I'm glad she raised it in her brilliant essay.

The comments section is interesting too - don't miss it: an author that Burningbird cites, Emily Yellin, leaves a comment and the text of a related article, a Blogher participant comments on the Blogher stuff, and I particularly appreciated Dave Rogers' further analysis and rebuttals here, here and especially here.

* I don't want to expand upon this idea here, as I'm focusing on Burningbird's essay; I may address it in a separate post later.