Silicon Valley has a gender issue. That's hardly breaking news. But things have escalated recently. Some examples from the last few weeks: The Ellen Pao saga. The James Damore memo at Google. The ouster of Uber’s CEO. The frat-house behavior at SoFi. The utter lack of consequences for VR startup Upload.
Sometimes it's straight-up harassment. And sometimes problems stem from the bro bubble - nice guys, but they’re all the same guys. Everyone else “isn’t a good fit.”
Ellen Ullman has seen both. She started programming in 1978, when she wandered past a Radio Shack and taught herself how to code on the first personal computer.
Ellen's new book, Life in Code, is full of great and awful stories. Her love of the work. The joys of hunting down a bug. But also, the client who would rub her back while she tried to fix his system. The party full of young men drinking beer, including Larry Page, who offered her a job on the spot. Forget about appealing to the tech elite, she says. We have to invade the culture. Find allies where we can, and build an army of programmers focused on our shared humanity.
Ellen Ullman and Manoush will be in conversation at Housing Works Bookstore on Tuesday, September 28th. Come see them in person, buy some books, and get tips on storming the gates IRL.
About that stock photo: We had a lot of laughs about all the absurd photos of women and computers. But it’s a real problem when all the images are of white women looking confused when confronting a keyboard, or when photos like this one are called "Cute businesswoman angry with PC." The team behind #WOCinTechChat took on this issue a couple years ago, organizing a collection of stock photos of women of color doing technology right. That project has now moved over to Buffer’s Pablo site, and the images are still available for your use any time you need a photo of any human in tech.
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