Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2014/10/10/anita-borg.html
Selena Larson wrote an article
describing the Male Allies Plenary Panel at the Anita Borg
Institute’s Grace Hopper Celebration on Wednesday night. There is a
video available of the
panel (that’s the youtube link, the links on Anita Borg Institute’s
website don’t work with Free Software).
Selena’s article pretty much covers it. The only point that I thought
useful to add was that one can “follow the money” here.
Interestingly
enough, Facebook,
Google, GoDaddy, and Intuit were all listed as top-tier sponsors of the event.
I find it a strange correlation that not one man on this panel is from a
company that didn’t sponsor the event. Are there no male allies
to the cause of women in tech worth hearing from who work for companies that, say,
don’t have enough money to sponsor the event? Perhaps that’s true, but
it’s somewhat surprising.
Honest US Congresspeople often say that the main problem with corruption
of campaign funds is that those who donate simply have more access and time
to make their case to the congressional representatives. They aren’t
buying votes; they’re buying access for conversations. (This was covered
well
in This
American Life, Episode 461).
I often see a similar problem in the “Open Source” world. The
loudest microphones can be bought by the highest bidder (in various ways),
so we hear more from the wealthiest companies. The amazing thing about
this story, frankly, is that buying the microphone didn’t work
this time. I’m very glad the audience refused to let it happen! I’d love
to see a similar reaction at the corporate-controlled “Open Source and
Linux” conferences!
Update later in the day: The conference I’m commenting on
above is the same conference where Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said
that women shouldn’t ask for raises
, and Microsoft is also a
top-tier sponsor of the conference. I’m left wondering if anyone who spoke
at this conference didn’t pay for the privilege of making these gaffes.
