A rant about gender equality

Gender equality

"Isn't there a lot of talk about the lack of gender equality, the proportion of women in the industry, the male dominance of the conference?" Yes. "Do you always have to highlight the negative?" No, I don't.

In fact, there are quite a few bright spots to point out too. These for example:

  • In the fall of 2015, there is a change in the gender balance of applications to technical courses compared to 2014. In general, there is an increasing proportion of female applicants to technical higher education in many parts of the country, and especially to those courses that have traditionally had an extremely skewed gender distribution, according to a blog post by the Digitalization Commission.
  • Sthlm Tech Fest and its organizer Tyler Crowley were heavily criticized in 2014 for their lack of female participants, and for having a crude and sexist atmosphere and jargon. After that, Crowley promised to develop a policy against sexism, has personally called on Twitter for "female founders" and "top female web/product designers" to pitch on stage (at the time of writing, 15 out of 37 speakers in the program are women), and has offered women the opportunity to decide what they want to pay for their ticket to Tech Days to attract more women to attend the event next week.
  • Over the years, the Internet Days have also received a lot of criticism for their participant and panel composition and for being uninformed about diversity issues. This year (November 23-24), a full day entitled Where are the chicks? is devoted to "asking the questions and seeking the answers on how we can raise awareness of the benefits of a gender equal technology industry."

The reasons for the first point are of course difficult to ascertain, as is whether the rise will prove to be a lasting trend. But let us hope!

The reason for the last two, however, I think is clear: the fact that people have reacted, spoken out, nagged if you like, has paid off. Getting people to act. To bring about change. Not revolutionary change perhaps, but steps in the right direction. Results.

My conclusion? The part of me that sees the glass as half full rejoices at the bright spots. The other part keeps on nagging, for a while longer. Because it is still needed. And it pays off.