Category: diversity

Binaries are for computers

by Sage

[Note: comments on this post will be moderated by someone other than me.]

Sage in a purple tie and black shirt CC-BY-NC-ND Sage Sharp
CC-BY-NC-ND Sage Sharp

Recently, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m non-binary. Non-binary can be a bit of an umbrella term, but for me, being non-binary means I don’t identify as either a man or a woman. For me, gender is more like a 3D space, a universe of different traits. Most people gravitate towards a set of traits that we label as masculine or feminine. I don’t feel a strong pull towards being either really masculine or really feminine.

I’m writing this post for two reasons. The first reason is that representation matters. I know some non-binary people in tech and from the indie comics industry, but I’d love to see those voices and stories promoted. Hopefully being open and honest with people about my identity will help, both to raise awareness, and to give other people the courage to start an exploration into their own gender identity. I know talking with queer friends and reading comics helped me while I was working out my own gender identity.

The second reason I’m writing this is because there’s a couple ways allies can help me as I go through my transition:

  • Use my new name (Sage) and my correct pronouns (they/them)
  • Educate yourself on what it means to be non-binary
  • Think about how you use gender in your software and websites
  • Think about making your events more inclusive towards non-binary folks

Names

I’ve changed my name to Sage Sharp.

I would appreciate it if you could use my new name. If you’re thinking about writing about me, there’s a section on writing about individuals who are transitioning in “The Responsible Communication Style Guide”. You should buy a digital copy!

Pronouns and Titles

I use the pronoun ‘they’. If you’ve never had someone ask for you to use a specific pronoun, this Robot Hugs comic does a good job of explaining how to handle it.

If you have to add a formal title before my last name, please use ‘Mx Sharp’. ‘Mx’ is a gender-neutral honorific, like ‘Mr’, ‘Ms’, or ‘Mrs’. Mx is pronounced in a couple different ways: /ˈməks/, /ˈmɪks/ or /ˈmʌks/ (miks or muks). I like pronouncing it ‘mux’ like the electronics part multiplexer, but pick whichever pronunciation works for you. If you want to get really formal and are reaching for a term like ‘lady/gentlemen’, I prefer the term ‘gentleperson’.

I’ve found positive gender-neutral terms to describe myself with, like “dapper” or “cute”. I cringe every time a stranger attempts to gender me, since they usually settle on feminine forms of address. I wish more people would use gender-neutral terms like “folks”, “friend”, “comrade”, or say “Hello everyone!” or “Hi y’all” and leave it at that.

Being able to write in a gender neutral way is hard and takes a lot of practice. It means shifting from gendered terms like “sister/brother” or “daughter/son” to gender-neutral terms like “sibling” or “kid”. It means getting comfortable with the singular they instead of ‘she’ or ‘he’. Sometimes there isn’t a gender neutral term for a relationship like “aunt/uncle” and it means you have to make up some new term, like “Titi”. There’s some lists of gender-neutral titles but in general, just ask what term to use.

If this is all new and bewildering to you, I recommend the book ‘The ABCs of LGBTQ+‘. Another good book is ‘You’re in the wrong bathroom‘ which breaks down some common myths about non-binary and trans folks.

Gender Forms

I’m really not looking forward to my gender being listed as ‘other’ or ‘prefer not to say’ on every gender form out there. I don’t even know if I can change my gender in social media, email, credit cards, banking… It’s a giant headache to change my name, let alone hope that technology systems will allow me to change my gender. It’s probably a separate post all itself, or a topic for my Diversity Deep Dives mailing list.

If you’re a programmer, website designer, or user experience person, ask yourself: Do you even need to collect information about a person’s gender? Could your website use gender neutral language? If you do need to address someone in a gendered way, maybe you just need to ask for their preferred pronouns instead of their gender? Could you drop the use of gendered honorifics, like ‘Miss’, ‘Mrs’ and ‘Mr’, or ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’?

Inclusive Tech Groups

There’s a lot of tech spaces that are designed to help connect people from groups who are underrepresented in tech. Some tech groups are for “women” or “girls” (which can sometimes mean young women, and sometimes means adult women). It’s unclear whether non-binary folks are included in such groups, which puts me in the awkward position of asking all the groups I’m currently involved in if this is still a space for me.

I recommend reading Kat’s post on the design of gender-inclusive tech spaces. If you run a group or event targeted at gender minorities in tech, consider what you mean by “women only” and whether you want to be more inclusive towards non-binary folks that also want a space away from the patriarchy.

I know that in the past, a lot of folks looked up to me as ‘a woman in open source’. Some people felt I was a role model, and some people felt triumphant that I overcame a lot of sexism and a toxic environment to do some pretty badass technical work. Guess what? I’m still a badass. As a non-binary person, I’m still a minority gender in tech. So I’m still going to continue to be my badass self, taking on the patriarchy.

Promote Pronouns

When you meet someone, don’t assume what their pronouns are. As an ally, you can help by introducing yourself and normalizing pronoun usage. E.g. “Hi, my name is Victor, and I use he/him pronouns.”

If you’re a conference organizer, make sure all your name tags have a space for pronoun stickers. Have sheets of pronoun stickers at registration, and make sure the registration volunteers point out the pronoun badge stickers. If someone is confused about what the pronouns are, have a handout on pronouns and gender ready to give them. Wiscon is a conference that does a very good job with pronouns.

Don’t print pronouns collected from the registration system on badges without permission, or force everyone to put a pronoun on their badge. Some people might use different pronouns in conversation with different people, for example, if a person is “out” as non-binary to some friends but not their coworkers. Some people are genderfluid (meaning their feelings about their gender may change over time, even day to day). Some people might be questioning their gender, and not know what pronouns they want yet. Some people may prefer not to have a pronoun sticker at all.

The best practice is to provide space for people who want to provide their pronouns, but don’t force it on everyone.

What if people misgender you?

Some people who knew me under my old name might get confused when you use my new name. It’s perfectly fine to remind them of past work I did under my old name, while emphasizing my new name and pronouns. For example:

“Sage Sharp? Who’s that?”

“Sage is a diversity and inclusion consultant with Otter Tech. They were a Linux kernel developer for 10 years and wrote the USB 3.0 driver. They help run the Outreachy internship program.”

“Oh, you mean Sarah Sharp?”

“Yeah. They changed their name to Sage and they use ‘they’ pronouns now.”

I know it might be hard for people who have known me to get used to my new name and pronoun. You might even slip up in conversation with me. That’s ok, just correct the word and move on with your conversation. No need to apologize or call attention to it. We’re all humans, and retraining the language centers of our brains takes time. As long as I can see you’re trying, we’re cool.

What about your old accounts?

The internet never forgets. There will be old pictures of me, articles about me under my old name, etc. I’m fine with that, because that’s all a part of my past, who I was and the experiences that make me who I am. It’s as much a part of who I am as the tattoo on my arm. I don’t feel sad or weird looking at old pictures of myself. Seeing my longer haircut or myself in more feminine clothing can be surprising because I’ve changed so much, but after that initial reaction what I feel most is empathy for my past self.

At the same time, I’m also not that person any more. I’d like to see current pictures of me with my current name and correct pronoun.

If you see a news article that uses my old name, please let them know about my new name and pronouns. (But if it’s some troll site, don’t engage.) Several photos of my new style can be found here. If you see a social media website that uses my old name, don’t bother emailing me about it. I might have abandoned it, or found the name/gender change process to be too complex. Speaking of email, my old email addresses will still work, but I’ll respond back with my new email address. Please update your phone and email contacts to use the name ‘Sage Sharp’.

Phew, that was a lot to process!

We’ll keep it simple. Hi, my name is Sage Sharp, and I use ‘they’ pronouns. It’s nice to meet you!

Ditch “Culture Fit”

by Sage

A couple different talks at OSCON got me thinking about the unhealthy results of hiring on the basis of “culture fit”.

drinking-culture
Slide from Casey West’s OSCON talk that says “Never in the history of my career has my ability to drink beer made me better at solving a business problem.”

What is company culture? Is it celebrating with co-workers around the company keg? Or would that exclude non-drinkers? Does your company value honest and direct feedback in meetings? Does that mean introverts and remote workers are talked over? Are long working hours and individual effort rewarded, to the point that people who value family are passed up for promotion?

Often times teams who don’t have a diverse network end up hiring people who have similar hobbies, backgrounds, and education. Companies need to avoid “group think” and focus on increasing diversity, because studies have shown that gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to financially outperform other companies, and racially-diverse companies are 35% more likely to outperform. Other studies have shown that diversity can lead to more internal conflict, but the end result is a more productive team.

How do you change your company culture to value a diverse team? It’s much more than simply hiring more diverse people or making people sit through an hour of unconscious bias training. At OSCON, Casey West talked about some examples of company culture that create an inclusive environment where diverse teams can thrive:

  • Blame-free teams
  • Knowledge sharing culture
  • Continuous learning
  • No judgement on asking questions
  • Continuous feedback
  • Curiosity about different cultures
  • Individually defined work-life balance
  • Valuing empathy

For example, if you have a culture where there’s no judgement on asking questions or raising issues and people are naturally curious about different cultures, it’s easy for a team member to suggest a new feature that might make your product appeal to a broader customer base. After years of analyzing teams, Google found that the most productive teams foster a sense of “psychological safety”, a shared belief in expressing ideas without fear of humiliation.

The other problem with “culture fit” is that it’s an unevenly applied standard. An example of this was Kevin Stewart’s OSCON talk called “Managing While Black”. When Kevin emulated the company culture of pushing back on unnecessary requirements and protecting his team, he was told to “work on his personal brand”. White coworkers were reading him as “the angry black guy.” When he dialed it back, he was told he was “so articulate”, which is a non-compliment that relies on the stereotype that all African Americans are either uneducated or recent immigrants.

In both cases, even though his project was successful, Kevin had his team (and his own responsibilities) scaled back. After years of watching less successful white coworkers get promoted, he was told by management that they simply didn’t “see him in a leadership role.” Whether or not people of color emulate the white leadership behavior and corporate culture around them, they are punished because their coworkers are biased towards white leaders.

As a woman in technical leadership positions, I’ve faced similar “culture fit” issues. I’ve been told by one manager that I needed to be the “one true technical voice” (meaning as a leader I need to shout over the mansplainy guys on my team). And yet, when I clearly articulate valid technical or resourcing concerns to management, I’m “dismissive” of their goals. When I was a maintainer in the Linux kernel and adamantly pushed back on a patch that wall-papered over technical debt, I was told by another maintainer to “calm down”. (If you don’t think that’s a gendered slur based on the stereotype that women are “too emotional”, try imagining telling Linus Torvalds to calm down when he gets passionate about technical debt.)

The point is, traditional “cultural fit” narratives and leadership behaviors only benefit the white cis males that created these cultural norms. Culture can be manipulated in the span of a couple years to enforce or change the status quo. For example, computer programming used to be dominated by women, before hiring “personality tests” biased for men who displayed “disinterest in people”.

We need to be deliberate about the company culture we cultivate. By hiring for empathy, looking for coworkers who are curious about different cultures, and rewarding leaders who don’t fit our preconceived notions, we create an inclusive work environment where people are free to be their authentic selves. Project Include has more resources and examples for people who are interested in changing their company’s culture.

Thanks for reading! If you want me to write more posts on diversity in tech, please consider donating to my Patreon.

SCALE: Improving Diversity with Maslow’s hierarchy

by Sage

If you’re reading this, I’ve just given my keynote at the Southern CAlifornia Linux Expo (SCALE). This post serves to link to all the different studies and resources I talked about, as well as my slides with notes and photo attributions can be found here.

Here’s the video of the keynote:

Introduction

In open source, we talk about meritocracy a lot. However, emphasizing meritocracy can actually lead to more bias against women:

It’s much better to actually acknowledge our biases and privilege. If you haven’t read it yet, Scalzi’s essay “White Straight Male is the Lowest Difficulty Setting” is an excellent starting point for exploring the impact of privilege.

There are lots of different ways individuals can contribute to improving diversity. However, this talk focuses on the macro view of how we as open source community individuals can increase diversity.

The inspiration for the structure of this talk came from Abraham Maslow’s paper “A theory of human motivation.”

Level 1: Geek Homeostatis, or Deep Hack Mode

Maslow talked about the needs that are required to keep the body’s chemical systems functioning (homeostatis). Those needs include warmth, food, water, and excretion.

Trans people often face harassment that keeps them from being able to use restrooms without fear. In response, an open source project called Refuge Restroom was created to map safe and gender-neutral restrooms. The project has also been featured in hack sessions by TransH4CK, an organization dedicated to developing open source projects that help trans*, gender non conforming, agender and non binary people.

What does homeostatis mean for a geek? I posit that it means deep hack mode, that magical time when you can pour everything into your project. But what is required in order to get into deep hack mode?

The first requirement is uninterrupted time. In open source, we expect people to volunteer their unpaid time to further the goals of our software. As Ashe Dryden explains, not everyone has the privilege to dedicate a lot of time to open source. Carers of young children and elderly relatives have very little time to spare. Women and especially women of color are more likely to be carers. Next time a candidate doesn’t have many github contributions, consider whether they’re a minority who may be a carer with little time, instead of someone who simply doesn’t want to contribute to open source.

There are some companies that are trying to help techie moms. The Paypal Recharge program provides job opportunities for women who have taken a break from their career (perhaps to raise a child) and want to switch into a technology career. Etsy is piloting providing executive coaching to new mothers. There’s also the non-profit Mother Coders, which helps women with children get into technology careers.

The next thing you need for deep hack mode is some sort of computer. Even with computer ownership increasing dramatically in the United States, the census data shows a deep disparity in who gets to own computers. African American and Hispanics, along with people in low and middle income brackets are far less likely to own a computer.

Women are also less likely to own a computer until all the men in the household have a computer. The book Women Don’t Ask talks about a series of interviews with computer science students at Carnegie Mellon University. They found that many female students didn’t start programming until college because their male siblings were granted more time on the computer or kept the computer in their room.

Even then, we have to consider what kind of computer minorities and lower class people are likely to buy, if they don’t buy a used computer. There are a whole bunch of different non-profits that are working to improve access to computers in low income communities around the globe. Free Geek operates in the United States (Portland and Chicago). Kids on Computers and Computer Reach gives computers internationally. The Raspberry Pi organization is also working to provide cheap computers globally. Why not donate your old computer, or donate money to refurbish old systems or make new cheap ones?

Of course, you need electricity to power your computer, and you need internet access to participate in open source communities. According to the 2011 Indian Census, only 67% of households had electricity. This Chrome Dev Summit talk on India’s internet growth was very enlightening. Most of India (19% or 248.53 million people) are on mobile networks, usually on a 2G network with an average speed of 60 KB/second. It costs them around 17 hours of minimum wage pay to have a 500 MB data plan. This means Indian internet users are very bandwidth conscientious. As community members of open source web tools and  services, we have an obligation to help lower our bandwidth footprint.

Level 2: Security

I talked at length about the Petrie multiplier, which proves that an attack on sexism is not an attack on men. I also talked about the requirements for an effective Code of Conduct, and how rolling your own code of conduct without listening to inputs is like rolling your own cryptography. Instead of making shit up and having it blow up in your face, you could pay women in tech who already have experience in improving diversity. I recommend contacting Ashe Dryden, Frame Shift Consulting, or Safety First PDX. *Edit: As of January 2017, I also offer diversity consulting through Otter Tech*

Level 5: Self Actualization

I mentioned a whole bunch of cool people in my final slides, and the diversity programs they work on:

There’s a lot of awesome projects that you can contribute to. If you don’t have time, I recommend donating to the Software Freedom Conservancy and Outreachy.