When there's a dialog about women in technology, there's usually an effort to let more women speak in the discussion than men. This is good, because the point is to give women a voice. Yet it's bad, because as we're trying to make some people feel less left out, we make others feel left out.
Men who care want to contribute to the conversation, too. When they're pushed out of the discussion, they feel excluded and rejected. It's like there's a double standard: only women can speak about how important it is that everyone have a voice.
Well that sucks. It isn't fair. And I want to tell you: it's also essential.
There's a meme permeating our culture, an idea that gets passed down and entrenched without ever being stated. It is: "White men dominate discourse." This is just a fact. And it's a fact that reinforces itself. Men expect to dominate the discourse because they do, and this means they are comfortable speaking up, and they do. And so they dominate the discourse.
This isn't anybody's fault, but it is everybody's loss. Inclusion and balance means more ideas, more sharing, more learning for everyone. This is especially true in tech, where ideas can have a positive impact quickly. Learning and growing is everything in our field.
You don't have to think men should dominate discourse to perpetuate it. This meme spreads itself, it's a feedback loop, a circular causality. Because it's suboptimal for our culture, we can choose to consciously counteract this meme.
Panels of mostly women, discussions where women's contributions outnumber men's, these are one way to counteract the meme. Every conversation where women speak at least as much as men is one that teaches us, subconsciously, "You have a contribution to make. Speak up." Where better to achieve this than in discussions about women in technology? If we can't change the ratio in discussions about gender, where can we?
Still, there's a long way from "women speak at least as much as men" to "shut up! you're a white man so you have no contribution to make!" There are many men who care and can contribute. Why would we discourage them to chime in?
The answer is: math. In a field that's 90% men, any random distribution of comments, even without cultural influence, will be 90% men. In one conversation, say the whole 10% of non-men speak up. If not more than 50% of comments are from men, then only the same number of men may speak. 10% of the total, out of 90% that are men, means that 8 out of 9 men are excluded.
Sometimes the best way to contribute is to remain silent. As a man, if you want to help mitigate the meme of "white men dominate discourse," it often means being quiet. Instead of speaking up, amplify the women's voices with +1s and retweets. Make the audience of your contributions the men around you who aren't listening to discussions about women in tech. Or speak individually to the women you're closest to, get their perspective, and maybe let them get the ideas into the conversation without contributing to male domination of discussions. It isn't your fault. It's the way things are. You can help us adjust them, help make tech more fair for everyone in the long run, by accepting some not-fair-to-you-ness in this particular case.
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[1] 90% men: In my experience as a senior dev and frequent attender of tech conferences, this is a generous estimate. If you disagree, change it and do your own math. The qualitative conclusion is the same.
