Finally some controversial topic on this blog! Women in tech. Hot topic and misunderstood by many (not that I’m an expert here). It deservers separate article but this time I want to look into bad case of fighting for equal rights.

Let’s start with fundamentals. Equality in tech. Does it exist? It depends: where and what kind of equality. And the most important thing: what equality really means?

Let’s narrow this topic to women in tech world. Again, there is a lot to talk about, but in short: I think that women career in tech world is more difficult than men. And yes, it might be improved.

But definitely not the way that Karolina Szczur (aka @fox) is doing it.

The story

There is a conference in Europe called CodeEurope. They had lineup of 87 male speakers and one woman. Yep, only one woman. Well.. maybe there HOW THEY CAN HAVE ONLY ONE WOMAN IN LINEUP THEY ARE MISOGYNISTS!!!!!11111

That’s what happened. Ok, not literally, but this tweet happened:

man lineup at conference

Have you ever approached a group of men and asked them why they are having fun on their own and they don’t include any woman?

Have you ever been to conference in Africa and complained about why there are so many black people on the stage?

This is similar.

@fox didn’t like what she saw and started attacking conference organizers. She didn’t do her research first (at least she didn’t mention it). She didn’t ask too many questions. She just started complaining without full view and context. Hell, there is really no room for discussion, because she will ban you on Twitter immediately.

It’s ironic that you can enforce your own view on someone else but when someone else has different view he/she is not welcome (aka banned).

Organizers start explaining themselves, but discussion with @fox was pointless. I think that organizer answer was polite, nice and explanatory:

We have invited many female speakers but, as you can see, almost all of them declined.

Makes sense. And seriously, what more can you do?

I really tried to get why we should do even more? Why should we create inequality by favoring women over men. There was an interestingly titled article “Inclusion has to be proactive” by @fox but unfortunately it doesn’t say WHY. It says that we should and that’s it.

But the rock bottom was reached when she was citing message from organisers. Message first:

(…) We have invited many female speakers but, as you can see, almost all of them declined for different reasons. What can I say… I have never had much luck with the ladies, looks like it is haunting me still today. Jokes aside - I am personally treating gender balance as a very serious issue (…)

One of @fox tweets? (now deleted)

organiser who quotes “not being good with girls” as a reason for lack of inclusion.

End of conversation

This the moment when you know you can’t have reasonable discussion with logical arguments. And that’s a real pity, we could all learn something new.

Moreover, @fox is making money of helping conferences to fight for diversity. Which is not a bad thing to do but makes you question her motives of critiquing.

Summary

@fox is working towards gender equality in tech. Goal is noble and worth discussion, definitely. But they way she does it is just doing a big disservice towards “gender equality” - now more people might think that gender activists act just like @fox and are illogical and closed for discussion.

It’s not about attacking her - after all she might be doing good things in her country. But this is the first time I heard about her and this time she did huge disservice for equality, presenting it as something enforced, not something we should want and work together for.

Learn from her mistakes, don’t be like that and we can make tech better for everyone.

And if you have something to say in that topic - don’t worry, I’m very open to discussion.