Aleen Mean

On June 10, I gave a talk at AltConf in San Francisco. Video has been posted online, but here is the text of the speech! Note that a few things may have changed when I actually gave my talk, but all of the basics are here.

On Monday Apple posted this photo of the keynote line. Does anyone notice anything? Just shout it out! One women, what else? Short haircuts. There’s not a whole lot of diversity here.

In light of that, would anyone be shocked to hear that the tech industry is not the most diverse place? Did you know that The LA Times recently stated that only 15% of people working in technical roles are women? Additionally, 56% of those women will leave the industry due to harassment, fewer advancement opportunities, and lack of female mentorship.

Things are even worse for ethnic minorities: a mere 2% of tech workers in Silicon valley are Black, and only 3% are Latino. If there are statistics for how many LGBTQAIP community members or people with disabilities work in tech, I couldn’t find them.

Why is it important to have better representation of all sorts of people in our industry?

This lack of representation is not just a problem from a moral perspective, it’s simply bad business. Studies have shown that businesses with diverse workforces outperform those with a more homogenous mix. People from diverse backgrounds offer a variety of unique life experiences and perspectives that prove invaluable.

About me

I’m Aleen Simms. I’m a writer for a software development company; I’m also the creator and host of a podcast called Less Than Or Equal, where I talk to geeky people about the things they love. The not-so-secret catch is that almost all of my guests have been members of groups that aren’t really represented well in geeky spaces.

I started Less Than Or Equal for a couple of reasons: I’d experienced some workplace harassment because of my gender that left me feeling off guard and helpless. I wanted to do something to combat both the incident and my feelings of helplessness. It didn’t take me long to realize that women aren’t the only people who are “othered”, so instead of making my show just about women in tech, I made it about anyone who’s marginalized in STEM fields, in gaming, in literature…. Over the course of the last 40+ episodes, I’ve learned a lot of lessons. I’m here to tell you about some of them: simple ways you can help enrich the tech industry by fostering diversity.

Here they are, up front¹

1. Recognize that it’s not about you. I know that sounds harsh, but stick with me here.
2. Believe what underrepresented people tell you.
3. Expand your network to include people who aren’t like you.
4. Amplify the voices of these new acquaintances.
5. If you’re handed an opportunity, pass it on to an underrepresented person.
6. Pay attention to the way you phrase things and talk about people.
7. Be our ambassador. Talk to people who do look like you.
8. Learn how to become phenomenal at apologies, and don’t be afraid to do it.

Recognize that it’s not about you

I need to pause and tell you a bit more about myself. I was raised by my single mother, an early childhood specialist, in a poor farming community. I was the third person in my family to graduate from college. My mom was the first and she remains the only one of us to attain more than a Bachelor’s degree. At least 90% of the 700-person town I grew up in was white. In fact, at some point when I was in junior high or high school a Black woman moved to town, bringing our Black population up to one. I remember that people made a point of telling one another how nice she was, as though it was remarkable. Most of the non-white residents were Native American, Hispanic, or Latino, but when you’re talking about a town so tiny, you’re really only talking about a few people.

In school, we learned about the history of the United States. About slavery. About Jim Crow laws, segregation (“separate but equal” drinking fountains and public spaces), and integration. The plight of the Black population was over in the United States, I was taught. And I believed it. I’ve moved from one predominantly white community to another throughout my life, and it never even occurred to me that my assumption was wrong. In fact, it never even occurred to me that I had even made that assumption.

After the events in Ferguson, Missouri last summer, I realized how ignorant I’d been. The friends I’ve made since I started Less Than Or Equal have told me some of their life experiences and how they often live their lives in fear.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in the middle of step zero: Recognize that it’s not about you. It took some major upheaval for me to really understand that other people have vastly different experiences from mine. We have different approaches to problems and to life. We have different perspectives.

Just because you have never felt unsafe at work, have never been catcalled on the street, haven’t worried about what will happen if you’re stopped by a police officer….it doesn’t meant that everyone has had that luxury. These experiences shape people.

Marginalized people are exposed to numerous infractions and lapses, big and small, every day, just by living their lives. It’s a big part of why they’re marginalized, and the constant barrage can be exhausting and frustrating.

It’s not about you. When you’re criticized, check your ego. If you feel defensive, stop and think about why you’re having that reaction. If it’s because you don’t like the way the message was delivered, try to catch the meaning of what you were told instead of focusing on the other person’s tone of voice or exact word choice.

Listen to and believe us

Okay, so you’re on board. You realize that other people have different perspectives and experiences, and that they might vary wildly from yours. What’s step one, then? Listen to and believe us. At the XOXO Festival last September, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian said, “One of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences.”

You can easily replace “women” with other groups of people. Indian, transgender, hearing impaired, gay… You’d be surprised at how often we’re ridiculed and disbelieved when we talk about things that have happened to us. Remember that it’s hard to speak up in the best of circumstances, let alone when we know we’ll be facing an uphill battle or are unlikely to be believed. Too often marginalized people face severe costs for speaking up: we lose friends and jobs. We are frequently harassed when we do. Take us at face value when we talk about our experiences.

Believe people when they tell you who they are

In recent weeks, I’ve been seeing more and more commentary about people who are transgender. Gender is complicated, but society has taught us that certain physical characteristics are either masculine or feminine. Deep voices belong to men, higher voices to women. Men have adams apples, women don’t. Women have breasts, men don’t. But here’s the thing: what is “masculine” and what is “feminine” is completely made up by our society. In fact, there are some societies today where there are five recognized genders.

But Western society, my society, currently recognizes two genders. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t make assumptions about another person’s gender based on their physicality, but we don’t live in an ideal world. You might find yourself in a situation where you’ve misidentified someone’s gender, and they tell you about your mistake.

So what’s an appropriate response to someone telling you that their gender isn’t what you assumed? I like, “Okay, thanks for letting me know! I’ll be sure to refer to you appropriately in the future. I’m sorry if I messed it up before.” Don’t argue or ridicule them; they know themselves better than you ever will.

Another thing to keep in mind when others tell you about their experiences or about themselves is to never be reductive. If a woman tells you about how she’s endured a harrowing afternoon full of catcalls, don’t tell her to get used to it because that’s how society is. If a disabled person laments their inability to go to a job interview because the building it was in is old and lacks accessibility, don’t tell them there will be other jobs. Doing so is rude and misses the point of their stories.

Expand your network

In the age of Twitter, it’s so easy to learn about smart, talented, insightful people you wouldn’t otherwise be able to meet. I encourage you to expand your network: seek out people from different backgrounds and follow them. Read their tweets and consider what they have to say. Don’t argue, don’t respond defensively. Just listen and learn.

Don’t know where to begin? Kronda Adair has a Social Justice list on Twitter that’s a good starting point: https://twitter.com/kronda/lists/social-justice. You can also look at who the Less Than Or Equal Twitter account is following—all are past guests who are concerned with making the world a more accepting place.

So far, I’ve talked a lot about listening. Who’s wondering when I’ll get to the doing steps? We’re almost there. Never underestimate the power of listening, though. It’s an important skill many people lack.

Amplify our voices

So you’re on board with expanding your network. Now it’s time to amplify the voices of the new people you follow. Retweet us. Link to our blog posts. Mention us in podcasts. If something a marginalized person said has inspired a line of thought, give credit to the person who spurred your thinking.

Don’t speak for us. We have voices and thoughts and talents and are perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves. Seems simple, right?

At Denver Comic Con last month, the “Women in Comics” panel about the history of female superheroes featured zero female panelists. Zero, as though there are no women who know about comics book history. (As an aside, there was more than one female comic book historian in attendance at DCC, but they were not approached to speak on the panel.) It would have been pretty simple to include at least one woman to talk about women in comic book history.

Things like this happen all the time, which is why it’s so important for people in the majority to…

Pass opportunities on to us

Pass opportunities on to people who are underrepresented. If you’re invited to speak about something at a conference and know someone who belongs to a marginalized group who is also knowledgable about the topic, recommend them to speak instead of you, or even with you.

I know this sounds unfair. You’ve worked hard to become knowledgable. You know your stuff because you’ve committed untold hours toward learning to excel at your craft. But the fact of the matter is it costs you little to help members of underrepresented groups out when the playing field is rougher and has more obstacles than yours.

Additionally, if you’re asked to comment about how people in a group you don’t belong to can excel in tech, politely decline. Use those handy connections you’ve made through social media (and maybe even in meatspace!) to recommend people who can comment.

If, for whatever reason, you decide to comment instead of passing the opportunity on to someone who has experience with the subject, remember points zero and one: It’s not about you. Listen to us. Because believe me, you will likely be ridiculed by vocal people when you choose to speak on topics of which you have no first-hand experience. Becoming defensive and believing you’re a victim in those situations won’t do you any good, but listening will be a valuable learning experience.

This doesn’t just apply to speaking gigs. What about recommending marginalized people to work on projects at work instead of you? If you’re a freelancer, build your network so that you can pass opportunities on. A minimal amount of effort on your part can mean big things for other people.

Pay attention to your language

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Did anyone else grow up saying that? Or “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!”

I’m here to tell you that’s a load of crap, as if you didn’t know already. Words matter. Words have started wars and driven people to self harm. Words, in short, are very powerful.

I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about ablest language because it’s not something we think about very often. ableist words, as Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg wrote in an article on Everyday Feminism, “perpetuate negative and disempowering views of disabled people, and these views wind their ways into all of the things that most people feel are more important.”

When we use ableist words to talk about things negatively, we’re helping to create a negative stereotype. So what are some ableist words and some alternatives to them?

Lame: unable to walk normally because of an injury or illness affecting the leg or foot. “That movie was so lame.” try instead: “That movie didn’t make sense.” “That movie’s pacing was too slow.”

Crazy: mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way. “It was crazy to think I’d sleep on my flight.” try instead: “It was unrealistic to think I’d sleep on my flight.” “It was irrational to think I’d sleep on my flight.”

To turn a blind eye or deaf ear: willfully ignoring information “They turned a deaf ear to the security concerns the new policy presented.” try instead: “They were being willfully ignorant.” “They disregarded the security concerns.”

There are more ableist words we use all the time: retarded, stupid, dumb, idiot, moron.

Who’s feeling overwhelmed? Yeah, me too. To be entirely honest with you, I struggle the most with both identifying and not using ableist words. I’ve decided to approach it a word at a time, so I’ve stopped saying “crazy”. I still catch myself from time to time, but I’m getting the hang of it.

The way we phrase things also matters. “He didn’t get the job because he’s hispanic” puts the blame on the victim, while “He didn’t get the job because the interviewer is racist” puts the blame where it belongs.

Be our ambassadors

I know that I said not to speak for us, but there’s an exception to that rule: Be our ambassadors. There are people who will listen to you, but who will not listen to people who they think of as different. Please talk to them about things that you see or stories you’re told. Convince them that there are people out there who need help. Correct them when you hear them ridiculing people from marginalized groups. For example, “Jokes about people with disabilities aren’t funny.” “Jane was talking, please let her finish.”

You can also introduce us to new people and help us all expand our social circles. More positive interactions with diverse people means more empathy, which is good for everyone. Bridge gaps and facilitate connections when you can.

Join our battles—don’t just stand by when we’re being torn apart in a fight. I’ve been embroiled in Internet arguments without support, only to have male friends later tell me how wrong the situation was, but their silent support didn’t do anything to help me when I was being called names. Add your voice to ours.

Don’t hesitate to apologize

Last but not least: Learn how to be an apology rockstar, and don’t hesitate to show off those skills. Saying “I’m sorry” and meaning it is a rare, but it can get you pretty far in life. There are some dos and don’ts to apologizing, though:

Do not say, “I’m sorry you were offended” or “I’m sorry you misunderstood me” or “you must have misheard.” Those are classic non-apologies and they mean absolutely nothing because they place all of the blame on the victim. A real, sincere apology includes taking responsibility for your actions.

My approach to apologizing is to actually say the word “sorry”, take responsibility for my actions, explain what I’ve learned, and then follow through.

Here’s a completely made up example: “I’m so sorry I forgot to empty the dishwasher! I got distracted by Twitter and it completely slipped my mind. I’ll go empty it now and make sure not to check Twitter until I’m done with dishes next time.”

See? Learning to apologize can even save relationships! Of course, this apology means nothing if I don’t actually go empty the dishwasher after I’ve said I will, and if I continue to get distracted by Twitter in the future.

Conclusion

That’s it. Pretty easy, right?

Here are those, uh, seven steps you can take:

1. Realize that it’s not about you
2. Listen to and believe underrepresented people
3. Expand your network
4. Amplify our voices
5. Pass opportunities on to underrepresented people
6. Pay attention to your language
7. Be ambassadors
8. Don’t hesitate to apologize

Now, this is a starting point. You can start implementing these steps today, and it’ll start having an immediate impact. You. You will make tech better for everyone, and these little changes will help usher in big changes for the industry as a whole.

There are other things that need to happen—hiring practices need to be examined, the workplace needs to be more friendly to parents, the way we approach after-hours get-togethers needs to be examined…. But this is a place to start.

And I have a secret to tell you. All of these steps boil down to one main point: be kind.

My best friend is amazing for a ton of reasons. She’s smart, sciency, compassionate, creative…. She’s been dabbling in code for a couple of months and recently decided to delve into Swift. She even has a great iOS app idea that she came up with after helping her kids with school.¹

The other day, she told me, “I think my fear with [getting started in] coding/design is that I know I’m not good enough.”²

Whoa there! That’s a heavy statement, right? As much as I understand where she’s coming from, I’m here to say that this particular bit of knowledge is completely wrong. Here are my thoughts:

Learning is hard

It is really hard to learn how to code. Picking a language and learning the fundamentals on a level where they actually make sense is difficult and overwhelming. In my own journey learning Objective-C, I’ve often felt like someone has dropped me in the middle of deep water when I don’t even know how to dog paddle.

However, this feeling lessens as you learn how to quickly search Stack Overflow for answers and the more you practice by actually writing code.

*Image used with permission from [Daily Parallels](https://instagram.com/dailyparallels/)*

Perfect code is a myth

In all my years working with developers, I have known exactly one who has ever claimed to write bug-free, perfect code. It will likely come as no surprise to anyone to learn that he wasn’t a very good programmer and he was really difficult to work with.

Even the most well-known developers write bad code. I’m sure that some of them write nothing but bad code. They don’t let that stop them from creating apps and making them available for others to purchase because they know that there is no such thing as perfect code. At the end of the day, what really matters is that your app (or website, or whatever) is able to do the thing you want it to do without crashing or being slow.³

Professional design isn’t necessary

Take a gander at the mobile apps available right now. For every well-designed, beautiful app out there, you’ll find hundreds or thousands that look like they were created by kindergarteners who have no clue that some colors clash. You’ll download one and poke around in slack-jawed wonder as you try to figure out how this is really the best knitting row counter you could find (not that I’m projecting). I still go to “modern” websites for relatively new products that look like they were built with Dreamweaver 2.0 and a prayer.

Making sure your product makes sense is far more important than making sure that it looks like it has a team of professional designers. You can always change your assets later.

Operating in a vacuum is a mistake

You definitely can sit alone, hammering away at your keyboard, but that’s probably the biggest mistake you can make. Find community, ask questions, and even have people look at your code. Other developers will have suggestions for different ways to approach things. You’ll have the opportunity to level up your knowledge while making your end product even better.

One thing I love about working with a team of talented software engineers is being able to see pull requests. It isn’t uncommon to see comments like, “Try Method A instead of Method B. It’ll work better because….” By having a collaborative mindset, the programs we produce are better than they would be if everyone was left to their own devices.

Present you is the enemy of future you

If you’re doing it right, you will continually learn. This is a journey. There will definitely be milestones along the way (you built a website! a script! an app! an Apple Watch complication!), but there’s no point at which you’ll be able to put your fists on your hips and proclaim, “I am the Master of the Development Universe!”

This means that you will constantly write better code. When you need to look at your old code, you will cringe and wonder what you were thinking. Sometimes, you’ll need to rip it all out like bad electrical work and start over again. This is normal.

For perfectionists, it’s also paralyzing. “I’m not good enough to start now. Maybe in a few months, after I’ve learned more.”

Sorry, Charlie. With that attitude, you’ll never be good enough. Get started now. Slog through, write bad code, delete it all, start over again. This is learning. This is growing. This is development.

You can do it.

I’m of an age where I can remember my first encounter with a computer. I was still small enough that I could go into work with my mom and take naps under her desk, maybe three or four years old. One day, Mom showed me the monitor of a computer. I don’t remember much, just a few pixelated cars on a color screen, but I was absolutely transfixed.

And that’s just where it started: I remember Mom explaining to me that the computer someone donated to a preschool wouldn’t run any programs because there were no disks for the machine (whatever that meant), amber text against black backgrounds, and typing in random gibberish because I didn’t quite have a grasp on sentence composition. I remember sitting at the computer learning the alphabet in my kindergarten classroom in lieu of going to the crafts table, playing Where in the World is Carmen San Diego and Number Munchers in computer class when I was older, and the sound of dot matrix printers making Print Shop creations come to life. I remember having to stay inside from recess when I got sick in the winter and playing Oregon Trail on the green-screened classroom computer.

I remember the computer Mom’s employer let her bring home so that she could work (a Macintosh Classic or Classic II) and how much my cat, Princess, loved the fireworks screensaver. I remember when that computer went away and was replaced by 100-series PowerBook and how magical it was to have access to a computer that could sit on my lap. I remember the first time I changed a font in a word processing program and the novelty of printing to a page that wasn’t attached to hundreds of other pages.

I remember the first time I was able to access the Internet, during a summertime computer class I took with a friend in a town over an hour away. I learned about search engines (AltaVista, thankyouverymuch) and felt overwhelmed by the enormity of possibility.

I remember our first computer, the one that wasn’t one of the few perks of Mom’s job as an educator. It was just before I graduated from the 8th grade and we put a call into Gateway for a quote. For whatever reason, they built and sent the computer to us even though Mom made it clear that she wasn’t planning on ordering that day. Computers were expensive and Mom didn’t want to keep it, but it ended up staying in our house. After a while, we found an Internet service provider and I was busy keeping our only phone line occupied, miscounting the number of minutes I was dialed in, talking in chat rooms, and teaching myself HTML. I spent my 16th birthday on the phone with Gateway tech support after I’d managed to install a particularly persistent virus (and learned a valuable lesson about opening files from strangers) and quickly learned the value of reformatting my computer’s hard drive.

While computers haven’t been ubiquitous my entire life, many of my memories are tied to them. I was so fortunate to have a mom who told me, from an early age, that I should absolutely grow up to work with computers. In some ways I think I was lucky to have few friends, as it was harder for society to tell me that I shouldn’t pursue a career in technology because of my gender.

Because the fact of the matter is that the toxic background message for girls is that they aren’t suited for technical careers. We show them princess movies where women have to be rescued, give them dolls to mother, and encourage them to be quiet and demure. To make matters worse, even though women were the first programmers, there aren’t a lot of female role models in tech nowadays. In the movies and on TV, computer programmers are almost always unkempt dudes, not inquisitive women who come up with the improbable solution at the last second.

This is why I’m such a ardent supporter of App Camp for Girls, a program that shows girls entering the 8th and 9th grades that programming is a fun way to bring their thoughts and ideas to life. It teaches them that they are capable of writing code when so often they’re told that doing so is not for them. Most importantly, App Camp for Girls shows these kids that they are not alone. I always felt weird because of my interest in computers but many, many other girls shared my fascination; I just didn’t know any of them.

Yesterday, the App Camp for Girls 3.0 Indiegogo campaign hit its halfway point. We’re trying to raise just under $50,000 more, which will mean that more camps can start in more places. If you can spare some money, please consider donating to help us reach our goal. I know it’s overused, but every little bit helps. Don’t have an extra buck or two? That’s okay! You can still have an impact. My friend Virginia Roberts wrote an excellent blog post with ideas of ways you can support both the women volunteering and the girls participating in camps.

I’m so happy to be a part of such an amazing organization as well as the larger Apple community. Technology is nothing short of the combination of magic and science, and it’s only going to get more magical as it becomes more inclusive. This is just the start of amazing things.

It’s my habit to trail after Justin when we’re in crowds. He’s tall and looks intimidating, so the sea of bodies tends to part as he makes his way through. This means that I don’t have to think about the crush of people as we walk and it frees me up to people watch, which is one of my favorite things to do.

In 2011, things were no different. As he made his way to the correct area of Moscone West to register for Apple’s Word Wide Developer Conference, I looked around and noticed that there were alarmingly few women in the mass of people. I vowed then and there that I would attend the event someday.

This year, I had my chance. Apple partnered with over 20 organizations dedicated to helping increase diversity in tech to offer scholarships to their members and alumni. Because of my involvement with App Camp for Girls, I was eligible for one even though I’m not a developer and I don’t really have any experience programming in Objective-C or Swift. In order to apply, I had to write an app about myself and submit it. I did so in less than two weeks.

And I won one of 350 scholarships, which was truly not what I expected.

I’ve used the word surreal to talk about my week as a WWDC attendee over and over again, but it’s the best I can come up with. Instead of Justin, I was the one rolling out of bed to attend sessions and meet people I’d heretofore known only online. After years of watching them online, I sat in the same room as a keynote.

I even got a horrific selfie with Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at the WWDC Bash.

There were so many non-conference things to do: parties, fundraisers, wandering the town looking for late-night milkshakes (Mel’s was always there for us)….

I spoke at AltConf to help people learn how to make tech more welcoming for everyone and appeared on a panel with Brianna Wu of Giant Spacekat and Jean MacDonald, founder of App Camp for Girls.

I even got access to the 1Password for iOS source code and made a few minor changes that’ll be released in the next update.

Diversity was a hot topic this year. Formality varied from Christina Warren’s exclusive interview with Tim Cook to my AltConf talk to conversations around town. While there were more women in attendance this year than in 2011 there were still very few of us, and I saw a whole lot of white people while wandering the halls.

A beautifully staged picture was posted to Tim Cook’s Twitter account on Monday, but it was hardly representative of the gender breakdown of scholarship recipients. I stopped going to to the scholarship lounge because it was full of teenaged boys and I felt like a complete creeper sitting in there. Girls were definitely awarded scholarships, but the disparity in numbers was pronounced.

I’m optimistic, though. In the four years since I set my goal to attend the conference, gender diversity at WWDC has increased noticeably. Awareness is even greater now, and amazing programs like App Camp for Girls will only increase the number of young women applying for scholarships and pursuing development careers. I think we’ll continue to notice a difference on that front. Over the next year, I’d really like to see the conversation shift toward including people of color more so that they can also see increased representation in technical spaces.

I’m truly excited to see where we will all be next June, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams. My thanks to Apple and its employees, who I know worked hard to make the event memorable for us all.

When the WWDC keynote started with a video from Bill Hader, I tweeted, “This is a new Apple.”

Today, Phil Schiller took the stage with John Gruber at The Talk Show live. I don’t think this is something that would have happened even a year or two ago.

Steve Jobs was all about products, design, and experiences. It obviously served Apple well, but I think things are starting to shift as Tim Cook really falls into his role as the new leader of the company. It’s been long enough now that those who believed Apple would be doomed under his watch are no longer of any import–clearly the company is alive and well.

In the last year, Tim (can I call him Tim?) has done more to put a human face on the company than Steve Jobs ever did. Last year, he ended years of speculation about his sexuality with a wonderfully written article in Bloomberg. He’s talked about his commitment to increasing diversity in technical spaces. Just a few days ago, he stated that the dearth of diversity in the tech community was one that we created ourselves. Apple is taking steps to improve that (I’m attending WWDC on a scholarship because of my involvement with App Camp for Girls), and yesterday’s keynote had female engineers on stage for the first time since 2007.

I believe that we’ll look back on Tim Cook’s time at Apple and see how it became about people and not about things.

I’m excited to be a small part of this, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.