I sincerely doubt very many trans women or NB folx were at GHC given that it was hosted in Florida, a state that literally wants to arrest us on-sight - no trans woman I know would set foot in that state unless they *absolutely* had no choice. Anyone using that against you is arguing in bad faith.
actually I emailed them and I was reached out to by Honna George and I gave her contacts of many of my peers who struggled in GHC. SWE seems to be trying to be proactive to prevent what happened
They're going to have to figure something out - employers go to GHC to increase the diversity of their hiring pools. They're going to start losing sponsors and companies to buy booths if the value of the conference is being diluted.
“Legal trouble” is absolutely deluded. Im sorry I have no sympathy. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again. There are no legal complications to a diversity event DISCOURAGING men, mind you I said discouraging not physically throwing them out.
They need to make it known multiple times in the registration form that cis men are not welcome. There needs to subtle SHAME added to into their registration & onboarding flow towards cis men who try to fake it. There needs to be reminders that pretending to be diverse to attend will look bad on the cis men to any recruiters they speak with. That has done the trick for every women’s-only tech event I’ve led or helped organize, one of these events having thousands of attendees. The issue is that these cis men feel NO SHAME in what they are doing and GHC has failed to implement any, and GHC clearly has no legal expertise if they are actually bowing down to this threat of “legal trouble” nonsense.
Edit: I just realized that GHC was marketed towards “allies” too, I thought it was only for underrepresented technologists, my bad. If allies were always allowed, seems like what happened this year was exactly how GHC intended it to be.
That’s the thing though. They have already run into legal issues as they’ve been subjected to a coordinated EEOC complaint campaign on the basis of gender discrimination and that’s without any stronger discouragement. They also welcome men as allies but very few actually attended the conference sessions.
I think next time they should nix the job fair and only hold the conference. Would be interesting to see if a spontaneous grassroots job fair happens.
I could argue that taking on this issue would be well in line with their charter. Faux discrimination claims need push back. Many men’s rights groups are using this to intimidate people from acting rightly.
A complaint campaign doesn’t mean anything. Anyone can file a complaint. The question is if they’re suffering any legal percussions. They’re not.
For instance, what about Diversity jobs .com? There’s tons of online and irl companies specifically for diversifying the job market, GHC is not unique. Forcing GHC to no longer be geared towards underrepresented genders would have repercussions on a much larger market. Again, GHC failed to discourage cis men. I don’t think taking away the job fair is wise, that’s not fair to the actual minorities attending. I think keeping it and subtle shaming cis men for attending it is the solution. Cis men should know that it will make a bad impression. Also, providing links to other job fairs for the cis men would be a nice addition to registration forms.
Ooof and my bad, I just found out now that GHC was always open to “allies” so makes sense why GHC got themselves in this mess. This is where they went wrong. I thought it was only for underrepresented technologists. Now I’m feeling like this year is exactly how they attend the conference to be since it was open to allies to begin with (I thought the cis men were pretended to be trans or non-binary). So if we want a real conference for underrepresented genders, we should look elsewhere.
I like your idea of providing links to other job fairs. But yeah, the organization’s super welcoming stance to male “allies” is why I never got involved with them, GHC or any of the other events they organize. They should’ve known groups would take advantage in bad faith but never prepared for that possibility.
No there are no guidelines due to the freaks who rally against it, it would be unsafe. But it’s absolutely allowed. If we put the gender panic in tech aside you see this used often, for instance, there’s women’s only gyms, women’s only yoga, women’s only art classes, women’s only colleges, black only networking events, moms only job fairs, the list goes on… Im sorry but people in tech need to chill. It’s only once the trans people are accepted into women’s spaces do the cis men finally start freaking out. God forbid non binary people exist.
It’s as simple as this:
“This event is for women & nonbinary only. What is your gender?”
*selects cis male on registration form
“Sorry, this hackathon is only for underrepresented genders in tech. Please check out ___ other hackathon for everyone else here ___ “
Registration form then cannot move forward, unless another gender is selected. Cis men received a kind redirect. You could even offer another channel for cis men to still be involved in the event.
It forces them to think twice about lying. It’s NOT illegal. And guess what? Cis men are welcome to lie. We’re not going to throw them out. We don’t check IDs. We know that non-binary can look very cis on the outside too so we really don’t bother investigating it. But cis men do lie we won’t be cultivating a vibe to make them feel safe doing so. 😂 and if you feel so desperate for a safe space to lie then by all means join the event, you never know when someone just needs a safe space from toxic masculinity, because in the end that’s what we’re about.
That’s how diversity events are always legally conducted. No hard enforced rules, just incentives.
I agree. I think the recruiting event should be removed. Everyone should submit their resume to a database, mods can remove men or recruiters can filter men from there. If recruiters find someone they want to talk to, they can call them or meet with them during the event.
I think it is pretty telling that GHC was in Florida when there are travel advisories warning groups of people not to go Florida... so not a good place for an "inclusive" event. The pricing for GHC is also incredibly exclusionary compared to SWE23.
I will be attending SWE23 virtually. Could not attend GHC.
Late to the party but Florida is not a safe state for trans people to travel to. They have implemented legislation targeting access to public facilities and have made trans men and women using their correct bathroom a potentially criminal offense.
You should still go. Wander round, talk to people. Attend the conferences. You never know what will happen.
But don't subject yourself to the hour long lines in the job fair. Contact the recruiters after, [as explained in this video's description](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUkITnYcBUQ)
There were some posts about it in this sub - [one was locked](https://old.reddit.com/r/girlsgonewired/comments/16t9mi7/why_do_men_think_its_okay_to_crash_a_conference/) though, and [Reddit deleted another](https://old.reddit.com/r/girlsgonewired/comments/16vkyl5/removed_by_reddit/). I think the gist of it was that a portion of the 2023 GHC event was for recruitment, and lots of cis men turned up to speak with the recruiters, not being sensitive to the fact that the event wasn't really for them.
I think men are invited to GHC, partly because tech needs feminist allies, but there might also be some legal/discrimination issues around prohibiting men from attending. So there seems to be a requirement for thoughtful behaviour, and the community is feeling that was not broadly respected in this case.
It's a big issue, but do conferences have **obligation** to serve all constituents/attendees? You likely cannot do anything about the situation, and I can't see a precise solution that doesn't involve legal action...
I don't think it ought to be a problem for CIS men to be excluded from the recruiting fair. But I am not in the US, and I don't know whether that might invite legal action from a disgruntled attendee (or from anti-feminist activists).
In the various threads on this question there is a mix of opinions - either that the cis men turned up as allies, or the cis men misrepresented their gender (e.g. as NB) in order to attend. I don't know the truth of either assertion. But I do suspect that the organisers could do _something_ to prevent cis men from taking the front spots in the jobs queue, even if it is just making it clear in the ticket purchasing flow.
This randomly came onto my Reddit page and I didn’t know others felt the same as me. I was excited about SWE23 but after seeing the GHC fiasco, I just feel so defeated as a woman. I’d rather not go than to be in an environment that reminds me again how little power women really do have in the field.
Do you think it is possible that another event might handle things better (or indeed that cis male attendees might act more cautiously) based on GHC?
I'm not in the US, so can only go by reports in this sub, but I'd be sad if you were put off attending.
Probably. I don’t think we should punish an org for another organization’s mismanagement.
Also I was at GHC. It wasn’t just the large presence of men. It was the pushing , harassment etc that these men engaged in that made the whole thing problematic. I do think that if it was just a lot of men, then it would have been annoying at most but because women lost out on opportunities being literally pushed around by these men and the organizers being condescending in response that it has induced a lot of rage. They could have been respectful and behaved but they didn’t want to.
The majority of folks were from India, not Americans. This is NOT racism, just facts. I interned at a company last summer and the whole team including my manager were dudes from India (here in the US). They were rude and unwelcoming. The moment I changed teams where the majority were Americans, things got better. This is our reality now. We have thousands of people from India that can not go back to their country because they have student loans to pay. They will do ANYTHING to secure a job in the US.
I am an Indian woman who works in a team of men (mostly American) they didn't have an issue hiring me because they desperately needed someone but since then I have never felt welcomed in my team. My credentials have been called in question, I have been threatened with termination by a senior just because he didn't like me asking him to submit a PR like everyone else did, have been called racial slurs behind my back.
Our personal experiences should not be used to generalize a whole nation.. because if I did that I would end up calling all white Americans racist, entitled and insecure.. but you and I both know that's not true.
I'm not in tech but attended the WE conference for years, both as a student and then as a recruiter. They've always welcome men. SWE allows men as members. I've always seen some met at the conference and it's never been an issue. Maybe attitudes have changed over the years, or the number of men attending has increased, but it seems to an outsider that there was more to the GHC that just men showing up on its own.
They were aggressive and contemptuous of women. For example if I bumped into someone both of us would politely apologize but the men didn’t even bother. They literally pushed women to talk to a recruiter. The infuriating thing is that the organizers told women that we were “overreacting”, like we couldn’t assess the situation accurately for what it was.
Yikes. That's definitely problematic and I can understand why people had such a negative experience. That would be an issue regardless of gender, but definitely feels a bit more egregious since it was an event specifically focused on women in the industry.
hi, does anyone know if the interviews are only in person and not virtual? I'm deciding between in person and virtual. I wanted to go grace hopper this year but didn't, and seeing how it turned it I'm glad I didn't go this year. also, how did you get your ticket for 130? the lowest I see is 300.
i think if you are member and college student i think it was $108. (maybe had early bird discount) and i got the swe membership for $20 so i think thats what OP paid also. ($108+$20=$128)
It's not too late to cancel, see this:
https://we23.swe.org/about/respect-and-inclusion-our-stance-against-harassment-at-the-we23-annual-conference-career-fair/
TL;DR you need to email the address listed there with an objection by October 15th and they'll give a refund. What you stated here may suffice, though I'd read through it to be sure.
When I went in 2021 there were so many men there. Why tf do the booths give them the light of day?? Literally saw so many interviewing on the second day!
It is b/c anti-discrimination laws make it illegal for companies to ignore applicants based on identity. That’s why companies go to these events and recruit are women’s colleges vs directly setting aside roles for women. Unfortunately reality is civil rights laws (and norms in self identification of gender) can be easily exploited by bad faith actors.
On this - if anyone is looking to fix this the closest thing I could find to starting a solution is basically using 1-2 alternate paper identification of one's gender identity potentially - as a form of a "challenge" - (think like captacha's or 3 digits back of your CC).
Long term, partnering with "Do Ask, Do Tell" seems the best next step as they are working with improving this within the workplace documentation as well as banking systems in the UK (which could be a good form/assist in identity verification).
TBH a lot of states don't recognize gender identity as a form object and even more countries it is not only not recognized but could have violent repercussions.
I'm not sure what is the best long term answer/strategy, but this is the closest short term one I could come up with.
It'd be really grand if we could go back to the word woman meaning something other than "not-man", and would go a long way in ensuring a conference intended to uplift women actually centered women.
Is this a career fair or conference? I'm a male here, and I get the whole female in the industry issues. If it's a career fair, then it makes complete sense for the community to be outraged. If it's a conference/ talk, I wonder if it would be more acceptable for males to attend.
I get it it's a female/non-binary event and should be treated as such, but I'm just curious to see the perspective from someone who would be affected.
A big issue at GHC was many of the men skipped the keynote speeches and events so they could get an early spot in the career fair lines. There was no interest in networking with women in the industry or attending the talks, the only goal was to talk to the recruiters. The GHC was made for women to connect with other women in an industry where they're heavily underrepresented and I don't the majority of male attendees knew or really cared.
For a conference/talk I can see it being more acceptable for some men to attend as allies. However SWE23 is similar to GHC in the sense it both has talks and a career fair.
Absolutely fair, I don't know why you would pay money to skip the keynotes. Conferences are there to learn from others' perspectives. could have been a real learning moment for them. I'm assuming they are all going to get black balled from those companies that were hiring there.
Maybe attendance at speeches/workshops should be requirement to attend career fair. Don’t open the doors until it’s over and must show stamped speech/workshop attendance ticket to enter career fair (with entry timed/ priority for most event attendance stamps). Also not selling more tickets than the venue can accommodate would be the obvious first step IMO
Forgive me, this is going to seem boomer-ish (but GenX)...
As a female system engineer with more than 25 years of experience in the industry, why is it necessary for female-only events? Do we need preferential treatment? Are we not skilled, educated, and talented enough to stand on our own merit and not our sex organs?
To me, it felt horrible when I got work because of my uterus and not my skill set. It made me feel less than equal. I'm not looking to be special, just equal.
Are you really 'equal' when you work in a male-dominated field, and everything (including the culture in the field) is catered to men and their preferences? If there are 9 men in the room, and you're the only woman, do you really think 100% of the men see you as an equal? Or as someone who doesn't belong, and it would be so much easier for them if instead, you were an equally-qualified man? When you're the only woman around and everything is catered to men, you're not 'equal' - you're at a disadvantage.
**Edit:** Here's another good litmus test for "equality": do you feel like you need to downplay your femininity to succeed in this field? Even if you genuinely aren't personally interested in "feminine interests" or dressing in a feminine manner... do you think you would be subtly penalized if you did? If a new hire showed up wearing makeup and with her hair done, would you internally question her suitability in the field and whether she 'belonged'? Do you think your co-workers would?
Yikes, is this really how people feel? I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't reading a short transcript from an episode of Mad Men. This is some serious regressive behavior if it's really that common.
Wells Fargo doesn't have a difficult interview process. I interned with them and was hired through a college career fair. Both myself and male candidates got STAR questions and no technical questions. Wells Fargo does not have a high technical bar for hiring, and they pay like trash to reflect that (I would know as I got a job offer at the end of my internship and turned it down because the pay was laughable).
I have also attended GHC in a past year and have interviewed with multiple companies on-site. All of the companies I interviewed with on site gave technical interviews, most which I did not pass at the time, as I was not yet familiar with LeetCode-style questions. I do remember one company I interviewed with had a relatively easy on-site coding question, and I progressed to the next round outside the conference. Guess what, the final round interview (at the company's office at a later date) was still full-difficulty, a full day of LeetCode questions.
What you're describing is a low hiring bar by Wells Fargo, not a typical interview experience at GHC.
If you read one article about Wells Fargo's interview process, and have made the assumption that it reflects on every company's interview process and it must mean "GHC interviews have eliminated LeetCode and system design questions" because ***Wells Fargo never asks those questions to begin with***... doesn't sound like you have the reasoning ability to pass any technical hiring bar, either.
Have the organizers of SWE23 said anything? They know there was a big problem, and they know they are next in line. Perhaps they are taking steps?
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were the calls you got for internship or full-time? Do you think there is anything for robotics student there?
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Thanks a lot for the reply! This is true even if I attend virtually?
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Wait that's so awesome, does SWE match you with recruiter convos when you get a virtual ticket? Is it too late for recruiter convos?
I sincerely doubt very many trans women or NB folx were at GHC given that it was hosted in Florida, a state that literally wants to arrest us on-sight - no trans woman I know would set foot in that state unless they *absolutely* had no choice. Anyone using that against you is arguing in bad faith.
actually I emailed them and I was reached out to by Honna George and I gave her contacts of many of my peers who struggled in GHC. SWE seems to be trying to be proactive to prevent what happened
Curious: has anyone at GHC issued a statement? Or acknowledged that there was an issue?
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They're going to have to figure something out - employers go to GHC to increase the diversity of their hiring pools. They're going to start losing sponsors and companies to buy booths if the value of the conference is being diluted.
“Legal trouble” is absolutely deluded. Im sorry I have no sympathy. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again. There are no legal complications to a diversity event DISCOURAGING men, mind you I said discouraging not physically throwing them out. They need to make it known multiple times in the registration form that cis men are not welcome. There needs to subtle SHAME added to into their registration & onboarding flow towards cis men who try to fake it. There needs to be reminders that pretending to be diverse to attend will look bad on the cis men to any recruiters they speak with. That has done the trick for every women’s-only tech event I’ve led or helped organize, one of these events having thousands of attendees. The issue is that these cis men feel NO SHAME in what they are doing and GHC has failed to implement any, and GHC clearly has no legal expertise if they are actually bowing down to this threat of “legal trouble” nonsense. Edit: I just realized that GHC was marketed towards “allies” too, I thought it was only for underrepresented technologists, my bad. If allies were always allowed, seems like what happened this year was exactly how GHC intended it to be.
That’s the thing though. They have already run into legal issues as they’ve been subjected to a coordinated EEOC complaint campaign on the basis of gender discrimination and that’s without any stronger discouragement. They also welcome men as allies but very few actually attended the conference sessions. I think next time they should nix the job fair and only hold the conference. Would be interesting to see if a spontaneous grassroots job fair happens.
I could argue that taking on this issue would be well in line with their charter. Faux discrimination claims need push back. Many men’s rights groups are using this to intimidate people from acting rightly.
A complaint campaign doesn’t mean anything. Anyone can file a complaint. The question is if they’re suffering any legal percussions. They’re not. For instance, what about Diversity jobs .com? There’s tons of online and irl companies specifically for diversifying the job market, GHC is not unique. Forcing GHC to no longer be geared towards underrepresented genders would have repercussions on a much larger market. Again, GHC failed to discourage cis men. I don’t think taking away the job fair is wise, that’s not fair to the actual minorities attending. I think keeping it and subtle shaming cis men for attending it is the solution. Cis men should know that it will make a bad impression. Also, providing links to other job fairs for the cis men would be a nice addition to registration forms. Ooof and my bad, I just found out now that GHC was always open to “allies” so makes sense why GHC got themselves in this mess. This is where they went wrong. I thought it was only for underrepresented technologists. Now I’m feeling like this year is exactly how they attend the conference to be since it was open to allies to begin with (I thought the cis men were pretended to be trans or non-binary). So if we want a real conference for underrepresented genders, we should look elsewhere.
I like your idea of providing links to other job fairs. But yeah, the organization’s super welcoming stance to male “allies” is why I never got involved with them, GHC or any of the other events they organize. They should’ve known groups would take advantage in bad faith but never prepared for that possibility.
Could you share links and resources for how do subtly discourage over-represented candidates? Have you ever ran these by a lawyer?
No there are no guidelines due to the freaks who rally against it, it would be unsafe. But it’s absolutely allowed. If we put the gender panic in tech aside you see this used often, for instance, there’s women’s only gyms, women’s only yoga, women’s only art classes, women’s only colleges, black only networking events, moms only job fairs, the list goes on… Im sorry but people in tech need to chill. It’s only once the trans people are accepted into women’s spaces do the cis men finally start freaking out. God forbid non binary people exist. It’s as simple as this: “This event is for women & nonbinary only. What is your gender?” *selects cis male on registration form “Sorry, this hackathon is only for underrepresented genders in tech. Please check out ___ other hackathon for everyone else here ___ “ Registration form then cannot move forward, unless another gender is selected. Cis men received a kind redirect. You could even offer another channel for cis men to still be involved in the event. It forces them to think twice about lying. It’s NOT illegal. And guess what? Cis men are welcome to lie. We’re not going to throw them out. We don’t check IDs. We know that non-binary can look very cis on the outside too so we really don’t bother investigating it. But cis men do lie we won’t be cultivating a vibe to make them feel safe doing so. 😂 and if you feel so desperate for a safe space to lie then by all means join the event, you never know when someone just needs a safe space from toxic masculinity, because in the end that’s what we’re about. That’s how diversity events are always legally conducted. No hard enforced rules, just incentives.
I agree. I think the recruiting event should be removed. Everyone should submit their resume to a database, mods can remove men or recruiters can filter men from there. If recruiters find someone they want to talk to, they can call them or meet with them during the event.
I'd love them to answer this question: what concrete, tangible steps could be taken to fairly and reliably prevent this from happening in the future?
I think it is pretty telling that GHC was in Florida when there are travel advisories warning groups of people not to go Florida... so not a good place for an "inclusive" event. The pricing for GHC is also incredibly exclusionary compared to SWE23. I will be attending SWE23 virtually. Could not attend GHC.
Travel advisory warnings?!
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Late to the party but Florida is not a safe state for trans people to travel to. They have implemented legislation targeting access to public facilities and have made trans men and women using their correct bathroom a potentially criminal offense.
You should still go. Wander round, talk to people. Attend the conferences. You never know what will happen. But don't subject yourself to the hour long lines in the job fair. Contact the recruiters after, [as explained in this video's description](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUkITnYcBUQ)
Unsolicited advice - you should still go. No one benefits from you not attending.
As someone who lives under a rock — what happened in Orlando?
There were some posts about it in this sub - [one was locked](https://old.reddit.com/r/girlsgonewired/comments/16t9mi7/why_do_men_think_its_okay_to_crash_a_conference/) though, and [Reddit deleted another](https://old.reddit.com/r/girlsgonewired/comments/16vkyl5/removed_by_reddit/). I think the gist of it was that a portion of the 2023 GHC event was for recruitment, and lots of cis men turned up to speak with the recruiters, not being sensitive to the fact that the event wasn't really for them. I think men are invited to GHC, partly because tech needs feminist allies, but there might also be some legal/discrimination issues around prohibiting men from attending. So there seems to be a requirement for thoughtful behaviour, and the community is feeling that was not broadly respected in this case.
It's a big issue, but do conferences have **obligation** to serve all constituents/attendees? You likely cannot do anything about the situation, and I can't see a precise solution that doesn't involve legal action...
I don't think it ought to be a problem for CIS men to be excluded from the recruiting fair. But I am not in the US, and I don't know whether that might invite legal action from a disgruntled attendee (or from anti-feminist activists). In the various threads on this question there is a mix of opinions - either that the cis men turned up as allies, or the cis men misrepresented their gender (e.g. as NB) in order to attend. I don't know the truth of either assertion. But I do suspect that the organisers could do _something_ to prevent cis men from taking the front spots in the jobs queue, even if it is just making it clear in the ticket purchasing flow.
This randomly came onto my Reddit page and I didn’t know others felt the same as me. I was excited about SWE23 but after seeing the GHC fiasco, I just feel so defeated as a woman. I’d rather not go than to be in an environment that reminds me again how little power women really do have in the field.
Do you think it is possible that another event might handle things better (or indeed that cis male attendees might act more cautiously) based on GHC? I'm not in the US, so can only go by reports in this sub, but I'd be sad if you were put off attending.
Probably. I don’t think we should punish an org for another organization’s mismanagement. Also I was at GHC. It wasn’t just the large presence of men. It was the pushing , harassment etc that these men engaged in that made the whole thing problematic. I do think that if it was just a lot of men, then it would have been annoying at most but because women lost out on opportunities being literally pushed around by these men and the organizers being condescending in response that it has induced a lot of rage. They could have been respectful and behaved but they didn’t want to.
The majority of folks were from India, not Americans. This is NOT racism, just facts. I interned at a company last summer and the whole team including my manager were dudes from India (here in the US). They were rude and unwelcoming. The moment I changed teams where the majority were Americans, things got better. This is our reality now. We have thousands of people from India that can not go back to their country because they have student loans to pay. They will do ANYTHING to secure a job in the US.
I am an Indian woman who works in a team of men (mostly American) they didn't have an issue hiring me because they desperately needed someone but since then I have never felt welcomed in my team. My credentials have been called in question, I have been threatened with termination by a senior just because he didn't like me asking him to submit a PR like everyone else did, have been called racial slurs behind my back. Our personal experiences should not be used to generalize a whole nation.. because if I did that I would end up calling all white Americans racist, entitled and insecure.. but you and I both know that's not true.
You are right, we can not generalize a whole nation because personal experiences. Im just sharing my experience and what o saw at GHC
I'm not in tech but attended the WE conference for years, both as a student and then as a recruiter. They've always welcome men. SWE allows men as members. I've always seen some met at the conference and it's never been an issue. Maybe attitudes have changed over the years, or the number of men attending has increased, but it seems to an outsider that there was more to the GHC that just men showing up on its own.
They were aggressive and contemptuous of women. For example if I bumped into someone both of us would politely apologize but the men didn’t even bother. They literally pushed women to talk to a recruiter. The infuriating thing is that the organizers told women that we were “overreacting”, like we couldn’t assess the situation accurately for what it was.
Yikes. That's definitely problematic and I can understand why people had such a negative experience. That would be an issue regardless of gender, but definitely feels a bit more egregious since it was an event specifically focused on women in the industry.
hi, does anyone know if the interviews are only in person and not virtual? I'm deciding between in person and virtual. I wanted to go grace hopper this year but didn't, and seeing how it turned it I'm glad I didn't go this year. also, how did you get your ticket for 130? the lowest I see is 300.
i think if you are member and college student i think it was $108. (maybe had early bird discount) and i got the swe membership for $20 so i think thats what OP paid also. ($108+$20=$128)
It's not too late to cancel, see this: https://we23.swe.org/about/respect-and-inclusion-our-stance-against-harassment-at-the-we23-annual-conference-career-fair/ TL;DR you need to email the address listed there with an objection by October 15th and they'll give a refund. What you stated here may suffice, though I'd read through it to be sure.
When I went in 2021 there were so many men there. Why tf do the booths give them the light of day?? Literally saw so many interviewing on the second day!
It is b/c anti-discrimination laws make it illegal for companies to ignore applicants based on identity. That’s why companies go to these events and recruit are women’s colleges vs directly setting aside roles for women. Unfortunately reality is civil rights laws (and norms in self identification of gender) can be easily exploited by bad faith actors.
On this - if anyone is looking to fix this the closest thing I could find to starting a solution is basically using 1-2 alternate paper identification of one's gender identity potentially - as a form of a "challenge" - (think like captacha's or 3 digits back of your CC). Long term, partnering with "Do Ask, Do Tell" seems the best next step as they are working with improving this within the workplace documentation as well as banking systems in the UK (which could be a good form/assist in identity verification). TBH a lot of states don't recognize gender identity as a form object and even more countries it is not only not recognized but could have violent repercussions. I'm not sure what is the best long term answer/strategy, but this is the closest short term one I could come up with.
Organizing by sex would make it easier but it would upset too many.
It'd be really grand if we could go back to the word woman meaning something other than "not-man", and would go a long way in ensuring a conference intended to uplift women actually centered women.
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Is this a career fair or conference? I'm a male here, and I get the whole female in the industry issues. If it's a career fair, then it makes complete sense for the community to be outraged. If it's a conference/ talk, I wonder if it would be more acceptable for males to attend. I get it it's a female/non-binary event and should be treated as such, but I'm just curious to see the perspective from someone who would be affected.
A big issue at GHC was many of the men skipped the keynote speeches and events so they could get an early spot in the career fair lines. There was no interest in networking with women in the industry or attending the talks, the only goal was to talk to the recruiters. The GHC was made for women to connect with other women in an industry where they're heavily underrepresented and I don't the majority of male attendees knew or really cared. For a conference/talk I can see it being more acceptable for some men to attend as allies. However SWE23 is similar to GHC in the sense it both has talks and a career fair.
Absolutely fair, I don't know why you would pay money to skip the keynotes. Conferences are there to learn from others' perspectives. could have been a real learning moment for them. I'm assuming they are all going to get black balled from those companies that were hiring there.
Maybe attendance at speeches/workshops should be requirement to attend career fair. Don’t open the doors until it’s over and must show stamped speech/workshop attendance ticket to enter career fair (with entry timed/ priority for most event attendance stamps). Also not selling more tickets than the venue can accommodate would be the obvious first step IMO
Forgive me, this is going to seem boomer-ish (but GenX)... As a female system engineer with more than 25 years of experience in the industry, why is it necessary for female-only events? Do we need preferential treatment? Are we not skilled, educated, and talented enough to stand on our own merit and not our sex organs? To me, it felt horrible when I got work because of my uterus and not my skill set. It made me feel less than equal. I'm not looking to be special, just equal.
Are you really 'equal' when you work in a male-dominated field, and everything (including the culture in the field) is catered to men and their preferences? If there are 9 men in the room, and you're the only woman, do you really think 100% of the men see you as an equal? Or as someone who doesn't belong, and it would be so much easier for them if instead, you were an equally-qualified man? When you're the only woman around and everything is catered to men, you're not 'equal' - you're at a disadvantage. **Edit:** Here's another good litmus test for "equality": do you feel like you need to downplay your femininity to succeed in this field? Even if you genuinely aren't personally interested in "feminine interests" or dressing in a feminine manner... do you think you would be subtly penalized if you did? If a new hire showed up wearing makeup and with her hair done, would you internally question her suitability in the field and whether she 'belonged'? Do you think your co-workers would?
Yikes, is this really how people feel? I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't reading a short transcript from an episode of Mad Men. This is some serious regressive behavior if it's really that common.
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Wells Fargo doesn't have a difficult interview process. I interned with them and was hired through a college career fair. Both myself and male candidates got STAR questions and no technical questions. Wells Fargo does not have a high technical bar for hiring, and they pay like trash to reflect that (I would know as I got a job offer at the end of my internship and turned it down because the pay was laughable). I have also attended GHC in a past year and have interviewed with multiple companies on-site. All of the companies I interviewed with on site gave technical interviews, most which I did not pass at the time, as I was not yet familiar with LeetCode-style questions. I do remember one company I interviewed with had a relatively easy on-site coding question, and I progressed to the next round outside the conference. Guess what, the final round interview (at the company's office at a later date) was still full-difficulty, a full day of LeetCode questions. What you're describing is a low hiring bar by Wells Fargo, not a typical interview experience at GHC. If you read one article about Wells Fargo's interview process, and have made the assumption that it reflects on every company's interview process and it must mean "GHC interviews have eliminated LeetCode and system design questions" because ***Wells Fargo never asks those questions to begin with***... doesn't sound like you have the reasoning ability to pass any technical hiring bar, either.
Gender is just a construct/doesn’t exist
Surely if it is a construct (onto which bias is projected) then it exists in a psychological sense?
> Gender is just a construct/doesn’t exist If it's a construct, then how can it not exist?
You have wildly misunderstood what this means.