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The Grace Hopper Celebration Cancellation · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. And we are once again thrilled to be
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: joined by the thoughtful, the tenacious, Bridget Todd.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Bridget.
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: Always a pleasure.
• 0:27
  Speaker 5: Welcome back to stateside after your voyage.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: I do feel a little like I haven't done this
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: in a while, which is funny because Samantha and I
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: recorded literally yesterday.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: No, but it felt very rough. I was like, what? Oh, yeah,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: this is how we go back to normal.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, normal. Well, Bridget, how have you been?
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: Things have been good.
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: You know, here in D.C., we're getting the first sort
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: of blush of fall weather, which I love because I
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: feel like... Similarly to you all being in Atlanta, I
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: feel like around this time of year, it's like you
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: kind of fake yourself out.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: You're thinking, oh, it's fall.
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: And you go out in your boots and your leather
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: jacket and you're like, actually, I'm sweating. And I wish
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: I hadn't worn these fall clothing.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: But it's nice. My favorite time of year. Same.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Same.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Also, not in a creepy way, but I'm very excited
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: about your couple's costume. Oh!
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I haven't forgotten this. And I really do want to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: see a picture.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: So it's funny that you say this because there's been
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: a lot of talk in my household. My partner out
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: of left field came up with an idea, wants to be,
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: who is the humanoid bad guy from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Not the, Shredder.
• 1:47
  Speaker 6: Shredder.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: Shredder.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: So, I don't know where this idea came from. He's
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: never really mentioned an affinity for Shredder before. I was like,
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: maybe we can do Bebop and Rocksteady, because that's two.
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: But yeah, so we'll see. I'll wear him down.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: This is.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: I'd run Halloween in this house. So I think ultimately
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: I will win, but we'll see.
• 2:16
  Speaker 6: Doesn't he have, he has a henchman, like his number one,
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: who is always in like a karate uniform, I feel like.
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: So I can tell you exactly how he looks because
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: we've been trying to figure out how to recreate it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: He wears, he's covered in spikes. He wears shin guards.
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: They're almost kind of like silver shin guards. There's a
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: lot of good Shredder cosplay out there. So if you
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: Google Shredder cosplay, like people have really, they are like
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: spray painting bike helmets silver and then putting spikes on them.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: So people really take, people really get into their Shredder costumes.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: I will give them that.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a good movie. Like, I love the original.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: So I'm sitting here going, yeah, you should do this.
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: You could be like his counterpart and be like his nemesis,
• 3:02
  Speaker 6: which would be the rat, Splinter.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: This would be my second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: in my life because my cousins and my brother, they
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: loved Ninja Turtles. And so they were, Ninja Turtles were
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: Halloween and they played Ninja Turtles all the time. But
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: I always had to be April because she's the girl.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: But now I am a journalist. So I don't know,
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: maybe it worked out.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: You should find out.
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: Fabulous yellow jumpsuit I did like her yellow jumpsuit and
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: you would look so good in that that's pretty iconic
• 3:30
  Speaker 6: you would look so good in that to be honest.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: Have we do we have any movement on Halloween on
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: in your neck of the woods costume ideas what are
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: we thinking.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Oh that's a heavy sigh I um I.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Have I have so many to choose from so whatever
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: the mood strikes that's what I will do uh I
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: have been kind of missing Spider-Man.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: It's pretty easy and.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: Iconic.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: This is one of the benefits of being a cosplayer.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: You're recording from your cosplay closet.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: As we speak.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Those are all outfits, mind you. Yes.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: But who knows?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Who knows where I will go?
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I think the fun thing about Halloween is also you
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: could just find a t-shirt and it's not as intense
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: as cosplay.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So, depending on.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: She does low-key cosplay on the daily.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I did yesterday.
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: As I said.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: No joke.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, you just went to Netherworld.
• 4:35
  Speaker 6: I did.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So, you've really begun your Halloween adventures.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: How was that?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Netherworld is one of the biggest haunted houses in the
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: United States. It is a staple here in Georgia, in Atlanta.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: It was really cool this year. We went on an
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: off day, which we try to do. So... it wasn't
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: crowded at all. So they let us go in separately. Normally,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: it's just like you're in a line and you just
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: walk through. But they let us go in in separate groups.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: And it was awesome.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: It was so cool. And they're both.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: They're really special effects heavy. But they're also really long. Like,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: you get your money's worth for the experience of how
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: long it is. So it was cool. I had a
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: great time.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: And I also.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: I'm a very jumpy person, so they get to scare
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: me a lot, and I think they enjoy it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: Oh, God, I love being titillated. I love being scared.
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: I also have a big reaction to being spooked, but
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: I enjoy it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: Some people aren't like that.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: Not everybody enjoys the titillation of being scared, but I do.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: It sounds like you do, too.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, I do, and I make the most hilarious guttural screams, so.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: It's freeing.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: They probably love you when you come through.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: It's very, very freeing. Well, Samantha, do you have any plans?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I do, because I have a good friend.
• 6:08
  Speaker 6: I don't think I can say it on, I'm not
• 6:09
  Speaker 6: going to say it on the mic, but I'm pretty
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: much going to someone's wedding, but they love costumes.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: So Halloween.
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: So we're trying to figure out because you can dress
• 6:22
  Speaker 6: up as something. And I'm, again, we've talked about this previously.
• 6:25
  Speaker 6: I'm really bad about dressing up. And I do have
• 6:28
  Speaker 6: a partner. And I'm even worse in trying to figure
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: out a partner costume. Because also, like, I don't want
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: to spend tons of money. But also, I feel like
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: I kind of need to be dressed up, you know.
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: But at the same time, I want to be in
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: the spirit. So I think what I've done is just, like,
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: I have an all-black outfit. uh that i was like
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: it looks nice like dressy but then i was gonna
• 6:48
  Speaker 6: get a witch's hat and be like an elegant witch
• 6:50
  Speaker 6: so i could also take off the hat yes to
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: be able to like just be you know in nice
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: clothes if need be for any of the pictures or
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: such but like um i think my partner i'm gonna
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: get him a giant jack-o'-lantern head and let him be
• 7:05
  Speaker 6: like my little you know jack-o'-lantern guy, but he can
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: also wear, like, nice black, all black, and then take
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: the head off so he.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Doesn't have to be dressed up the whole time, too.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: That's so good.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And no makeup involved, so. I think we're going to
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: be lazy, but.
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: There we go. That works for a wedding especially.
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: That's so fun.
• 7:22
  Speaker 6: So keeping it like twofold on that one. But I
• 7:25
  Speaker 6: am one of those people who hate to be titillated
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: or chased. I will actually argue with people about why
• 7:30
  Speaker 6: are you chasing me.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Why are you chasing me? Because you've paid for this experience, ma'am.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: And I just sit there and you're like, don't do that.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Samantha and I had a grand old time at a
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: haunted house.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: It's true.
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: She was having.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: A couple of haunted houses a few years ago.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I only went because I love you so much.
• 7:46
  Speaker 6: And Annie needed to be at the Last of Us
• 7:48
  Speaker 6: house in California.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: This is the shirt I got from Universal.
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: And I was like, I'm not letting you go by yourself.
• 7:56
  Speaker 6: And no one could do it because it was very
• 7:58
  Speaker 6: last minute. And Annie's like, I gotta do this. If
• 8:00
  Speaker 6: we know anything about Annie. She's got to do something.
• 8:02
  Speaker 6: She's going to do it. So I was like, I'll
• 8:04
  Speaker 6: come with you, but I'm going to hate it. But
• 8:06
  Speaker 6: also it's going to be funny. And I hated it,
• 8:09
  Speaker 6: but it was also funny. But it wasn't bad. It
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: really wasn't as bad as I thought. But I did
• 8:12
  Speaker 6: argue with every single person who tried to jump at me.
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: Ooh, I actually have a Haunted House question for you, Annie,
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: as our horror aficionado. I read a controversy where, I
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: can't remember what Haunted House it is. It might be
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: Universal Studios or something like that, where they have kind
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: of just wandering frights. And one of the kind of
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: frights was the girl from Obsession.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: Do you know what I'm talking about?
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: And people were like, this is important. What are your thoughts?
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: I love Obsession. I know you like it too. What
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: are your thoughts?
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: So we did talk about this in our episode on
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Obsession because in that episode we had to address the
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: fact that there was like a part of the manosphere
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: that seemed to really actively understand it or purposefully misunderstand it.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: And one of the things I brought up was that
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Universal Studios released a statement that said, She is not
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: the monster. She is the victim of monstrous consequences. But
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the fact that the studio felt they had to release
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: this statement to clarify, she's not the bad guy. Because normally,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: when the walking haunts, they are your typical monsters. There's
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: nothing kind of else to them necessarily. But with that character.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: They felt the need to clarify and i think it's
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: you know the attestment to the popularity of that movie
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: uh but also the the conversation that came out of
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: that movie yeah yeah she was i mean i think
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: the one they chose was when she looks all bloodied
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: The outfit they chose and the look they chose was
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: when she looks quite scary. But I do think it's
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: very interesting. They felt the need, we need to say.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: She's not the monster. She's not the bad guy.
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, because what are they going to have? Like,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: bear clothes? roaming around in his sweater? In his sweater.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: Like a one-wish willow? Like, what would they... If they.
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: Were genuinely trying to show the bad guy... In my opinion,
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: it's clearly bear. Maybe it's toxic expectations about, you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: ownership of other humans and women.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: I don't know how you would physically represent that.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It's pretty complicated, yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: Bear. Yeah.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: We did see a lot of those cosplays at Dragon Con.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I'm interested to see, like, Halloween... if we'll see a
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: showing of obsession.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: I think that's going to be the... I think that
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: or Back Rooms. I don't know if you saw that.
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: I bet we've got a lot of horror movies to
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: choose from that I think are probably going to be
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: on display this spooky season.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I agree.
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: I agree.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: We'll have to compare notes once Halloween is over. But
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: today you have brought a topic... That is spooky in itself.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Yes. That I had not heard about when I was
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: going over your notes. I got legitimately upset. I was like,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: this is a tragedy that's happening. So what are we
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: talking about today, Bridgette?
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: Today, we are talking about the tragedy of the Grace
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: Hopper celebration, which is one of the world's largest gatherings
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: of women and non-binary folks in technology that just made the,
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: to me, shocking announcement that they have canceled their 2026
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: conference amid financial difficulties.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: This really is against.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: The backdrop of tech companies scaling back diversity and inclusion initiatives.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: women and other representative folks facing a lot of barriers
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: in tech. And of course, the proliferation of AI poised
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: to completely reshape the workforce. And so I really wanted
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: to ask sort of what does this cancellation mean about
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: the state of women in tech and just how fragile
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: some of these spaces and institutions that kind of popped
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: up to support women in technology, just how fragile some
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: of those spaces truly are.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and there is a lot to say about what
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: this cancellation signals. But for those of us like me
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: who don't know, what is the Grace Hopper Celebration?
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: I'm glad you asked.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: The Grace Hopper Celebration is put on by this organization
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: called Anita Bee. Again, this week they announced that they
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: were canceling this celebration. So we are recording on October 14th.
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: They made the announcement just a few days ago. It
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: was scheduled for October 27. So pretty soon, you know,
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: if you were going to attend this conference, it's in California,
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: you were probably kind of nailing that. You probably already
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: had your hotel. You probably were nailing down whatever travel
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: plans and coverage plans. So very close to the date
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: of the actual conference is when they announced that it
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: was not going to be happening. As of me writing this,
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: it wasn't even totally clear how refunds were being handled, right?
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: And so that really tells me, like, something was very,
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: very wrong. I was getting emails in my inbox from
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: Anita B about this conference as recently as, you know,
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: last week. And so to go from, come to this conference,
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: get your travel ready, da-da-da-da.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: To this conference is canceled. I mean, I just, I...
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: That's really rare.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: It's like rare that I hear about things like that.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: So pretty, pretty notable.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: So what did the organizers say?
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: So the organizers, Anita Bee, they cited registration and sponsorship
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: commitments that fell significantly short of expectations. They also kind
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: of acknowledged broader financial difficulties and, I'm sad to report,
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: uncertainty about the future of the event and the organization.
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: And historically, this has been like a major event. I
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: was fact-checking this. I believe it is the largest gathering
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: of women in technology in the world. And It brings
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: together technologists, students, recruiters, and other industry leaders. Companies, big
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: tech companies like Amazon and Google and Apple historically have
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: big shows at this conference. And so for a lot
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: of the people who have gone, like in the heyday,
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: they said that this was not just a conference.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: It was a place you could find employment.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: A lot of people are out there looking right now,
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: especially in tech. A place to build professional relationships. and
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: a place to potentially have support in accessing an industry
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: where we know women are already sorely underrepresented even now.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: And it's one of those things when I was reading
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: about it, I thought, oh, I can see why this
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: came about. I can see the need already. But can
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: you tell us a little bit about the history of
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: this conference?
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: So it's actually a pretty interesting story. So it was
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: founded in 1994 by Anita Borg, who was a computer
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: scientist and a champion for women in tech. Anita Borg
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: passed away in 2023 from cancer. I do love that
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: the organization that is her namesake that puts on this
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: event is AnitaB.org. So it just like spells out her name,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: which I love.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: Very clever.
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: So it was put on by Anita Borg and Telly Whitney,
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: who was the CEO and president of the organization. It
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: was named for Grace Hopper, who was a pioneering computer
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: scientist and Navy admiral. They kind of have described in
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: a video I saw on their website how this conference
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: came to be. The story goes that they were at
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: dinner and they sat down at dinner, Telly and Anita,
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: with a blank piece of paper and not really knowing
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: how to organize a conference, not really knowing what all
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: it took to do that. And so they just started
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: figuring it out on the back of this blank piece
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: of paper together. Their first ever conference was held right
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: here in my hometown, Washington, D.C., in June of 1994.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: And they brought together about 500 women working in tech.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: Then in 1997, they had their second conference. And by 2006,
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: it became an annual event. It just kept on growing.
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: By 2010, more than 2,100 people from 29 countries attended.
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: The following year, they had to move it to a larger, like,
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: legit convention center to accommodate everybody.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: And now it.
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: Has really grown into one of the most important gatherings
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: of women in technology that is around at all.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: We see this story a lot in tech, I feel,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: of women or marginalized folks recognizing a need, recognizing something
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: is missing. and creating it themselves because no one else
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: is doing it. So have they spoken about why specifically
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: they created this?
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: So basically, they said that they created this event because
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: they wanted to address things like isolation, exclusion, and lack
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: of access to professional opportunities in what is still a
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: very male-dominated tech industry. And I like to say this
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: a lot on the podcast, but I do think this
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: historical context is really important to.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: How we got here.
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: If you've ever read or seen the movie Hidden Figures
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: or thought about kind of the early days of computing,
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: you know that in those early days, women have always
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: had this huge role around development, around computing, since its
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: earliest days, right? I labored under the misconception for a
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: very long time that technology was this boys' club and
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: that women and other underrepresented people had been trying to
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: kind of like fight our way into this boys' club forever.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: That's actually not true.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: In reality... In the early days of computing, programming was
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: actually considered women's work. It was sort of almost put
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: on the same level as like secretarial work. women were
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: the original OG computers. But as computers became more commercially
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: important and programming became this sort of more lucrative, prestigious profession,
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: the field became increasingly dominated by men. And I would
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: argue that this did not happen kind of by accident.
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: I think it happened by very intentional decisions and policies
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: and also marketing choices that were very hostile to women.
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: And so when you go back and, you know, Think
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: about like the 70s and 80s when computers were being
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: marketed as, oh, this will replace your nagging secretary who
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: you can't stand or replace her with this computer or,
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: you know, two nerds using technology to build a babe.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: And not to mention.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: Really hostile policies that sidelined women who had already been
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: in these spaces. Really, I would argue, intentional and specific
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: decisions around how we thought about and marketed technology technology
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: is what led to women being sidelined in this space
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: where they had previously taken up a lot of space.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: So by the 80s, women were earning about 37% of
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: computer science bachelor's degrees in the US.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: But that number, which is already not very high, started declining.
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: And it still hasn't recovered to those mid-1980s numbers today.
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: So even while women were building this foundation of modern computing,
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: we have been increasingly pushed to the margins of the industry.
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: And so that's why spaces like the Grace Hopper Celebration
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: were so important in the women want special treatment or
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: special whatever, it is because women were not and still
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: are not receiving equal opportunities in that existing system.
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: There's so much in that conversation, just what you said.
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: The fact that it was 37% and we're trying to
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: go back, to catch up back to the numbers is
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: such a discouraging thought process. You're like, wait, it was low.
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: And instead of seeing like, oh, it's getting better. It's not,
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: it got worse. And then we still haven't got to
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: that point. as well as the fact that they're almost
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: at their 30-year mark. And what an event, something that
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: celebrates something, and this is where we're left with because
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: of the level of misinformation and just misogyny and discrimination
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: that continues to really damage this type of conference that
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: is so necessary.
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I mean, I generally try to be pretty optimistic,
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: but when I was putting together the research for this episode.
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: You put it very well that it's hard to not
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: feel discouraged when we're trying to get back to what
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: things were like in the 80s and we haven't done that, right?
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: We're trying to, I mean, it just made me feel
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: like the headway that we have made in trying to
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: make these spaces a little bit more equitable, we really
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: just have a lot to go.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: And in some ways we've kind of gone backward.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: Way back in the day, I guess like, 10 years
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: ago now, maybe longer than that, I did a Sminty
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: episode about sexism and technology. And I revisited that episode
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: to prepare for this conversation today. And it just really
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: does feel like, in a lot of ways, we've lost
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: a lot of ground, even in those last 10 years.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: It's a little discouraging. It's hard to not be discouraged.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And one of the things I found interesting....
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: On this show, Samantha and I have been burned really
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: hard before about making a prediction. In 2020, I will
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: never listen to that episode again.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: But Wait, what were the predictions that you all made?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: We didn't know the pandemic was coming. The pandemic ruined everything.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, women are going to come out on top. And
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: then the pandemic was like, actually, they're going to stay
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: home and not do academic papers. They're going to get
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: long COVID and not be treated seriously.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: The wage gap is going to get bigger.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: So sorry.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: January 2020 was the first year of my life that
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: I ever bought a planner.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: I feel like I caused it. I feel like it
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: was me. If you're wondering what the heck happened, I
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: bought that planner in January of 2020. And I wrote
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: all these key dates for the year in it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: So it was my bad.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I told my therapist I wanted to stay in more.
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: So, okay, we've got two culprits of what happened.
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: That prediction, those predictions alone were just like setting us
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: ourselves up to be like, oh yeah, watch this.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:29
  Speaker 6: For sure. And I hate that it's recorded, A, and
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: then you have it recorded in your planner, so.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: But when it comes to this event, you had kind
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: of some Some, you know, you notice some things, some predictions, perhaps.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I had a sense that something might be amiss
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: around 2023. So in 2023, on my own podcast, there
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: are no girls on the internet. I covered what, looking back,
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: really feels like a sign that something was up. You know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: I should say I had been a guest on AnitaBee.org's
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: inaugural podcast. And I love the folks over there. I
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: love AnitaBee. I love the team over there. At that year,
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: I was supposed to actually go to the Grace Hopper celebration,
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: but I didn't make it because I got sick. But
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: the conference that year in 2023 ended up making headlines
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: for a kind of unexpected reason, which is that men
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: showed up and they kind of just took over. Now,
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: this is an event that is specifically designed to intend
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: to support women and non-binary people in tech. And, you know, listen,
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: maybe there's something wrong with men attending to be allies.
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't think that, like, the business of
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: supporting marginalized people in tech should just belong to marginalized people.
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: But let's keep it real and say that is not
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: what these cis men were showing up to do.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: They were not showing up to be allies. AnitaB.org reported a.
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: Significant increase in men attending the conference that year. And
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: some of the organizers said that those men actually lied
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: about their gender identities to get access to different recruiting opportunities.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: Attendees described these infuriating scenes of men cutting women in
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: line to talk to recruiters in just this general sense of,
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: that the atmosphere of the event had really changed. One
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: attendee described it as the Kens taking over Barbie land.
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: So that was in 2023. I remember one dynamic of
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: this that I didn't pick up on initially, but that
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: a listener actually wrote in when I covered it was,
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: this dynamic is like screwed up for so many reasons,
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: but not the least of which is that, you know,
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: this is a space for women and non-binary folks and
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: trans women, like, It is so, like, this is infuriating
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: for so many reasons, but one of them is that
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: this is so specifically harmful to trans folks and gender
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: nonconforming folks or, like, butch or math-presenting folks because it
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: adds to this climate where they're being further marginalized and
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: further treated with suspicion because of the behavior of a
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: bunch of cis men, right? And so these are the
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: kind of folks who absolutely should be, you know, included
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: and benefiting from the support that this platform is supposed
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: to be about. But because of these cis men going in,
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: you know, I can understand where it's like, dang, I'm
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: already marginalized in this space that's supposed to be for me.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: And these cis men are making me feel even more
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: marginalized in a place where I should be feeling supported.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: And just the fact that, one, I felt zero surprise
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: learning this, unfortunately. Yeah. But also that they were these
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: cis men. It kind of feels like they invaded the
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: space and were, you know, cutting in lines and had
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: this ridiculous behavior. I do know, we've talked about this before,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: the delicate situation, shall we say, for an organization like
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: this where you can't, like.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Outright ban men, right?
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so the organizers basically explained that, listen, because of
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: federal non-discrimination protections, we can't just outright ban men from attending.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: And I don't even think that, like... I don't know,
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: I've been to tech events that are about supporting women
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: or supporting marginalized people, and I do think that even though.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: Traditionally underrepresented people, we deserve our own spaces. I don't
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: think that it necessarily should just be on us. Like,
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: I think that cis men should care about making technology more.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Inclusive and all of that. However, this.
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: Event was specifically created to give women and opportunities in
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: this space where we're traditionally underrepresented.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: And so having men.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: Show up not to be allies, but to compete with
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: those very same opportunities is a problem. And if you
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: want to really steam your beans, I remember looking on Blind,
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: which is this anonymous forum for tech workers where they
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: can talk about how they're feeling. And So many of
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: the people on Blind were basically cheering these guys on.
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: And their argument was, why should women get their own conference?
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: If there was a conference just for men, which again, technically,
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: this conference is not just for men, but if there
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: was a conference just for men and no women were allowed,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: that would be a problem. People would call it sexist.
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: So why should women get special treatment and special access
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: to recruiters when men work just as hard?
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: That was sort of the.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: I remember when I checked out what people were saying
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: about this incident on Blind, I was very surprised to
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: see so many of the folks on Blind saying, like,
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: good for these men.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Like, they should take these opportunities.
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: They have so many struggles and barriers.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: I need to take a pause on Steam Your Beans. Okay,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. That got me for a second. I needed
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: a moment.
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: I need to applaud that phrase and I will write
• 29:12
  Speaker 6: it down. But yeah, I remember when this happened. I
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: couldn't remember which conference it was because it was so
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: because they legitimately came in, they being men, not because
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: obviously there was some kind of like. protests in their
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: own minds, but they genuinely were trying to take people's spots, too,
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: and were rushing past because they were like, the job
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: market's bad. Why should women be the only ones that
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: are able to talk to these recruiters when, in actuality,
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: we know that they've been talking to the recruiters whether
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: or not they've been picked first in interviews through you
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: know their resumes or whatnot or just we know how
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: this works and networking alone usually meant our favor no
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: matter what they kind of started the whole idea of
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: networking with kind of like frats and you know good
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: old boys and being wealthy but I remember when this
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: came up and I was like, oh.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: My God, why? Why is this happening?
• 30:05
  Speaker 6: And why are the only people who are offended, it seemed,
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: are women who understand this level? Even some of the
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: men who you would think were allies, I remember, were commenting.
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: I'm like, yeah, but you got to do what you
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: got to do. Some of the women were like, yeah,
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: you know, it's a hard market. Like really excusing that
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: behavior on like job market.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: This is what happens. Yeah, I remember that dynamic.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: And I guess I just feel like it was a
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: real turning point for how we thought about tech. I
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: love technology so much, and I hate that it's become
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: a place where that kind of attitude is seen as, you.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: Know, just you got to do what you got to do.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: And it is part and.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: Parcel of, you know, layoffs, the shifting power of, decision
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: makers and bosses and employees. Because there was a time
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: where if you were in tech, you really were, you
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: really had a lot of power. And I still believe
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: that tech workers do have a ton of power when
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: they organize. I think that tech workers really have a
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: lot of agency and power. But I think that the
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: people who run tech companies and are the power holders
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: in these spaces are really taking advantage of and benefiting from,
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: and in some cases, ushering along a dynamic where everything
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: feels very scarce. And so in a scarcity situation, solidarity
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: is costly. And so I just hate that we've gotten
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: to this place where it's like.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, every man for himself.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: If you need to push a woman out of the
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: way and lie about your gender identity to get an interview,
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: you should do that. I hate that that's the vibe,
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: but I do think that the people who run tech
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: companies are pushing that scarcity attitude and scarcity mindset. Whether
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: it's true or not, they are pushing this attitude that
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: there is no room for solidarity or values or being
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: a decent person when the market is this bad. And
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: I think it benefits the power holders.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: That's what the social network taught me.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, the weaponizing of fear that you could lose your
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: job at any time, I think is really prevalent in
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: this conversation.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: But going back to the point of.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: This argument that, oh, women shouldn't have a conference that's
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: sexist or however you want to frame it or they
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: want to frame it it's just it ignores the reality
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: of the world we live in right.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it really misses the point.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: I think it assumes that everybody is starting from an
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: equal playing field, which we know is bullshit.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: That is not true.
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: And I think, you know, it ignores the entire reason
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: why events like Grace Hopper exist in the first place,
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: because women have historically faced these barriers in advancing technology.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: That's why there are these spaces that are meant to
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: address that in some capacity.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: But as you know, as we've talked about, we're.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: Increasingly seeing any effort whatsoever to try to level the
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: playing field even a little bit being reframed as an
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: unfair advantage, being reframed as.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: Something that we need to get rid of. And it's
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: not just happening to women in tech.
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: You know, we're seeing the same arguments being made against
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: any kind of program that or opportunity that is intended
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: for Black folks, queer folks, other marginalized communities. I know
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: that you and I, we've talked about some of them before.
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: The Fearless Fund, that venture capital fund that specifically supported
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: Black women entrepreneurs, that was attacked. You know, legal attacks
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: on scholarships and fellowships for underrepresented groups, efforts to shut
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: down diversity programs, arguing that giving marginalized people any kind
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: of opportunity whatsoever means discrimination for everybody else. There is
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: even the most ridiculous story, this white dermatologist who is
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: suing a physician directory called Find a Black Doctor, and
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: it's meant to connect Black patients with Black healthcare providers.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: Suing.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: that platform for racial discrimination because he's not a Black
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: doctor and so can't be included. And so this is
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: sort of the backdrop that we're seeing all of this
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: happen against. Again, I'm not saying that I know for
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: certain that this is what caused the Grace Hopper celebration
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: to be canceled, but this context is important because this
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: is sort of the soup that it's.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: All happening in.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: And I remember back in 2023 when I was covering
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: what happened at the conference, I said that it really
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: showed how fragile our spaces are, like the spaces and
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: institutions that we have for support are. But it also
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: shows like how important.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: They are, how needed they are.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: And now three years later, we're having this very different
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: conversation because back then the conversation and the controversy was
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: about men coming into this space that women had built
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: for ourselves And now the future of that space might
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: also be in jeopardy. I think that raises some questions
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: about how secure the progress is that women and other
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: underrepresented groups have made in the tech industry, like how
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: secure some of that progress really is if it can
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: be so easily undone.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: And honestly, not for nothing, part.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: Of me is like, oh, if you were a cis
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: man who was availed yourself of opportunities at that 2023
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: Grace Hopper celebration, maybe you should be giving the organizers
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: some donations. Maybe you should be, you know, if you
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: were able to get a job from that and you've
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: got extra coin, maybe now is the time, like, where
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: are all those men? Now that Anita Bee might need
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: some extra support, if they availed themselves of support in 2023,
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: maybe they should be paying it forward.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying?
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Okay, first of all, if someone actually hired a
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: man from that conference for them to jump into a
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: conference that is specifically set aside for women, they need
• 36:06
  Speaker 6: to fail.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: I'm trying not to curse. I'm really disdain. Anyway, keep going.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. I would love to know if there was
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: a cis... Imagine! I mean, you've got to be a real.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: low life to be like, yeah, how did I get
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: my cushy tech job? I shoved a woman out of
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: the way at a woman's conference to get recruited.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: And now I got this job.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I lied to get into this point.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I lied about my gender identity to get a slot,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: to get an interview at a women's conference.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: You got to take that to the grave. You're a
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: real low life. A real low life.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: I hate it, though, because I feel like in the
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Trump era, there's some kind of strange pride and.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: A * * holery.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God, yes.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think some guys would be like, oh,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: I went into this conference, women tried to throw it
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: without men, and I got a job, and, like, really
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: having just pride and a good laugh out of it,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: which infuriates me.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: It is pretty infuriating.
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: And I think that kind of is exactly how we
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: got to where we are in this moment. We're in
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: this moment where it feels like not just technology, but
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: lots of our institutions and spaces are retreating from anything
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: involving inclusion. And to fully understand how we got here,
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: we got to take it back to the 2010s, which
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: is really when we saw the meaningful rise of corporate
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: diversity initiatives. You know, in 2010, that's when a lot
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: of the big tech companies started releasing their workforce diversity statistics.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: That's when we started to see companies talking about wanting
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: to invest in recruiting women and Black folks and other
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: underrepresented workers.
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: That was when.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: Things like inclusion became a part of corporate branding and
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: sort of how they talked about their companies publicly. And
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: that's when I think Grace Hopper was benefiting from recruiting
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: budgets and corporate sponsorship. And so there has definitely been
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: a shift from the 2010s to where we are today.
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: I think part of it is exactly the dynamic that
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: you were just describing, where there's a kind of glee in.
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: This perception that you're like taking something back or, you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: putting us in our place or something like that. As
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: folks probably remember, in the 2020s, after the murder of
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: George Floyd and we were having, you know, racial justice
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: protests and conversations about inclusion. Practically every major tech company
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: back then made some big public statement or commitment to
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: diversity and inclusion at that point. Side note, I did
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: an episode about this. One of the first episodes I
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: ever did on my podcast was charting... You know, OK,
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: so you said you're a tech company and you said
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: that in 2020, you made a commitment that in 10
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: years time, you were going to give X amount of
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: money to underrepresented voices.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Did you do that? A lot of them didn't.
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: A lot of them just they just said that they
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: were like, I never said that.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: Like, they just completely did not do that. So I
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: want to, like, acknowledge how Lucy Gutierrez. some of those
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: commitments were in the first place.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah we have asked for some follow-ups on this
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: show when the sponsor will be like we're gonna pledge
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: this much money to this and we're like okay explain
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: and they never respond like okay.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: So you do have some examples here from some big
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: companies walking back these commitments.
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: Oh, yes, because a mere five years later after these
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: big commitments, the companies were like, oh, just kidding. So
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: Meta in January 2025, Meta announced that it was ending
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: its DEI program, including initiatives related to hiring, employee training
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: and supplier diversity. This was a company that had previously
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: made diversity a pretty big part of its public commitments
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: and now is saying, nah, we're not doing that now.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: Google, in February 2025.
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: Google announced it was abandoning its goals to hire more
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: employees from underrepresented groups and reviewing its other diversity initiatives.
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: Google had only adopted those goals just a few years earlier,
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: so that was a pretty quick change. Amazon told its
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: employees it was winding down what it called, quote, outdated
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: diversity programs. They also removed references to inclusion and diversity
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: from its annual report. And keep in mind, these aren't,
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: you know, small mom and pop organizations. These are huge
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: companies and businesses. It matters because when a big company
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: pulls away publicly from inclusion and diversity and thinking of
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: these things are important, it signals to other companies that
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: that's what they should be doing as well. So the
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: fact that these are these big companies, think about it
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: like dominoes. These big companies are the first dominoes to
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: go over. And then all the other companies are like, oh,
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: we don't have to do anything about DEI anymore.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: We're done with that.
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: Great.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: We're going to get rid of it.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: And these are like juggernaut. And we have seen how
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: they've completely bowed to the current administration. They've just gone
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: with whatever nonsense the president is saying. So how has
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: that influenced what's going on?
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think that political context really matters.
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: I don't think we can talk about what's going on
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: without talking about that. You know, there has been this
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: growing political and legal backlash against anything even remotely related
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: to inclusion, even things that are not really inclusion. Like
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: I have friends that work in the space and they're
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: just like, yeah, we have to take the word women
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: out of our work, even if it's like not about
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: empowering women.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: It's just like women are in the mix, you know?
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: And that, of course, really intensified when Trump came back
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: to the White House in 2025. So companies have also
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: faced pressure from these empowered conservative activists challenging programs that
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: they say are discrimination, as well as changes in federal policy.
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: And so, yeah, all of that context, I think, kind
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: of matters to how we got here. On top of that,
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: just sort of shifts in technology, layoffs, changing hiring priorities,
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: greater scrutiny of spending in the space. All of this stuff,
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: I think, really makes a difference as to how we
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: got here. You have these two things happening at once,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: this political backlash against anything involving inclusion or diversity. And
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: the economic environment where companies are maybe just less willing
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: to invest in recruiting and professional development in the first place.
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: And again, I'm not saying that I know the finances
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: of what happened here. I don't know what companies, if any,
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: reduced their sponsorship to Grace Hopper this year or anything
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: like that. Anita Bee has not said that anti-DEI backlash
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: or anti-woke backlash or whatever caused this cancellation.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: But.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: I do think it's worth asking what happens to institutions
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: like Grace Hopper when companies that have historically helped sustain
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: them start changing, start reconsidering their commitments to diversity, start
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: bowing under pressure from the Trump administration, or honestly, maybe
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: like never even wanted to do that kind of stuff
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: to begin with. Like, I think that's also part of it,
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: you know? It kind of goes back to what you
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: were saying a.
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: Moment ago, Annie, of.
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: I.
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: Don't know. I think people might underestimate how much of
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: the climate in tech is driven by this, like, attitude
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: of resentment. And, you know, I was referencing that Sminty
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: episode from, like, 10 years ago that I did with
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: my then co-host Emily about the state of sexism in tech.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: And.
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: Even back then, so much of it was about animosity
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: and resentment.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: And, you.
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: Know, you might remember, I'm kind of taking it back now,
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: but like that Google staffer who wrote that letter about
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: how he was so sick of diversity at Google and
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: it was this big problem. And even though publicly, I think,
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: you know, people like me were like, that guy's an
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: a * * hole. privately, I think a lot of
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: people were.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: Like, yeah, finally, someone is sticking it to these women.
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: For too long, women have had their boot on the
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: throat of the white man in tech.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: And it's like, what are you talking about?
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: I think that there is a lot of sentiment of
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: resentment and retribution.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: That I think we are seeing now.
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: So I'm not willing to say that a lot of
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: these companies are sort of being bullied by Trump into
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: abandoning something that they really cared about.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know that these companies really cared about it
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: to begin with.
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: And now they're just able to be like, okay, we
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: can wash our hands of this thing we never wanted
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: to be involved in in the first place.
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: No, I think it makes perfect sense, especially when you're
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: talking about resentment. We have seen, and there's a large
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: growth and pattern in violence against women right now that
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: feels like a, well, it is an epidemic that's happening
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: around the world.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: And we've been talking how it seems to be more
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: and more.
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: And I don't know if it's necessarily saying that people
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: are accepting it, but they're being desensitized to it. And
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: so we're seeing bigger companies really kind of feeling like, oh,
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: if we do this, no one's really going to care
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: because they... people can get away with hurting women, physically
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: hurting women, and they can see it, and people seem
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: to be not as bothered anymore. So us being able
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: to outright discriminate against women, this is all good.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: I'm even thinking about the U.S.
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: Being the only country who voted against women's rights and
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: stuff in the U.N. They were the only country being like, eh, no,
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: we don't care. We don't care about women's rights. We
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: don't care about protecting women. We're not going to talk
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: about femicide. That's not a thing type of conversation. And
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: I feel like, yeah, I don't know if it's tech
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: seeing that being like, yeah, we don't care about women.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Either, or it's just kind of like one in the same.
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: And they're talking to each other and being like, this
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: is one thing we can get rid of as something
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: that we have to pretend to care about.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: I don't, you know what I mean? That's what it
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: feels like.
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: There's a correlation here that this seems less bad in
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: comparison to us seeing all the violence.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: So the companies are saving money.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Somehow in their minds.
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: By being able to be like, yeah, let's not worry about,
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: let's have this and just let the women go in
• 47:00
  Speaker 6: this point and no one's really going to care or
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: be allowed about it.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, again, I really don't like to come
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: on podcasts and sound doom and gloom or alarmist, but
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: I'm alarmed. When I think about the state of women
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: and the way that women are seen and treated right now,
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: it does seem like every sector is, you know, like,
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: coming together to really underscore that women do not deserve
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: full humanity. And so whether it's increases in violence against women, femicide,
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: women's rights being chipped away and rolled back across the globe,
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: whether it's a cultural attitude around women like Jane Doe
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: out of Cornell, whether it's the way that tech companies
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: have really galvanized to make it so easy to attack
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: and smear women, whether it's AI enabling the proliferation of
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: sexual violence and digital sexual violence against women and girls.
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: And that is increasingly seen as a viable marketplace for
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: men like Elon Musk to make money. And that is unchallenged.
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: It just is really hard to not see all of
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: these things as connected. And to me, technology is so
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: much of a thread that runs through that, right?
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: And if tech companies and the people who run.
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: Them are sort of committed to this being the status quo,
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: it just makes me incredibly pessimistic about our ability to
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: rise up against it. Like if I'm trying to use
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: Instagram and social media to organize, but it's run by
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: somebody that doesn't value women or underrepresented people and is
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: controlling the levers of what I'm able to do and
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: how I'm able to galvanize there. It just seems incredibly pessimistic. Like,
• 49:08
  Speaker 5: I wonder, in 2026, would.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: We have seen a Me Too? Would we have seen
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: a Black Lives Matter?
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: Like, I really don't know.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: You know, because I love going into gloom and doom
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: because that's my thing. In this conversation, though, every time
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: we have talked about the fact that we need more
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: women or people who are marginalized in the seats so
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: we can understand why things are problematic, why things aren't
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: equal or equitable for everyone, why this is not setting
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: up everybody for success. Of course, there's a point to
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: that because they're trying to do that on purpose. But
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: the level of people when they do have these initiatives
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: and actually do bring people in who know what they're
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: doing and are able to do these in a good
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: way and then also realize, oh, the system was not
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: set up for us.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Let's fix this.
• 49:54
  Speaker 6: And then when you start call and they start calling
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: the people out to fix it, then the companies get
• 49:59
  Speaker 6: really angry because not only have they been called out
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: for something problematic, but they're going to have to spend
• 50:05
  Speaker 6: money to fix it and or fix something that was
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: making them money in a really, like, dark way. I'm
• 50:12
  Speaker 6: thinking about our episode with, is it Dr. Tenet from
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: the whistleblower of Google? Like, she understood there was a problem.
• 50:21
  Speaker 6: This is going to be a huge thing. This is
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: going to cause issues for so many Black people in
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: the Black community. You need to fix this. And they
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: outright were like, no. And you're going to cost us money.
• 50:30
  Speaker 6: You're out.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: She knew what she was doing. She was a pro
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: at this.
• 50:34
  Speaker 6: And with these conversations, Because someone was holding them accountable,
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: they would rather just dismiss the person who actually knew
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: maybe how to fix it or that it needed to
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: be fixed. And I feel like this is all going
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: hand in hand. If we don't train people who can
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: understand and can make change, then we don't have to change.
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: And so this is that bigger picture in getting rid
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: of conferences like this.
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm so glad that you took it there because
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: I could not agree more. When I talk about the
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: importance of having underrepresented voices included in tech, and I
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: mean included in a meaningful way, in a decision-making capacity,
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: it's not just because inclusion is nice or it's the
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: right thing to do. It's also because it matters whose
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: perspectives are in the room when technology is being implemented and.
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: Thought of, and it impacts all of us, right?
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: If you don't have underrepresented voices in the room, it
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: endangers everybody because the technology is going to go on
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: to impact us. And so it's not just nice to
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: include these voices, it is imperative. And so when I
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: think about, I'm glad that you mentioned Dr. Gabroub because
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: she was instrumental in raising the alarm about AI, but
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: voices like that, and by voices like that, I mean
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: both women of color and also dissenting voices and critical
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: voices are often marginalized, threatened, silenced.
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: Like they're silenced At best. At worst, they are like threatened.
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: And when I think about AI specifically, because she's an
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: AI researcher, all of this becomes a lot more concerning.
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: Because right now, it is just mostly men who are
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: being empowered in the AI space. Women accounted for just 26%
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: of new hires into AI jobs in the U.S.
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: In 2025.
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: Compare that with jobs outside of AI where women made
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: up about half of new hires. When you look at
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: the most influential positions, the numbers for women get even worse.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: They account for even.
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: Women accounted for just 20% of the hires for the
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: head of AI roles and only 18% of.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Hires for certain technical positions.
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: Across 27 countries, women held just 13% of C-suite AI
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: leadership roles at AI companies. And again, I want to
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: be clear that I am not saying that it is
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: a win for feminism when a woman gets like a
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: high paid AI job that's going to help AI take
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: over everything. But what I'm saying is that when underrepresented
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: people are not meaningfully involved in technology, it is a
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: problem for everybody because the consequences potentially affect everybody who
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: is going to have to live with whatever impact that
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: this technology is going to create. And so I really
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: think like, It's not just about, you know, girlboss have, like,
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: it should be women who do AI. It's because the
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: voices who tend to be critical and dissenting about technology
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: do also tend to be underrepresented. And so if we
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: don't have those voices in the room, all of us
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: could potentially suffer the consequences of the impact of what
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: it means to build technology without those critical voices.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of the people behind the big,
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: generative AI companies have been really reticent on answering, well,
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: what about our jobs though?
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: What about that?
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: And I know that you have some numbers here about
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: how this could impact women.
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not great.
• 54:14
  Speaker 5: The International Labor Organization published some research in 2025 that
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: looked at what occupations are most exposed to AI and
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: And they said that things like administrative, clerical, and office
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: support work had some of the highest levels of exposure.
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: Those are also occupations where women make up a larger
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: share of the workforce. And so globally, they found that 4.7%
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: of women's employment was the highest AI exposure category compared
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: with 2.4% of men's employment. And in wealthier countries, that
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: gap was even larger, 9.6% for women compared with just 3.5%
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: for men.
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: And I want to be clear.
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: That just because your job has exposure to AI does
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: not automatically mean that your job is going to go poof,
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: go away. And the researchers actually said that they think
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: that most of these jobs are most likely to change
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: rather than disappear completely. But that does mean that women
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: are disproportionately represented in some of the occupations facing significant
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: changes when it comes to AI. So again, we're looking
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: at this kind of double bind where we know women
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: are already underrepresented in the high-paying, kind of meaningful AI
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: jobs at the top, but also disproportionately represented for some
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: of the jobs that AI could transform or disrupt or
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: potentially even eliminate. So if you go back to the
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: Grace Hopper conference, we're at this moment where the tech
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: industry is investing just.
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: I roll inducing amounts of money into the future of AI.
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: At the same time, one of the most prominent institutions
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: dedicated to helping women build their careers in the tech
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: industry is facing a seeming financial crisis. And I don't know,
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: I'm not saying that tech companies are deliberately choosing AI
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: over women. It's not like I have evidence that spending
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: decisions around AI is what caused these companies to invest
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: less in supporting women through this conference. But my question
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: would still be, whose experiences are being considered when it
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: comes to how these systems are designed? Who gets to
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: decide what the risks are, what risks are acceptable, what
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: kinds of data is collected? Whose needs and experiences are
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: being prioritized? And to me, it feels like the answer
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: is not women's. That's who's not being prioritized.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does feel like that. And I know that.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: We've had some discouraging things in here. And you had
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: some numbers about how women in the tech industry are
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: being represented right now, and they were a little discouraging.
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it doesn't make me happy to say that the
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: numbers aren't great. According to the National Science Foundation, women
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: earn just 23% of computer and information science bachelor's degrees
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: awarded in the U.S.
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: In 2023.
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: In engineering, it's about 26%. And that's important because, again,
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: we're talking about fields that could lead to lucrative careers
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: in tech and also give people, you know, as I said,
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: a voice in shaping how new technologies are designed and
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: developed and implemented.
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: And so, yeah, the numbers... are really not super rosy.
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: You know, McKinsey and Lean In, which I've talked a
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: lot about my feelings about Lean In, so know that
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: I have complicated feelings about leanin.org, but they've been tracking
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: this kind of thing for a while. And they found
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: that for every 100 men promoted into management, only 93
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: women were promoted. And for women of color, that number
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: fell to just 74. Also, just the vibes are not good.
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: in the environment that these women are in. So like
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: once they're in the door, you get a job. The
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: question is like, okay, what's the vibe like for you?
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: That's also not great. A 2025 Deloitte survey of 7,500
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: women across 15 countries found that 34% had experienced some
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: form of non-inclusive behavior at work in the previous year.
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: That included things like microaggressions and harassment. And only about
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: 1 in 10 believe that their employer would take action
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: on a complaint regardless of how senior the person responsible
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: for it was.
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: Now, that survey was.
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: Not limited to just technology, but I think it does
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: underscore the why it is important to have systems of
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: support for underrepresented people in these spaces beyond just their
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: individual employer.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: I feel like so many times when we've done these
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: tech stories, Blizzard stands out to me.
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: There's just like this atmosphere of objectifying women and putting
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: them in this space and it being expected. Like, that's
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: just how it is. That's what you have to put
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: up with. to make it in this industry. And that's
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: not an ideal work environment.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: That's really terrible.
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And I'm glad that you put it that way because, again,
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: I feel like when I talk about this, it sounds
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: like I'm saying, you know, it's not nice to have
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: a culture of harassment and misconduct to your female and
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: underrepresented staffers.
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: And that's true. But also, this stuff is bad for business.
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: If you are a company and you have to pay
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: out money because a senior leader harassed somebody, that's bad
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: for your bottom line.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: This is not how good businesses are run.
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: When we allow for this kind of behavior to be tolerated,
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: what we're actually saying is, We don't care about running
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: a good business. We care more about protecting a culture
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: of harassment and marginalization than we do running a good business.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: So this is like not good business practices on top
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: of just.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: Being really not a not good atmosphere to be fostering. Right.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: And so going back to the Grace Hopper celebration, as
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: you said, you're not We don't know why it was canceled,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: but there are questions about sustainability and the company sponsors involved.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, that's one of my biggest questions that
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: I will own, I'm unable to answer at this time.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: But I wonder if perhaps this model just wasn't sustainable.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: Every time I attend a big conference, I'm always just
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: wondering how much, this seems like it.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: Probably costs a lot of money.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: And so big conferences, they require a lot of financial resources.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: And Grace Hopper historically was able to rely on registration
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: fees and sponsorships. And importantly, that corporate participation was, of
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: those tech companies that I talked about earlier. Also, I
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: think you have to think about the employer, their willingness
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 5: to fund attendance. That may change with a shifting economic
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: condition that we're all kind of dealing with right now.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: I also think that organizations serving marginalized communities can also
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: become really vulnerable when their funding depends on institutions' priorities.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: And so it just feels like.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: I don't know, part of me wonders if Grace Hopper
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: became too dependent on these large tech companies that their
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: model was sort of existing to change. That, you know,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: can the financial future of your organization depend on tech
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 5: companies that you're kind of hoping to make change within?
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I mean, I'm left with so many
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: lingering questions that I feel like I can't really answer.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: And the biggest one being, what would sustainable professional support
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: for women in technology look like? And should the responsibility
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: for the advancement of underrepresented people in technology, should that
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: responsibility be with nonprofits, employers, public policy, educational institutions? Like,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: where does it sit? I really can't answer this question.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you mentioned at the top, this was
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: a big....
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: It was an opportunity to get a job. We have
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: a really tough economic situation going on right now. I wonder,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: I assume that's part of why some people couldn't afford
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: to go. But you need the job in the tough
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: economic situation. So this cancellation... What do you think it means,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: like large scale?
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think it's important first that it
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: has real consequences for folks planning to attend, like especially
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: if you were someone who was looking for a job
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: or hoping to network your way into a new job.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: I think it really, that's an impact. You know, if
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: you were hoping to make professional connections or find mentors
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: or recruiters, if you'd already booked a flight or a
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 5: hotel or taken time off work, like there is a
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: real impact. And beyond this year's event, I think there
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: is some uncertainty about the future at aditab.org, what that
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: can mean for the communities.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: That rely on it.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: Obviously, the cancellation of one conference does not erase the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: decades of progress that women have made in tech.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: But I think that losing.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: this institution and this event could also mean losing this
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: sort of larger thing, this sense of opportunity and community
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: that I think can be very hard to replace. And
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: to me, the bigger question is like, okay, so let's
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: say that Anita Bee is never able to do the
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: Grace Hopper celebration again. Who is going to step in
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: to fill that gap? And also, who's going to pay
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: for it? Because it doesn't seem like this stuff is cheap.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: And again, I guess I'll just say that I'm kind
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: of left really underscoring and appreciating how fragile these spaces are.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: You know, tech conferences that are for marginalized people that
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: have been able to continue to do it every year,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: I'm sort of feeling gratitude for those spaces. And yeah,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 5: I mean, three years ago when I was covering what
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: happened at Grace Hopper in 2023, I really argued that
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: the controversy about the men taking over just showed how
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 5: fragile spaces for marginalized people could be and what a
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: delicate balance they are. And now the conference is canceled. And,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: you know, I can't say if those events are connected, but...
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: To me, they really do raise questions about how we
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: secure underrepresented people's opportunities in technology, because we know that
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: is so important. What does meaningful, lasting investment in women
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: in tech actually look like? Can institutions that are designed
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: to advance women survive without the corporate sponsorship and underwriting
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: from the very companies that these women are hoping to
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: shake up? And if women still face structural barriers, what
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: happens when the institutions created to address those barriers survive?
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: Start disappearing. You know, it's really got.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: Me questioning how much of the progress that we have
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 5: sort of fought to make is built to last and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: how much of it ended up depending on support that
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: could disappear when corporate priorities simply change.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: Once again, Bridget, I have a million things I could
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: follow up with and talk about, but I really, really
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: appreciate you bringing this topic to us. I did not
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: know about it. And I do think it's really, really important.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: And it did make me sad, but we need to
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: talk about it. Yeah.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 6: I feel like this is going to be a bookmarker
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 6: for things to come. I have a feeling we're going
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 6: to reference this conversation quite a bit in the next
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: few years.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: I think so too. And who knows?
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: I mean, We all made predictions in 2020 that didn't
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: come true. Maybe this will also be another prediction that
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: doesn't come true.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: Who knows? Only time will tell.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: Either good or bad. I'm not saying either good or bad.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: We'll leave that at that.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: Well, Bridget, as always, thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: Where can the good listeners find you?
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: Always a pleasure to hang out with y'all. Thanks so
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: much for having me.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 5: You can get my new audiobook, Love at First Prompt,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: AI and the Future of Intimacy, at loveatfirstprompt.com. You can
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: check out my podcast, There Are No Girls on the Internet,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: and check me out on Instagram at Bridget Marie in D.C.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: And listeners, please go do that if you have not already.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: You can email us at hellostuffandnevertoldyou.com. You can find us
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: on Blue Sky at MomStuff Podcast or on Instagram and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: TikTok at stuffandnevertoldyou.com. We're also on YouTube. We have some
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: merchandise at the Comp Bureau, and we have a book
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: you can get wherever you get your books.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Rima, and our
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: executive producer, Maya.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you for listening.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: Stuff I Never Told You is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:07:17
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• 1:07:19
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• 1:07:21
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