Category Archives: Ada Initiative news

Ada Initiative reaches 1,000,000 Marie Claire readers

An important part of supporting women in open tech/culture is raising awareness of the problems that face them. We’re excited that the Ada Initiative was interviewed for an article in the June 2013 issue of Marie Claire, an international women’s magazine. We reached nearly 1,000,000 new people through the print edition alone.

Alicia Gibb, president Open Source Hardware Foundation

Written by veteran feminist journalist Alissa Quart, “When Geeks Attack” focuses on harassment of women in technology, rounding up many of the high-profile incidents in recent years as well as some disturbing statistics. Several women in open tech/culture were interviewed for this article, including Valerie Aurora, Ada Initiative Executive Director, Alicia Gibb, president of the Open Source Hardware Foundation and Ada Initiative advisor, and Valerie Bubb Fenwick, an open source developer, among many other women.

By featuring so many different women in open technology and culture, this article accomplishes two important goals. First, it sends the message that harassment of women in these fields is a major cause of women leaving them – or never joining in the first place. Second, it gives Marie Claire readers several different female role models for women in technology. For many women, the opportunity to make the world a better place while also being able to support themselves and their families is a powerful draw towards careers in open tech/culture, as opposed to technology in general. Women deserve equal access to all careers regardless of their monetary rewards: computer programming, construction work, working as an executive, serving in the military, playing professional sports, or driving a bus.

We were thrilled to work with the author, Alissa Quart, because of her long history of articles and books on feminism and free culture, such as What Does Free Culture Cost? and The Age of Hipster Sexism. Her latest book, Republic of Outsiders: The Power of Amateurs, Dreamers and Rebels, focuses on “idiosyncratic individuals” who approach social justice activism in creative ways, including transgender activists, advocates for neurodiversity, and animal rights activists.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Farewelling Alex “Skud” Bayley from advisory board

Earlier this month we were pleased to welcome six new members to our advisory board, and we wrote that:

In order to keep in touch with open tech/culture communities and avoid burning out our volunteers, we actively recruit new advisors and encourage existing advisors to step down when the time is right for them.

Subsequently, longtime advisor Alex “Skud” Bayley, founder of the Geek Feminism wiki and blog and member of the Ada Initiative’s founding advisory board, has stepped down from some volunteer activities including our advisory board. Skud’s decided to focus her energy on her business Growstuff, an open source community for food gardeners. (If you’d like to learn more, she is keynoting the Open Source Bridge conference in June; discussing Growstuff, growing food and writing software.)

We’re very sorry to see Skud go; she was a major contributor to the Ada Initiative’s early planning in 2011, and later made huge contributions to AdaCamp Melbourne‘s planning and execution, together with supporting the Ada Initiative throughout the last two years in other ways. Thank you for your contributions to the Ada Initiative Skud, and we look forward to working with you in the future, and to seeing Growstuff grow!

Welcoming Mel Chua, Sky Croeser, Alicia Gibb, Andrea Horbinski, Joseph Reagle and Sara Smollett to our advisory board

The Ada Initiative advisory board is a group of volunteers from across open technology and culture who have the passion, knowledge, and time to actively support women in open technology and culture. The advisors play a crucial part in the Ada Initiative’s work: sharing their knowledge of communities like open hardware or Wikipedia, helping organize AdaCamp and other events, reviewing and writing policies and articles, taking a key role in fundraising, sharing their expertise in areas like law and non-profit governance, and, of course, giving advice.

In order to keep in touch with open tech/culture communities and avoid burning out our volunteers, we actively recruit new advisors and encourage existing advisors to step down when the time is right for them. We’re very pleased to introduce the latest additions to our advisory board:

Mel Chua; hacker, writer, and educator with over a decade of teaching and curriculum development experience and a solid track record in leadership positions at Red Hat, One Laptop Per Child, Sugar Labs, Fedora, and other Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) communities. Currently based at Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education, she bridges academic research on successful communities with deep personal experience getting her hands dirty building them.

Sky Croeser is currently a lecturer at Curtin University. Her research and activism focuses on the ways in which activists are working to shape, as well as use, the technologies of everyday life. Her PhD, ‘The global justice movement and struggles to control knowledge’, was undertaken at the University of Western Australia in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, and her subsequent research has looked at digital liberties activism in Bangalore, India, and at the ways in which Occupy Oakland activists are using Twitter to organise and communicate.

Alicia Gibb is an advocate for open hardware, an academic researcher, and a hardware hacker. Alicia has worked within the open source hardware community for the past 3 years. Currently she is founding the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA), an organization to educate and promote building and using open source hardware. She also teaches at UC San Diego. Previous to serving OSHWA, Alicia was a researcher and prototyper at Bug Labs where she ran the academic research program and the Test Kitchen, an open R&D Lab.

Andrea Horbinski is a Ph.D. student in modern Japanese history with a designated emphasis in New Media at the University of California, Berkeley. She currently serves on the Board of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection, support, and preservation of fan works and culture that runs the Archive of Our Own, one of only two majority-female open source software projects on the Web. She was previously a Fulbright Fellow to Japan, studying hypernationalist manga in Kyoto, and was a founding member of the OTW’s Internationalization & Outreach committee, which she now co-chairs.

Joseph Reagle is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern, a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, and author of Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia (The MIT Press, 2010).

Sara Smollett is a Site Reliability Engineer at Google, where she has also worked on many diversity efforts. She has previously worked for the Wikimedia Foundation, is an occasional Wikipedia editor, and has led a Wikipedia editathon at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

We’re thankful for the help and important contributions of our outgoing advisors, Alice Boxhall, Francesca Coppa, Deb Nicholson and Matt Zimmerman and wish them success in all of their projects. We thank them for their continued support of both the Ada Initiative and women in open tech/culture and look forward to working with them in the future.

Thank to all our Ada Initiative advisors, past and present, for your incredible support of women in open technology and culture! And thank you to the open tech/culture community at large for your hard work and commitment to gender equality. Without all of you, the changes of the last 2 years would never have happened.

Valerie Aurora writes: “Adria Richards’ story shows how sexual harassment endures in tech community”

Today in Slate‘s Future Tense blog, Ada Initiative Executive Director Valerie Aurora discusses the tech community’s reaction to Adria Richards tweeting a picture of two men making sexual jokes behind her at a computer conference:

Reasonable people can disagree about whether Richards should have called out the two jokesters publicly or who, if anyone, should have been fired as a result. But one thing we can agree on is that the massive onslaught of rape and death threats that followed was wrong. One threat sent to Richards on Twitter was a picture of a bloody, beheaded woman with the caption “When Im done.”[…]

What happened to Adria Richards is a wake-up call for our self-image as a society that strives for fairness and equality. Most of us believe that men and women should have equal access to opportunities, whether jobs, education, or simply using the Internet.[…] It’s up to us to change the culture of consequence-free online harassment. You can help by spreading the word about laws against online harassment, and directing victims to organizations like Working to Halt Online Abuse and Without My Consent. Companies can take responsibility for the culture on sites they run, and do a better job of stopping harassment using their services. Most importantly, when you talk about online harassment, you can focus on why what the harassers are doing is wrong, not how the victim could have responded better.

Read Valerie’s recommendations in full at Slate.

Clarification on the Ada Initiative’s role in the cancellation of Violet Blue’s BSides SF talk

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape

We are writing this blog post to clear up some misunderstandings about the Ada Initiative’s role in the cancellation of Violet Blue’s BSides SF talk, “sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits.” We understand that people of good will may still disagree with our actions and opinions. We want to be sure that people agree or disagree with the actions we actually took and the opinions we actually have.

Background

A computer security conference, BSides SF, featured a talk with the title “sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits.” Translated from security jargon, this title can be interpreted as suggesting that the talk will cover having sex while on drugs, including sex without consent (i.e., rape). “Exploits” in security jargon is used almost exclusively in the sense of “to take advantage of (a person, situation, etc.), esp[ecially] unethically or unjustly for one’s own ends.” For a conference-goer unaware of Violet Blue’s work, it would be understandable to wonder if the talk would handle consent issues well. In addition, no advance notice had been given that would allow people to make an informed decision about attending the conference, the conference had no anti-harassment policy, and it occurred in a community in which a non-trivial minority publicly advocates for permitting harassment of women.

At the request of a BSides SF conference organizer, the Ada Initiative gave them information on the potential negative effect of this talk on some women attendees. After this, the BSides SF organizer spoke to Violet Blue about the subject of the talk and decided to cancel the talk. Afterward, several people criticized the Ada Initiative for advising that the talk be cancelled. You can read the detailed version of the event at our first blog post on the topic.

The BSides SF organizer, Ian Fung, posted an explanation of his decision here. Violet Blue, the speaker whose talk was cancelled, wrote a blog post about her conversation with Ian Fung in which she recounts what Ian told her that the Ada Initiative Executive Director, Valerie Aurora, said to him. You can read Violet Blue’s recollection of the conversation here. As a result, some people are criticizing the Ada Initiative for things we did not do and opinions we don’t advocate. We are posting this to clear up those misunderstandings so that people can agree or disagree with what we actually did and believe.

The short version is:

The BSides SF organizer requested the Ada Initiative’s advice on the talk.

The Ada Initiative did not threaten the conference with retribution.

The BSides SF organizer made the decision about the talk.

The Ada Initiative does support talks about sex, rape, drugs, pornography, and similar topics when they are relevant and organized in a way that is considerate of conference attendees’ differing levels of comfort with the topic. (See our guide on how to discuss porn and sex at conferences.)

What Valerie recalls

Valerie’s memory of her conversation with Ian Fung is as follows. We aren’t using double quotes because no one recorded the conversation and we can’t report the exact wording.

Valerie started out with an explanation to Ian of what role the Ada Initiative had taken in previous conference incidents, and reiterated what she said over email: that she was only giving this advice because Ian had requested the advice of the Ada Initiative. She explained that the Ada Initiative was not threatening the conference, but giving advice in response to their request.

Valerie explained to Ian why talks about sex are more likely to have a negative effect on women attendees, on average (details in our previous blog post here). Ian said that he considered sex to be an appropriate topic for the conference.

Valerie then explained that the title of the talk could be interpreted as a reference to rape. She did this by asking Ian what he called using drugs to exploit someone into having sex. He appeared to understand immediately that this is called rape and explained that he hadn’t realize the title of the talk could be interpreted as a reference to rape.

Valerie then explained that rape survivors can be triggered by public discussion of rape or sex. Because people often think of rape as something theoretical that happens to other people, not people you know, Valerie disclosed her status as a rape survivor to Ian, and told him she knew several other rape survivors who had been raped at technical conferences similar to BSides.

At this point, Ian told Valerie that he would cancel the talk if it included discussion of rape, but not otherwise. Valerie told him that her experience was that a talk on sex but not rape would still have a negative effect on many women. Valerie reiterated that the Ada Initiative was not making threats, that this was just sharing their knowledge and experience. Ian repeated his decision to cancel the talk if it included discussion of rape but not otherwise, and left to speak to the speaker, Violet Blue.

Ian returned a few minutes later and told Valerie that the talk did include discussion of rape, and that Violet Blue had agreed to cancel it.

Valerie was not consulted at any point about potential changes to the talk such as change of room, change of topic, etc. Her conversation with Ian was restricted to educating him about how the talk was likely to negatively affect some women. Ian takes full responsibility for making the decision to cancel the talk.

The big picture

The Ada Initiative does not oppose harm-reduction, sex education, talking about rape, or other vital parts of promoting women’s health, safety, and rights. To the contrary, we published a detailed guide on how to talk about sex, pornography, and similar topics at conferences about 5 months ago. Our own AdaCamp conferences specifically permit discussion of topics like harm-reduction and rape. This is because they are on-topic for AdaCamp, we make specific efforts to make AdaCamp a safer space to do so, and we take every precaution to make sure people are comfortable not participating in those discussions. As an example of an on-topic talk about sex at a technical conference that was quite well-handled, see Cindy Gallop’s talk on the Make Love Not Porn project for the Open Video Conference (tagline: “Pro-porn, pro-sex, and pro knowing the difference”).

We believe that both Ian Fung and Violet Blue acted in good faith, but that through a combination of stress, time pressure, misunderstanding, and imperfect memory, Violet Blue’s report of Ian Fung’s report of what Valerie said differs from Valerie’s recollection (think: the Telephone game). We’re glad to have an opportunity to share our recommendations on how sex-related topics can be discussed in open tech/culture in ways that are women-friendly.

We aren’t sure what we should have done differently to have a better outcome. Many people have expressed the opinion that we should not have given the BSides SF organizer our advice. However, it seems like giving advice when requested by people who want more women in open technology and culture is a core part of our mission. We are open to suggestions for what we could have done differently in order to better accomplish our core mission of increasing the participation and status of women in open technology and culture.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone working to make the world a better place for women, and open technology and culture in particular. We support different ways of achieving that goal and understand that feminism, feminists, and feminist activism varies widely. Our way isn’t the only way, it’s just the best way we know how to accomplish our mission. We are always looking for ways we can improve. You can help by speaking up about your opinions and being part of the discussion about the future of open technology and culture.

We apologize for not enabling comments on this post. We have received enough rape and death threats over the past few days that we don’t have the energy to moderate any more of them in comments. However, you can share your feedback with us in a blog post, a G+ post, or an email to feedback@adainitiative.org. (Update: if this email address bounced, please try again – we’re sorry for the inconvenience.) We can’t guarantee we will be able to read or respond to every piece of feedback if we continue to receive threats via these channels, but we will do our best.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Keeping it on-topic: the problem with discussing sex at technical conferences

TRIGGER WARNING: Brief mentions of rape, discussion of PTSD induced by sexual assault

TL;DR

A computer security conference, BSides SF, featured a talk on a sexual topic. At the request of a BSides SF conference organizer, the Ada Initiative gave them information on the potential negative effect of this talk on women attendees. The BSides SF organizers wanted to encourage women to attend, and decided to cancel the talk in service of that goal. Afterward, several people criticized the Ada Initiative for being sexist and suppressing women’s speech by advising against the talk. They argued that because it was given by a woman, and described as sex education, sex-positive, and pro-women that advocating for its cancellation is sexist and silencing of women.

The Ada Initiative continues to advocate against all off-topic sexual material at technical conferences because of its tendency to disproportionately harm women attendees, regardless of how or by whom it is presented. Certain sexual topics can trigger PTSD in people who have been sexually assaulted, and can be perceived as encouragement to humiliate, objectify, and assault women, regardless of the intent of the speaker. The Ada Initiative explicitly supports discussion of sex when it is on-topic for the conference and done in a woman-positive way, and has published specific guidelines on how to achieve this.

Background

The computer security conference BSides SF (held in San Francisco on 24–25 February 2013) invited Violet Blue [note: sexual imagery at link] to give a talk, subject to be determined. The title of the talk was listed on the conference’s online schedule as “TBD” until a small number of hours before the talk, when it was updated to “sex +/- drugs: known vulns and exploits”

In computer security jargon “vuln[erabilitie]s and exploits” are respectively weaknesses in computing and related systems, and ways to take advantage of them in order to break into or “penetrate” the system. The precise meaning of the title is ambiguous, but to people familiar with the jargon, a reasonable interpretation of the title might include using drugs to exploit someone into having sex without consent (i.e., rape).

The abstract of the talk was not available until after the decision to cancel the talk, and does not reflect the same topic as the title of the talk suggests. The abstract of the talk is:

What drugs do to sexual performance, physiological reaction and pleasure is rarely discussed in – or out of – clinical or academic settings. Yet most people have sex under the influence of something (or many somethings) at some point in their lives.

In this underground talk, Violet Blue shares what sex-positive doctors, nurses, MFT’s, clinic workers and crisis counselors have learned and compiled about the interactions of drugs and sex from over three decades of unofficial curriculum for use in peer-to-peer (and emergency) counseling. Whether you’re curious about the effects of caffeine or street drugs on sex, or are the kind of person that keeps your fuzzy handcuffs next to a copy of The Pocket Pharmacopeia, this overview will help you engineer your sex life in our chemical soaked world. Or, it’ll at least give you great party conversation fodder.

Why off-topic sexual talks can harm women at technical conferences

The Ada Initiative has, since its founding, recommended strongly against including off-topic sexual content at technical conferences. This is because sexual content is likely to make the event off-putting, unwelcoming, and even unsafe for women attendees. Sexual content affects women disproportionately for several reasons. Here are a few:

Women are far more likely to be raped, sexually assaulted, pressured for sex, or otherwise have bad sexual experiences. Sexual content, particularly in unexpected situations like a technical conference, can bring up memories and associations of prior bad sexual experiences in ways that are frightening or sometimes disabling. Many women have PTSD triggered by certain sexual topics (this is why the concept of a “trigger warning” was created).

Discussing sex creates a “sexualized environment” which many people take as a signal to treat women as sexual objects rather than as fellow conference attendees, resulting in a higher incidence of harassment and assault of women. Too many women have been raped at technical conferences; we should do everything we can to prevent future rapes.

Sex in many societies is strongly tied to the objectification and humiliation of women. Many people are unable to separate “talking about sex” and “saying derogatory things about women,” and take the introduction of one for permission to do the other. While many pro-woman, sex-positive people and communities exist, most technical conferences are not safe spaces for discussion of sex.

Simply put, even the world’s most pro-woman, sex-positive, pro-consent talk about sex is likely to have negative effects on women at a technical conference.

At the same time, discussion of sexual topics is vitally important to women’s rights and well-being. We strongly support discussion of sex and related topics when it is on-topic and done in a woman-positive way.

What the Ada Initiative did

Ada Initiative Executive Director Valerie Aurora was attending the BSides SF conference, and saw this update to the title of the talk. By coincidence, the Ada Initiative happened to have been put in contact with a co-founder of the BSides conferences (not BSides SF) a few weeks previously, to discuss a potential anti-harassment policy that individual BSides conferences could choose to adopt. When the title of the talk was updated, Valerie emailed the BSides co-founder with the title of the talk and an explanation of why it would be unwelcoming to women, with the intention of giving an example of situations which having a policy in place would help. The co-founder replied to the email and cc’d a BSides SF organizer, Ian Fung, which resulted in Ian asking Valerie for more information.

Valerie complied with Ian’s request, and explained the potential effects of a talk about sex, drugs, and exploits in a community known for sexual harassment and assault of women. Ian made a decision on what path to take, executed that decision, and informed Valerie of the results afterwards. As announced by the organizers, Ian cancelled the talk after discussing it with the speaker.

Several people have suggested that the Ada Initiative threatened or coerced the BSides SF organizers into cancelling this talk. To the contrary, in their discussions Valerie emphasized repeatedly that the Ada Initiative would not retaliate against and was not threatening BSides SF. It is true that warning people of a potential bad effect of their actions is a common method of threatening people; that’s one reason why we wait for conference organizers to contact us first. If someone requests our opinion, as BSides SF did in this case, then it is more difficult to mistake sharing our expertise as threats.

Thank you to the BSides SF organizers

We thank the BSides SF organizers for having a strong desire to be welcoming to women. During the conference, women were visible contributors in many ways: giving talks, competing in contests, and serving as volunteers. We need more women in computer security, not fewer. The decisions the BSides SF organizers made were in the service of this goal.

Our recommendations to similar technical conferences

We recommend that technical conferences adopt a strong anti-harassment policy and avoid sexual content in their program. It causes strong, upsetting emotions to many attendees — disproportionately women — that probably aren’t relevant to the core activities of your technical conference. Moreover, unlike some highly charged other topics in the technical world, it is very unlikely that your audience has a uniformly, or even widely-held, negative opinion of harassment and assault. Therefore even if the content is pro-consent and constructive it may spark conversations (jokes, memes, etc.) among attendees that make people who are concerned about rape feel highly unsafe (and possibly even leave the conference).

However, obviously not all conferences are technical and at some events discussion of sexual culture and activities are on-topic or key to the event. In 2012, the Ada Initiative released an update to the example anti-harassment policy, addressing how a policy could work when sex and porn are on-topic at conferences, as they might be at our very own AdaCamps. Our own conferences have this wording in their policy:

Exception: Discussion or images related to sex, pornography, discriminatory language, or similar is welcome if it meets all of the following criteria: (a) the organizers have specifically granted permission in writing, (b) it is necessary to the topic of discussion and no alternative exists, (c) it is presented in a respectful manner, especially towards women and LGBTQ people, (d) attendees are warned in advance in the program and respectfully given ample warning and opportunity to leave beforehand. This exception specifically does not allow use of gratuitous sexual images as attention-getting devices or unnecessary examples.

We recommend that conferences that judge that they are open to including sexual content adopt similar clauses. This serves several purposes:

it gives people who do not want to attend a sexual talk sufficient warning to avoid that room, or even the event
it gives people who want to attend a sexual talk, but only on certain topics or from certain perspectives (eg, who wish to attend a talk only from a feminist perspective) time to review the talk and decide if it meets their needs
it gives the conference organizers ample time to consider issues like choice of room, and scheduling alternatives for people who don’t want to attend

What we recommend to speakers

If you are speaking at a conference without a clear policy about sexual content, we suggest that you review any sexual content in your talk in light of the above: is it necessary? Or are you using its shock value or people’s (perhaps very hurtful, personal and deeply felt) reactions to sexual content to make an unrelated point?

If you are giving a talk about sex or sexual culture, we recommend that you:

ask conference organisers if they wish to discuss the topic of your talk with you beforehand
flag sexual content in your abstract
open your talk with an additional brief verbal warning
following the warning, add a sincere statement that people may leave your presentation at any time for any reason, and a strong reminder to the rest of the audience that they should not obstruct anyone from leaving, criticize them for leaving, or even inquire afterwards why they left
unless absolutely necessary and again clearly warned for, keep depictions (either visual, verbal or written) of non-consensual activities in particular general and brief

If you are going to discuss rape, assault, harassment and similar, we recommend that your abstract is clear about the perspective you will be taking so that people can be reassured that your content is pro-consent. (It may seem obvious, but so much sexual content isn’t pro-consent!) And remember, no matter how pro-consent or woman-positive your material is, it can still trigger major distress in your audience. Be considerate and thoughtful.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

What changed in 2012 for women in open tech and culture?

We are replacing our monthly newsletters with periodic updates on the state of women’s participation in open technology and culture. We’ll also be sharing regular calls to action with you, with ideas for how you personally can help support women in open technology and culture.

First women in open tech/culture conferences

Mary and Valerie at AdaCamp DC

2012 saw the first stand-alone conferences specifically for women in open technology and culture, AdaCamp Melbourne in January and AdaCamp DC in July. Topics included fighting Impostor Syndrome; success stories from open tech/culture communities with many women; geek moms; women editing Wikipedia; burnout and lifehacking; fandom; feminism & social change; soft circuits. The response from attendees was overwhelming – “The experience profoundly changed me,” and “AdaCamp was a phenomenal event! I’m grateful to the Ada Initiative and AdaCamp attendees for helping me stay inspired to fight for open tech, open culture, and women’s involvement in both.” We are currently planning the next AdaCamp, in San Francisco in June 2013.

Online groups for women in technology generally, and open technology and culture in particular, have been around for decades. They include Systers, LinuxChix and Girl Geek Dinners. The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a conference for women in computing in general, and the Haecksen gatherings are small miniconference or BoF style events at larger conferences. These groups and events generally focus on networking and support. A complementary goal is activism: discussing, exploring and changing the culture for women in open technology and culture. What makes AdaCamp different is a focus on changing the culture, and bringing together women from all over open technology and culture rather than focusing on computer programming.

Based on the AdaCamp manuals, we released our conference booklet templates for other events to re-use.

Harassment policies continue to be implemented

The Ada Initiative continues to focus on supporting open technology and culture events in publicly condemning and fighting harassment incidents. We believe that conference organizers are especially empowered to act on harassment, paving the way for anti-harassment norms to spread throughout open technology and culture.

The example anti-harassment policy for technical conferences and support materials were one of the early projects of the Ada Initiative and other community members. Adoption of anti-harassment policies continued strongly in 2012, and we developed additional resources to support conferences that implemented such policies. One of the resources is a guide to responding to harassment incidents, based on the Ada Initiative’s experience assisting conference organizers faced with an allegation of harassment and has already formed the basis for a section of the PyCon US staff manual. We also developed a variant on the anti-harassment policy for conferences that discuss sex and/or pornography as part of their program.

In a very widely read article, the Ada Initiative’s Valerie Aurora challenged hacker conferences to adopt such policies, with the first conference to do so, BruCON, reporting that the policy allows them to keep their friendly feel as they grow. Several hacker conferences have since adopted anti-harassment policies.

Outside of the Ada Initiative’s community, other geek communities are using the example policy and its derivatives. In 2012 the atheist and skeptic communities discussed and adopted anti-harassment policies for many conferences amid continuing concerns about discrimination and harassment in their communities. We hope communities at large continue to benefit from this work.

Women’s inclusion in open technology events and education continues to be funded

Outreach programs which pay for women to attend events or do internships in open technology have a long history, inc. Diversity scholarships attract not only the recipients to events, but also promote the event among networks of women and other underrepresented groups and signal that it is inclusive, resulting in higher attendance of people who didn’t receive or even apply for a scholarship.

Offering such scholarships continued in 2012, with for example PyCon US and DjangoCon scholarships, but their size and visibility is increasing with more substantial offers, for example, the Etsy Hacker Grants, offering living allowances for women attending Hacker School. Similarly, the GNOME Foundation’s Outreach Program for Women grew in 2012 to include not only funding for an internship working on GNOME projects but also internships on Fedora, Mozilla, OpenStack and Wikimedia projects, among several other communities.

Awareness raising talks

As in 2009, several large conferences invited keynotes on the subject of diversity in 2012. The Ada Initiative’s Mary Gardiner keynoted Wikimania on Fostering diversity, describing concrete steps to increase diversity in open technology and culture projects; and Michael Schwern addressed YAPC::NA on Perl: the Next Generation, describing the problems with open technology’s tendency to concentrate power in the hands of those who’ve always had it.

Progress on women speaking at technical events

In May, gaming conference organizer Courtney Stanton laid out techniques for getting much higher representation of women technical speakers than many conferences are able to achieve. Technical conferences such as JSConf EU are beginning to report success with vastly improving the representation of women on stage at their events. Conferences are starting to be actively challenged on lack of gender diversity in their line-up.

Looking forward into 2013

Photograph of the San Francisco cityscape

by Glen Scarborough, CC BY-SA

The Ada Initiative will continue with our successful AdaCamps: we’re already planning AdaCamp San Francisco in June, and have recently welcomed our first four event sponsors to the project. In addition we’re having a more informal event as part of PyCon 2013: a feminist hacker lounge organized by advisors Lukas Blakk and Liz Henry. We’ve also launched a program to offer our allies workshop more widely, including a soon-to-be-released video version. Valerie and Mary are meeting in March to develop our 2013 plans and are looking forward to sharing them with you.

Activism outside the Ada Initiative continues to be vibrant. Already this year challenges to events that have very male-dominated speaker lineups are increasing, with Rebecca Rosen calling for men to refuse to appear on all-male panels and the campaign to ban “booth babes” at consumer electronics event CES. New website confcodeofconduct.com is advocating the further adoption of codes of conduct with anti-harassment norms.

If you or your organization are planning events promoting or supporting women in open technology and culture, we’d love to hear from you. Contact share@adainitiative.org.

The Ada Initiative depends on your support to continue our work supporting women in open technology and culture! Support our 2013 plans by donating today. Thank you to all our 2011 and 2012 donors for your crucial support during our first two years.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

In Arbeit: Das Ende von Sexismus in der Hackerkultur

This is a German translation of our recent blog post on sexism in hacker culture (click here for the English original). Translation courtesy of @fin, @bekassine und @michaelem.

[Übersetzung ins Deutsche von @fin, @bekassine und @michaelem]

Letzte Woche wurde wieder global über Sexismus in der Hackerkultur diskutiert. Auslöser dafür waren eine Reihe von sexistischen Vorfällen am 29ten Chaos Communication Congress, einer Veranstaltung die jährlich in der letzten Woche des Jahres in Deutschland abgehalten wird.

Die Vorfälle begannen damit, dass jemand aus den sogenannten “Creeper Move Cards” ein Bild eines nackten Frauenkörpers (Link führt nicht direkt zum Bild) an eine Wand klebte. Diese “Creeper Move Cards” waren gedruckt worden um auf das Thema Sexismus aufmerksam zu machen, was in diesem Fall auch gelungen war. Weiters wurde im Wiki der Konferenz eine Seite erstellt, die die TeilnehmerInnen im Rahmen eines Spiels dafür belohnte, anderen gegenüber sexistische Kommentare abzulassen oder unerwünschte sexuelle Annäherungsversuche zu unternehmen. Außerdem machte ein Moderator des beliebten Spiels “Hacker Jeopardy” im Rahmen der Show wiederholt sexistische Kommetare wie zB. “Jetzt müssen wir leider aus Gleichstellungsgründen eine Frau nehmen”, ohne dass die Organisatoren der Konferenz eingegriffen hätten.

Schnell reagierten sowohl KonferenzteilnehmerInnen, als auch die weltweite Community. TeilnehmerInnen erstellten eine Webseite, auf der sexistische Vorfälle am Congress dokumentiert wurden. Die Kritik verbreitete sich explosionsartig durch die sozialen Medien – “Ich behaupte, die Konferenz-Orga hat versagt und euer Team ist eine symbolische und sinnlose Geste” [übersetzt] – wiederum nicht nur auf der Konferenz, sondern auch in der weiteren Community.

Diese Vorfälle brachten für die bekannte Online-Aktivistin und Cryptoparty-Gründerin Asher Wolf das Fass zum Überlaufen und sie bloggte über die sexistische Diskriminierung und Belästigung, die sie in der Hacker-Community erfahren hatte. Wie zum Beweis ihrer Aussagen wurde kurz darauf ihre Website gehackt und persönliche Daten online gepostet.

Diese Vorfälle waren umso schlimmer, weil nur ein paar Tage zuvor eine offizielle Anti-Harassment-Policy (Anti-Belästigungs-Richtlinie) veröffentlicht wurde. Im Zuge dessen wurde auch eine Telefonnummer eingerichtet, an die diskriminierende Vorfälle gemeldet werden konnten und es stand ein Team zur Verfügung, das auf Meldungen reagieren sollte. Die Ada Initiative sah dies als ein Zeichen des Fortschritts, auch weil der 29c3 damit bereits als dritte Hackerkonferenz eine spezifische, durchsetzbare Policy hatte.

Kritik an der Reaktion der Organisatoren war unter KonferenzteilnehmerInnen weit verbreitet und dauert bis heute an. Wir sind selbst traurig und bestürzt, dass viele TeilnehmerInnen aller Geschlechter Belästigung erfahren hatten und von den Organisatoren im Stich gelassen wurden. Wundert es also, dass Viele öffentlich verzweifelten und fragten, ob Frauen jemals eine Hackerkonferenz besuchen könnten, ohne als Stück Fleisch gesehen zu werden?

So sieht Fortschritt aus

Unsere hoffnungsvolle Ansage: Genau so sieht Fortschritt aus. So schmerzhaft diese letzte Woche auch war, so sehr zeigen diese Ereignisse auch, dass sich die Hackerkultur in eine Zukunft bewegt, in der Frauen nicht aktiv entmutigt werden, Teil der Hackercommunity zu sein.

Als letzten August Sexismus bei der Hacker-Konferenz DEFCON Schlagzeilen machte, drehte sich die Diskussion innerhalb der Community darum, ob Sexismus überhaupt existierte, ob Grenzübertretungen und Beschimpfungen als Sexismus zählen, ob Frauen ein wertvoller Bestandteil der Hackerkultur sein können und ob sexuelle Übergriffe zentraler Bestandteil der Hackerkultur sind. Im August 2012 hatte keine Hacker-Konferenz eine öffentliche, konkret durchsetzbare Anti-Harassment Policy.

Letzte Woche hingegen drehte sich die Diskussion darum, wie die Hackercommunity auf Sexismus reagieren sollte, nicht ob er existiert oder ob Frauen einfach mit Übergriffen rechnen müssen. Nun haben drei Hackerkonferenzen öffentliche, spezifische und durchsetzbare (wenn auch vielleicht schlecht durchgesetzte) Anti-Harassment Policies. Als diese Policy am Congress schlecht durchgesetzt wurde, organisierten sich Anwesende spontan, diskutierten Verbesserungen für die nächste Konferenz und stellten eine Liste mit praktischen, sinnvollen Verbesserungsvorschlägen zusammen. Sexismus in der Hackercomunity hat schon immer existiert, allerdings sind sich jetzt mehr Leute denn je dessen bewusst und ergreifen Maßnahmen um diesen zu bekämpfen.

Der Kampf gegen Sexismus: ein laufender Prozess

Von hier an ist bestimmt nicht alles ein Zuckerschlecken: Um im Kampf gegen Sexismus erfolgreich zu sein, müssen wir weiter auf die Verantwortlichkeit mächtiger Menschen pochen, unabhängig davon ob das für sie unangenehm oder peinlich ist. Wir sind hier um zu diskutieren, wie dieser Prozess funktioniert.

Zuerst wollen wir ein Beispiel geben, wie dieser Prozess in ähnlichen internationalen, kreativen, peer-to-peer-organisierten Communities funktioniert. In den letzten zwei Jahren gab es messbaren Fortschritt für Frauen in Open Source Software, Wikipedia, und ähnlichen Communities. Die Ada Initiative sieht sich in einer Führungsrolle für diese Bewegung: Wir arbeiten direkt mit Konferenzen und Firmen zusammen, vernetzen Frauen in dem Bereich durch die AdaCamp Konferenzen und arbeiten an einer freien (CC-BY-SA lizenzierten) Wissensdatenbank über Feminismus im Geek-Kontext mit, damit nicht jede Community und jede Konferenz ganz von vorne anfangen muss.

Wir haben gelernt, dass gesellschaftlicher Wandel ein Prozess ist. Wir sehen diesen folgendermaßen:

Sensibilisierung: Leuten beizubringen, dass das Problem existiert
Lösungsfindung: Praktische Methoden zu finden, die Community zu ändern
Maßnahmen ergreifen: Diese Methoden implementieren

Das Erstellen und Austeilen der “Creeper Move Cards” hat unübersehbar ein Bewusstsein dafür geschaffen, dass Sexismus auf Konferenzen existiert. Das Erstellen und Verbreiten von Anti-Harassment-Policies für Konferenzen hat einen Lösungsweg aufgezeigt. Dass Konferenzorganisatoren jetzt diese Policies durchsetzen ist eine Implementierung dieses Lösungswegs.

Damit dies funktioniert müssen wir diese Schritte immer und immer wieder gehen, wir müssen riskieren, Fehler zu machen und wir müssen lernen, es nächstes Mal besser zu machen. Ein Beispiel für eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung dieses Prozesses ist die Australische/Neuseeländische Opensource Konferenz linux.conf.au.

Beispielfall: eine Konferenz über Opensource Software

Linux.conf.au ist die bekannteste Opensource Konferenz in dieser Region und zieht hunderte von ReferentInnen und TeilnehmerInnen aus allen Teilen der Welt an. Heutzutage hat sie eine starke, gut durchgesetzte Anti-Harassment Policy, einen hohen Anteil von Frauen als Referentinnen und Teilnehmerinnen und einen Ruf als freundliche und einladende Konferenz für alle. Aber es war nicht immer so.

Vor einigen Jahren hatte die linux.conf.au Vorfälle, in denen Frauen ohne deren Zustimmung fotografiert, Teilnehmerinnen körperlich bedroht und Witze darüber gemacht wurden, dass Hans Reiser Teilnehmerinnen töten würde. Im Jahr 2010 hatte die Konferenz zum ersten Mal eine “Diskriminierungspolicy”, die belästigendes und diskriminierendes Verhalten verbot. Diese Policy war jedoch so vage formuliert, dass es Diskussionen darüber gab, ob beispielsweise sexistische Witze diskriminierend seien.

Als Ende 2010 eine in der Open Source Community bekannte Frau den Namen des Mannes nannte, der sie auf der ApacheCon begrapscht hatte, löste das eine weltweite Diskussion über sexuelle Belästigung und sexuelle Übergriffe in der Open Source Community aus. Dieser Diskurs führte schließlich (neben der Gründung der Ada Initiative) dazu, dass eine Vorlage für eine konkrete und vollziehbare Anti-Harassment Policy ausgearbeitet wurde, welche die linux.conf.au im Jahr 2011 übernahm.

Als ein Keynote-Sprecher 2011 diese Policy mehrfach verletzte (und zum Beispiel pornografische Bilder in seiner Präsentation verwendete), folgte eine Diskussion, die die Community mehrere Monate beschäftigte und zu weiteren sexistischen Vorfällen auf der Mailingliste der Konferenz führte. Schlussendlich entschuldigte sich der Referent und die Videoaufnahme des Vortrages wurde editiert um zu reflektieren, dass der Vortrag die Konferenzregeln und die Prinzipien der Organisatoren verletzte. Linux Australia, die Organisation, die hinter der Konferenz steht, bestätigte die Unterstützung ihrer Anti-Harassment-Policy und die Konferenz hatte 2012 keine signifikanten Vorfälle.

Einzelne Mitglieder der Community unterstützen weiterhin Sexismus und handeln weiterhin sexistisch, nur wissen sie jetzt, dass sie mit Sanktionen, Strafen und Abscheu von Seiten der Community rechnen müssen. Die Kulturnormen dieses Teils der Opensource Community haben sich sichtlich verändert.

Im Großen und Ganzen ist es mittlerweile in der Open Source Community die Norm, dass gegen Belästigung auf Konferenzen gekämpft wird.
Die meisten großen und auch kleinen Konferenzen haben Anti-Harassment-Policies und setzen sie auch durch. Die Python Software Foundation geht sogar weiter und verkündete vor Kurzem, dass sie keine Events ohne solchen Policies finanziell unterstützen würden, und uns wurde gesagt, dass viele Sponsoren der gleichen Meinung sind, dies aber nicht nach außen kommunizieren. Ermutigend ist besonders, dass Open Source Konferenzen nun ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf die Auswahl von ReferentInnen legen und sowohl auf Diversität bei der Auswahl der ReferentInnen achten, als auch Konferenzen darauf aufmerksam machen, wenn sie nur männliche und nur weiße ReferentInnen haben.

Hört auf, meine Konferenz zu ruinieren!

Wir werden immer wieder gefragt: Können wir all diese Unannehmlichkeiten nicht einfach überspringen und stattdessen nach dem Grundsatz “be excellent to each other” leben? Wir sind schließlich erwachsene Menschen, nicht wahr?

Gesellschaftliche Veränderung findet nicht statt, weil wir einfach darum bitten.

Veränderungen passieren durch Proteste, Hungerstreiks und öffentliche Aktionen. Veränderungen blockieren den Verkehr auf den Straßen großer Städte. Veränderungen passieren, wenn geheime Regierungsdokumente geleakt werden. Sie geschehen als Resultat von Unruhen, ausgebrannten Häusern und Tränengaskanistern auf die Nasen von Demonstranten. Wir können uns glücklich schätzen, dass Protest gegen Sexismus in der Hackerkultur hauptsächlich mit bösen Worten gekontert wird â€“ besonders wenn wir gegen etwas Protestieren, das oft genug körperliche sexuelle Übergriffe auf Frauen beinhaltet. Wenn du noch keine Übergriffe oder Belästigung erlebt hast, mag diese unangenehme Diskussion wie ein Schritt zurück aussehen, aber für jene, die so etwas schon erlebt haben, ist die Diskussion eine klare Verbesserung!

Die Folgen dieser Art von Protesten sind unbequem und manchmal gefährlich für Leute die ihren Alltag leben. Jedoch sind diese Unannehmlichkeiten oft schon zuvor im Leben von Unterdrückten zu finden. Viele Frauen können schon nicht zu Hackerkonferenzen gehen, ohne mit Sexismus rechnen zu müssen. Wenn du diese Woche zum ersten Mal mit Sexismus konfrontiert wurdest, stell dir vor wie es ist, jedes Mal mit Sexismus konfrontiert zu werden, wenn du einen IRC-Channel betrittst, öffentlich bloggst oder zu einer Konferenz gehst. Das wäre ziemlich schrecklich, oder? Es könnte sogar dazu führen, dass du die Hackercommunity verlässt.

Die Antwort auf “hört auf meine Konferenz zu ruinieren” darf nicht “hört auf Sexismus aufzuzeigen” sein, sondern muss “hört auf sexistisch zu handeln” lauten. Beschuldige nicht die Opfer dafür, dass sie Sexismus aufzeigen, oder dass sie es auf eine für dich unangenehme Weise machen. Schlussendlich macht Sexismus sowohl Männer als auch Frauen mehr als leicht betroffen; Sexismus verletzt sie und vertreibt sie aus der Community. Wir forden den Chaos Communication Congress auf, hinter seiner Policy zu stehen, umfassende und funktionierende Prozeduren zu entwickeln und sich in Zukunft zu ihrer Durchsetzung zu bekennen

Wenn wir alle weiter zusammen arbeiten, laut bleiben und Maßnahmen gegen Diskriminierung ergreifen, wird sich Sexismus aus der Hackercommunity zurückziehen, wie es schon in anderen Communities passiert ist. Und das kannst du selbst tun:

Danke an alle, die letzte Woche über Sexismus und Belästigung diskutiert haben. Ihr macht gesellschaftliche Veränderung möglich. Kontaktiert uns gerne, wenn ihr Unterstützung braucht.

[Kommentare sind nur unter der englischen Version dieses Posts aktiv.]

Die Ada-Initiative ist eine gemeinnützige Organisation, die sich für die Steigerung der Partizipation und des Status von Frauen im Feld “Open Technology and Culture” einsetzt. Unsere Arbeit, welche diesen Blogpost, die Vorlage für eine Anti-Harassment Policy und viel der dazugehörigen Dokumentation beinhaltet, wird durch Spenden von Community Mitgliedern wie dir finanziert.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Ending sexism in hacker culture: A work in progress

CCC building at night by dschanoeh, on Flickr

Updated to add 2 January 2013: German translation available here courtesy @fin, @bekassine and @michaelem.]

Last week, sexism in hacker culture became a topic of worldwide dialogue again. The trigger was a series of sexist incidents at the 29th Chaos Communications Congress, held every year in Germany during the last week of the year.

The incidents started with a wall in the conference center, where a picture of a woman’s nude body (link does not show image directly) was created using “Creeper Move cards,” printed paper cards used to raise awareness of sexism. (They definitely raised awareness in this case.) The conference wiki was edited to create a game in which participants were rewarded for offending people by making sexist comments or unwanted sexual propositions. During the popular conference event “Hacker Jeopardy,” a moderator repeatedly made sexist comments like “For reasons of gender-equality, we’ll sadly have to pick a woman now,” unhindered by the conference organizers present.

The reaction was swift, both at the conference and around the world. Many of the incidents were chronicled on a web site set up to document sexist incidents at CCC (in German, English here). Social media exploded with criticism of the events – e.g., “I think the conference leadership (the ccc) has failed horribly and that your team is a token and meaningless gesture.” – which quickly spread to include not just people at the conference but also people around the world.

These incidents were the last straw for prominent online activist and Cryptoparty co-founder Asher Wolf, who blogged about the sexist discrimination and harassment she experiences from the hacker community. As if to prove her point, her web site was hacked and her personal details posted online shortly thereafter.

These incidents stung more than usual in part because just a few days earlier the CCC 29 publicized their official anti-harassment policy, including a special phone number and dedicated team for responding to reports. The Ada Initiative saw this as a hopeful sign for progress, since it was the third hacker conference to publicly adopt a specific, enforceable policy.

Yet criticism of the conference organizers’ actual response to harassment was widespread (EN) (DE) and continues through the time of this posting. We are personally sorry and upset that so many people, of all genders, suffered harassment and then were let down by the response from the conference. Is it any wonder many people publicly despaired over whether women can ever expect to go to a hacker conference and not be treated like a piece of meat?

This is what progress looks like

We have a message of hope: This is what progress looks like. As painful as the last week has been, it is a sign that hacker culture as a whole is slowly working its way towards a future in which women are not actively discouraged from being part of the hacker community in ways men are not.

When sexism at the DEFCON hacker conference became national news last August, the community discussion centered around whether sexism existed at all, if assault and insults counted as sexism, whether women were valuable to hacker culture, and whether assault and harassment of women was an integral, essential element of hacker culture. In August 2012, zero hacker conferences had a public, specific, enforceable anti-harassment policy.

Contrast this with last week, when the discussion centered around the right way for the hacker community should respond to sexism, not whether it exists or women deserved the basic right of not being assaulted in the hacker community. Now, three hacker conferences have public, specific, enforceable (if in some cases badly enforced) anti-harassment policies. When the anti-harassment policy was poorly enforced at CCC, attendees spontaneously organized to discuss how to improve the enforcement at the next conference and assembled a list of practical, sensible improvements (EN) (DE). Sexism in hacker culture has always existed, but now more people than ever before are aware of it, are agreeing that it’s wrong, and are taking steps to end it.

Fighting sexism: an on-going process

It’s not all roses from here on out: Success depends on continuing to push for accountability from powerful people, whether or not is uncomfortable or unpleasant for them to address. We’re here to talk about how that process works.

First, we want to share an example of how this process is moving forward in similar peer-to-peer, international, creative communities. The last two years have seen measurable progress for women in open source software, Wikipedia, and similar communities – what we call “open technology and culture” and which includes hacker and maker culture. The Ada Initiative is an active leader in this movement: working directly with conferences and corporations, bringing together women in open tech/culture at the AdaCamp conferences, and contributing to the Geek Feminism wiki, a freely available CC-BY-SA licensed knowledge base so every community and conference does not have to learn from scratch.

What we’ve learned is that social change is a process. One way to look at the process is as this series of steps:

Raising awareness: Teaching people that the problem exists
Creating solutions: Inventing practical ways to change the community
Taking action: Implementing the solutions

For example, creating and handing out the “Creeper Move cards” (EN) (DE) raised awareness of the problem of sexism at conferences in a way that made it impossible to ignore. Writing and promoting conference anti-harassment policies created a solution. Conference organizers enforcing an anti-harassment policy is implementing that solution.

To make this work, we have to take these steps over and over, we have to risk making mistakes, and we have to learn how to do better next time. One example of this process working in the open source software community is the Australian/New Zealand open source conference, linux.conf.au.

Case study: An open source software conference

Linux.conf.au is the most popular open source conference in the Australia/New Zealand region, and attracts hundreds of speakers and attendees from all over the world. Today, it has strong, well-enforced anti-harassment policy, a high percentage of women speakers and attendees, and a reputation as a friendly and welcoming conference for all. But it wasn’t always that way.

In previous years, linux.conf.au had incidents of non-consensual photography of women, jokes about Hans Reiser killing women attendees, and physical intimidation of women. In early 2010, for the first time the conference had a “Discrimination” policy forbidding discriminatory or harassing behavior, but was vague enough that people argued over whether, e.g., sexist jokes were “discriminatory.”

In late 2010, a prominent woman in the open source community named the man who had groped her at ApacheCon and kicked off a worldwide discussion about sexual harassment and assault in the open source community. This discussion led to the creation of a specific, enforceable example anti-harassment policy (and the founding of the Ada Initiative). linux.conf.au adopted the new specific and enforceable policy for the 2011 conference.

Despite this policy, one of the keynote speakers at the 2011 conference violated the policy in several ways (including showing a variety of pornographic images). The ensuing discussion engulfed the community for months afterward and triggered more incidents of sexism on the conference related mailing lists. In the end, though, the speaker apologized, the video of the talk was edited to add a notice that it violated the conference policies and principles of the organizers, the backing organization, Linux Australia, publicly confirmed its commitment anti-harassment policy. The 2012 conference had no major reported incidents.

Individual community members continue to support sexism and do sexist things, but now they know they face sanctions, penalties, and disgust from the rest of the community. The cultural norms of this part of the open source community have visibly changed.

Overall, opposition to conference harassment has become the default in the open source community: Most major and many minor conferences have and enforce an anti-harassment policy. Going even further, the Python Software Foundation recently announced publicly that it would not sponsor any events without a policy and we are told many other sponsors have the same policy but don’t advertise it. Even more encouraging, open source conferences are now paying attention to speaker line-ups, both working hard to increase diversity in speakers and calling out conferences with all-male or all-white speakers.

Stop ruining my conference!

But, people ask, can’t we skip all the unpleasantness, just “be excellent to each other” and be done with it? We’re all adults, right?

Social change does not happen because people ask nicely.

It happens through protests, hunger strikes, and publicity stunts. It blocks traffic on the streets of big cities. It illegally leaks classified government documents. It riots and burns down buildings and takes tear gas canisters in the face. We can count ourselves lucky that protesting sexism in hacker culture mainly results in angry words – especially when we consider that the current reality that we are protesting already includes physical sexual assault of women. If you haven’t experienced assault or harassment yourself, the upsetting discussion may seem like step backward, but for those of us who have experienced assault, it’s a clear improvement.

The effects of protests like this are uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous for people going about their daily lives, but that’s nothing compared to what life is like for the people already oppressed. Many women already can’t go to a hacker conference without having sexism pushed in their faces. If this week is the first time you’ve been made uncomfortable by sexism, imagine what it’s like to experience sexism when you join an IRC channel, blog in public, or go to a conference. That would suck pretty bad, right? You might even stop participating in the hacker community.

The answer to “Stop ruining my conference” is not “Stop pointing out the sexism,” it’s “Stop being sexist.” Don’t blame the victim for pointing out that sexism is happening, or for doing it in a way that makes you uncomfortable – after all, sexism is already making men and women more than just uncomfortable, it’s harming them and driving them out of the community. We call upon Chaos Communications Congress to stand behind their anti-harassment policy, develop a comprehensive response procedure that works, and to commit to enforcement in future years.

If people of good will continue working together, speaking up, and taking action, sexism will retreat from the hacker community as it has from so many other communities in the past. Here’s what you can personally do about it:

Thank you to everyone who spoke up about sexism and harassment last week. You are what makes change possible. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can help!

~~Comments are enabled but heavily moderated and must be approved. Comments may take up to a day to approve. Comments will be closed in 3 days.~~ Comments are now closed.

The Ada Initiative is non-profit dedicated to increasing the participation and status of women in open technology and culture. Our work, includes this blog post, the example anti-harassment policy, and much of the associated documentation. We can only do this work because of the support and actions of the open tech/culture community as a whole. Thank you!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Re-post: Why conference harassment matters

This is a repost of one of our most popular articles of 2012, originally published August 1, 2012. It has been updated to include announcements of anti-harassment policies by three hacker conferences, BruCON, DeepSec, and CCC 29.

This weekend was DEFCON 20, the largest and most famous hacker[1] conference in the world. I didn’t go to DEFCON because I’m a woman, and I don’t like it when strangers grab my crotch.

Let’s back up a little bit. DEFCON is a stellar computer security conference, attended by famous computer security experts, shadowy government “spooks,” creative hackers of all sorts, and the journalists who write about them. I first attended DEFCON in 1995 as a gawky 17-year-old. DEFCON 3 was just a few hundred computer security experts wearing black leather jackets and milling around in a ballroom at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas.

The author’s first DEFCON badge

That weekend I learned about Kevin Mitnick getting hunted down by the FBI, war-dialing for modems, and the existence of the Internet. I met a guy with long red hair named Dan Farmer who had written a program called something like EVIL, or SATAN, I wasn’t sure which.

I was so inspired by the fascinating, brilliant, frequently leather-clad people I met at DEFCON 3 that I became a computer programmer. I still have my first DEFCON badge, a cheesy purple and white laminated number with only my first name – at age 17, I wasn’t about to to give my full name to a conference full of hackers!

DEFCON today

Fast forward 17 years to DEFCON 20. Every time I read about something cool happening at DEFCON, I wanted to jump on the next flight to Las Vegas. But I didn’t, because of my own bad experiences at DEFCON, and those of people like KC, a journalist and student in San Francisco who wrote about attending DEFCON 19:

Nothing could have prepared me for the onslaught of bad behavior I experienced. Like the man who drunkenly tried to lick my shoulder tattoo. Like the man who grabbed my hips while I was waiting for a drink at the EFF party. Like the man who tried to get me to show him my tits so he could punch a hole in a card that, when filled, would net him a favor from one of the official security staff.

Or the experience of one of my friends, who prefers to remain anonymous. At a recent DEFCON, while leaning over to get her drink at the bar, someone slid his hand up all the way between her legs and grabbed her crotch. When she turned around, the perpetrator had already disappeared into the crowd.

My own stories from DEFCON seem tame compared to what these women went through, but I couldn’t take the constant barrage of sexual insults and walked out halfway through DEFCON 16, swearing not to return if I was going to be harassed like that again.

Unfortunately, DEFCON isn’t unusual among hacker conferences. Similar stories about Black Hat, HOPE, CCC, and others are also common. Sexual harassment at other computer conferences often appears unintentional, but at hacker conferences it’s often clear that the perp is doing it on purpose, and enjoying the hell out of it. As a woman, it’s hard to justify attending a hacker conference when I can go to an academic computer conference and get treated like a human being most of the time.

Why harassment matters

At this point, some of you are thinking, “Well, if DEFCON is so bad for women, women just shouldn’t go. Who cares?”

As KC puts it, “Defcon is also many wonderful things. It is a fantastic environment to learn, network, and connect with friends old and new.” There’s a reason that I attended DEFCON five times before I quit. DEFCON and other hacker conferences are popular for all the reasons that conferences exist at all: learning new things, meeting people in your field, improving your reputation, finding jobs, and making new friends.

I’ll start with the most obvious benefit of attending DEFCON: jobs. Did you know that Twitter is recruiting computer security experts at DEFCON? So are Zynga and the NSA:

@netik: Twitter is hiring security people. If you are at defcon and need work, @ reply me and let's meet up.

Happy Recruiting! NSA top spy going to #Defcon 2012 http://exm.nr/NKEIOM via @examinercom #infosec #cybersecurity

I am recruiting for AppSec, SecEng, and SecIR positions at @Zynga this week at BsidesLV, Defcon, and Blackhat. Lets talk.

Twitter, Zynga, and the NSA are only a few of the companies and government agencies that consider DEFCON prime recruiting ground for experts in all sorts of areas: network security, operating systems, robotics, surveillance, electrical engineering, intrusion detection, and anything that communicates via electromagnetic waves. When companies recruit at DEFCON, and women aren’t at DEFCON, both the companies and the women miss out.

But how do you become qualified for a computer security job in the first place? Computer security isn’t very well documented, or taught in any depth in most universities. After my first DEFCON, I knew to sign up for the DEFCON mailing list, read the 2600 magazine, and check out a copy of the UNIX Systems Administration Handbook from the computer center library. When I got a computer account at my university, I logged into the UNIX workstations instead of the Windows machines because I knew UNIX was what hackers used. I poked around UNIX until I found files I couldn’t read and commands I couldn’t run, and then I started reading manuals to understand why. I eventually became a worldwide UNIX file systems expert – all because I went to this obscure little conference in Las Vegas in 1995.

For those women who work or want to work in a computer security related field, conferences like DEFCON are the best chance to meet influential people in the field. Take Bruce Schneier, a professional speaker and the author of “Applied Cryptography” (known outside computer security for coining the term “security theater” to describe TSA security measures). I met Schneier at DEFCON 6, when I made a joke that he reused in his talk a few minutes later. The DEFCON speaker list is a who’s who of modern digital glitterati – and in a strange twist of fate, now includes the Director of the NSA.

Giving the right talk at DEFCON can make your entire career and net you dozens of offers for jobs, contracts, and book deals. DEFCON is good for hands-on learning too: For example, every year teams of security experts compete in contests like “Capture the Flag” to show off their skills and learn from each other.

Finally, everyone at DEFCON benefits from more women attending. Women “hackers” – in the creative technologist sense – are everywhere, and many of them are brilliant, interesting, and just plain good company (think Limor Fried, Jeri Ellsworth, and Angela Byron). Companies recruiting for talent get access to the full range of qualified applicants, not just the ones who can put up with a brogrammer atmosphere. We get more and better talks on a wider range of subjects. Conversations are more fun. Conferences and everyone at them loses when amazing women don’t attend.

When you say, “Women shouldn’t go to DEFCON if they don’t like it,” you are saying that women shouldn’t have all of the opportunities that come with attending DEFCON: jobs, education, networking, book contracts, speaking opportunities – or else should be willing to undergo sexual harassment and assault to get access to them. Is that really what you believe?

Is change coming to hacker conferences?

Back to KC:

I know Im not alone in being frustrated with the climate at Defcon. Last year at Deepsec in Vienna, I met a fantastically intelligent woman developer who flat out refused to attend Defcon because of interactions like those listed above. I can think of countless other women I know in the tech industry who are regular Defcon participants and speakers who are just as fed up with this crap as me. I wonder why we’ve all been so polite about such an unhealthy atmosphere.

KC stopped being polite, and started doing something about the sexist atmosphere at DEFCON: she created the Red/Yellow Card Project. She got the idea from a joke a rugby-obsessed friend made after she complained about sexism at DEFCON, suggesting that she hand out red and yellow penalty cards to people making sexist comments. She designed and printed the cards and distributed them at this year’s DEFCON, with mixed reception. Some people vehemently objected, but others loved it. DEFCON founder Jeff Moss offered to pay for the printing costs of the cards.

How the Ada Initiative is changing conferences

The cards are a hilarious way to raise awareness of the problem of brutal sexual harassment at DEFCON and similar conferences. Unfortunately, it will take more than raising awareness to make hacker conferences safe for women. That’s one reason why I quit my cushy computer programmer job and co-founded the Ada Initiative, a non-profit supporting women in open technology and culture. Our scope includes open source software, open hardware, and open data – all of which are major parts of hacker conferences like DEFCON.

The Ada Initiative’s first project: an example written policy that bans harassment at conferences, sexual or otherwise, of people of all genders. Organizers for literally hundreds of conferences have adopted some form of this policy, including open source software conferences from Linux to Python to Git, the world’s largest Wikipedia conference, Wikimania, and a plethora of others including gaming cons, open video conferences, science fiction conventions, and even skeptic/atheist meetups.

The policies aren’t just empty words; several conferences have enforced their policies successfully. Many conference organizers have told us that they had record women’s attendance after they adopted a policy aimed at reducing harassment (and often higher overall attendance as well). One conference organizer said that the first year they worked hard to invite 30% women, everyone enjoyed the conference so much more that they’ve done it every year since. When women feel welcome at a conference, everyone enjoys the conference more.

A call to action and a challenge

We’re waiting to hear about the first[2] hacker conference to adopt a specific, enforceable, well-planned policy protecting women from harassment – and then we’re going to promote the hell out of it. Will it be HOPE? CCC? DEFCON? Whichever hacker conference is first will get dozens or hundreds of new attendees, women and everyone else, too. If you want this to be your conference, and you want help designing and implementing a policy, email us at contact@adainitiative.org.

Updated to add on December 28, 2012: The first[3] three hacker conferences to adopt and publicize an anti-harassment policy are BruCON, DeepSec, a hacker conference in Vienna, and Chaos Communications Congress, a hacker conference in Germany. You can read more in an interview with the BruCON organizers, a report from the first BruCON with a policy, and an interview with the DeepSec organizers. CCC is on-going at the time of this post; see here for more information on how to report harassment to the organizers. See below for more on our criteria for listing conferences for this challenge.

If you’re not a conference organizer, you can help too! We’ve created a list of actions to take to support policies preventing harassment at conferences, all field-tested for effectiveness. To name just a few, you can publicly request a policy by blogging or tweeting, organize a community petition asking for a policy, and when speaking, make your appearance contingent on a policy.

Finally, if you like the work that the Ada Initiative is doing, you can support us by joining our announcement mailing list or donating to support our work for women in open technology and culture (we’re a tax-exempt non-profit charitable organization supported by donations and we do this for a living).

[1] The precise meaning of the word “hacker” has been the subject of furious debate for at least 30 years. Suffice to say that in this post it does not mean exclusively “person who breaks into computers” and it includes people who experiment with computers and hardware for curiosity’s sake.

[2] Updated on December 28, 2012: The title of “first” hacker conference to have a “specific, enforceable, well-planned policy protecting women from harassment” is in dispute. Kiwicon is a hacker conference that has a (hilarious) Code of Conduct:

Kiwicon attempts to be a relatively informal conference where all members of the hacking community can come together over one weekend. Individuals intent on sprinkling fetid douchenuggets over the ice-cream sundae of anyone else’s enjoyment may incur penalties, reprisals or sanctions at the discretion of the Crue. In other words, the Crue reserve the right to kick you out, own your boxen and publicly shame you if you’re being an idiot.

CCC 27 and 28 previously had a FAQ entry banning harassment but did not publicize the change or enforcement widely. Other hacker conferences have contacted us to say they have secret anti-harassment policies.

None of these meet our criteria of a “specific, enforceable, well-planned policy protecting women from harassment.” In particular, we have observed that an anti-harassment policy is ineffective unless it is both specific and widely publicized and publicly enforced (see this guide we contributed to for documentation on how to do so). Half the purpose of an anti-harassment policy is to educate the attendees about specific actions that are harassing, which can only be done if the policy lists specific actions and if the attendees read it. As a result, we consider BruCON to be the first hacker conference to adopt (and by all accounts, successfully enforce) an anti-harassment policy.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.