Earlier this week I did a talk on tech diversity as part of a series that the San Francisco hub of the Global Shapers is running. (We’re the under-30, “youth” community supported by the World Economic Forum, organized as hubs in different cities across the world; we seek to make local impact as well as to reflect the voice of youth in the global agenda.)
The turnout surprised me—up until a few days before the talk, I’d been expecting a group of 10-15, mostly Shapers, and that I could ad lib a casual fireside chat and Q&A. In the end we even had to turn away people at the door (sorry!) and I tried to prepare some remarks and to not disappoint horribly. It was heartening to see so much interest in the subject, and from not only women but men as well.
Afterwards, actually, there were a number of men who asked for additional resources and recommended reading, as well as guidance on how to support female friends in engineering, how to be an ally in unsupportive organizations, how to encourage technical study in different communities… All of these topics could be turned into extensive Medium blog posts or even books or lengthy academic treatments, but here’s just a quick roundup of some starter resources, more for context than for instruction:
- Unlocking the Clubhouse, by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher [book]
- What Works for Women at Work, by Joan Williams and Rachel Dempsey [book]
- Whistling Vivaldi, by Claude Steele [book]
- Why women leave tech, by Sue Gardner [Google doc, compilation research]
- Diversity collection on Product Hunt, by Nichole Elizabeth [apps, podcasts, books]
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