Hey Adam! As a conference organizer, I’d like to say WHY I think it’s important to focus on diversity. While I’m sure your words infuriate many, I’m sure this is a conversation that must be had. If someone is rude to you, they will shut down what should be a productive conversation for those who waver in opinion. I appreciate you expressing your perspective, even if I disagree.

That being said, I personally disagree. And here’s why:

It’s easy to talk about merit and knowledge in a snapshot. It’s also easy to compare tech against other gender dominated professions like nursing or garbage collection. In a scientific person’s mind, it’s elegant to adhere to quality above all else in a clinical style. But conferences are anything but clinical, they are very much, and fortunately so, human.

You hit the nail on the head when you said “We are committed to our audience” because it’s serving their future that serves us all.

Here’s your missing piece: The problem with the snapshot mentality is that it shows no momentum. And that’s missing a key feature of how we want the future of tech to be. We live in a world where not so long ago, the cards were stacked so that girls have to play with dolls, and boys get to play with building blocks. Boys get to be engineers, and girls have to stay home. Suggesting that women should speak, doesn’t undo years of momentum. It’s not something you seem to see, and why should you see it? Every conference you see is 90% male, right?

See the problem in 4D. I like buying GoldieBlox for my friend’s daughters. That’s a small contribution that might have an effect in 15 or 30 years, but one thing we can do today is make conferences more welcoming and friendly for all genders. Seeing diversity at conferences, helps foster diversity applicants at conferences… not you telling them to apply. And if the cold clinical logic of what I’m saying is absurd, then you’re missing the real treat we’re all shooting for; i.e. “that audience”. Give them diversity, not as a token, but as a gift. Work harder, for diversity. Don’t give what’s fair because it’s equal now; give what’s needed, because of where we aspire to be.

We think too much, and feel too little.
More than machinery, we need humanity.
More that cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost.
- Charlie Chaplin