Audrey Eschright (@ameschright)
Track: Ethical Decisions
Audrey Eschright is a writer, community organizer, and software developer based in Portland, OR. She publishes The Recompiler, a feminist hacker journal, and co-hosts the weekly Recompiler Podcast. She's best known for founding Calagator, an open source community calendaring platform; co-founding Open Source Bridge, an annual conference on FOSS contribution and maintenance; her opinions on labor and funding issues in FOSS communities; and a variety of creative projects.
Introduced herself.
Talked about publishing a female hacker journal: the recompiler, and other related projects.
Gave some context into the gender issues, quoting Grace Hopper from an interview with Cosmo.
Grace Hopper was quoted in Cosmo saying that writing software is like planning a dinner party and she was not wrong. #rubyconf
— Valerie Woolard Srinivasan (@valeriecodes) November 13, 2018
Then some statsitics about diversity in companies like Facebook, and Google.
She is not very impressed about the percentages though.
She says it's not terrible, but trash is still there, quoting Google's handling of Andy Rubin sexual misconduct.
Talking further about statstics for gender gaps / diversity in more companies.
Discusses intersectionality, gender issues, and marginalization.
"Gender is not always safe to talk about!"
Praising Google's walkout (#googlewalkout). Talks about the demands, and discusses Google's response.
Other companies are listening too. Airbnb and Ebay updated their policies regarding sexual harrassment.
She gives some tips on how to fight back!
"Find your lever!"
Lists some ideas on how can you use that to pressure companies into enforcing such policies.
Discusses how you don't need to do this all on your own, and talks about groups of labor organization in tech, and how they can help.
One final thought:
“Get rid of those interview quizzes already!” - Audrey Eschright #rubyconf
— elg0nz (@elg0nz) November 13, 2018
It is not like we're getting better programmers this way.
Talk ends.
The slides can be found here. Video can be found here.
Questions and answers not taken publicly.