#all jokes of course she's been queer coded since the first movie
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so glad they made phoebe spengler queer purely because if she did all that over a MAN? i'd be so disappointed. for melody though? that's just an integral part of being a baby gay
#all jokes of course she's been queer coded since the first movie#in the sense that everyone in my life tells me i'm just like phoebe#i look more like her than her actor out of costume it's BAD.#i really need more people talking about this movie it went so hard#phoebe spengler#ghostbusters#ghostbusters afterlife#ghostbusters frozen empire#melody ghostbusters
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why is there so much denial of Will being gay?? Like, nothing Will has done has shown him to be anytging but possibly gay. Like, nobody thinks he'z gay because he's a nerd that doesn't have a girlfriend!! We think he's gay because of all the fucking subtext!!!!
There are a few reasons for this, and theyâre all (for the most part) rooted in homophobia. 1) There are those who (may or may not) notice the subtext, but ignore it with the excuse of âheâs too young; stop sexualizing him!â. All while shipping lumax, and mileven. Whether they want to admit it or not, this is homophobic! They view (subconscious or otherwise) being queer as inherently sexual, dirty, and adult. And that only straight relationships can be pure and innocent and based on compatible personalities. Straight kids can have innocent crushes (but in their eyes) queer kids canât- they may not even exist, to them.Â
 2) There are some mileven shippers (who whether they want to admit it) hate Will, because the possibility he has powers or is gay- threatens their precious het ship. Because a lot of them donât see El as her own person (just a part of their ship) or a vessel for being a badass with powers. They donât appreciate her for the nuanced character she is.  They either get angry at the idea of Will being gay or having powers, or are only happy with him being queer if heâs sad and in an unrequited one-sided love/ or is single forever. Or theyâll say âwhy donât you just ship him with someone else⌠like Dustin?â Ignoring the fact Dustin hasnât been queer coded like Mike (or had romantically coded scenes with Will), or that people ship byler for Will and Mike, not cause itâs simply m/m. I mean, can you imagine byler shippers saying âJust ship El with Dustin, itâs a guy and girl⌠itâs practically the same thingâ? No, of course not! It shows their bias- and how they feel privileged and entitled to their straight ship even though there are millions of similar ships in media to choose from- unlike queer ships which are far and few in between. However, weâre supposed to be the ones who pick another option- and are told our ships are âall the sameâ. Whether they are aware of this bias, they consider queer ships a joke, and all the same.
3) Those who relate to Will and his struggles, hate the idea of relating to a queer character. There is a reason why shows like âWill &Graceâ in the 90s were popular, but even today the second a character who people assumed was straight is revealed as lgbt+ viewers get angry! Itâs because they feel âtrickedâ into liking, relating and empathizing with a character that they would otherwise have immediately put in a âboxâ and distanced themselves from . Whether they are aware of it or not, they would immediately attribute stereotypes to them and never try to empathize with them, because âtheyâre gay, and âhow can I relate to thatâ? They donât want to relate to them (because subconscious or otherwise) they think being gay is bad or just too foreign.They donât see queer people as full-fledged people. Theyâre just gay- nothing more.
Which is why when they angrily say âheâs just afraid to grow up, HEâS NOT GAY!â They are essentially saying a gay, abused kid, who has ptsd, and was violated by the MF (and was also hinted m**ested by Lonnie too) canât be afraid to grow up, since he lost his childhood. Only straight people have these type of human-fears and characterizations!
Forget the fact, that Will also wouldnât want to grow up- because than heâd have to acknowledge his sexuality (at a time where all you heard about gay men was they were evil , mentally ill, going to hell and dying of aids as a punishment by god). Not to mention Willâs ptsd and the fact he lost 2 years of his childhood on top of that.He even says âIâm not ⌠going to fall in loveâ (not convincingly) , right after the movie date with Mike.
4) Theyâre so used to straight media, and everyone being presumed straight and having media catered to them (the straight audience)- That theyâll ignore or miss every hint there is a queer character.Â
So what are the hints of Will being gay (or at least- some other lgbt identity.
Called many homophobic slurs since s1 ( specifically âqueer, fag, fairy, and gayâ) by his dad and bullies. Jonathan in s1 tells Will to ânot like things just because people tell you youâre supposed to, especially not himâ ( âhimâ referring to their dad). Is positioned behind a rainbow apple poster in the av room (ref. to Alan Turning the gay creator of computers), dances with a girl with a rainbow hair-clip, has rainbow bandaids, has his mom says sheâs âso proudâ (lgbt+ pride ref) of the rainbow ship he drew . When Will disparages himself as a âfreakâ, Jonathan asks Will, who would you rather be friends with- David Bowie (who was openly bi since the 70s) or Kenny Rogers? Will says Bowie, and Jonathan agrees saying âsee, itâs no contestâ. In the pitch to netflix the Duffers described Will as having âsexual identity issuesâ. In the leaked s2 snowball script it says âheâs not looking at the cute girl- but Mike.â
All of s2 directly paralleled âromantic s1 mileven scenesâ to âsupposedly platonic byler scenesâ. No joke, they had identical scenes, with almost identical framing and dialogue, but itâs all dismissed as friendship (even though the scenes are identical).Byler was also  paralleled to Jancy, Stancy, Jopper, bob/joyce and others. . You can headcannon Will as whatever you want, but like it or not- Will is queer and m/m! We could debate his exact queer sexual identity , but Will was never written and will never be written to be âstraightâ! Stay mad!
If Will was Wilma, the majority of the fandom would be byler shippers. Think about it! Mike having byler scenes that are identical to s1 mileven scenes, and then additional unique byler scenes. Mike staying by Wilmaâs side 24 hours a day for several days (not even changing clothes), carrying her out of the hospital, grabbing her hand (with a zoom in shot),constantly asking her if sheâs okay at least 5-7 times, putting his arm around her twice, being the only one who could tell something was off with her (and it wasnât her normal type of quiet). Calling and running all the way to her house and banging on the door to check on her, desperate. Proclaiming âiâm the only one who cares about Wilma!â Watching her sleep cause heâs so worried, that shed scene reminiscing about how they first met in perfect detail, saying âI asked, I asked if you wanted to be my friend. You said yes, you said yes. It was the best thing Iâve ever done. (like a marriage proposal)â The âcrazy togetherâ scene. Them being close since they were 5 vs the girl he knew for a week (but is somehow in love with?). If the witness said about El in s1 , â same heightâŚÂ it could be the Byers girlâ, instead of âboyâ (pointing out the resemblance). Mike getting into fights and getting upset (almost crying) about the bullies insulting Wilma. Mike having a whole binder of her drawings and caressing one of the drawings, after he thinks she died. Being the only one of her friends to stay awake at the hospital, waiting for her to wake up- so he can see her and hug her first. Almost everyone would be team byler if Will was a girl- they probably would of started shipping it the second Wilma stared at him and was the only one who didnât lie to him, in the first ep! Another parallel to El!Â
And again think about s3 if Will was a girl.They paralleled the (comedic) mileven breakup vs (the sad/serious) byler breakup. Then Mike just complained and burped on the couch vs apologizing to Willma multiple times/even going into a storm to apologize a 2nd time (and to âtalkâ). Willma having a breakdown over the fight vs El laughing and high five-ing Max after.The shed vs the pool shed scene- âbest thing Iâve ever doneâ vs âyouâre the most important thing in the world to meâ, âblank makes you crazyâ (as El stares confused) vs âcrazy togetherâ (where Wilma says âyeah, crazy together). Mike going on âmovie dates with Willma all the timeâ right after making out with El. The last mileven kiss where Mike has his eyes open the whole time, doesnât kiss back, and says he doesnât remember saying âI love herâ to El (and doesnât say âI love youâ back). Right after having a talk with Wilma about playing games when she comes back (the crux of their fight). Mike getting excited that heâll be able to visit El and Wilma on Thanksgiving and them visiting him on Christmas (those are holidays where family usually introduces their S.O.) Having the last scene of Mike, be him looking back at Wilmaâs house, and have that whole monologue in that scene be about âfeelings changingâ, and then he goes to hug his mom like the s1 byler scene where he thought Wilma was dead. And thatâs not even all the scenes- and every time byler won by a landslide. If Will was a girl, it would be obvious writing on the wall, that Mike would eventually choose Wilma over El by the end of the series.
But since they are 2 boys, weâre delusional, because queer kids donât exist ⌠apparently.
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tl;dr: nope
I got a couple of anon asks about this, and Iâm also tagging @twist-shout-and-shells because they asked me to, but I have to say - I donât know anything about comics, I donât know Marvel at all, so this review is just a meaningless rant. Like, I know so little about this universe that the first superhero movie I ever saw in my life was Thor, and the only reason they got me was because my mythology-loving ass assumed this would be about the actual god, you know?, so that was a very confusing two hours. Anyway - after this, Iâm done with them. The ridiculous hype campaign they created around Infinity War actually activated my crow brain, which means I rushed to the theater because I was sort of expecting this would be a shocking masterpiece and any spoiler would ruin it for me, and - yeah. Never doing that again. Because, whatever - they do manage to come up with some good writing from time to time, and Black Pantherâs success had made me hope theyâd finally recognize that a solid, coherent and meaningful story is really the first thing you need, but apparently not?Â
Ugh.
Anyway, here are main reasons why I didnât like Infinity War.
1) No, we donât need a new plague
Problem number one with this movie is that it fails to take into account that our IQ as a people has dropped about twenty points over the last thirty years (and Iâm not even joking) and that means even a guy nicknamed âMad Titanâ is actually given the benefit of the doubt (I donât remember anyone thinking Hela might have had a point, but then again, women are known to be emotionally compromised at all times, right, so all that rage was probably PMS and crazy bitches, amirite?, canât live with them, canât live without them). And here, predictably, is the result:
I even checked Breitbart so you wouldnât have to and while they seem confused as to whether they should support this movie or not (donât watch because Captain America is played by âComrade Communismâ, do watch because Chris Pratt is a Good Christian Man), itâs still clear to everybody over there that Thanos, âan environmentalist wacko obsessed with salvaging the natural resources of the universeâ is âespousing liberal jibberishâ.
So, Iâm going to keep it short and mostly sourceless because I saw a lot of people discussing this, but just to be clear: yeah, it is worrying that human population has basically tripled in thirty years, but the correlation âmore people = more damage & fewer resourcesâ isnât as clear-cut as some like to think. Also, research shows that women being recognized as human beings - thatâs the actual way to solve this problem (see also x, x), which means that if Thanos had meant business, he could have used those frwaking stones to build schools and family planning centres.Â
2) Your plan against evil canât be just saying no
This is probably what bugs me the most both in fiction and IRL: saying âTrump is a moronâ, âcapitalism is badâ or âgenocide is wrongâ is not a political program. Itâs a moral stance, and kudos to you, but if you want to make the world a better place, you need a lot more than that. But, nope - IW fell into this trap with such relish I can actually believe no one saw this as a problem - at all. When Thanos pointed out, rather smugly, that decimating Gamoraâs planet had led to a new era of happiness and prosperity, she didnât react in any way. We never saw Tony or Shuri mentioning the outlandish, extravagant idea that better and greener technology could actually save us all. We never saw anyone point out that when the richest 1% own half the worldâs wealth, wiping out half of a Nairobi slum isnât likely to do much for the environment. I guess it wasnât relevant to the plot?
3) Turning your audience against the good guys = dick move
That said, our planet is objectively in bad shape, and writers and artists who are (or like to think of themselves as) engagĂŠs are more than welcome to discuss this - for all her faults, JK Rowling did that to perfection in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, focusing on the importance of conservation and taking a clear stance against animal trafficking. Other movies, of course, went a lot farther than that: my movie rec of the day is Okja, a masterful and soulwrenching look at how capitalism manages food production. But IW, on top of everything else, manages to be an anti-green movement movie? As if that was needed in any way? Apparently comic!Thanosâ goal was to impress Lady Death or something, and maybe they should have gone with that, because to me, movie!Thanosâ plan sounds like an ill-conceived and unfortunate parody of the green movement. In fact, eminent biologist E. O. Wilsonâs Half-Earth explores this exact possibility - which is not about killing off 50% of the population, thank you very much, but about improving agriculture and urban structures so we can leave 50% of the world to the rest of the ecosystem. And maybe itâs just me, but isnât it a bit weird the book came out at about the same time when IWâs script was being written? I try not to be a paranoid nutcase, but come on. Because what the movie does is that it turns Thanos into a sort of green Hitler whose only focus is the environment (âBut he was a vegetarian!â), cue the creepy final shot of him going all âSchwarzy in the forestâ surrounded by clean-water creeks and happy animals while we are left counting our dead. The metaphor couldnât be more obvious, and to be honest it is most unwelcome. Time and place, guys? I really havenât seen something so revolting since I got to the end of the Da Vinci Code and realized atheists were the true monsters all along.
4) Being a hero doesnât mean saving your friends
So this is starting to become a trend, and seriously, enough. If youâre a hero, then you need to think of something greater than yourself, and this is why your life will suck and suck and suck until your untimely death. Deal with it? And I can understand Loki giving up the Tesseract for his brother, because heâs always been more of an anti-hero than a hero, and his morals are shot to hell in any case, and Iâll forgive Dr Strange because he clearly saw something we didnât, but what the hell was Steve thinking? Seriously, I keep seeing posts about how Pure and Noble Steve is, and guys, did we even see the same movie? Bringing Vision to Wakanda meant endangering an entire nation, and thousands of people there paid for that choice with their lives. Itâs because Steve insisted in not seeing the big picture - or accepting Visionâs own wishes - that Thanos even succeeded in the first place. If theyâd destroyed the stone, Thanos would never have gotten his hands on it, and Wakanda would not have been attacked by a horde of alien demons. Sacrificing hundreds or thousands of nameless (black, African) warriors to keep one (white) man safe is not heroism - itâs cowardice. Itâs assuming your own feelings and your friendsâ lives count more than the lives of strangers, and this is the exact opposite of how a hero should think. Not that Iâm surprised, since Steve already condoned the destruction of half of Bucharest to save Bucky, but whatever. Compare and contrast with Tony, by the way, who first tried to destroy the Time stone, then chose to sacrifice himself to save someone he didnât even like? Yeah, thatâs more like it. #TeamStark
5) Every single woman is defined by her relationship to a man
With the caveat that no emotion, connection or motivation is throroughly explored in IW because itâs an action-packed movie during which people never speak an honest word to each other (relying instead on posturing, movie quotes and sarcastic remarks), here is basically what happens: men have things, and women have men. Tonyâs journey is mostly about saving Peter and also sacrificing himself for the world. Steve is all about his friends and various heroics. Dr Strange is a sort of ascetic monk playing the long game. Thanos wants to save the universe or something. And Vision is on a quest towards humanity? Maybe? But the women - Gamora is important because sheâs Thanosâ daughter. Scarlet Witch is important because she loves Vision. Natasha (I think sheâs in the movie? I donât actually remember if we hear her speak) is on Capâs side because Cap. Pepper only appears to remind us of what Tony has to lose. Exceptions to this rule include Shuri, whom IW didnât quite manage to destroy; Loki, who was always female- and queer-coded, so Iâm not surprised he ends up dying for the handsome and suitably Aryan hero; and arguably Starlord, who mostly fights for Gamora (what is a virtue in a woman, however, is a weakness in a man, because Starlord ends up fucking up the plan because of his love for her). And I know they probably tried to compensate for the complete lack of women in the movie by highlighting how powerful Scarlet Witch is and focusing so much on Gamora, but Iâm an annoying person, so that didnât work for me. Because, again, Scarlet Witch is a 2D character plucked directly from a Victorian dictionaryâs definition of âwomanâ (while the menfolk around her worry about the possible demise of the Entire Earth, there she is, channelling all her energy in being a good and loyal companion to her robot husband) and Gamora has no more control over her life in this movie than she had as a child? Her main narrative purpose in IW is to make us feel bad for her boyfriend and father, whoâre both driven to kill her (for very different reasons) and suffer for her death (and donât get me started on Thanos suddenly loving someone and what a stroke of luck, the one person in the universe he gives a damn about just happens to be standing next to him on top of a cliff when he needs to kill her). Seriously, why is it that female charactersâ concerns still begin and end with romantic love? This trope that romance is the most important thing for every single woman needed to die, like, yesterday.
6) None of that actually means anything
Look, Iâm a sucker of time-travel of any description, but I also think time-travel must be done honestly or not at all. Movies like Back to the Future or Arrival both use time bending to great effect, because the stakes are real and painful and there are all sort of complex decisions facing our heroes. But IW doesnât care about any of that. The existence of the Time stone is not about ethical dilemmas or even turning up the drama to eleven - the one purpose of that thing is to make us hope that our personal fave is not dead after all, so weâll keep watching this stupid franchise until the end of times. That finale could have been innovative and heartwrenching, and instead we already know it wasnât. Samuel L. Jackson is apparently confirmed in Captain Marvel, which will be released next year, and we also know theyâre working on Spider-Man 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Black Panther 2 and Doctor Strange 2. Capitalism has very nearly killed the possibility of creating a well-written and gutting story, because the rule is, If it makes money, it goes the fuck on. Hence TV shows which no longer make any kind of sense but we all keep watching out of nostalgia, affection for the characters or dissatisfaction with our own lives, and also franchises which stretch the plot to new and boring limits (for instance, it beggars belief that Tony and Steve didnât even meet in IW, and their fight never came up at all: I guess weâll have to wait for IW 2, or Avengers 37: The One with The Talk). And here, again, studios are so greedy that they willingly disregard the fact audiences will reward âcompleteâ stories: for instance, Logan was critically acclaimed and made tons of money, but the risk of âpermanentlyâ killing off a beloved character is still considered too high. And playing it safe actually works: IW costed $320 million, which is about 5% of the studioâs budget, and that investment has already been repaid in full (the movie made double that in the first two weeks). Â
(Meanwhile, 21st Century Fox gained more than one billion dollars from Trumpâs TAX REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN - probably a disappointing amount of money for owner Richard Murdoch, who has a net worth of 15 billion and is known to use some of that hard-earned cash to support laudable & important causes such as the privatization of public education, but hey, we all need to make do and move on, right? Right.)
So this is mostly it. To be fair, IW was mildly entertaining, and I thought they sort of did a good job in juggling twenty leads - we got no character development at all and no meaningful dialogue, but we saw everybody at least once and their lines were funny? Some moments were genuinely good despite a couple of bizarre plot points (Iâm still unclear on why Strange didnât create a circle of fire around Thanosâ arm, and very tired of the overused âYeah, letâs save the most powerful weapons for lastâ trope), so I wouldnât say this was the worst movie ever made, but as I said, Iâm done. Iâve given more than enough money to this franchise, so when IW 2 comes out, I think Iâll be a boring adult and watch it on TV as Iâm doing my ironing or something. Good times.
#infinity war#iw#iw review#infinity war review#marvel universe#there you go#i think everyone has seen it by now?#here is my take on it#sorry to be annoying
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Drag vs Trans and how everyone loses
       As I was unable to address it in my presentation, I would like to take the opportunity to use this blog entry to discuss the feud between drag queens and trans women. These are two groups that, decades ago, often shared spaces and common interests, but have since been pushed apart by identity politics. And it is, I believe, this very thing that continues to drive the two groups apart and fuels the animosity between the groups. It is not my intention here to suggest that these two groups should be pushed back together. No, quite the contrary, I would argue that there is an extent to which a firm boundary between the two is useful and perhaps necessary for trans advocacy politics. This boundary may be complicated by the presence of individuals who claim membership in both communities, but, I believe, it does not nullify it nor reduce its necessity to trans advocacy. However, it is not my intention here to address this issue of those who traverse the boundaries, if only because this question quickly becomes one of why people perform drag, a question that is far too complex to attempt to answer within a single blog entry. What I do wish to discuss here is some of the root causes of this feud and to perhaps offer ways that trans women and drag queens can come together as political allies in ways that respect each otherâs identities.
       From the perspective of many trans women, one of the root causes is a conception of drag queen performances as being, by their very nature, transmisogynistic. They are not the first to level these kinds of claims against the drag queen community. Writing specifically about black men performing drag, bell hooks argued that drag performances seem âto allow black males to give public expression to a general misogyny.â [1] This is an argument that has been repeated by many cis women in criticism towards drag performance (often without the racial specificity) and trans women critics utilize similar logic. For them, drag queen performances are merely an extension of the man-in-a-dress trope that turns the existence of trans women into a running joke in popular culture. However, to conceive of drag performances as always-already transmisogynistic is an over-simplification. Judith Butler, writing in part in direct response to bell hooks, locates these kinds of arguments on the same continuum as reducing lesbian desire as a product of failed heterosexual love. âThis logic of repudiation,â Butler argues, âinstalls heterosexual love as the origin and truth of both drag and lesbianism, and it interprets both practices as symptoms of thwarted love. But what is displaced in this explanation of displacement is the notion that there might be pleasure, desire, and love that is no solely determined by what it repudiates.â [2] While here we again come again to the question of why drag performers perform drag, my only intention here is to argue that the always-already argument is a simplification that blinds us to the subversive potential of drag that can be used to denaturalize the ideology of gender that perpetuates harm against the trans community.
       But this is not to say that all drag performances are subversive. Butler herself recognizes this when she states âthat there is no necessary relation between drag and subversion, and that drag may well be used in the service of both the denaturalization and reidealization of hyperbolic heterosexual gender norms.â[3] Rather, drag performances may reify or subvert gender ideology, or perform in a way that expresses ambivalence between these two options. Jose Esteban Munoz, in his work on disidentification theory, posits that âCommercial drag presents a sanitized and desexualized queer subject for mass consumption ⌠[that] has had no impact on hate legislation put forth by the New Right or on homophobic [or transphobic] violence.â [4] I might add the caveat that the performances to which Munoz is referring have had no positive impact on hate legislation. Certainly, there is a history of mainstream drag performances actively disseminating transphobic discourses (see, for example, RuPaulâs Drag Race), and these may have arguably had a negative impact on the progress for trans rights. But there is a possibility of for drag that subverts. I think, again, here of Munozâs work, in which he examines the drag performances of Vaginal Crème Davis, quoting her as saying, âI didnât wear false eyelashes or fake breasts. It wasnât about the realness of traditional drag â the perfect flawless makeup. I just put on a little lipstick, a little eye shadow and a wig and went out there.â [5] Further, I think of the film Madame Sata, in which the protagonist performs drag with no regard to passing, fully displaying their typically male coded body.[6] These performances subvert through highlighting the performative nature of gender, removing femininity as always-already attached to female coded bodies. I do not wish to posit this kind of drag as the only way in which to perform subversively, but only as one option.
       Here it becomes necessary to address the drag queen community specifically, because it is my belief that the drag community has a responsibility here. Stephen Schacht and Lisa Underwood, in their study of the culture of female impersonators, argue âthat any meaningful models of what is subversive must take into account an actorâs explicit intent, the audiences for whom she/he performs, and dialectic between the two.â[7] I have to agree with this. And while, of course, no drag performer can be held responsible for how the audiences read their performances, I do believe it is their responsibility, to cis and trans women, to examine their intentions and their performances and make an active attempt to not reproduce harmful ideology, if not to actively attempt to be subversive. Perhaps more importantly, this responsibility does not stop at the boundaries of oneâs own intentions and performances. While perhaps most drag performances that are culpable in perpetuating discourse that harms trans women do so unintentionally and/or out of unexamined intent, there are those who actively and knowingly perpetuate them. In an examination of the drag queens of the 801 Cabaret by Verta Taylor and Leila Rupp, the performers express their worry over one of their own exploring the possibility of identifying as transgender, stating that to do so âmeans youâve lost your identity.â[8] A similar sentiment is expressed by Pepper Labeija in the documentary Paris is Burning. In the film, Labeija speaks at length of their belief that being transgender is âtaking it a little too farâ and expresses thankfulness that they were smart enough to never have a sex change.[9] These kinds of sentiments seem to be rampant within the drag community (see, again, RuPaulâs Drag Race), and any drag queen that wants to be an ally to the trans community has a responsibility to call out their fellow performers for perpetuating these ideas.
       Lest we place all the blame of drag queens, however, trans women have a responsibility to drag queens as well. As discussed, a large part of the animosity coming from trans women towards drag queens is the idea that their performances are inherently transmisogynistic. Stemming from that is the belief that their performances are helping to perpetuate the common belief amongst the general public that drag queen and trans woman are synonymous terms and that the latter are, like the former, (typically) men performing a role. But, as has also been stated, drag queens cannot be held responsible for how the audience reads their performances. Given the deeply entrenched nature of binary gender ideology, even the most subversive performances will still be read by some in ways that reify strict and essentializing gender norms. Trans women must understand that the onus of dispelling these ideologies is not on drag queens. As an extension of that, I do believe that there is an extent to which this feud is fueled by some akin to jealousy. The simple, sad fact is that drag queens have, by and large, reached a much higher level of acceptance in mainstream culture. There are those, I have met them, who love drag shows and refer to drag queens as she/her, but will not give trans women basic human respect. This is not the fault of the drag queen, nor is it a reason to attack the performer or the performance. Trans women, stop displacing your aggravation with a transphobic public on drag queens.
       This is a very complex topic for a relatively small amount of discussion. I have not endeavored here to solve the feud in its entirety. Rather, my hope here is to have highlighted some of what I believe are the major causes for this feud and offer some ways in which both parties can work towards ending it, possibly towards working concurrently to change gender ideology that harms both groups. As members of the wider LGBTQ+ community, there is, I feel, every reason why these groups should be working together instead of against one another, but we have to stop needlessly fighting each other first.
[1] bell hooks. (2008). Is Paris Burning? Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies (pp. 275-90). New York, NY: Routledge.
[2] Butler, J. (1993). Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion. Bodies That Matter: On The Discursive Limits of âSexâ. (pp. 121-40). New York, NY: Routledge.
[3] Butler, J.
[4] Munoz, J. E. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press.
[5] Munoz, J.E.
[6]Â Ainouz, K. (2002). Madame Sata [motion picture]. Brazil: VideoFilmes.
[7] Schact, S.P. & Underwood, L. (2004). The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators. Journal of Homosexuality, 46(ž), pp 1-17. DOI 10.1300/J082v46n03_01
[8] Taylor,V. & Rupp, L.J. (2004). Chicks With Dicks, Men In Dresses: What It Means to Be a Drag Queen. Journal of Homosexuality, 46(ž), pp. 113-33. DOI 10.1300/J082v46n03_07Â
[9] Livingston, J. (1990). Paris is Burning [motion picture]. U.S.: Miramax
#transgender#social justice#drag queen#drag#trans#identity politics#lgbtq#lgbt#lgbtqia#queer#queer theory
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âHatari!â An example of queer coding in film history
As I watched for the first time in years the movie âHatari!â a new perspective came to mind, and I discovered a secret my subconscious had been telling me about since childhood. âHatari!â is a simple, charming kind of romantic comedy-adventure, about a group of hunters in Africa that catch animals and sell them to Zoos all over Europe. The movie is quite forgotten nowadays since it has no big thrills, action scenes, dramatic love story or gross out humor. It is only remembered as one of the decent John Wayne movies. But it turns out, it is also an example of queer coding done right and for the right reasons and contains a beautiful powerful gay âbromanceâ story.
 So, letâs do this.
I know what a lot of you may be thinking. Queerbaiting is never right! But queer coding and queer baiting are not the same. It is only recently that the LGBT community has gained its rights, and even now the representation in media is usually not very good or inexistent, just as with the majority of minorities. But during the 40, 50 and 60 eras things were much worse. Since the beginning of Hollywood, films had to be approved by the censors before they could appear on screen. No extreme violence, no sexual relations, no communist propaganda and definitely no queer content was allowed. However, things got worse when in 1946 the Hollywood Blacklist started. It was then when screenplayers, actors, and directors started to be imprisoned for their beliefs. And until 1960, when Trumbo was actually recognized and accepted back in Hollywood the Blacklist stayed. But even afterward, the witchhunts and censorships continued. Therefore, those who wanted to tell different stories, present outside characters or represent themselves had to use coding and subtext to do so. And thus, queer coding became a loudly spoken secret, just as subtextual communist ideas or sexual tension and innuendos disguised as the fight of the sexes. And âHatari!â a movie by the great Howard Hawks and released in 1962, made a great and positive use of this, which is why I wanted to use this movie as an example.
The film tells the story of the chief of the hunters, played by John Wayne, who falls in love with a photographer that works for a zoo from Switzerland. At first, it seems he canât stand her, and he assumes she is going to be trouble. But as their relationship blooms and they even adopt three motherless elephants, it turns out they are quite a good match for each other. Of course, it is not this two characters that interested me in my new viewing of the movie. Although when I Â watched it for the first time with my father, who loves it, I thought they were the most relevant characters of the story, two other characters caught even then my attention. And itâs about their relationship I want to talk here.
The movie begins with one of the hunters getting hit by a rhinoceros. Immediately, they all rush to hospital, but by the time they arrive, âThe Indianâ has already lost a lot of blood. It is then when a new character appears. A French guy named Charles Maurey that has heard theyâll be needing a new worker. Of course, Kurt Muller, a German car racer that is part of the hunterâs team, jumps immediately with anger. His friend is ânot yet deadâ, and so he hits the French guy. However, as it turns out  âThe Indianâ has a pretty rare blood type, and the only person that can transfuse him is the French man. But Charles does not care about the job anymore, he just wants Kurt to ask him for help. Thus their love story begins. Even if very few people will recognize this couple as more than friends, the coding is there.

Charles, who soon will be called âChipsâ by his new colleagues, and Kurt are the only male characters in the entire movie that are somewhat sexualized. The female love interests appear almost always fully and usually quite modestly clothed ( the only exception being the time Dallas is âattackedâ by a leopard while showering). In fact, you could say, especially if you look at other movies the actresses partook in, that they were unsexualized in this one. In contrast, âChipsâ always shows off his muscles under are a tight blue shirt and a pair of âRebel-without-a-Cause-Glassesâ; and Kurt wears the shortest pants with pride, while he unbuttons his collar, and makes the same use of his glasses.Â
The second time they meet, some days have passed since âThe Indianâ got send to the hospital, and John Wayne receives a call, telling him that âChipsâ abandoned the place after asking for money. Kurt assumes that he has gotten the money for himself and is not going to appear again. But soon after, the French comes by, a rifle that he bought back with the money he asked for in his hands, and ready to apply for the job. After they try him out and realize heâs a good shot, Kurt seems to be quite happy to accept him and even gives him his weapon. âChipsâ punches him in the face and asks him afterward: âDo you still want me?â

It was at this point that I first noticed the queer coding. Who would ask if someone still wanted him when he was applying for a job? Funny enough, it was obvious that the reason they did not like each other at the beginning was mare Pride from âChipâsâ side and Prejudice from Kurtâs part. But after this, they become close friends. They drive together in the same car, they wear the same glasses, are always close to each other, âChipsâ even safes Kurtâs life at one point⌠And yes, they also fight for the same girl. You may wonder how thatâs possible if they are both gay. However, it was rather usual for queer coded movies to put a female love interest in between âgay actedâ characters, in order for the film to pass the censorship. It is obvious if you see the movie that neither of the two men is really interested in the girl they are chasing. They pass more screen time looking at each other than at her, and when it turns out that she is in love with the comedic character, they accept it easily and Kurt invites âChipsâ for a drink.Â

What is great about this movie is that you can easily see when the screen players or director thought, they were being too obvious, as immediately after a very close scene between them comes another one with a female counterpart, or were one is relegated to the background, looking at the other from time to time with apparent longing. They get hurt together, they heal their wounds together, literary in fact, and they are always driving together. By the end of the movie, they both have planned to go to Paris together and stay there until the next hunting season. They apparently both know a girl there. âItâs a good excuse for another fight,wrightâ says Kurt and then asks John Wayne what his love interest is going to do, therefore comparing âChipsâ with the girl Wayne loves.
It is precisely this ending that makes me love the movie more. And for that to be understood we have to see how the queer coding at the time went. When we think about hidden queer characters in classics, usually there are some movies that pop up repeatedly: âStrangers on a trainâ by Alfred Hitchcock, âSpartacusâ by Stanley Kubrick, âSome like it hotâ by Billy WilderâŚÂ Each of this three examples shows a different kind of typical queer coded character:
 âStrangers on a trainâ was not the only time Hitchcock queer coded main characters. He did the same with the movie âRopeâ and the similarities between the men are quite obvious. As much as I love Hitchcock both for his films and his willingness to break molds and fight for acceptance, I have to agree with those that criticize him for making his villains gay. Even in âStrangers on a trainâ, where the hero is also queer coded, he ends up with a female lover instead of with his villainous gay counterpart. In that sense, âSpartacusâ, the movie that helped break the Black List and is all about freedom of expression and the right to be oneself, has a similar problem. Tony Curtis plays a young, attractive and somewhat feminine slave that falls in love for Spartacus, who rescues and takes care of him. But as the story is a tragedy and a reflection of the times Trumbo lived in as he wrote it, everybody dies. Only Spartacusâ female lover survives and runs away with her baby.Â

And then we have the hilarious âSome like It hotâ, that is way more explicit and actually has a happy ending for the two queer coded characters. The only slight problem is that these characters are supposed to be a joke. Their sexuality is supposed to be part of the joke. By stating this, Iâm not trying to devaluate these movies. They are some of the best films ever made, touching on impossible themes at the time with impeccable taste and great direction. But they also show the stereotype that would follow gay characters in movies up until now.Â
There have only been three queer characters in Hollywood for decades: The comic relief, the villain, or the hero with a tragic ending. Nothing more nothing less. And this is the brilliance of âHatari!â in my opinion. Kurt and âChipsâ are anything but gay stereotypes. They donât have a tragic ending, they are not villains, and they are not there to be a comic relief. In fact, âPocketsâ the character that so easily could have been queer coded, is the one that ends up with the girl.
This is the reason I wanted to write this essay. This two minor, overlooked characters of a movie that nobody bothers to remember could easily be the best gay couple that was written during the censorship era. And they end up happy, and they have never been outed before. So this is me pulling them out of the closet.

 I hope you like it.
 But even if you donât believe the couple is gay, you can still enjoy the movie, as my family does, because of its light harded humour, great score from Henri Manccini, great screenplay by some of the best Hollywood writers at the time, and beautiful elephants in the room ;)
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More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on https://delphi4arab.com/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
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More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on http://web-hosting-top12.com/2019/04/05/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
0 notes
Text
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on http://web-hosting-top12.com/2019/04/05/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
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Text
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on http://web-hosting-top12.com/2019/04/05/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
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Text
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on http://web-hosting-top12.com/2019/04/05/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
0 notes
Text
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on http://unchainedmusic.com/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
0 notes
Text
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on http://unchainedmusic.com/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
0 notes
Text
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
New Post has been published on http://unchainedmusic.com/more-than-150-companies-are-hoping-this-woman-can-fix-their-diversity-problems/
More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
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More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
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More Than 150 Companies Are Hoping This Woman Can Fix Their Diversity Problems
For three days in February, 6,000 of people coursed in and out of the Castro Theater, a 1920s movie palace in San Francisco. They came to hear from Laurene Powell Jobs, Susan Wojcicki, and leaders from Amazon and Uber. They came to network. And a pithy marquee on the theater summed up their unifying mission: âQueer. Inclusive. Badass.â
The sixth-annual Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit was the largest LGBTQ event in the world. The attendees were roughly 80 percent queer womenâbut sexuality was just one element of diversity. Of those who spoke on stage, half were women of color, 30 percent were black or Latinx, and 15 percent transgender or gender non-conforming.Â
âWe are 100 percent about providing value to queer women. We just donât have this type of community anywhere else in the world,â said Leanne Pittsford, the founder of Lesbians Who Tech. âThat we can do this and be visible and also host a damn good tech conferenceâthat inspires people.â
The Summit is not only a place where leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton fly in to speak, but also the physical gathering of just a fraction of the 50,000 members of the parent organization, Lesbians Who Tech, a social enterprise that Pittsford founded in 2013 and which has grown to 42 cities. In 2019, the organization is entering an inflection point, as what was once a conference-media business with a charitable arm aims to become a scalable technology company. âWe already work with more than 150 companies looking to retain or recruit diverse talent,â Pittsford said. âOur partners were asking: How do we track hires? How do we actually hold ourselves accountable?â Now, she and LWT are building Include.io, a digital tool that aims to do precisely that.
Before Pittsford dreamed up her organization, she had been analyzing data and building online fundraising tools for a group opposing Proposition 8, a California ballot measure that would have eliminated rights of same-sex couples to marry. She says she was shocked to discover that the people funding the LGBTQ movement were majority white cisgender men, a term that refers to men who identify with the gender with which they were born. âIt was a clear wake-up call for me. The people who would benefit from the movement werenât funding it. Even the women with the money werenât spending it,â she said.
Simultaneously, she realized that tech events for the queer community in and around San Francisco always seemed to be 90 percent male. âThereâs nothing for us,â she said. No cohesive community, no gathering, no movement, no money spendingâeven for those women who identified as queer in lucrative Silicon Valley jobs. She wondered: could someone or something change that? Could she change that?
Finding a Purpose, and an Audience
Pittsford grew up in a conservative military family in San Diego, and in the early 2000s was living in San Francisco with her brother. As adults, they still struggled with having been taught as kids that all gay people were going to hell. With support from her brother, and working for a pro-LGBTQ human rights organization, Pittsford became more comfortable with her sexuality. Then, one Tuesday morning in 2010 she arrived home to discover that her brotherâthe only supportive person in her lifeâhad died in his sleep of cardiomyopathy. âMy heart was just broken,â she says. âIt gave me a sense that I should take risks, give back and do something larger than myself.â
Pittsfordâs grief was heavy that year, in which she left her comfortable job doing policy work at Equity California. âI was close to [starting my own venture], but that moment really sped it up for me,â she said. She started working independently, doing data work, and building websites and tools for other businesses.
In the evenings, she subverted her introversion and began networking, and throwing small happy hours for queer women. In 2014 she decided to host what she dubbed a âSummitâ for her burgeoning organization, Lesbians Who Tech. It was to be part networking with like-minded people, part technology conference, and part social-justice rally. âI thought it wouldnât work,â she said. âBecause lesbians never show up, they never go out.âÂ
Megan Smith, a vice president at Google who would soon be tapped to be the chief technology officer of the United States by President Barack Obama, walked in the door at 7 a.m. Next, Smithâs then-partner Kara Swisher walked in. Eight hundred people bought ticketsâand a few big companies sponsored it. Pittsford was floored: âIt was the first time I thought it could be a real thing.â
Over the past six years, the conferences have gained a cult following among queer technologists and executives. LaFawn Davis, the head of inclusion and culture at Twilio, has attended multiple LWT conferences, and adores them so much she jokes they are âlesbian Disneyland.â For her, the long weekends are a chance to immerse herself in a community that is still rare in the tech world. âI get to be surrounded by queer executives! Queer engineers! Imagine!â And over the years sheâs also built a network and found job candidates through it.
The Lesbians Who Tech parent organization, though, is an unusual enterprise: itâs part 501(c)(3) and part LLC; a community organization that offers substantial coding scholarships to women, and a mission-driven media business that puts on conferences.Â
By 2017, Pittsford realized she needed to solve LWTâs messy structural issue. The organization would need real profits to grow, and to give its now-massive network significant value outside of the conferences. âI came from the nonprofit space, and itâs not the most scalable path,â she said.
Holding Tech Accountable
Aside from ticket sales, the conferences generated revenue through sponsors such as Google, Amazon, and Slack, who also would send speakers and attendees to the events. LWT became a natural recruiting tool for themâbut it was totally informal. Once executives at these companies started asking Pittsford how they could improve their diversity hiring and retention and track it, she saw the future of her business before her eyes.
LWT could offer a hiring platform featuring its members, which the organization describes as mid-level and executive LGBTQ women, non-binary, and trans techiesâmany of whom are also people of colorâas well as their allies. The platform could help companies track their ongoing progress in diversity hiring. Pittsford envisioned Include.io, which has 10,000 beta users, as a way to âscale access to direct referralsâ from a different pool of talent than the existing employees at large tech companies.
âWe are trying to find a way to get referrals to, say, the talented self-taught female programmer in New Orleans who might not know anyone in San Francisco,â Pittsford said.Â
âThings like unconscious bias training arenât working,â she added. âYou have to fight it every dayâwith intentionâand this product lets companies do that.â
Include.io has been in beta since June of 2018, and Pittsford says 200 companies have signed up to use it once itâs live later this year. But she has some structural work to do before launch. The companyâs Oakland office hasnât attracted or retained enough tech talent itself to scale Include.io, so sheâs setting up a development team in New York, hoping to add three to five more people to the scrappy staff of nine. She says San Francisco is the âWild West of talent poaching,â where small organizations canât compete for developers who can command salaries approaching $200,000.
âThis has been the hardest year of my professional life,â she said. Sheâs running a mission-driven organization at the speed of a startup, trying to figure out how fast it can grow and scale without burning out her teamâor herself.
Being part of the solution to techâs diversity problem, however, is what keeps her going every day. Pittsford says she hopes once Include.io is out to the public, it will make executives more comfortable about their own abilities to recruit, hire, and maintain a diverse workforce.
âI still would love to see a CEO say, âwe are going to be 30 percent black and Latinx by X year,'â she said. âWe really feel like something has got to change. Something has got to give.â
0 notes