Stop with the same

nikki's picture
published by nikki on Thu, 06/07/2012 - 15:00

During introductions at last night's New York City Drupal User Group (NYCDUG) meetup, each person said a variation of "Hi my name is ________. My drupal.org name is __________. I'm a _________ at ___________." Some included how long they'd been working with drupal, usually because it had only been a few months. It's a nice thing to share because it reminds the rest of us to make sure we're not leaving anyone out when we casually mention advanced concepts. I think the community is pretty good at embracing the tentative and uncertain beginners and making them feel included.

When it was my turn, I followed the pattern with one small deviation: "Hi, I'm Nikki Stevens. My drupal.org name is drnikki. I'm a senior developer at LBi, an ad agency in Flatiron. And I'm the only girl in the room."

There was silence as people scanned the room to see if it was true. Then the men began to clap. My first reaction (because I'm a sarcastic asshole) was that they were applauding as if to say "Oh, congratulations! Look who's got a vagina! Ooh, fancy fancy vagina girl!" Luckily, that's not the case, though it still makes me laugh to think about it. Just the opposite - a few people came up to me wishing there were more women and asking how they could help.

I believe most of the men in that room would like to see more women at NYCDUG meetups. If I'm wrong about that, please don't correct me.

While this is obviously part of larger societal issues regarding the underrepresentation of women in tech, treatment of girls in STEM classes, and the myriad of workplace injustices, I just want to talk about adults in the New York City Drupal User Group.

When there are 2144 members of the New York Drupal community, why was I the only woman in the room?* If we assume that the community mirrors the national average**, 25% of technology jobs are held by women. That would mean that there are 536 women in the group.

There were 45 people there last night
44/1608 or 2.73% of men attended the meetup
1/536 or 0.18% of women attended the meetup

Now, this issue isn't just about women* although that was the catalyst. The issue is about what seems to be a trend of homogeneity at NYCDUG meetings. This is bad. Diversity is good.

This is what we need to do

  1. Improve the integrity of source data
    While I stand by my fuzzy math above, it's still pretty fuzzy. We need solid data so that we're not just guessing about attendance and membership ratios. This includes:
    • Generating a report of member demographics. Let's start with the demographics available and add if necessary.
    • Developing a method to track who attends vs who signs up.
      • The developer in me would love to over-engineer this with some sort of d.o + latitude / Foursquare, but we could just have a Google doc that people add their usernames to as they introduce themselves.
      • This could also help us to target people who repeatedly sign up and don't attend, so we can gain insight as to the reason(s) why.
  2. Ask people why they don't come
    Existing members are self-selected, so we know they're already interested in Drupal. How do we get them to participate? Let's ask. Again, we can start by distributing a survey to the community asking them to self-identify and rank their participation. Topics might include:
    • Why aren't they attending?
    • Would a non-male DUG make them feel more included?
    • Do they feel under-represented in DUG leadership?
    • Is it simply a timing issue? (Which I don't buy)
    • Do women just not like meeting and talking about cool stuff? (Not this either)
  3. Brainstorm ways to get the under-represented people to attend
    After the data is collected, we should meet and discuss ways to increase participation. I'm happy to pick a time and place to gather and encourage people to come up with actionable ideas to make the group more diverse.

I fully support all efforts aimed at increasing the NYCDUG membership both in numbers and diversity. But for now, let's focus on cultivating and encouraging the community we already have. As far as I know, this is the only local initiative to promote diverse participation. If you want to get involved, hit me up on twitter (@drnikki), IRC (drnikki) or email me [email protected]


*As of June 7, there are 2074 members of the NYC drupal group. Additionally, there are 263 members on Meetup.com. I'd estimate that there is a significant overlap between the two groups, but probably not 100%. Let's be conservative and say that there's a 70% overlap - that's an additional 77 users from Meetup.com. So combining the two groups, there's 2144 people who could potentially attend an event.

**I use the National Center for Women and Information Technology's numbers. I'm not sure if they're including project managers, and any number of other titles that would be included in the Drupal ecosphere.

***This is absolutely not related to any conversations about gender identity/identification and the way it's represented on drupal.org. Not at all. In. No. Way. I realize that there are more options than just male and female. The ultimate goal is to increase the attendance of everyone who is underrepresented, including all gender variants.

**** mad credit to jhodgon and ashedryden for brainstorming this with me in the drupalchix IRC room.