The only way to find your voice is to use it
Hello!
There is so much to say at the moment that I thought I would cover a few topics in this month's blog. Go grab yourself a cuppa, there is a lot here...
International Women’s Day
The first thing I want to talk about is International Women’s day. I was honoured to be able to host a Women in Tech Panel for the charity POW!! Thanet which is an organisation that holds a festival every year in my hometown discussing feminism and issues relating to girls and women.
As I like to work in the open I wanted to talk about that process, and how I faired being a host as I've not done anything of this nature before.
Last year I volunteered for the charity helping with ticket sales, as well as greeting guests for some of the events they held and I loved it. I also went to Freedom Road gig which I talk about here, which was all about the Civil Rights Movement, deeply moving, great music, electric atmosphere!
So I knew when the festival came around this year, I just HAD to be involved.
How did I do it?
I wanted to focus the topic on the industry I work in which is Tech and how there are mis-conceptions in the industry that you have to be a programmer to work in this space, there are so many other roles you can be in within the industry.
My original idea was to showcase all the great women in STEM, I was thinking of an art exhibition of the likes of Gladys Mae West, Ada Lovelace, et al however because Covid had kicked in I knew it was most likely to be an online event. I decided to be brave and I sent an email to Amy Redmond, Artistic Director of POW who thought it was a great idea, we also discussed that the festival were already hosting a Design Panel and could ours be merged. At that point I was introduced to Becky who was running and organising the design panel and after an initial chat we could see there was space for both of our talks.
I pulled together a proposal of the event (template stolen from the internet) and sent it to Amy, who loved it and it went from there.
What preparation did I do?
I had some ideas about who I wanted to speak at the event, all 4 women were brilliant in their own right and I had some previous connection with them bar one, who I approached on Instagram as I had been following her already.
Luckily for me all the women wanted to be involved, so I put to them some questions that I wanted to explore for the event and it evolved from there.
We had a Zoom chat about 2 weeks prior to the event, where we discussed logistics of the technology and timings of the talk etc.
I prepared my introduction but I also watched the all women Design panel the night before, which meant I could tweak a few things overnight. They raised the bar high! (top tip here: do your research and learn from others)
How did it go?
Well it was brilliant fun, I really enjoyed it! I was concerned I would be very nervous on the day, but actually I was excited and it was a brilliant experience as well as having that exposure to broadcast live over the internet.
It has made me realise the very points we were trying to get across about representation in the industry, leading by example, and mentoring which is so so important. I intend to do more speaking events in the future.
Racism and Gender Equality work
The second thing I want to touch on that has deeply disturbed me over the last couple of months/weeks is around this notion of celebrating one day, one month, but the issues still remain.
It was black history month in America in February, last Monday was IWD and the theme was #choosetochallenge, the concept being we were supposed to be celebrating how far women’s equality and diversity has come but also challenge where we see fit. Yet from world and regional events, as well as the press and social media coverage, it’s left me reeling with disappointment, anger and feeling really triggered by lots of things.
What has angered me is how a black woman can go on national TV and talk about harm that is being done to her through racism whether that’s via micro-aggressions or blatant racism which has impacted her mental health to a point that she no longer wanted to exist and yet still the media and the public mock her. This would have been incredibly harmful for other black and brown women to watch, particularly those that were pregnant, to realise even if you have status you can still be discredited.
The murder of Sarah Everard was also extremely triggering, the stories that have poured out from women who feel afraid to go out at night. We all have stories, myself included that involve some form of harassment, sexual abuse and misogyny were just awfully sad. There is also the issue that as Sarah Everard was white the status of the story was magnified compared to violence on black or brown women, which is just horrible. I want to use my platform (however small that is) to address these issues.
You may be thinking what has this got to do with Product Management? Well a lot... have you heard of design bias? We need more women round the table/on board when we are designing and building out visions and strategies for products and services. We also need more People of Colour and with that intersectionality. Every single person has a breadth of experience and knowledge that is unique, this is what will make the customer experience of products more pleasurable and more accessible for all people.
I could go on and on about how products are made for white men by white men, for instance seat belts did you know they are less safe for women (gender bias) or how soap dispensers are designed for white people (racial bias).
But of course it is more than that, it’s about standing up for what is right and learning about things you didn’t know about.
I am by no means an anti-racist educator, nor do I know everything, in fact I would say I’m only at the very beginning of my journey. However the quote by Maya Angelou sticks out,
"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."
I have listed some things I am doing and have been doing for the past year to educate myself in this space in the hope this encourages others to do the work too. I’m also very aware of the term ‘white centering’ so I’ve been a bit nervous about writing about this, but I have to get over that and hope that people will be encouraged to get involved.
Read books - as a white, middle class, CIS woman with privilege I have to educate myself. The one book that I’ve been working through as it involves a lot of journaling, reflection and self-awareness is ‘Me and white supremacy’ by Layla Saad
Seek out anti-racist educators - Books are not the only way you can absorb this content and learn from it, there are also podcasts, the one I have consistently listened to is Nova Reid. Also one for the early years with children has been the blacknurserymanager
Diversify your bookshelf, your TV watching, your life - this means read books by black authors, watch films made my black directors and the one that we have probably been doing for quite some time is listen to music - examples being Maya Angelou, Steve Mcqueen’s Small Axe series, Nina Simone - I wish I knew how it would feel to be free, Sam Cooke - A change is Gonna Come, Black Man’s World - Alton Ellis - I think we can all learn a lot from these works of art.
Take action - the instagram everydayracism is sharing a lot of information that provides brilliant content on how to discuss difficult topics with your family, which has led me to be braver in confronting behaviours that I knew to be racist, they are also amplifying the voices and work of black and brown people that have been victimised and targeted based on race. Signing a petition or writing a letter to your MP may seem a small thing to you, but if we all do it, it means debates get brought up in Westminster and these issues become topics that won’t go away and they have to address
Lastly, this is a minor one, but sharing content that makes your friends think - I’ve had some great DM’s with mates about topics that we wouldn’t have probably discussed
This week was a WIN in parliament - the Government agreed to treating misogyny as a hate crime. Which is great, but it didn’t leave me celebrating, especially as our right to protest is being restricted- we need to do more
I’ve been following the great work of Jess Phillips MP and Stella Creasy MP who have campaigned hard to try to highlight violence against women - watching Jess Phillips read out the 118 women who were killed in the last year alone is enough to make anyone’s hairs on the back of their neck stand on end
Watch Gina Martin’s TED talk - support her with the brilliant activism work she does for women
Report sexual abuse crimes to the police 98.5% of women do not
Call out work colleagues, family members, friends that make the crude joke, say something derogatory about another female and have those difficult conversations with them, I know it’s hard but we have to challenge them
If you have a son talk to him about boundaries, if you have a daughter empower her to be able to be assertive to say call out if she is feeling threatened in any way
Use your voice / platform to share your stories and thoughts, staying silent is not an option
If you got this far, thank-you for reading, if you have something to say or want to share with the group something I missed out or overlooked, please feel free. Comments are switched on for my blog post
Thanks so much.
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