User:Artemis gryllaki/Interviews

Interview with Donna Metzlar

Part 1: 16-11-2019
Format: In person meeting, conversation.

Donna Metzlar is involved in many social and political activities. Officially trained as a nurse, she became fascinated with computers and started working as a system administrator. She is part of the Genderchangers networks and has organised a big number of workshops, events, and projects, such as the Eclectic Tech Carnival and the Syster Server.

Pad with questions
Transcription: Work in progress

Anonymous Testimonials: Gender exclusions in Tech-based environments

In October 2019, the 17th Eclectic Tech Carnival took place in Athens. During the event, I organised, together with Angeliki Diakrousi, a memory-sharing session called "xperiences"; a gathering of women and trans, non-binary, intersex persons, active in the tech world. We discussed our experiences as workers in the tech industry and in software development, as contributors in free and open-source movements, as participants in tech meetings, as initiators of alternative inclusive hack communities, as technology researchers in academia and as users of everyday technology.

The following texts are the notes we took, documenting our shared stories, memories and anecdotes, related to forms of gender exclusions we have experienced in tech-based environments.

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Nogartse

Amateur software developer working in an IT company. In the company we are only 2 women, the rest 18 are male people. Exclusions because of language, amateurism. Whatsapp group: they send images/memes for fun that makes me feel uncomfortable vintage porn as gifs memes mostly with girls in bikini "How is possible this to be their working space" Nogartse doesn't reply/talk with them in the chat. "How can I express as a person in this group?"

Enial

Hackerspace... I never managed to participate. Always the assistant. In a project, I had to document their work, but without being explained. Can you help me?? Why? Not a collaborative process. They were never engaging me. We can collaborate with artists but we are not artists, so they wanted me to be a mediator with the artist. Difficult. The role of the assistant and mediator I was perceived as a woman. Oh wow, you know how to do this! Culture of nerds. I was alone and I wanted to do the project with them

Porcupine

I'm a software developer. When I finish my master's degree and went to have a job. I was looking for a job. There was an event "startup speed dating". All the startups explain first what they do and what they look for I thought this was a professional event there was one company that shows a slide of a woman in underwear and they said: we're looking for ppl that knows PHP and looks like this. "If you look like this: please come talk to us". I considered to talk with them but I didn't want to spend my time with that and rather spend time actually for a job I still remember how I felt when I saw that it was in Switzerland at a famous university.

Czas

As a worker, I worked as a developer in France I was not treated not equally But I never integrated The only woman in eight people. They went double and the percentage was the same 2 women and 14 men? Because I was an immigrant, younger, woman, and led a very different life. It didn't really fit.

As a user... the last 15 years I use unisex usernames & avatars, so in a forum-thread-social media, they assume that I am a guy When they realize I am a woman, they change the way they speak to me. speaking more with a tone down, but still aggressively & more condescending/patronizing He pm-me while publicly fighting to try to maybe meet? He was also a nationalist. Worst kind of person. I would never want to meet with a person like that.

Anarcoma

One of my first experiences When I started to live in a university in a project about gender and technology, free software I made workshops with different feminists I was an immigrant Being underpaid sign with other people for all the projects They started to make normal contracts to guys, interns got paid for my job they made a little documentary about the project and I was nowhere visible they made me disappear all the feminist group that we were working with all these guys were working with gender and technology.

Gud

Organising a feminist workshop for university we were not paid Workshops about weapons in the night for women, intersex We didn't want to do it like a mix, we didn't want to have men the university said that we were discriminating them transexual could also not be there - because... it is there own fight - it is another fight. The university wanted to say that they "are doing the feminist workshops" The woman said transexual is another fight we wanted to make these workshops for the students, but we didn't want the university to say that "they" were doing these workshops In the end, the workshop wasn't official (?), so we weren't paid for the workshop, only for the materials.

Bob

In every environment, hackerspace, job I always feel excluded Even in a bar, if they have a technical conversation they don't listen. It's like I'm not there In jobs, they want to "hire" a woman, but the things I was proposing... they were saying --yea yea-- but they didn't do anything there was no onboarding, so it was hard to get into the workflows zero communication, zero documentation to help me develop I had a stalker in a physical political space - we were talking about technology I told him I am going to another continent when I arrived there, I didn't feel welcome later I found out, the stalker had gone there and told some stories about me I feel they don't understand what they are doing wrong I was trying to "seem" more masculine.

open discussion

I started to be less kind, authoritative in my speech [to "seem" more masculine and be taken seriously] -I try to find bridges, other languages with a common ground I try to find "other languages I think is a very serious problem even if you haven't experienced it yourself I testimony, how computer science men can treat others male "block" They measure gender. Masculisation All the life I try to be more masculine, cause I try to avoid problems and abuse What was considered feminine, was getting me in trouble It's not just one story. The suffering is real It affects a lot, it can generate trauma. You need to get imaginative so that you don't try on dying It makes me so mad They don't value good work.

ttengam

I am a testimony of 2 people that talked already. I am a computer scientist I'm fine with all pronouns and work with electronic circuits we have several stories from several projects, as feminists there In our group, we are 2 women and 1 non-binary. The rest are cis male I have a problem with a colleague who acts like a boss Sounds not serious when you say it, but when you live it, it's violent He has two ways of treating me, depending if I dress feminine or masculine He treats men and women differently either he wants to fuck me, or he wants to beat me, either as a buddy or belittle me Anyway he treats me as a child, as I am stupid When I tell this story, my friends tell me "you have to understand where he comes from" and I do, everyone has trauma, right? He had an issue for us to come here One day before we are leaving he ("the boss") wrote a long email asking why we are going there and doing this (coming here) I take a breath and reduce myself, saying sorry, explaining I'm trying to explain to him what we do he maybe feels he is not included here what he is doing looks like the initial stage of an abusive relationship He published in the newspaper about the laboratory, without telling us we have a problem because we have different principles We have different views about the principles
---Have you thought to sue this person? Harassment...---
He says I have thoughts. I say what kind of thoughts? He answers no, no nothing.
---It's manipulation---
It's too vague to fit under any legal definition, anyway I don't think legal action should be taken The project was horizontal but now this guy takes all the responsibility.

shara

Mainly male cis people men's playing he stole 15 min of my life we lose so much energy he wanted to brag about his old app I was about to build a period tracking app and this guy listened to my talk and he told me what I should say he was trying to give me "his advice" about how to make the best app Makes me angry.

glas

Conference about free software he clearly didn't read my article mansplaining my article to me -You are young!. he said somebody else - another organiser- asked sorry for the other guy and check if I am ok.

dog

A small fact about a conference 3 years ago at a software conference you have a party, you have to wait in a big queue a man was asking technical questions because of the bar was only open to conference visitors, You have to be selected When I arrived: -"are you the wife (!) of that person?" and I said I am a developer and the guy felt ashamed

During another conference, I invited a guy, conference in a university I did my talk, and when it finished, in an informal meeting also with people from the hack lab, speakers asked other speakers Did you fall in love with her? The question was "Are you here because you fell in love? "... Why do you ask this? I have nothing to answer at that moment. The other guy answered really fast I was not prepared.

kiki

We should have a manual, how to answer colleague - software development they way he was commenting was terrible offensive on Github I asked: can you be more constructive in your comments He says: English is not my native language, I don't know how to speak to ladies... Discrimination can come also from other women Native English speakers lookup also discrimination to the global south.