GenderAvenger In Times of Protest
What happens when the GenderAvenger Team wants to take a stand about who is speaking, a temptation outside our core approach of being the ones who count how many women are present in public dialog, not which ones?
When President Trump was elected, I wrote in “Politics and GenderAvenger: Counting Without Ideology”: “GenderAvenger’s job is exclusively to examine whose voices are setting the debate. We don’t engage in political action.”
photo credit: Duncan Rawlinson [CC BY-NC 2.0], via Flickr
That assertion was tested this week when CES featured Ivanka Trump on their main stage. There was dismay and outrage from many in the GA — and global — community. As individuals, the GA team agreed that inviting Ivanka Trump instead of all the extraordinary women in the tech industry was disconcerting. Some of us were outraged because of who and, as a result, what she represents. If you have ever googled me, I am sure you are not surprised that I share this feeling.
The team gathered on a conference call. We fundamentally understood we had to stay true to our sole focus: counting and demanding women’s representation. Nevertheless, we wrestled with what we would do and say. I couldn’t help myself. Off and on I wanted to add a line about my personal views or a line that said, “who you pick counts, too,” because, of course, the latter is true.
Our strength is our straightforward mission.
I wasn’t alone. We kept having to remind each other that our strength is how straightforward GA is about what we do in service of our mission — we count and comment on the numbers. As much as we sometimes want to comment on the personalities on stage, we don’t.
After much discussion, here is the statement we provided to the Associated Press at their request, specifically about when we issued the Bronze GA Stamp of Approval to CES:
GenderAvenger is about counting. The increased number of women on the main stage at CES since we first protested the lack of inclusion in 2018 is encouraging. Which women they choose to feature on stage is up to conference organizers. However, we urge CES and all conference organizers to respect the response of their community to their selections.
The original Stamp was awarded before Ivanka Trump was announced. Since then, CES added a number of new keynote speakers and by our count, they still qualify.
My core goal in creating GenderAvenger was to build a community dedicated to ensuring women are always present in the public dialog. The great part about our community is the boldness of your individual actions, the lack of fear to post about prominent organizations and individuals who control their conference speaker choices. It naturally follows that so many of you called out CES for their choice of Ivanka Trump.
2020 is going to test us in many ways.
2020 is going to test us in many ways, both as a community and as a nation. I applaud your choice to speak up. GenderAvenger will keep counting, and together, hopefully, we can help create a brighter and more fair future.