A Spark that Became the Flame: My Year in Reflection

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Hard to believe that a year has already gone by. In one day, I’ll be up at a podium talking to a room full of talented women in tech about my year since being awarded as Rochester’s Emerging Technology Professional Woman of the Year. The idea of reflecting on such a pivotal year of my life is both extremely exciting as it is daunting as hell — how could I possibly sum up all the moving parts and pieces that played into my integral change and growth!? I mean, I even shaved half my head. Where does that go in the mix? The reality is that the award came at a time of significant discomfort and frustration in my career; leaving full-time software development was a mini identity crisis in itself, but I still view it as a step in the right direction towards focusing on people and social issues in tech. Little did I know that I was also ramping up into a whole new level of heartbreak and disappointment within my beloved Girl Develop It realm — the space that earned me the coveted award and recognition. But there I was, nearly a year ago, hearing my name being announced and happily getting up from my family- and friend-filled table to go accept my award. Might have caught the camera on the way up.

P.S. I’m hoping that writing all of this down can help me with this upcoming speech so buckle up, folks, because we’re venturing back to 2018.

::cheesy memory movie effect::

Once up at the podium, I opted to take a few minutes to enlighten the room with a bit of GDI history. I talked about how it all started; how women in tech grew tired of all the talk and wanted to actually do something about the ratio; how I was walking my dog with my husband the night I decided that I wanted to try and bring a chapter to Rochester; how my co-founder and I nearly started a conference instead; and how a spark of an idea grew into nearly a thousand registered Rochesterians and resulted in a hundred, wonderful classes and events over four years of existence. I spoke fondly of the humble beginnings at that podium and how a little flicker of an idea can result in big changes. I found the concept of a spark to be in alignment with the award, as I was considered to be “emerging” within the tech space with my fewer than 5 years of leadership experience. As a result, I fully embraced the idea of being a spark and used it to stir up change wherever I could throughout the rest of 2018. My energy and passion was validated with a reinforced backbone as a bonus. I switched jobs and tested out new waters with a rejuvenated spirit! I learned to avoid parasitic organizations that didn’t walk the walk! I talked about bullshit leadership at the annual GDI summit! Watch out, world!

Or so I thought.

Before diving into the dark side of this journey, I want to mention how my feelings about GDI were slipping at the time of the award. I had spent many days in 2017 clashing with the HQ members of the organization and deliberately decided I would focus on my local chapter, GDIROC, as a productive use of my energy. Looking back, this was my feeble way of bargaining with the inadequacies, as I believed (and always will) in the work we were doing in Rochester even when I knew it was largely up to my co-leader, generous volunteers, and myself to make anything happen. I’d poke and prod at frustrating patterns within the national organization, but would usually calm down and redirect my focus back to GDIROC. I witnessed the disorganization and lack of time management at the HQ level, but eventually blamed inexperience and learning curves — for some reason, that was all reasonable to me. I later (too much later) realized how damaging and against the mission such conditions actually are. Even after women put themselves at risk to call out the organization’s harmful decisions, I still thought “certainly GDI will come together to acknowledge this so that we can learn and do better as an organization!” Herein lies one of my bigger (of many) lessons this past year: I give the benefit of doubt and way too many chances to the wrong people.

We need to discuss how unacceptable it is for people, especially privileged, white women in tech like me, to give benefit of doubt to the wrong folks when attempting to boost diversity and inclusion in tech.

If you don’t know or understand why, it’s mainly because:

Benefit of doubt is a privilege

Example — I was a part of Girl Develop It for 4.5 years and saw the organization’s rapid and exponential growth in my first year. This 2014–2015 timeframe was jokingly referred to as the “Oprah Year” of GDI: “YOU get a chapter and YOU get a chapter and YOU…” The org more than doubled in size and I was surrounded by energized, go-get-’em women that lit me up. I can’t deny it was an exciting time and all the chapter leaders were ready and willing to throw endless energy at the cause. And that we did. While I don’t fully regret all I poured into GDI — as I did believe in its mission — I can look back and easily see how unprepared we and HQ were for the reality of having 30+ chapters and too few resources at the core of a shaky business model. Certainly the world would see the good in what we’re trying to do and grant us the benefit of doubt anyways, right? The subsequent three years suggest: Sure! And yet,

We will never know the amount of frustration, damage, and/or pain that we caused because we were used to getting the benefit of doubt, which is a mark of privilege and society’s tendency to be a sucker for a decent mission statement.

Even within those few years, the deterioration of trust between chapter leaders and HQ became apparent if not distracting because chapter leaders were growing tired of the broken promises. We needed support; not lip service. “More soon” became a tired phrase exhausted by HQ in their efforts to maintain excitement without execution. Yet, the benefit of doubt remained. Nobody saw the inherent risk of letting inadequate leaders take charge of a large, influential organization. Nope! It wasn’t until patience started to wear down that some chapter leaders stepped down or distanced themselves from the organization due to frustration. Others, like myself, opted to focus on our local efforts that we could control. Still, GDI continued to grow and rocketed past 60 chapters and 100K members in 2018 with no signs of slowing down. Even more frustrating is that, despite the callouts; the fantastic women that spoke up and took action; the #GDIStrike; the tell-all podcasts; the media coverage; the disappointing Town Hall; the chapter leaders and HQ members that quit; the half-baked apologies and statements; the reduction from 62 active chapters to ~7; the unfulfilling interactions with the Board and various sponsors; and Corinne’s eventual departure as Executive Director…GDI is still growing. This is that pesky benefit of doubt in action in the public eye. Even through all of that mess, so many supporters are saying, “Yeah, but they’re learning!” and suggesting to the community that one woman’s education is more important than another woman’s pain. That one woman’s education comes at the cost of another woman’s safety — and that it’s all worthwhile. Keep in mind that these are respectively white and Black women involved in these scenarios: a privileged woman repeatedly gets the benefit of doubt over a woman facing marginalization on a daily basis. Take a moment and let that sink in. Total mission failure.

Not familiar with that long-winded list of frustrations? Take fifteen minutes and catch up on the latest GDI news:

TL;DR (and I’ll be annoyed if you skipped to this without clicking any of those links): GDI was called out for the mistreatment and lack of support for its affiliated women of color at the chapter level and, as noted in various podcasts, the HQ level. The org neglected to immediately acknowledge the harm after each case. The ongoing fixation to move forward without closure resulted in additional harm and frustration, which led to resignations and chapter leader fallout. The organization essentially acted against its mission yet doubled down in an effort to keep business running as usual. Painful and infuriating.

All of those links and examples I shared above point back to white feminism, status quo, and how women of color are often left behind — and yes, this includes spaces that were created for “all women” like GDI. This pattern is not new at all; consider the suffrage movement and how white women, namely Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, strategically maneuvered their goals (frankly, sold out) to appeal to the white, patriarchal powers that be. Sure, [white] women got the vote, but at the cost of women of color not being able to fully participate in and benefit from the movement.

Nothing new to see here but the same, cyclical pattern of white feminism claiming to create change for all women and yet falling significantly short due to privilege and proximity to power.

Don’t forget that benefit of doubt sweeping their blatantly racist decisions under the rug. “They did the best they could for their time, y’know?” Stop. They knew what they were doing and strategized to get what they wanted at all costs. Are you seeing it yet? Can you stop giving benefit of doubt now?

To be fair, I didn’t always see it. I’ve had thorough and repeated conversations about my tendency to give benefit of doubt and how it’s something I need to keep working on going forward. I took time to talk to those I disappointed and I truly hope that more people like me learn to sit back and identify these blind spots. I was fortunate to have extremely caring pals that were willing to take on the emotional labor to explain alongside other brilliant minds that offered insights and resources for learning. My book reading skyrocketed this year, as I wanted to dive into as many new perspectives as possible to better understand how my ignorance was holding me back. Also, my Twitter lists are drastically different from last year for the same reasons. I particularly want to thank Kim Crayton for being a huge part of my past year and a beacon of constant learning and improvement. I’m so grateful that our paths crossed, how she offered up her platform to amplify this mess, and for all that she does to push this industry to a better, higher standard. Please support her various efforts starting with #causeascene.

Thanks to this whole ordeal, I’m passionate about the opportunity to forge reality checks into coasting, bubbled-up minds. This is officially the flame that erupted from last year’s spark. With my fiery passion and energy, I will continue to dismantle the ignorance of whiteness and the behaviors, like benefit of doubt, that continue to plague our communities and keep inequality and marginalization in place. This is privilege in positive motion and it can be done while amplifying and supporting those that Get It so that we can speed up the progress towards a better future. Let’s do this.

So here I am. One day away from speaking about my experience as Rochester’s Emerging Technology Professional Woman of the Year and you better believe I’m going to do my best to recap as much of this as I can in the short period of time they’ve allotted for me. This past year was certainly devastating in ways, but I am grateful for these tough-but-invaluable lessons and the ability to get back onto the tracks that I thought I was on. I’ve met amazing people on this path and I am extremely excited about the initiatives that are firing up as a byproduct of the GDI fallout. Curious? Check out the following organizations that are rising from the ashes: We Pivot, Tech by Choice, Inclusive Tech Buffalo, Arise! Communities, and various Slack groups coming together for the same cause of seeing real diversity and inclusion in tech. All of these efforts are determined to push the needle and I’m sure we’ll learn more along the way. This is the path forward and the work to be done.

This is privilege in positive motion.

For now, here’s to last years spark that became this year’s flame. Onward.