I am at e-tech, quite enjoying the caliber of presentations and conversations around me. However I find it very disturbing that one of the keynote speakers, Kathy Sierra, felt compelled to cancel her talk because she is being harassed by quite frightening death threats online. Learn more here . Last night I was wandering the conference hallways noting the ever pervasive high male to female ratio. Looking around me it must be about 9 to 1.
Brady Forrest (Etech co-chair next year) was telling me a couple of nights ago about some of the struggles they’ve faced in encouraging female participation as speakers and attendees – they are well aware of the issue and are actively working to encourage a stronger female presence. Nonetheless, to have one of the keynote speakers withdraw due to death threats made me feel that surely I’m in an alternative reality book like the Handmade’s Tale or 1984, where prominent woman are pressured out of participation in public spheres by the dark underbelly of misogyny in our culture.
Then I saw Jane McGonical ’ s talk on alternative reality games. It was quite inspiring, and renewed my optimism. She framed her discussion of designing games in terms of helping people achieve happiness: in the forms of pleasure, engagement, and meaning. Her projects are quite striking in their ability to foster both fun and self-efficacy, creating a sense of engagement and collective action. Through alternative reality games people learn life lessons that enable them to enact change in the real world for good. Aside from being a great talk, it reminded me why it is so important that woman actively participate in this field—because their perspectives empower us towards making a happier (tech) reality.
