A war on moms is a war on evolution

The dude had a point

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

 - Charles Darwin

Some of the people I admire most on the interwebs have had a lot to say lately about how people have a hard time responding to change - specifically the evolution of gender roles, of family needs, and the economy.

Julie Marsh reminded Mashable that they should know better when it comes to talking about moms on Facebook. Doug French, Lance Somerfield, Charlie Capen and a slew of other men have been pushing advertisers to stop portraying fathers as idiots. Kristen Chase and Liz Gumbinner illustrated how the defenders of those unfunny jokes at the Oscars haven't had anything new to say in forever.

And Joanne Bamberger took two of America's top executives to the woodshed in one of the world's largest newspapers. She called their recent actions "the latest salvo in the war on moms." You should read it.

Joanne is brilliant.  She's an excellent writer. She's had personal and professional success. She's dedicated so much time and energy to fighting for the rights of women to have more choices in their life - choices over their own health care, over their own families, their own work.  So I know it was hard for her to criticize two champions of making those choices - Marissa Meyer and Sheryl Sandberg.  I'm sure she knew she'd be accused of "taking other women down."  If you know Joanne, you know that wasn't what she was doing at all.  Joanne is trying to lift women up.

Further, Joanne and the others are calling people out for denying our social and cultural evolution, or simply refusing to evolve.  Maybe moms were a little clueless to technology they hadn't seen before, but most aren't clueless now.  Maybe there was a time when dads were complete idiots when it came to parenting, but most are not now.  Maybe there was a time when boob jokes and rape jokes and using the c-word to describe an eight-year-old girl were funny to an adult, prime-time audience.

I "get" those jokes just fine.  They're stupid.  Get with the times, people.

Sheryl Sandberg represents all of the things I look for in a female role model - she's smart, she works hard, she overcomes challenges, she shatters stereotypes, and she strives to help others.  I haven't read her book so I won't presume to know what she says in it. I do know this, however - the next generation of Sheryl Sandbergs tend to believe there's a lot more to life than a career, and a lot more to a career than personal advancement.  Generation Y doesn't "lean in" to any one thing. They change jobs almost as quickly as they change underwear.  Businesses must evolve to reflect the values of the next generation of business leaders.  If companies like Facebook don't keep pace, they'll go the way of the dodo. I'd be very interested to know what Sandberg thinks about this and how she plans to address it.

When it comes to Marissa Meyer, here's an experiment.  Type "Marissa Meyer is" into your Google search bar, and let Google suggest how you'd finish that sentence/search.  Here's what I got:

Not "Marissa Meyer is an honors graduate of Stanford." Not "Marissa Meyer is the first female engineer Google ever hired." Not "Marissa Meyer is the CEO of a major tech company." Nope, she's either a sexual object or a moron. And a tardy moron at that. Thanks, Internet.

But Meyer really isn't an idiot.  She knew what would happen.  She didn't take her job to win any popularity contests - she did it to lead a company back to greatness. And she knew she'd have to make some very difficult choices to make it happen.  Given what's up against her, I hope she succeeds.

Meyer knows a heckuva lot more about Yahoo! than pretty much anyone else. But I definitely agree with Joanne that this decision to essentially bar telecommuting at the company is a mistake.  Business Insider has reported on some of the thinking behind the decision: previous leadership fostered a bloated payroll of stay-at-home slackers.  I haven't heard any new initiatives out of the company that increase accountability of employees wherever they are - but I have seen a new policy that eliminates employees based not on their ability or productivity but on their location.

To me this reflects a resistance to a constantly changing global economy and the evolving needs of working families. Many families can't get by with a sole breadwinner. The same technology that sparked Yahoo!'s success makes it possible for people to make meaningful contributions wherever they are.  I don't see how you make your company more competitive by limiting your workforce to those who are willing to live in one of the most expensive locations on the planet. What's more, I think the new policy sends a very clear message - "no parents of children with special needs need apply."  The simple truth for more people than you may think is this: if you can't work from home at least some of the time, you can't work.

It took longer than it should have for our society to understand that stereotypes from the 50's no longer apply, and that the people who make the boob/rape jokes are the jerks - not the people who don't find them funny. But we still have a long way to go.

It took longer than it should have to have a culture and a legal system that helps brilliant and hard-working women like Sandberg and Meyer succeed at the same pace as men. But we still have a long way to go.

It took longer than it should have for businesses to understand that workers value more than just their careers, and that workers can make contributions from virtually anywhere while still meeting the needs of their family.  But we still have a long way to go - and we all need brilliant leaders like Sandberg and Meyer to help.

Female Role Models IX

So there was this great meme on Twitter - TellAFeministThankYou - that trended worldwide for a while. It was a great opportunity for people to send shout-outs to their friends, family, colleagues, and mentors, and thousands of people did exactly that.  Of course, it was also a great opportunity for a few folks to drop some virtual turds in the tweetbowl:

The only way that I would ever #TellAFeministThankYou is if they made me a sandwich, did my laundry, or held the door for ME.
— Beau Diamond (@thebeaudiamond) February 13, 2013

#TellAFeministThankYou get in the kitchen.
— calum mitchell (@calumdmitchell) February 13, 2013

#TellAFeministThankYou how about fuck you
— Riley Olzenak (@ThatKidRileyO) February 13, 2013

Of course, these dopes represented a very small minority of the discussion participants and for the most part they got their butts handed to them pretty good.  But, as is my custom, any time knuckle-draggers like these guys decide to spout off is a good time to introduce and celebrate another group of female role models.  Once again, the criteria I use are pretty basic:

Someone an online mom can show her daughter [or son, a great point my wife made] and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

So here's my latest list, and I hope those chuckleheads keep talking smack. My list of role models is pretty long.

Christine Koh. Dr. Koh spent about a decade in academia and built a very impressive track record of success.  She then decided to change things up a bit and started her own graphic design firm and a parenting online portal and resource for moms and dads in the Boston area.   She's been featured in more mainstream publications than I can mention and continues to be a strong leader in the online parenting community.

Carolina Valencia. If you want to see the the best that social media will offer in the future, I think you should look at Carolina Valencia today.  She's the director of social media for Univision, and did award-winning work at the New York Times before that. The content she curates on her Tumblr demonstrates a sense of continuity - she pays homage to the important people who came before her and she celebrates the current accomplishments of her role models, while she looks to her own future.  She's also a Yankees fan, so I'm trying really hard not to hold that against her.

Kate Clancy. There aren't too many people who are on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana - Champaign, taught expository writing at Harvard, and compete in roller derby. (Seriously, roller derby.) Dr. Clancy is a teacher, a mentor, a researcher, a communicator, a mother, and an activist. She displays a relentless commitment to diversity and helping everyone find her or his voice.

Stephanie Himel-Nelson. This "recovering attorney" and Air Force brat takes service to others seriously.  She's the community manager at Attain Fertility and she co-founded Blue Star Families in 2008. Since then this organization has grown to 70 chapters around the country, giving military families the resources they need to help other military families.

#scio13: Tweaking Content Isn't Outreach

More of this, please

I thoroughly enjoyed ScienceOnline 2013.  It was great to catch up with acquaintances, meet new people, and address some important topics. I was grateful for the opportunity to co-moderate a panel with Emily Willingham, and to meet many of the editors of the online publication Emily is leading, Double X Science.  And of course, the #scio triumvirate of Bora, Karyn, and Anton deserve so much credit and thanks.

Last year I had a surprisingly conflicted take on the conference.  This year, I'm still a bit frustrated, but now I realize my expectations are inappropriate.  ScienceOnline is a gathering of content creators - brilliant, dynamic, thoughtful and inspirational creators of science writing.  I keep wanting this community to be campaigners.  They're not - at least not here.

I heard and shared the frustration of many who see denialists winning political or cultural fights.  I heard many comments like "we're preaching to the choir" or "we're only talking with each other" in many of the panel sessions I attended.  But when it came to the important question, at least to me - the one asking how we reach more people and win these fights - the answers almost always focused on tweaking the content.  Avoid jargon, use simpler words, but don't "dumb it down."  Incorporate art or other forms of multimedia.  Use more storytelling.

These are all important and valuable ideas, but tweaking content isn't outreach.  And without outreach the most persuasive content in the world is useless.

At the session I moderated with Emily, I challenged the people in the room to develop audacious strategies and provocative tactics. I suggested things like working with state legislators to draft bills, or forming unlikely alliances with business groups, or even staging pithy publicity stunts that put denialists on the defensive.  I got a decent amount of pushback - people were (quite reasonably) concerned about civility and inadequate resources, and some simply didn't think it would work.

But my biggest mistake (a.k.a., "learning opportunity") was not truly knowing my audience.  I was talking with a group of mostly content creators who came to a conference to talk primarily about content creation.  It's not that this group was fundamentally against campaigning - indeed, there were people there who are great at it - but this just wasn't the time or the place. This was a time where people like Ed Yong and Maryn McKenna were celebrated for their great writing.  Where people learned how to embrace narrative or sharpen their skills. Where they found new sources of content and inspiration and ideas.  Full-tilt, door-knocking outreach?  Another time, another place.

So real outreach - real strategic, audacious, effective outreach from science communicators - remains an urgent, unmet need.

Outreach is hard.  It begins with listening to a community and learning as much as you can from it.  It ramps up when you ask people you don't know for something valuable - their time and attention. It often gets really interesting when you ask those people to change or sacrifice something comfortable in their lives.  Outreach fails more often than it succeeds, and those who do it can expect a lot of negative feedback.  To do it well you have to embrace the community you're entering, and focus relentlessly on being relevant and meeting their needs.

But here's the thing that left me more hopeful this year, and credit the conference organizers for this - there was enough time between sessions to follow up with people who shared my goals and opinions, and knew the importance of other conferences like BlogHer or LATISM and other communities.  There were enough really smart, dedicated people to get a sense of what was possible.  And finally, there were enough ideas that got me very, very excited for what comes next.