👋 Hi, I'm Jen, a master's student at Stanford studying HCI (hi @Will! nice running into you again) and I stumbled into this slack after a long internet spiral through http://chrisnovello.com/ and http://glench.com/ .... What a fascinating corner of the internet yall are in. I won't be attempting to speak on behalf of all of womankind here but just wanted to sprinkle some thoughts in: • There's a nontrivial amount of emotional/logistical labor required to bring about institutional change related to inclusion and diversity. The work is best done by people who are marginalized themselves but is also a big ask because they are often undercompensated, undervalued, and overburdened to champion these kinds of efforts. It's why tech companies like Google invest in and hire experts to come in and make that work happen. And it's why marginalized folks in your field may be involved in communities of their own and reluctant to join FoC, because they're a part of conversations that already center them and offer them leadership positions/positions of power. And that makes sense. What compels me to join FoC if I have my own thriving intellectual communities already? (Not sure yet, I'll have to wait and see). • So more, actionably: if you can't make them want to join/participate in your community yet, support them where they're at. What if FoC actively highlighted, cited, listened to, shared readings from, and collaborated with existing communities that are already building towards radically inclusive futures of computing (before drilling down on strategies to recruit that diversity into your own community)?

Thank you for chiming in @j. han. I'll be listening to that podcast. I'm glad to hear your support them where they're at comment because that's the main thing I feel like I've been able to do. Show up. Listen. Learn what's what.

Hi Jen! Your thoughts on this are a real help, and at exactly the right time since (as you saw) we're only just taking our first steps toward inclusion. If you have any favorite communities that we could align ourselves with, I'd love to hear about them. I'm also interested in finding women-curated projects/syllabi of great works in FoC/HCI (now or historical) by women that we could support, if you know of any. In any case, thank you for your words of wisdom and encouragement — and for the podcast & Amy Ko refs!

Yeah, I will definitely ping you with some later. I was looking at the FoC podcast and was delighted to see more women coming onto the show more recently.

Unlike the community itself, the gender balance on the podcast is something that can be whatever I want it to be, so I'm excited to set it up as a leading signal for how I'd like our community to look in the coming years. I put out a few calls recently for non-male guests, and received a number of wonderful suggestions — more are welcome, if you have anyone you'd like to see — and the next round of interviews looks like it'll be a blast.