The Everyday Sexism That I See In My Work

My friend, colleague, and boss, Karen Sandler, yesterday tweeted about one of the unfortunately sexist incidents that she's faced in her life. This incident is a culmination of sexist incidents that Karen and I have seen since we started working together. I describe below how these events entice me to be complicit in sexist incidents, which I do my best to actively resist.

Ultimately, this isn't about me, Karen, or about a single situation, but this is a great example of how sexist behaviors manipulate a situation and put successful women leaders in no-win situations. If you read this tweet (and additionally already knew about Software Freedom Conservancy where I work)…

… you've already guessed that I'm the male employee that this executive meant. When I examine the situation, I can't think of a single reason this donor could want to speak to me that would not be more productive if he instead spoke with Karen. Yet, the executive, who was previously well briefed on the role changes at Conservancy, repeatedly insisted that the donation was gated on a conversation with me.

Those who follow my and Karen's work know that I was Conservancy's first Executive Director. Now, I have a lower-ranking role since Karen came to Conservancy.

Back in 2014, Karen and I collaboratively talked about what role would make sense for her and me — and we made a choice together. We briefly considered a co-Executive Director situation, but that arrangement has been tried elsewhere and is typically not successful in the long term. Karen is much better than me at the key jobs of a successful Executive Director. Karen and I agreed she was better for the job than me. We took it to Conservancy's Board of Directors, and they moved my leadership role at Conservancy to be honorary, and we named Karen the sole Executive Director. Yes, I'm still nebulously a leader in the Free Software community (which I'm of course glad about). But for Conservancy matters, and specifically donor relations and major decisions about the organization, Karen is in charge.

Karen is an impressive leader and there is no one else that I'd want to follow in my software freedom activism work. She's the best Executive Director that Conservancy could possibly have — by far. Everyone in the community who works with us regularly knows this. Yet ever since Karen was named our Executive Director, she faces everyday sexist behavior, including people who seek to conscript me into participation in institutional sexism. As outlined above, I was initially Executive Director of Conservancy, and I was treated very differently than she is treated in similar situations, even though the organization has grown significantly under her leadership. More on that below, but first a few of the other everyday examples of sexism I've witnessed with Karen:

Many times when we're at conferences together, men who meet us assume that Karen works for me until we explain our roles. This happens almost every time both Karen and I are at the same conference, which is at least a few times each year.

Another time: a journalist wrote an article about some of “Bradley's work” at Conservancy. We privately pointed out to the journalist how strange it was that Karen was not mentioned in the article, and that it made it sound like I was the only person doing this work at our organization. He responded that because I was the “primary spokesperson”, it was natural to credit me and not her. Karen in fact had been more recently giving multiple keynotes on the topic, and had more speaking engagements than I did in that year. One of those keynotes was just weeks before the article, and it had been months since I'd given a talk or made any public statements. The journalist fortunately did agree it was a mistake, but neverthless couldn't