Compassion for People Who Make Mistakes
…and Fake Women Speaker Profiles
If you spend time in the tech corners of X/Twitter (a place where I spend much less time myself these days), you may have seen the story about a tech conference organizer who had listed fake profiles for women speakers on his conference website. I’m not going to name him or link the posts here because, as you’ll see, this article is about not piling on in these situations, but if you’re curious about the context, I’m sure you can find it.
I’m a woman in tech, I speak at tech conferences, and I care about creating tech environments where women—and everyone—can thrive, so many people would expect me to join the shaming pile-on swiftly visited on that conference organizer. Indeed, in the past, I might have been tempted. I wasn’t always able to communicate with compassion on Twitter when I was dealing with my own pain. At this point, though, the collective response concerns me more than the original incident, so that’s where I’ll focus here.
Before I get to that, though, I’ll state clearly that of course misrepresenting your event with fake information is unethical. Gender dynamics aside, it reminded me of an incident at a startup where I worked. The marketer had prepared an email blast with a section, “What our users are asking,” and it contained fake names and fake questions. I noticed (because one of the fake names was a reference to an office in-joke) and said that it would be unethical to send. The designer said, “Come on, every startup does this to get started.” The CEO said, “‘Unethical’ is hostile language, April.” I left that company not long after. I share the story here to communicate that I do feel strongly about honesty and also to acknowledge that the tech industry struggles with ethics.
I also realize that this touches on sensitive issues like the underrepresentation of women in tech and the unique challenges many of us have indeed faced.
The question isn’t whether it was wrong to misrepresent the event; the question is, does the conference organizer deserve to bear the full brunt of collective rage about every injustice ever committed against women in tech? Because it seems like that is what happens in situations like this. Social media users line up to get in their own snarky insult or shaming rebuke.
Is this really the compassionate response?
Sometimes, group action on social media is a useful way to bring attention to issues when they’re otherwise ignored. In the past, I would have argued that the shame and snark was “fierce compassion” in the face of injustice, and any opposition to it was “tone-policing.” Listening to a range of different viewpoints over the past few years, though, has convinced me that my own suffering does not give me license to inflict verbal abuse on others. As Ryan Holiday writes in The Obstacle Is the Way, “No harshness, no deprivation, no toil should interfere with our empathy toward others. Compassion is always an option.”
That feeling of righteous indignation that accompanies shaming another can feel so powerful in the heat of the moment, but when the calm returns, you may realize that you’ve acted inconsistently with your own values. Karen Armstrong cautions in Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, “If we speak impatiently, rudely, or unkindly, we may be in danger of bringing ourselves down to the level of intolerance we are condemning.”
I also notice that a lot of the harshest reprimands come not from women in tech, but from “allies” (a term I don’t like because this is not war).
An Aldous Huxley quote I’ve seen circulating over the past few years that gives insight into this phenomenon:
“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience—this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
With certain causes, we celebrate those who self-righteously put wrongdoers in their place, no matter how much cruelty goes along with it.
It’s important to check our motivations: are we really seeking to help or do we just want to feel good about ourselves? Karen Armstrong notes,
"Our critique should not inflate the ego. Sometimes when people are inveighing against an abuse or crime, they seem to swell before our eyes with delicious self-congratulation."
Related to that point, I’m not trying to shame anyone here or declare myself above it all. I truly believe that most people involved in this situation have honorable intentions, and I’ll freely admit that I’ve been part of disproportionate social media responses in the past. We all make mistakes, which is reason enough to be in favor of providing a path to forgiveness.
I’d like to end with an invitation. When these situations happen in the future, it’s worth taking a deep breath and considering:
- Am I adding value to this conversation or just piling on out of spite or to boost my own ego?
- Could there be more to this story that I don’t know?
- Do I see the perceived perpetrator as a full human being with innate dignity? Or do I see only an evil villain? Am I making this personal?
- Does this conversation need to happen in public? Would a private conversation allow for more clarity and nuance?
- If it’s personal catharsis I’m seeking, and it’s only tangentially related to this incident, is there a better outlet—perhaps a confidant or my journal?
Perhaps you’ll still decide to join the pile-on. That’s your choice, and believe me, I understand the impulse.
Social issues in tech are important to discuss; I’d just love to be able to discuss them in a way that allows us to build bridges rather than mete out punishment.
