Why You Should Stop Trying To Hire "A Female"
This is a lightning talk I gave at an Ignite event in May, 2015. Ignite talks are five minutes long, with slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. They move quickly.
Before giving it, I got input from people with as many different perspectives as possible — women and men, trans and cis, gay and straight, PoC and white, single and married, non-parents and parents. I tried to be mindful of people in other communities as well. In no way does that mean I covered all perspectives, or that I covered the topics as deeply or as nuanced as I could have, or that I even made good choices in what to talk about. (I'm working on a post about what I could/should have said.) I'm trying to get better at this; if you think I missed something important in the talk below, I'd genuinely love to hear from you: charlie@charliepark.org.
My name’s Charlie Park, and I’m an engineer at IFTTT.
Before I start: there’s a transcript of this talk and an annotated audio version at charliepark.org/ignite, if you prefer those.
You’ve maybe heard the joke: “The two hardest problems in computer science are cache invalidation and naming things.” Not a great joke, but we’ll roll with it. Why is naming things hard? Because words matter. They’re nuanced and subtle. If you write a program and use the wrong word in the wrong context, it can have big consequences.
There’s a word that a lot of people use incorrectly, and it’s causing problems. We’re going to talk about it.
People want to hire more women. That’s good! People say “We’re looking for females.” That’s not good!
We’ll talk about why in a second, but first, there are three contexts where referring to a human woman as a “female” is okay.
You are a police officer, describing a suspect or a victim.
You are a doctor, describing a patient.
You’re this guy, in the intro theme to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, singing “Females is strong as hell.”
So why is “female” the wrong word? A few reasons.
First, “female” is a biological term, focused on sex-specific characteristics. For example, “male guppies are smaller than female guppies.” Describing humans based on their sexual characteristics is creepy and inappropriate.
By saying “female engineer”, you’re saying the fact that she has a vagina is why she has special value. Can you see why that’s offensive?
Second, you’re using an adjective in place of a noun. You wouldn’t say, “we need to hire a Black.” Or “we need to hire a gay.” Or “we need to hire a Japanese.”
You shouldn’t say “we need to hire a female.”
Third, you’re overemphasizing a particular aspect of that person’s identity.
This book, El Deafo, is about a girl who goes deaf. She doesn’t want to be singled out because of her deafness, but because of what she can do. The fact that she uses hearing aids isn’t what defines her.
Speaking of girls …
You should probably also remove the word “girls” from your vocabulary. There are organizations that help women and girls learn to code, and they have the word “girls” in their titles. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking to you, dudes, who are looking for the right word to use.
It’s pretty straightforward. If you’re talking about someone under 13, she’s a girl. Older than 13 but under 18, she’s a teenager. Otherwise, she’s a woman.
When you use “females”, to talk about “women”, you end up sounding like …
Quark, a Ferengi from the show Star Trek. You sound creepy.
In fact, Zoe Quinn made a great Chrome extension that replaces occurrences of the word “females” with Quark’s head. So you get this:
You want a Life Pro Tip, buddy? I’ve got one. Don’t call women “females”.
But I don’t want to just rip on people, I want to give some productive tips, too.
Instead of asking “how can we get more ‘females’ to work here?”, you should ask, “what can we do to make our workplace more approachable and accessible for everyone?” When you begin to focus on accessibility and empathy, you come up with better ideas.
Find ways that your office can be more flexible, so people can have a life outside of work. Flexible schedules, so fathers and mothers can be with their families. Or flexible locations, so people can work from home when they need to.
For the people who are at the office, make sure it’s in a part of town where people feel safe, especially if people stay late.
As for ideas that especially benefit women …
If a woman has just had a baby and wants to come back to work, she needs a place where she can pump milk. Not in a bathroom, not in a conference room with glass walls. Have a safe, peaceful space where women can pump milk.
Your office has Kleenex, right? You should have pads and tampons, too. Otherwise you might get a visit from Tampon Club, an awesome secret society of women that leaves pads and tampons in offices that should provide them.
I’m sure they’d love to be put out of work!
Ultimately, it’s about respect and empathy. People want their value recognized. People want to have a voice.
And when you focus on being more approachable and accessible, you aren’t just going to make things better for women, but for people of color, for people with alternate sexualities, for everyone.
So, to sum up:
One, stop calling women “females”.
Two, work to make your workplace more accessible and approachable for everyone.
There are women in your office today who feel marginalized and devalued.
There’s a generation of women coming down the road who haven’t hit those roadblocks yet, but who will if things don’t change.
Things need to change. Words matter. Altering the words you use will help with that change.
My daughters are awesome. Here’s Lucy, flying a plane last year at a “Women in Aviation” week. Ask my 8-year-old daughter Frances what she wants to be when she grows up, she doesn’t say she wants to be an engineer; she says she wants to keep being an engineer.
They are part of a generation that’s growing up, and that will, one day be women. So I want you, guys, to get used to the idea of working with women — not with girls, not with “females”.
Because, one day, maybe they will come to you … and offer you a job.