Making Tech More
Inclusive: An interview
with Ashe Dryden
Exposing the driving causes behind the lack of diversity in our communities,
and how to use your privilege for good.
By Erin Carson
DOI: 10.1145/2604997
Ashe Dryden is a programmer turned expert in diversity and inclusion practices. She’s a prolific writer, speaker, and educator who consults regularly with businesses and conferences. In this interview, Ashe shares her opinions on what can be done to increase diversity at all levels of the tech industry.
ERIN CARSON: You recently argued that
requiring open source software (OSS)
contributions is a bad thing for hiring
practices. Why do you believe this?
What are better metrics for evaluating
potential employees?
ASHE DRYDEN: Requiring open
source contributions will privilege a
demographic of people who statistically
have more access to free time, higher
salaries, and jobs that allow them to
contribute during work hours. This
group is largely comprised of young
(18-35), white, straight, able-bodied
men. As we’re attempting to hire people
for their programming competency
and the ability to work well with our
existing teams, we should optimize for
those things in screening candidates.
Asking for code samples serves just as
well as evaluating their open-source
work. I personally prefer to either pay
candidates for a short-term contract or
to pay them to work with our team for a
few days on actual bugs in our system.
That gives you a better idea of their
capabilities and how they communicate
with others.
EC: You’ve quoted that women make up
only 1.5 percent of OSS contributors.
Why aren’t more women contributing
to OSS?
AD: That’s a complex issue. With women
software engineers and programmers
comprising approximately 24 percent of
the industry, we would expect the number
of women contributing to OSS to be much
higher, closer to the ratio they make up
in the industry. Currently there are more
women in proprietary software, which
accounts for a sizable portion of this
difference. This is due to a few things:
Proprietary software allows for a more
traditional career path from college
and doesn’t come with the expectation
that one will be working outside of work
without being compensated. Because
much proprietary software development
is embedded in enterprise environments,
there tends to be a better atmosphere
for professionalism—workplaces have HR
departments and often take reports of
harassment and inappropriate behavior
more seriously.
EC: What do you think are the driving
causes behind the lack of diversity in our
communities, events, and workplaces?
AD: The biggest three are harassment,
discrimination, and bias. They’re much
larger problems than the pipeline issue,
which so many people point to. ( The
pipeline issue refers to the gradual
attrition of women from STEM fields at
all stages of career progression.) The
attrition rates we see in the tech industry
are astounding: 56 percent of women
leave tech within 10 years, which is twice
the rate of men. Unfortunately we don’t
have any formal studies on groups other
than women.