There's absolutely no excuse for Twitter not to have a woman on its board

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/11/twitter-ipo-women-board

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“Disrupt!” is a catch cry of Silicon Valley – a call to arms to take something that is done a certain way because “that’s how it’s always been done”, and turn it on its head. Do it better, do it faster, do it differently. Amazon did it to bookshops, Craigslist did it to classifieds, and Twitter did it to media. 

But some things remain unchanged. When Twitter filed its IPO last week, there was an all too familiar line-up of male-only board members. That’s not all. All of its investors are also male, as are most of its executives but one (a female lawyer who joined the company a few weeks ago). For all its bravado, Twitter was revealed as a social media company steeped in old media ways. Academic and tech entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, who is writing a book on women in tech and was interviewed by the New York Times, was scathing:

This is the elite arrogance of the Silicon Valley mafia, the Twitter mafia. It’s the same male chauvinistic thinking. The fact that they went to the IPO without a single woman on the board, how dare they?

They dare because that’s how it’s always been done. The Women’s Media Center recently released a report which found the following:

At its current pace, it will take until 2085 for women to reach parity with men in leadership roles in government/politics, business, entrepreneurship and nonprofits.

Only 17 women at media and technology companies are on Fortune’s 50 most powerful women in business list.

They also found that women outnumber men on social media sites – something which several other studies have confirmed.

It has a very familiar ring to it. Most newspapers traditionally have more female staff, but they remain under-represented in senior positions. When it comes to sources, men are quoted more often than women, who remain a minority in the eyes of newsgatherers. That the same patterns of sexism emerge from a young company without a chauvinistic legacy like that of traditional media is alarming. As a relatively new company (Twitter is seven) in a new technological area, it’s dumbfounding that women still aren’t represented in senior roles.

We’ve heard the “reasons” before – lack of female talent that fits the role, startups tend to have male investors, tech still has trouble attracting females, etc. Except there is no truth to the claims of lack of potential candidates, and most Twitter board members have arts degrees, not tech backgrounds. It is worth noting too that studies have shown that racially and gender diverse boards have financially stronger results. None of the usual reasons sufficiently add to a good enough pardon as to why in 2013, women still lack a board seat in a young, ground-breaking company. Rather, they point to a solid justification of why there should be one, or more. No excuses.

Fifty years after "gender equality" entered the public mindset, is it so over-the-top to call out one of the most influential companies of a generation on sexism when it presents a male-only board? Twitter suggested it was. It is certainly not alone in its maleness, but the habit of pointing to others who have the same issues (“but those guys don’t have women on their boards either!”) eventually becomes a dull excuse for keeping the status quo. The buck has to stop somewhere. And Twitter, with its youth, cultural influence and reach, could have been a good place to stop. 

Using cliched aversion tactics, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo responded by personally attacking Wadha, tweeting “Wadhwa is the Carrot Top of academic sources.” When this response was challenged by influential technologist Anil Dash, Costolo’s excuses deteriorated even more. He claimed that when it came to gender equality, he had an “ acute understanding of the topic and host of related issues.” When asked by Dash to elaborate, Costolo tweeted “The whole thing has to be about more than checking a box and saying 'we did it!'".

To reduce the issue of sexism in tech and media to “checking a box” shows neither an acute understanding of the issue, nor respect for over half of Twitter users. If Twitter’s founders and executives stepped out of their bubble, they might find many women who have made it without the backing of a boy’s club. Now that's an achievement worth recognising. 

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