My unconsious sexism

Something happened at the very brilliant and wonderful Semi-Permanent Auckland last weekend.
I realised to my horror that I had only quoted  me, 17 white men.  So I called myself out on stage and made a slide of 17 fab women too. And now I need to share that and explain a bit more... 

I do love SP and this was a terrific event. Also great to discover that quoting sixteenth century philosophers and atomic physicists at 10am does not phase Kiwis.
(If Simon filmed it I will repost it soon, if not SWF recorded a podcast here). 

Secondly I got to be myself. I wore my fabulous and mildly painful shoes. I felt completely accepted. The amazing people of New Zealand showed me such love and such kindness and it made me want to cry. A lot. Thank you. 

PS: You can buy the book. Penguin AU have stockists listed here, or we have a reliable search engine you can try,

But what about the men!? Well, it really was an innocent mistake. But 17 quotes. ALL from white men.   It felt ugly. Too much of a coincidence. I mean, Shakespeare, Einstein, Minchin... all legitimate genius, but still.

It made me very sad.  I decided the best thing to do was to call myself out on stage and correct the error. I will probably keep it in because while you can argue it as unconscious bias, or from a raft of feminist perspectives - a) it happened and I’m a little embarrassed about it. My little book does have plenty of lady-quotes in it, but they didn’t fit and there aren’t enough. but b) it lets me finish the  talk by reminding us of this problem: that women's voices are often not quoted because they are not quoted, [data] and encouraging young women in the audience to remember that we need your voice - on screen,  in print, and preferably inside quote marks. That is a real thing that we really need. 

So I also showed 17 fantastic female voices to take away. 
To be clear, all but 4 of these people are women I know - who I met through work and who inspired me or continue to inspire me with their epic smarts and general intrepidness. (aka 'friends') The others i am just in awe of. (I'm not going to tell you who ;)  So it's not like a Forbes list or a Cosmo top 17 women ever sort of thing. But proper normal women doing cool shit. 

Cindy Gallop @cindygallop [epic sexism wrangler]
Jess Brillhart @brillhart [Google's lead VR-ographer / 360 deg pioneer]
Julia Kaganskiy @juliaxgulia [NewInc: New Museum's Art & Tech Incubator]
Maria Popova @brainpicker [as in the brainpickings.]
Jess Scully @jessaroo [ex-VIVID Ideas, soon to be Sydney City Councillor. #voteclover!]
Vi Hart @vihartvihart [Mathemusician / YouTube's finest export]  
Juliette LaMontagne @jlamontagne  [reimagining American education systems]
Anna Gerber & Britt Iverson @VisualEditions [reimagining English publishing models]
Juliana Rotich @afromusing [African tech entrepreneur]
Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt [cultural innovator and doteveryone]
Mel Exon @melex [CEO Sunshine and founder BBHLabs]
Clare Reddington @clarered [of the brilliant Watershed, Playable City, Pervasive Media..]
Lily Cole @lilycole [impossible.com - social philanthropist and innovator]   
Tara Shears @TaraShears [a real particle physicist]
Bonnie Greer @Bonn1eGreer [a real author and a real antagonist]
Heidi Hackemer @uberblond [the coolest woman I've ever met]
Katie Dreke @katiedreke [yay! and also Nike. In Tokyo.]

The boys list: Stephen Hawking, John Banville, Donald Rumsfeld, Michel de Montaigne, Rene Descartes, Betrand Russell, Lewis Carroll, Ray Kurzweil, Neil Turok, William Shakespeare, Neil Gaiman, Richard Feynman, Aldous Huxley, Albert Einstein, Herman Hess, Tim Minchin, Marvin Minsky.
And, you know, I love their work and their brains too - they're a smart bunch of menfolk.

And yet I could have filled the slide 3 times over with amazing women what I met.
Without a problem. It is nice to have awesome friends. Please share them.

And thanks again Auckland for all the love.