Sausage Fest, Austin Style

Posted on June 23, 2011

I hate it when I have to interrupt a project mid-sentence, especially when it’s one of my favorite activities of the week – getting today’s Sharp News newsletter out. But an email that just landed in my inbox needs to be addressed.

Readers of our newsletter may remember my inclusion recently of the following quote: “’But the entitled white male perspective is such an interesting perspective,’ and everybody laughed. When Carr told me this, I laughed, too. But I think the time for laughter has passed.’”

It comes from a piece by Cord Jefferson titled, “Why White Men Should Refuse to Be on Panels of All White Men.” As you may be aware, this is an eternally hot topic in the tech world, so much so that SxSW made it mandatory to include women and minorities in their panels last year. But that imperative apparently hasn’t filtered out to the rest of Austin.

I was so looking forward to next Tuesday’s RISE Fast Pitch event, co-sponsored by Rice Alliance and happening at one of Austin’s hippest venues, the Alamo Drafthouse. (Non-Austin residents know this as the home of the famous No Texting edict that went viral recently.) The event will feature a panel discussion on entrepreneurs and quick-hit pitches from local startups – and not one damn woman. Well that’s a bit of an overstatement, as one of the pitching companies is led by a woman. (Break out the champagne!) But among the four judges and four panelists, they couldn’t manage to dig up one female to add to the conversation.

This is frustrating. And infuriating. And laughably ironic, considering that RISE purports to be one of the biggest supporters of women entrepreneurs. Give me 5 minutes and I’ll give you a long list of women ideal for this opportunity. Hell, I don’t even need five minutes – Melinda Garvey, Laura Kilcrease, Melissa Simpler, Laura Beck, Rosa McCormick, Lauranne Jarrett, Karen Bantuveris, Susan Davenport, Tina Cannon, Jen Wojcik, Eve Richter, Julie Gomoll, Lani Rosales, and yes me, Carla Thompson. And about 50 more.

Rice Alliance, RISE Austin, and Tim League should be embarrassed. Get your heads out of the 20th century, gentlemen. And get some women on that panel.

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  • Anonymous

    What the hell? I definitely expect more from Austin in general, from RISE, and from at least a couple of the organizers.

    So what do we do about this? I hate to just bitch in the comments. Is there something constructive we can take on? Can we convince a couple of the guys to propose a woman take their place? Boycotting the event seems counter-productive… maybe we could all show up sporting mustaches and wearing shirts that say “NOW can I be a judge?”

  • http://twitter.com/carlat Carla Thompson

    I had the same thought Julie – I’d much rather *do* something about this instead of whining on a blog. And boycotting doesn’t make sense, I agree. I did hear from the guy emceeing the event, Robert Reeves, who said in a tweet “Talk to them to make a change.” He copied the responsible party Doug Bain so I’m going to see if I can get an answer out of someone on Twitter.

    I do love your t-shirt and mustache idea… Stay tuned. We’ll see what happens in the next 12 or so hours.

  • Anonymous

    Could be fun, right? We get matching shirts, cheesy fake mustaches, and gather outside. Then enter en masse…

  • http://twitter.com/crcpr21 Christine R. Cox

    This is one of my PET PEEVES. And it happens a lot in this town. Women are WAY under-represented, not just in the tech world but in general. I find mroe often than not that I’m in a room with lots of women in an audience with ONLY men behind the podium for an entire evening. It’s absolutely inexcusable, especially in such a ‘progressive’ market.  SXSW had far more men than women as speakers for Interactive.  Enough is enough. It’s time women start speaking up and expressing our disappointment and making it clear that we expect to get equal-time in this town. Period.

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