The 20-Year-Old Point-of-View: Brotopia by Emily Chang
I’ll be the first to state that I’m a heterosexual, albeit Asian male, working/studying in the technology sector. I expected this book, at first glance, to be among the several forgettable business books I’ve tragically managed to slough my way though this year.
I am very glad to say that I could not have been more wrong.
Brotopia is a book about culture. Specifically, the culture that emerges when a relatively new industry, internet technology, develops so rapidly that we do not have the right leaders or characters to guide its development. This portrayal of the industry, that I had long put on a pedestal as the savior of humanity, shared accounts of harassment, discrimination, and hate that legitimately made me question whether I wanted to continue in this line of work. It seemed to me that with so much money, power, and influence flowing through the hands of these people, there was nobody there to save us from corruption. I felt powerless to change it.
Then I had to remember who I was: a teacher, and a president.
The roles I exercise daily have some of the same kind of power and influence that these individuals held. Sure, I might not take home six-figure salaries from grading papers and holding conferences, but people still listened to me and looked to me for guidance. The actions I take reflected on those that respected me. I realized that I wasn’t powerless to change the catastrophe that the technology industry had found itself in: I was responsible for changing it.
I major in Informatics at the University of Washington. Informatics, a discipline with its foundations including Information Science, Computer Science, Design and Ethics, has a proud undergraduate body composed of 40% women. And yet despite a leading percentage of women in our program, I still hear stories of my coworkers being stereotyped for their gender. I had assumed that becoming an Informatics major meant you held some belief about the equality in our line of work. Clearly, there is work to be done.
As a teacher and as a president of a professional organization, I plan to take the stories and lessons provided by Brotopia and my female colleagues to do better for everyone. I’m proud that the board of my organization consists of 66% women, and that we’re taking steps to teach and provide new leadership and professional opportunities to them on a daily basis. I hope to be doing the same for my students in class.
In short, things may not be ideal. There is still work to be done, but no better time to make a change than now.
