Commet-ary: Radical Feminism v.s. Liberal Feminism in tech and why this matters in retaining gender minorities

By D’Mya Gernae Sanford (ECU ’22)

Note: I will use gender minority (minority not always meaning numerically, but to explain who holds the minority of power in society/oppressed individual), women, non-male, and non-men to explain women and non-cisgendered people. Though the examples mentioned do not include them, the suggested solutions could work for these groups as well.

As a sociology major, I often spend a ton of time relating concepts I learn about in daily life to what I’m reading about in class. Recently, I’ve been reading about feminism in a gender class and I skimmed over a distinction I think would really help the technology and business world when they talk about hiring and working with women.

When we are tasked to think about advocating for gender minorities and feminism, we only think about the women’s and non-men rights aspect and/or freeing men from stereotypical masculine hegemonies that come with living in a patriarchal society (a.k.a pro-women, anti-masculinity in ways that are toxic). It is rare for us to think of feminism in methodological terms where we begin to ask “how” or what steps will we take to create the equality and inclusion companies are always buzzing about. By definition, this is where the distinction between radical versus liberal feminism comes into play. With radical feminism, extra steps are taken at the root of the existing system to redefine it in a timely manner that actually works for all genders, unconventional means included. In liberal feminism, there is a focus on equality, usually achieved by putting women in roles men once had, placing (rather than truly integrating) women into the existing structure, where changes are only applied slowly through traditional litigation.

Now that you have had your sociology lesson, here are a few examples of tech companies that initially thought liberal feminism was enough:

Whitney Wolfe Herd, current founder and CEO of Bumble, past co-founder of Tinder, left Tinder and created Bumble in 2014 after suing the other Tinder co-founders for sexual harassment. With an all-male team, Tinder probably thought it was groundbreaking to have a woman on their team but they never had any true intention on creating a safe space for her or other female colleagues. If the other Tinder co-founders educated themselves on the implications of what women were like as people, what women face in society, and understood how to conduct themselves respectfully, they could have avoided this situation entirely by preparing the team to successfully integrate her rather than just ignoring their differences and thinking everything would be the same. In addition to lack of education, they had never had to think deeply about gender because it poses virtually no barrier to how they live their everyday lives. Herd, on the other hand, was obviously very privy to anything that could go wrong working in a team like this because society has conditioned women to watch their backs, especially in male-dominated spaces. Instead of entering another established tech/dating app company (being entirely synonymous with male-owned, founded, and operated) she decided to build her own. With the core of Bumble’s story being founded by a woman with a past of facing sexual harassment, the likelihood of the persistence of such culture is significantly reduced because this prevention mindset is already built into the organization from experience. In all, a significant loss to Tinder due to a crucial misinterpretation of what it meant to have just a female body versus a woman (mentality, experiences, and all), gaining them a less than ideal founding story and their #1 competitor.

Former Google user experience researcher, Chelsey Glasson, left after pregnancy discrimination and retaliation from her bosses. Before leaving, she created and released an internal memo titled “I’m Not Returning to Google After Maternity Leave, and Here is Why”, which went viral. In order for this issue to manifest into something large enough to gain headlines, it would have to be an issue in the norms and culture of society then perpetuated through the company’s own culture (disclaimer: non-male colleagues are not exempt from engaging in the culture that could have caused Glasson’s departure, since, in the broader scope, pregnancy is viewed as an ailment in most cultures when it comes to a workplace). Glasson’s extra step to release this viral tell-all was unconventional, however entirely necessary to awaken the industry and mobilize others who may have had similar stories. Exposing one of the biggest household names in tech is not easy by any means but taking this radical step toward starting a conversation about how women and pregnant people can be treated by even the “most professional” organizations worked to uncover issues many have not thought of prior. To enact large and quick change, Glasson knew that solely going through the formal EEOC protocol, communicating with HR, and awaiting advice from a lawyer would not have made nearly as much of an impact. But in all, this entire situation could have been avoided with a sustained proactive commitment to the change of Google’s internal culture surrounding women and pregnant people in general, inclusive of natural changes their bodies are able to go through.

If tech companies are to adopt a more radical feminist approach toward how they hire women in the future, these issues will become less common. Thinking of radical feminist principles as equity (doing extra work to ensure that individual needs are met) rather than liberal feminism which operates more on equality (giving everyone the exact same resources, regardless of extra or lesser need) this separation of philosophies could serve to bridge their understanding in how to actively support women employees before their definite exit. With the current liberal feminist approach that they use, they are simply inserting bodies and disregarding the extra steps it takes to really include women as people. Liberal feminist practices also include seeking legal remedy when there are issues and waiting through the legal process for change to be instituted. However, the fact that legality/illegality has little to no bearing on the initial misogynistic behavior of other employees is also a pitfall of the current liberal feminist integration ideology. Instituting radical feminist changes, which are inherently proactive, toward company culture must be a preliminary step because if it is the attitude of the other employees to agree with the extra steps it takes to integrate women successfully, the social and moral rightness of respect will preside over the legal sanctions/reactive punishment when the damage has already been done. If they were to recognize more about how people work and are guided more by these distinctions to help them recognize the issue as to why women are a mistreated minority in this space, they would not face such ill-inclusion and a bad reputation for gendered discrimination.

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that these women were in fact white and cisgender which makes the difference between them and the dominant structure of white, straight, cisgender men who run this industry as a whole only dissimilar by one trait. But it is the action taken by these women who have used their privilege wisely that can set a norm across the entire tech industry for when minorities of any kind are disrespected. With the reach and influence that people have now through social media, the actions people take against companies who disrespect them are becoming only radical by definition because extra-organizational exposure is faster and more effective than pursuing the liberal, slow-moving methods of moving issues through the system. Avenues for communication and opportunities for those who do not fit the old systems are greatly expanding so there is less of a need for begging for a seat at a table that was not built to or has any intention on accommodating you. This does not mean companies who are male-founded and run cannot adapt, but they must be open and invested in the extreme changes necessary to stay off of the “minority blacklist”. As more people who intelligently wager their privilege (privilege being popularity, race, gender, etc.) are integrated into this space, extra-organizational methods for change will become more common because it is becoming increasingly impossible to sweep issues under the rug with radical change being the new normal.