![Cover image for [On-Demand Talk] Docs For Equity - Teaching Our Way Out Of Impostor Syndrome](https://community.codenewbie.org/images/zuUFmFTJbPPAkmSrLDZ6HE7hm8fYIjJImFZLEdD5t5c/rs:fill:1000:420/g:sm/mb:500000/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb21t/dW5pdHkuY29kZW5l/d2JpZS5vcmcvcmVt/b3RlaW1hZ2VzL3Vw/bG9hZHMvYXJ0aWNs/ZXMvN2RjcGd1c2My/cThhMTVyZTc2ZTMu/cG5n)
About this talk
What we call "Imposter Syndrome" is often not really that at all - for many people, workplace anxiety and feelings of isolation and exclusion are the result of systemic bias and discrimination. These are problems for the industry and community to address, not individuals. I am suggesting one tool (though many are needed) to help build a more inclusive tech industry. As a former teacher, I apply the principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching to my technical writing, and in this talk, I explain why and how that works.
Takeaways
- The tech industry has an enormous diversity and inclusivity problem, but platitudes aren't helping us when the problems are so deep-seated.
- People's early experiences in the tech industry often include being told to "Read the docs!", only to find that the docs are implicitly and explicitly biased.
- We can do better, and the principles of Culturally Responsive Teaching provide a framework to create docs that better meet the needs of marginalized communities in tech.
Slides
>> Click here to download slides
🌈 Comment below and ask me questions — I might just answer them during my live speaker discussion!
About Julia Seidman
Julia is a believer in the careen, rather than the career. After studying anthropology and writing a senior thesis on the ethics of museum collections of human skeletal remains, she took the job she could get: fundraising for a hospital. From there, she became a financial analyst and employee educator for 401k plans. Then, after getting her Master's in education, she taught high school English and ESL for most of a decade. Now, she is a technical content marketing consultant and developer.
This on-demand talk is part of CodeLand 2021 — a virtual conference brought to you by CodeNewbie & DEV on September 23 & 24, 2021.
Oldest comments (56)
I'm loving how there are so many intersections between today's presentations! I almost wondered if @clearlythuydoan had read my slides before she made hers - if you were interested in what she said about early career experiences with docs, I think you'll find some empowering suggestions in my talk!
Imposter Syndrome is such a common theme here on CodeNewbie, we can't get enough support and encouragement!
Exactly! It is a big deal for everyone. I think that is so good to listen those sugestions and different views.
I feel like we could talk forever about it.
Earlier, I saw PJ write a tweet saying he "failed" to talk about a certain aspect of imposter syndrome that @juliaseid had mentioned but I pointed out to him that he didn't fail to do anything! You can't possibly talk about every angle of a topic so large during a single 15-min talk. Also there's different POVs. Like how the phrase can be overused. Arguably used incorrectly and as a blanket term for things that aren't related to it - conflated with other things.
The perspective that I brought on Twitter was that the feeling of inferiority one may feel (and possibly dub "imposter syndrome") can also be related to how we view other people.
For example, senior developers and tech celebrities: do you put them on a pedestal? Treat them as all-knowing out of habit? Maybe even out of respect? As "can-do-no-wrong"? As PJ said, we are all learning right? I made that mistake of putting more experienced developers on a pedestal when I was early in my dev career. I would say to my seniors, "Wow you can get a job anywhere not like me." I would almost worship them and think of me less because I was measuring my experience with theirs. But aside from everything said in PJ and Julia's talks, sometimes the difference is just experience and not competency! So let's go forth :)
For real! For the record, I didn't look at your slides until after the day ended today and funnily enough was like, "Hold on, I think we coincidentally used a similar base theme on Canva lmao"
Yes! So funny! Different color palettes, same design theme! I wonder what algorithm pointed us both to that template? 😅
I think the algorithm might be plant related. I notice we both had plants in our slides. You had those neat animations. I had flat icons of plants. Might you be a plant enthusiast as well? I also noticed other uncanny similarities. Like you are a technical writer by trade and I also have a writing background in advertising! AND we both value accessibility! Talk about mega overlap among great speakers.
Docs are really underrated. This topic is amazing. Looking forward to the session!
:)
Hey Julia Seidman! Im about to finish my bootcamp with Flatiron and getting ready to get into my first tech job
Hey folks!
If you have any questions for @juliaseid , please ask away!
We're going to gather up all of these questions and answer them during the Speaker Discussion later on today! So we really encourage you to drop any questions about the talk that come to mind. 🙌
A link to the Harvard Business Review article I reference: hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women...
Hi, Julia! I can't count how many talented people who belong to marginalized groups I have met with impostor syndrome. It makes me so sad and angry that almost every place and position that we try to occupy helps building impostor syndrome. Thanks for this talk.
Absolutely! I think, though, that it's really important to disambiguate "impostor syndrome" from experiences of bias and discrimination. If someone from a marginalized group is feeling undermined or unsupported, there's a decent likelihood that they actually ARE being undermined or don't have the full support of their co-workers. If they did, we'd see much better retention over the long term. That's not impostor syndrome - that's discrimination.
It definitely feels like women and POC have this huge pressure to "earn their place at the table". These talks are so important in dismantling this toxic mentality.
Hi, thanks for this. My name is Ro Peeples and I'm an entry-level software developer. My one suggestion is to include stats about trans and non-binary people in tech in your early slides.
You're absolutely right that I should have! Representation of trans people in tech is a complicated subject, but we absolutely can do better. I think this article covers some of the complexity pretty well:
zdnet.com/article/transgender-empl...
Do you feel like inclusive language and behavior has significantly improved in docs and workplaces since you've started?
The "What's Holding Us Back" slide is perfect 🙌
This single page needs to be sent out to any dev tech that has public docs. It's hard to know how many people who would have used your product/language but couldn't get beyond the docs and moved on to something else.
I get so turned off as an end user if a product says to "just" do a thing that's totally obvious (not...). Even the classic "foobar" examples are a form of injoke that makes it hard to follow if you don't know what foo and bar denote.
Whoops, just got to the part of the talk where you call out foobar and just haha
The light grey text on that slide is a a11y nightmare though. 😬
True, though there wouldn't have been enough time to update it after the a11y talk right before it ;) haha
Oh, thanks for calling that out! I'm not a front-end dev, so I don't tend to think about those aspects of accessibility. It's a good reminder that it matters in presentations, too!
I just checked on the color contrast on this slide, and it's 9.8:1 (#fffcf7, #424242), so definitely a pass from WCAG. I think the apparent lack of contrast is actually a function of font size and reduced screen size or resolution with the format the slides are in here.
A reminder that color contrast is a starting place, not the end-all measure of accessibility, since I agree it is not super readable!
YES NO JARGONNNNNNNN!!
I write like I am talking to you, because that is the best way I learn -- I think it is part of why Stack is so useful, it is a conversation
Hi Julia! Obviously using jargon and escoteric language makes so many people feel like they don't belong in tech. Not only that, but it doesn't make any sense if we actually want to improve our projects and products!
I'm hoping on your panel, you can share your thoughts on why this is so persistant in our field. You described the in-group phenomenon — but I don't even think that this truly benefits the people who think they are benefitting from it.
Thanks! Fantastic talk!
Thanks so much! I wish I knew why it is so persistent. I'm not a sociologist, though, and I'm not sure I can really speculate about what keeps it going, beyond just saying that people like to feel like they belong. The challenge is to create that sense of belonging without excluding others.
Thank you so much for this talk! As someone else who is career changing (also with a BA in Anthropology!), it's so great to hear someone emphasising how we need to "create space for people to be themselves"!
Thanks again!
I like to think I am a very culturally responsive person, but often worry that I am blinded by biases and privileges that I'm not fully aware of yet. What additional tips or resources can you recommend to tackle this?
Wow, that's a great question. That is not my specific area of expertise, and it's something I hesitate to give prescriptions for. The work of confronting our own prejudices can be really difficult, painful work, and I think there are a lot of resources out there to help with it, but I'm not sure I could recommend any with confidence.
What I will say is that I think the more you get in the habit of acknowledging your biases, the easier it gets, and the more empowering it is.
I see the work of identifying my own privilege and bias as some of the most self-actualizing work I can do, because it lets me make choices based on the person I want to be.
Thank you for that very thoughtful response, Julia. I loved your presentation today!
Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.