About Winstina Hughes:
Winstina Hughes is a WordPress Community member, Core Contributor, and Speaker. She works in Regional Planning for the Maryland Department of Transportation.
You can learn more about Winstina at winstinahughes.com
Find Winstina Hughes: Planning Write | Twitter | LinkedIn
Tracy Apps:
Welcome to Women in WP, a bi-monthly podcast about women who blog, design, develop, and more in the WordPress community.
Angela Bowman:
Hi, welcome to Women in WP, I’m Angela Bowman.
Tracy Apps:
And I’m Tracy Apps. Our guest today is Winstina Hughes joining us from Baltimore, Maryland. Winstina is a WordPress community member, core contributor, and speaker. She works in regional planning for the Maryland Department of Transportation. Welcome Winstina.
Winstina Hughes:
Hello, thanks for having me, Angela. Thanks for having me, Tracy. How are you doing?
Angela Bowman:
We are so happy to have you. We like to start off each episode asking our guests how they got into WordPress. How did you get started?
Winstina Hughes:
How did I get started in WordPress? I got started in WordPress because I had an assignment in college, and the assignment involved adding data that we’d analyzed using GIS, which is Geographic Information Systems, and adding that data into a wordpress.com blog, and-
Angela Bowman:
Wow.
Winstina Hughes:
Yeah, and then based on that, when I graduated from college, I moved home, did that general process that we all do. I graduate from college, move home, and then start looking for work, or to go back to school, and I started a blog on community development for the town that I lived in, and that was on wordpress.com, and so I transitioned from an assignment to something that I chose to do, out of just an interest, and yeah, I like to say it all started on wordpress.com.
Angela Bowman:
I love that. True for a lot of people. Like a passion blog.
Winstina Hughes:
That’s exactly what it was. That’s exactly what it was. I walked around town because I had to. The good thing is that I live in a walkable community, and so I could walk to anywhere I needed to go, and then catch a train or a bus either into the city, or to school to go to Rutgers, and so I could walk everywhere.
And so in the process of walking to school or walking home or walking to a restaurant to get something to eat, I would just really have an opportunity to look at where I lived within the lens of what I’d studied, which was planning and policy, and so I just wrote about it as I walked by.
Angela Bowman:
I love that, because I am so passionate about that urban planning, that walkable one mile neighborhoods, is that what they call it when your house … you’re just one mile from the end of the transportation point to whatever your final destination is. Just … yeah, so I’m totally also passionate about the thing that you actually do professionally.
Tracy Apps:
I actually want to know, because with wordpress.com, I’ve started people off on wordpress.com. How did you find that part of the WordPress?
Winstina Hughes:
How did I find the WordPress community? That is a phenomenal question.
Okay, so I started for that college assignment, and then I started with my own personal blog, and then in the process of writing about that blog, The New York Times started with a site called The Local, and that was local news reporting, hyper-local news. And they somehow or another … I’m not sure, however it is, the universe works … I started my blog, and then they were launching their site, and they came across my blog, and they were like, “This is what we want to do, and we’d like for you to write for us.”
And so it was three communities, and mine happens to be one of them, and so that is part of this whole piece of my involvement. And then in the process of writing, I actually was doing more on WordPress than I was previously, so now I did interviews, and so I would meet someone and do an interview with them, and I also went on different locations.
I really had an opportunity to go to an urban farm, that was started … really the first of its kind in New Jersey … and so it was in Newark, New Jersey, and I went to interview the owners, the two who’d started it. And so this experience was taking me to so many different places, that it’s only natural … but I would’ve spent more time, I’m sure, looking into WordPress. And then in the process of just being immersed in that work that I was doing, I’m sure I came across something about Meetups, and because of the proximity that I am to New York City, we have the Midtown Direct, which is something that makes our town a little different.
The Midtown Direct is a service that New Jersey Transit offers a group of communities that … you could say, a good portion of their residents work in New York City … and so it’s an accelerated train service, and because we have the Midtown Direct and I could so quickly get into New York City, going to a New York City Meetup, it wasn’t going to be a challenge for me.
So I’m sure coming across that, then just going into the city, is what took me to initial Meetup and then here we are.
Tracy Apps:
And here we are.
Angela Bowman:
Wow.
Tracy Apps:
Core contributor, all of these things. New York Times, no big deal.
Winstina Hughes:
It took years.
Tracy Apps:
Writing for big … but I love that story.
Winstina Hughes:
Well it took years for me to contribute to Core, so let’s not-
Tracy Apps:
Listen, I started on WordPress in 2004. I didn’t start contributing until just a couple years ago, too.
Winstina Hughes:
So yeah, 2006, 2007 is when I started, and so Core was for all female release, and so-
Tracy Apps:
I was in that one-
Winstina Hughes:
Excuse me.
Tracy Apps:
… exactly.
Winstina Hughes:
Yeah, the all women release because I’m non-binary also. Yeah, so that’s when I started. So there’s a breadth of time that I’ve been in the room for.
Tracy Apps:
But it’s still a big thing to say. You have a part of this platform that powers a quarter of the internet, so-
Winstina Hughes:
It’s humbling.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah.
Winstina Hughes:
It’s humbling to have done that.
Tracy Apps:
Very much so.
Winstina Hughes:
It is. It is, and you’re right … the ability to be able to say that is true. I never thought I would contribute to Core, because I thought Core was code. I thought it was all code, and then to learn that there are different elements to it that we can contribute to. I contributed on the Documentation Team, so as a writer, I did not know that that was the part of a release, and so to find out that that’s how I could contribute to it was just like … it floored me, and so I feel so happy that I could be a part of that experience.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah, I love that.
Winstina Hughes:
Yeah. So how was your experience on it? Tell me?
Angela Bowman:
The Core contributing is so, it’s so interesting because there’s two pieces to that is one, is how you found out that you could contribute on that level. So I’m curious, how did you find that out?
And then the other part is, what benefit do you feel like you’ve gained from being part of that experience?
Winstina Hughes:
So just [inaudible 00:08:51] a tweet saying that they were looking for contributors, and I know when they were looking to put together the team and I saw that, and I know there was also conversation too, about the fact that contributing does cause you to spend more time, and the financial component of contributing and dedicating that much time to it. And then, what does someone do when they’re putting that much time into contributing to the release, and then the income that they could be gaining at that time isn’t something that they would be able to pursue, because opportunity costs, right? The opportunity cost of participating on a release means that that’s the time that you could be earning an income.
And so I saw that there was conversation on that too, and I think what probably … and it was great that that conversation was happening, because it would be great to know if there were companies that stepped in to do some type of support, financial support for women and non-binary who participated in it, but that was an important part of the conversation, and it was great to see that call to action, or the opportunity to join it rather, and the conversations that came out of it.
And then I expressed interest in participating in it, and I had a chance to. I will say, though, that something that is super … something that touches me is that I was also part of minor releases, the 5.5 minor release, and I also did documentation for them, and so I want you to know that my heart is with the Minor Release Team.
Tracy Apps:
I love that.
Angela Bowman:
That’s great. In that, so your employer did not sponsor you to spend paid hours working on this contribution, you mean?
Winstina Hughes:
WordPress is … because it’s async I can contribute, and so essentially consider there’s the traditional nine to five work, and then WordPress fits in outside of work. So I’m a night out, so WordPress fits into my evenings and my nights. I’m not a morning person, so WordPress does not happen before 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM, Winstina’s contributions do not begin-
Tracy Apps:
I love that.
Winstina Hughes:
… in the morning. All of Winstina’s contributions are in the evenings and at night, and quite possibly 1:00 or 2:00 AM. So anything you see out there y’all, that’s when it’s happening.
Tracy Apps:
Well, and I think that’s an important thing to note is that … because I also, this is one of the reasons why it took me so long to contribute to WordPress, is because I didn’t have someone … I couldn’t give up those hours because I was working or I had to pay a mortgage or whatever it was, and that’s been my big complaint about the WordPress contribution, because also, like you said, isn’t Core just code? Because that’s what’s highlighted as a Core contributor, but documentation, writing, accessibility, all of those are crucial.
So one of the things is, I think it’s amazing that when you have people that say, “I was able to contribute to this small thing,” well that’s a huge thing when you are literally donating those hours, and no one is reimbursing you for those. So I think that’s a huge thing, and a testimony to … yeah, you can do a little bit and it goes a long way.
Winstina Hughes:
You’re right. You’re right. Contributing that time, absolutely, and I didn’t understand before how we’re able to all make the contributions that we do, because I didn’t have a word for async. Conceptually, I know that we do work at different times, but I didn’t really fully understand that really the WordPress project does run async, because someone who’s in Europe, once they’re working, and we wake up in the Americas, we’re continuing or doing our portion of that work, and then when we’re sleeping, someone on the continent of Africa is doing their work, and then someone in Asia … so it’s all happening in the same day, but it’s not happening at the same time.
That’s what’s fundamentally important, because I think when we come into it thinking that, “I’m working on it with you, and we both have to awake at the same time to do this work,” then it’s like, “Oh my goodness, how am I going to be able to [inaudible 00:14:39] my schedule to do it with this person? I really probably can’t do it.”
When you start to understand that that’s not how it works at all, then you can see how you fit into this larger structure, and that helped me to realize that my contribution was possible, because at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 1:00 AM, I’d be able to continue on the work that someone had been doing, and is now asleep.
Tracy Apps:
And I think that’s something that, because in the tech industry, I think we just take it for granted. We’re like, “Yeah, we can do things at any time,” but I’m in Milwaukee, and there’s still a lot of just old-school manufacturing industry, which that concept isn’t … like, “Asynchronous. What do you mean? Working remotely? How do you do that?” And in most industries, it’s a newer thing.
Winstina Hughes:
Government jobs don’t work async.
Tracy Apps:
Exactly.
Winstina Hughes:
Like government, you’re in the office. And that was the thing, post-COVID, post-pandemic, so many industries did not believe that you could work from home, not even work from home productively, that you could do your work at home rather than in the office. It was not something that a lot of industries felt was possible, and then the pandemic shifted our world and we realized, “Yeah, a computer is a computer in any location. Our binders can be in the office or in my living room,” right? Because you had to work. It’s not like the world didn’t shut down.
There was a time, there was definitely that moment where the world paused, and then there was a pause, and then an analysis, kind of like a reshuffling and then, all right, “Well, we got to get back to it however best we can,” and so, so many industries, including the one that I’m in, had to continue working in this new reality.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah, absolutely.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah. I’m really curious about, you have some pet projects that you’re involved with, like Women of WordPress, New York City, also-
Winstina Hughes:
Yes. Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
… Support Inclusion in Tech. Can you talk to us about these more personal projects of yours?
Winstina Hughes:
Yes. Women of WordPress, New York City, it has my heart, because, as a woman in this WordPress space, there are definitely moments where we are in events, whether it be Meetups or conferences … actually this doesn’t apply to conferences … but you’re at a Meetup and you want to ask a question, and this is really where my experience came from, was hosting Meetups, and then seeing the conversations being dominated by the men. And seeing that it took us longer as women to express our thoughts or ask our questions, and by the time we did that, the event was over.
So as an organizer, seeing this, observing this, for over a course of one or two years, it struck me … you know, you see it, you experience it, and then you file it away. I saw it, I was experiencing it, and I filed it away, and we had a WordCamp, New York City, and that year I was speaking at WordCamp Austin, and the conversation came out of that, where folks expressed, women expressed an interest to have an all women event series, like, “Wouldn’t that be great.”
And so even though I wasn’t physically there, I understood what they were discussing in that panel, and what they were asking for, and so when I returned and started organizing Meetups, I decided that we would do one event series for the women in New York City, and it did not go over well.
Angela Bowman:
What happened?
Winstina Hughes:
It did not go over well when that idea was proposed, to have an all women event series, and the language didn’t exist to do that, to have one either. So imagine the language … because for Meetups, it’s so interesting. Meetups are … they’re an activity, but it’s also, Meetup is a site too, and so when we think of Meetups, we’re organizing events, but they’re also located centrally on a site which is called Meetup. And so of course part of hosting an event is describing it, and copy that someone reads that’s interesting to them, that moves them to register, to RSVP, and then moves them to act, to show up, to attend. So there’s so much there, and so the copy for this event series had to be thought through well, very well.
And in the process of thinking through that and having proposed the idea, there was a lot of pushback there. I received pushback from women asking, “Why do we need to have an all women space?” And I received pushback from men asking, “Why are men excluded from this?”
Angela Bowman:
That’s interesting.
Tracy Apps:
That is a very interesting thing, because the parallels that we’ve experienced are very, very similar, and we had the same thing. I remember we were first talking about this, Angela and I met at LoopConf, like a million years ago, and we started talking about this, and we were telling some of the other attendees, the other women attendees, which there were three or seven out of the whole conference, and we had that, “Well, I don’t really want to be known, I don’t want to that to be called out. It seems exclusionary.”
And I was like … but what has actually happened is that that remedy of, “Okay, you’re right.” The conversation, the people that jump into the conversation, very quickly are typically cis, het men, right?
Winstina Hughes:
I’m going to say not typically. I’ve definitely hosted more than 50 Meetups, I want to say, so for many of them, the majority have been cisgender male. This is not a critique to them, because I actually have a series that is traditional in every sense, so I actually, I have a series that’s traditional in every sense, and then I have a co-organizers for this one that’s tailored for women. So yeah, go ahead-
Tracy Apps:
And I agree with it. Yeah, you’re right, you’re right.
Angela Bowman:
We did get pushback from women.
Tracy Apps:
We got a lot of pushback.
Angela Bowman:
Specifically, the women at the conference were saying, “I don’t want to be a woman in WordPress. I want to be a developer, and I want to be respected as developer. I don’t want it to be that I’m identified as a woman. I just want to be a person,” and I think all women ultimately want to be a person, and not necessarily identified by their gender.
But as we found out, and we created the podcast, what we’ve seen is that wow, women are having a different experience in different spaces in their WordPress communities. And for example, we’ve spoken to people in Brazil, in Bangladesh, in other parts of the world, Mexico, that women are such a minority, or not even present in the communities, that having a podcast around women in WP helps to highlight and bring to attention this disparity of the genders, and it helps to empower and share those stories that are important.
But the people who have been in those communities have said, what has shifted the demographics the most, is creating these women only events, so that women can feel a part of a community, and bolster them to go be part of a bigger WordCamp, where they’re going to be a minority, but they feel like, “Wait, I’m part of this other group. I have a place here,” and so … yeah.
Tracy Apps:
Also, one of the things we said we saw, is people like, “Oh, I would never go on a podcast like this, because I only do blank,” but when we had a space, we were like, “No, we’re looking for this and highlight that,” because we’re socially conditioned to not brag about things, and minimize ourselves and our accomplishments. And so that we gave the space and the permission to be like, “No, you are amazing,” and people have been like, “I’ve never had a space where I felt comfortable to say that.”
Winstina Hughes:
To share what I’ve done. The thing about it is, you’re right. I think we are definitely raised to be demure, and we are generally in a society that there’s a hesitancy, I think, really to talk about all your accomplishments, but when I start interviewing for jobs, I thought it was really interesting, because when you were practicing for an interview and you’re reading about the interview experience, there’s a part … I think it was some time in college I was reading … that men, when they interview, they’ll totally take credit for the experience. They’ll be like, “Oh yeah, I’m an expert. I’ve been like,” and then you’ll ask them how long have they been doing it. And then a woman will be like, “Oh no, I kind of have some experience, and I’m not really.” If you rank your experience from one to 10, what would you say? And you’d be like, “Oh, I’m maybe a six or a seven.”
And then you’d ask a guy, “What’s your experience?” And they’d be like, “Nine, 10.” And then you would look at the amount of time that they’ve been doing the work, and the woman who was hesitant to say that she’s had all this experience, and that she really is an expert, she’s spent so much longer, and then you’ll have guys who are ranked or rate higher, and they’ve been working at it a less time, or have less experience.
And so it’s definitely gender norms, and our gender norms have molded us into ways where we, as a woman, are not as comfortable talking about our accomplishments. We downplay them, and we also don’t see our years of experience as making us more experienced professionals.
And so I could absolutely say that this applies to me. I can absolutely say that does, and that’s because I’m aware, there’s self-awareness. Because I’m aware of this, where I have an opportunity to effect change and to implement my understanding, I will do that and I will use that opportunity. I am not going to sit here and try to change myself. Winstina’s not going to sit here and be like, “Okay for that next interview, be like, ‘You’re an expert.'” No, because I know when I go into it, I personally am not going to be like, “Yeah.” That’s just not me, but self-awareness, who has an opportunity to effect change and understands that experience, will create a space where other women have that environment, where they can apply what it is they also know, or have an experience. and then, as time continues onward, whatever they learned in that experience, they can apply to their future self and future experience.
They say hindsight is 20/20, right. So hindsight, Winstina looking back, knows all of the ways I could have been different and wasn’t, and I’m not going to beat myself up about it, but I absolutely do believe that current Winstina can impart that onward, and then pray that in the process of my doing that, another woman will have my experience, and be able to apply it to their current and future selves, and be able to eclipse that particular challenge or circumstance. And that’s all that I can explore.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah.
Tracy Apps:
Exactly, and that’s what I think is really … what I find so impressive about you, is that you do that. You’re like, “Okay, these are the things that I feel like this could have been done better,” and you make these spaces, you help out, and you do this to bring people, to bring the inclusion and diversity into the tech space, where it is crucial to have that. So I think that is amazing, that you’ve been able to take that experience and be able to improve other people’s lives going forward.
Winstina Hughes:
Thank you. Thank you. I definitely reflect. I reflect, but I am future facing. I do not live in the past. I’m in the present, and I live for the future, but I reflect on the past, and I do look back and think, “How could this have been better? I’m better for it, but how could this have been better?”
And I also strongly believe that just because I went through it, doesn’t mean that you have to go through it. I will never be the parent that says, “Oh, I didn’t have this.”
Angela Bowman:
Right.
Winstina Hughes:
“I didn’t have it. So you figure it.” Absolutely not. I would never be that parent, never that auntie, never that cousin, never that sister, and never that daughter. I’m always challenging to say, “Just because you have that experience, doesn’t mean that I have to,” and when it comes to, especially my friends and their children, I’m already thinking about, “Wow, this is what I know. So what could we introduce to them that, without them knowing that it’s being introduced, that will give them all we know that they will need?” That is how I choose to look at the world, and I try to experience it. And I love friends with daughters who say, “No.” Love it. I love little girls that say, “No.”
Angela Bowman:
That’s awesome.
Tracy Apps:
I love that.
Angela Bowman:
This reminds me of our conversation with Lisa Saban Wilson, and she was talking about how, when she was getting her early success, and I think people should listen to this episode because it’s quite topically aligned, that she had her head down doing her thing, and it didn’t really occur to her to reach out and try to pull other women along with her. And that she was impressed by the younger generation of women-
Winstina Hughes:
They are impressive.
Angela Bowman:
… is that these younger women are just not tolerating what we tolerated, and they’re just like, “No, this is not correct and we’re not … we’re going to speak up and we’re going to make our voices heard, and we’re also going to help all these other people,” And you’re an example of that person who is like, “Yeah, no.”
Winstina Hughes:
That’s exactly what it is.
Angela Bowman:
Love it.
Winstina Hughes:
So yeah, you totally summed it up. So that’s how I take on … that’s definitely how I take on the world, and especially being an African child, and being really nurtured and supported, but then also being in a family … my father has a very strong personality, my mom does too, but definitely more of that patriarchal experience, and just growing up like that, I’m aware of that. So in my head, I know that that’s what I’m working with, and I know that there are aspects of myself that I have to push, because of what shaped me and what’s framed me.
And so I’m not going to tie this all to Africa, because the world that we’ve lived in, even here in the US in the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, the way women moved in this space was, you were seen and not heard. And it’s not until the first generation of women started going into the workforce and started wearing suits … and remember the suits had shoulder pads as a way of putting that shape and that force out to give them that strength. The clothing, the pants suits and the blazers, those were what we were using in the workplace in order to assist us, so it’s not purely African. I’ve had friends, when I was in graduate school, from China and in South Korea, and even I had an Indian roommate when I was in college. We’ve, across the board, all cultures, we all have various conservative experiences there, and we’re still working and dealing with that. So I’m not going to put all my African up.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, your parents are from Sierra Leone, right?
Winstina Hughes:
Yes, I’m from there.
Angela Bowman:
And true … okay, so you immigrated, so you’re first generation, and that’s amazing.
Winstina Hughes:
I’m not even, I’m not even first generation, that’s what’s [inaudible 00:35:50].
Angela Bowman:
I’m sorry. You’re not first generation. You are an immigrant.
Winstina Hughes:
No, but took me a while to realize that. I thought that-
Angela Bowman:
Because you were a child, yeah?
Winstina Hughes:
Yeah, yes. I thought-
Angela Bowman:
Yes.
Winstina Hughes:
… yeah, exactly, and I thought I was first generation, and then I was looking into it and I’m like, “My sister is first generation,” yes.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah. And I know I have lots and lots of friends from West Africa, and so I 100% know what you’re talking about and from there, from what they’ve shared with me. And I’ve been to West Africa and so-
Winstina Hughes:
What country did you-
Angela Bowman:
I went to Ghana. I went to Acro and Kumasi and-
Winstina Hughes:
Awesome.
Angela Bowman:
It was super-cool. I was the first time I’d ever left the country.
Winstina Hughes:
Oh wow.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, and you can imagine how amazing that was.
Winstina Hughes:
That’s awesome. I really want to go to Ghana
Tracy Apps:
Can we do a Women in WP field trip to Ghana? Can we get sponsors for that?
Angela Bowman:
That would be great.
Winstina Hughes:
Oh, you want to get sponsors to do that?
Angela Bowman:
That would be great. Yeah, right. Amy’s usually the one that does that. “If you would like to sponsor the women in WP podcast to go to Ghana-“.
Winstina Hughes:
So that’s interesting that you say that, because then this pulls in support, inclusion in tech, and so Women of Ethnicity is my first love, and so let me also share though, that the pushback that I got was not from my male organizers, it was from members of the group. And so, I think … not just I … we happen to be in a community where we do have men who champion our efforts, and their voices, in a lot of ways, kind of drum out those who challenge our presence and our experience.
And so for New York City, Steve Bruner and Kevin Christiana, both of them really believe in and support that work, and so I have that support system to hold Women of WordPress, New York City Meetups. And because of that, never would a woman come to a Meetup and feel like she can’t be in a space that’s only for women, because we have men that want that too, because they understand it.
And so I actually worked with Cami Kaos at Automatic, she was in the community team then, to come up with language for our Meetup page, because something WordPress has to be conscious of too as a community, is that it’s possible to be sued for the language that we use and the events that we have, if they’re deemed exclusive. And so we have to create these spaces in ways that we are not exclusive, and so by it being open to non-binary, and also by looking at framing it in a way that it’s an inclusive event series.
I think that our male members also came to understand that this isn’t actually to exclude you, and because I have a series that’s for both men and women, and I talk about my experience, and they’ve come to know me over a period of time. I’m not anti-male, and there’s some ways I’m very traditional, and so as part of a personality and then also the culture that I’ve been raised in as well, and so I want a place where men also feel comfortable.
But I also know, and you point out too, and I’ve had those Meetups where the guys will talk the whole time. And in those Meetups I often have to be like, “Okay, all right, well let’s let the women ask questions first, and the men ask questions later.” If I don’t hear any … you can look at someone’s expression and see that they want to say something, but … you know what I’m talking about, right?
Tracy Apps:
Yep.
Winstina Hughes:
I’ll look, and then in that moment I’ll be like, “Okay, all right, let’s have some of the ladies here ask questions?” Just being in tune with the audience and in doing that over time and not doing it in a forceful way, in a way to make men feel uncomfortable, I think it’s become clear over time too for them, that how we engage in these events and these presentations is in fact different. And because they see that, there’s an appreciation that this isn’t meant to exclude them. This is simply to nurture the experience that we naturally have, so support Inclusion in Tech.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
Yes, yes, love it.
Tracy Apps:
You can’t beat that.
Winstina Hughes:
We’re having another conversation right now within our community about inclusion, diversity and representation. We’re looking at really making it so that different ethnicities, cultures, and folks from other parts of the world and countries can participate in the WordPress programming. There’s a lot of conversation about the need to be intentional. Actually, we’ve been intentional for a long time, but now we’re realizing that there are additional steps that we have to take in this intentionality, and so this effort is looking at the financial component. How do our finances impact our involvement? And so our finances do impact our involvement, because we’ll forego participation because we cannot afford it, and as women, we take care of our families. There’s some women who decide not to work, because they … actually, let’s not say that. They don’t seek work outside of the home, because work within the home is priority, but money that they can receive from work outside of the home does not offset the value of being in the home.
And so if you’re not bringing in income, this financial income, then that impacts your ability to participate in these events. You could have a partner that is able to handle your living, your lifestyle, and therefore, you have the financial means to be able to participate in these events. And then you could have other women, single, single women, single mothers, and not just women, but you could have people from other backgrounds, like Black Americans, those of African descent here. I’m an African immigrant in the US, and so we’re looking at Hispanic Americans, we’re looking at West Indians, Asian Americans, Native Americans. Just the breadth of all the ethnicities in the US, really lends itself to this conversation, but it’s important for us not to be US centric too-
Angela Bowman:
Yeah.
Winstina Hughes:
… because [inaudible 00:43:38] is the world.
Tracy Apps:
Exactly.
Winstina Hughes:
When we think about that too, how can we make it possible for other cultures, other ethnicities, and also those who experience challenges because of their physical characteristics, or because of anything neurological, or anything along those lines, right? Who they choose to love. When that impacts their ability to earn an income, then this effort speaks to provide them the financial resources to be able to participate. That is the goal.
Angela Bowman:
It goes down to that thing where, everyone has this assumption that everyone’s playing from an equal playing field, and then we all have this opportunity to … we all have equal opportunity, but when you do have things that are affecting, like you said, your ability to get a job, and are affecting you in that way, it’s like you’re playing from behind, and those opportunities to connect in community, to do networking with each other in WordCamps or Meetups is so important to be able to get ahead. You have to have that network, and you need to be able to be there in person with people, and so I do think we’ve had a lot of talks around this podcast, but then also outside of the podcast, around making it that helping people financially to get to these things that are so critical. You don’t know it until you attend, how important it is to be there.
Tracy Apps:
I would love to continue this conversation with you in relation to my own Meetup. In Colorado, we have a very large Hispanic population, and yet we don’t have that represented in our Meetups and WordCamps, and I’ve reached out to people like the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, to try to start that dialogue. People are like, “What’s WordPress?” But I think that financial piece is really important and to continue that conversation is certainly-
Winstina Hughes:
Your doing that matters, and yeah, I do think that the financial aspect of it is important, and I will tell you that right now I work in transportation planning and I love it. I want to tell you though, I’m a community organizer. I started community organizing around issues of housing equity, and I’ve done organizing around … excuse me … I’ve done organizing around immigration issues.
There’s a community development component of it. I took a semester off of graduate school to work on President Obama’s campaigns. I’ve done political organizing. There’s a aspect of get out the vote for that, and really just engaging different groups that make up your constituents that you serve.
And so I look at the world through that lens, and I approach a lot of things through that lens, and approaching it that way is, I think, what lends itself to me taking on the projects that you mentioned, Tracy, because there is that issue of equity.
Angela Bowman:
In all ways, and-
Winstina Hughes:
I don’t think it’s equality. I think was by junior or senior year of my life, junior or senior year of high school, I started questioning this word called equality, and then as time went on, senior high school, college, I really came to understand the word equity. And I believe it comes down to equity.
Angela Bowman:
Yes.
Winstina Hughes:
It’s funny that you bring up races, because my first blog post on my site is about running a race, and I’m a runner. I’m a runner by … there’s a runner inside of me. I feel like my natural inclination is running when we think of sports and stuff, and so I ran track, and when I want to exercise, running is what comes straight to me, and so I actually have something about running.
And I remember when I was in high school, we talked about all being on the track at the same time. I remember, metaphorically in life, and we are not all on the same track at the same time. We don’t all, when that gun goes off, we’re not all the first one off the off that block, because of life circumstances, and that’s life.
Tracy Apps:
That’s life.
Winstina Hughes:
Yes. What can we do as individuals and as a community to take into account that’s life, and look at ways of creating equitable situations and circumstances, and I do love our community, because we’re always thinking along the lines of what can we do to create that, right? We don’t believe, I really don’t think there’s really this thing about, we all know that programmers have different skills. No programmer comes into the room … in fact, when someone comes into the room, you’re going to have someone who does JavaScript, PHP, you’re going to have someone who just does Ruby or … not every programmer knows the same language, and you could pull 20 into a room and chances are among those 20 they’re speaking or working with different languages, and so we know that inherently as a community. So I don’t think that WordPress is looking … WordPress is not all JavaScript.
Every single developer is not a JavaScript developer. We’ve got folks who do PHP, so by nature of the fact that we’re already learning another type of language in order to create this software, we know that there are different things we have to do to be able to work together to put out the latest iteration of a WordPress version, and because we’re already thinking like that, I think we’re already thinking about equity and integration, and because of that we’re in a community that is open to creating those types of bonds, and blending and making it these pieces fit together.
And so this support, Inclusion in Tech, fits into this way that I think our community is, and I’m really appreciative of the partners that I have. I’m really appreciative that GoDaddy and Adam Warner stepped up. Adam said yes immediately, and that having a home that quickly just gave me, just settled me, and gave me peace, for it to have a home, let me know that I had the foundation I needed, and so that’s been really, really helpful right off.
And then Cory with Post Status, he said yes immediately too, and he and his wife, Lindsay, they said yes, and to have them also support this effort too, as partners makes it like … yeah, I can do this.
Because having them both gave me that foundation to reach out to other companies, and to be able to bring on other partners, and to have the four that I do right now, and to be able to work with Yost and Master WP, and now Taco and his team at Yost, to be able to work with him, and just their phenomenal team is, it’s just great.
Tracy Apps:
Well it also is a testimony. If everyone’s like, “Yes,” right away, you’re doing the right thing. It needs to happen, and people are ready to get behind it, and that says a lot.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, and I’m going to put some notes in our show notes so people can get more information about support Inclusion in Tech, like the link on your blog, and I think that’s just such a great note to end on because we’re at time, and to leave people with that message of the fact that, because we know that we can’t all be exactly the same in order for WordPress to happen, technically speaking, it’s the same that we can’t all be the same physically, racially-wise-
Winstina Hughes:
Ethnically.
Angela Bowman:
… or anything.
Winstina Hughes:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
We all need that diversity to make this project as dynamic as it can be.
So how can people find you online?
Winstina Hughes:
How can you find me online? You can find me on winstinahughes.com. That’s my site. My Twitter account is IamWinstina, that’s my handle. I’m there, just not currently. And I’ve been across it since 2011. So Winstina’s here. You might not see her or hear from her.
Angela Bowman:
She’s there working her magic.
Winstina Hughes:
Reach out. Reach out.
Tracy Apps:
I love that.
Angela Bowman:
Thank you so much.
Winstina Hughes:
Thank you. Thanks, Tracy. Thank you, Angela. Thanks for working with me on this.
Tracy Apps:
Thank you.
Angela Bowman:
Thank you for listening. Interested in being on the show? Sign up on our website, womeninwp.com. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook group to have conversations with other women in WordPress.
