There's a real tendency in developer circles to see CSS as a kind of black magic that can't be learned or understood by "real developers" because it defies rational logic. And yet, somehow sites still get built, and look good, and people engage with them!
This talk is not an attempt to dazzle you with fancy displays of CSS wizardry. Instead, we'll unpack some of the myths about CSS and its place in a developer's toolkit. We'll also explore what perpetuating those myths -- that CSS is either arcane nonsense, or so simple it's not real code, or (somehow) both at once -- means to the people on our teams who are doing this work, especially the ones who also happen to be women or members of other under-represented groups.
I owe an astonishing amount of what I know about CSS not only to the hard work of women like Molly Holzschlag, Jen Simmons, Sara Soueidan, Léa Verou, and Estelle Weyl, but to their patience and generosity in providing tutorials and demos and talks to explain their discoveries. And yet, every few days I see a thread on Twitter from a woman about how she feels CSS is minimised or dismissed as "women's work" (sadly, an actual quote!)
I believe our attitude towards CSS both reflects, and is reflected by, the treatment of women in our industry, and particularly women who are front-end developers. CSS is real dev work, and the developers who invest so much of their careers into honing their skills and staying on top of industry standards deserve to be recognised for it, the same as their peers at other levels of the technology stack.
This talk might not help you write better CSS. But it might help you be a better person to your colleagues who are already doing the work.