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Re: list statistics



* Ana Guerrero <ana@ekaia.org> [2006:01:21 00:32 +0100]: 
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 11:17:39AM +1100, Helen Faulkner wrote:
> > So, a couple of questions (these have been asked before, and will probably be
> > asked again in the future):
> > 
> >  Is the Debian Women project meeting your needs?  How could it do so better?
> 
> Yes, it *did*. In my case, it helped (and encouraged) me some time ago.
> I don't know whether d-w can do anything more for me or not, but i'm
> still worried about how encourage more woman to participate in Debian.

One thing I'm wondering is whether some aspects of Debian itself are
discouraging... personally, I'm a bit nervous about encouraging women to
join, only for them to find out that the rest of the project may not
actually be something they want to participate in. Recent events on
d-d-a, for example, and the general "abuse" of people who are brave
enough to admit they're offended by such things, has left me with a bad
taste in my mouth. "Yes, women, please join Debian but don't mind the
people who think it's OK to objectify women and don't mind the people
who defend their right to do so because, you know, by doing so they are
defending someone's right to freedom of speech and that is a far more
worthy cause than fighting sexism!"

Many of us have been around long enough and know the general culture
that while things like that may still be shocking, they're not a total
dealbreaker like they might've been when we just got involved. I don't
have that fresh perspective though, so I find it difficult to guess
newcomers' thresholds, nevermind what they consider important. DW's goal
was never to isolate women, but I'm wondering if it, as a sub-project,
has come to encompass more than just "women" and as such whether it's OK
for people to be isolated within it. One can quite easily participate in
DW and communicate with a varied and wonderful group of /people/ in
Debian, both women and men. 

> >  Do you think the Debian Women project is still helping to encourage more women
> > to be involved in Debian?
> 
> No, i think we're very quiet. The one thing we keep doing is visibility,
> we're now a known sub-project inside Debian.

I agree with you here -- people are far less likely to object to our
right to be here (perhaps due to fatigue ;)) and I think much of Debian
has either accepted or embraced what we've done. 

-- 
off the chain like a rebellious guanine nucleotide



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