Re: resource availability and (naive) ideas
2010/8/26 Margarita Manterola <margamanterola@gmail.com>:
> So, I've been thinking about this, and it's not like we don't have
> enough women: we have between 20 and 30 active women, maybe more, and
> that's a big enough number to have a small meeting. However, we are
> all over the world, flying to an in-person meeting takes time and (a
> lot of) money. And also, doing a women-only meeting sounds weird to
> me. We don't want to isolate that much from the whole Debian
> community.
I don't think that the point should be to do a women-only club, or
forbid the participation of men. Nobody would like that and it
definitely would be counter-productive. One of the distinct and more
valuable features of Debian Women is that it has never been designed
with the gender of its members and contributors in mind, but with the
common goal we're pursuing: having more female contributors.
In that sense, a Debian Women meeting shouldn't be a meeting of the
women in Debian, but a meeting of people with the common goal of
promoting the increase of female contributors to the Project. In that
way, I think such a meeting would be something positive if we focused
not only on who is attending (as long as the number of females is
higher than some critical mass, say 30%), but on pursuing the goals of
the project.
So, I'm not in favour of having a women-only event, but I am of having
a women-oriented one. An event that can help to overcome fears, to
promote visibility, to create bonds, to share ideas and projects, to
analyze what the problems are and what measures can be taken to
overcome them, and so on. I think it would be very positive.
The problem, as you say, is that we're too disperse all along the world.
Greetings,
Miry
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