Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Gordon Chillcott]

Renata definitely has a point.   And this has been discussed at more
than a few of the executive meetings - those discussions were often led
by Scott Sullivan, who is the current board chairman and president.

That being said, the Code of Conduct really needs to be reviewed -
especially on this matter.

In the meantime, an idea came to mind:  There is often strength in
numbers.   It might be an idea to recruit a group to attend a meeting en
mass, so to speak.    It would be interesting to watch the reaction of
the group.

Mind you, you need to select a meeting with an interesting topic.   No
sense putting in an appearance, only to be bored to death.

Gordon


On Mon, 2013-12-09 at 13:55 -0500, David Mason wrote:
> Thanks for the reminder.
> 
> I don't attend that often, and unfortunately missed any meetings you -
> or, to the best of my memory, *any* woman - attended.  As a professor
> of computer science, I am appalled at the utter male domination of our
> field, and appreciate being reminded of at least one of the factors
> leading to the the dearth of women.  It behooves all of us to root out
> misogyny wherever we see it!
> 
> ../Dave
> 
> On 9 December 2013 12:19, Renata Rocha <natzilla-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > I like TLUG a lot, and used to attend the meetings. But you haven't
> > seen me at the meetings in a while, and probably won't see me anytime
> > soon.
> >
> > Some men who attend TLUG and we know who they are have a
> > predatory/harassing behaviour when in presence of women. If you attend
> > TLUG, have seen this happen and have ignored this behaviour of your
> > colleague, you are enabling violence against women to keep happening
> > at the TLUG environment, and keeping women away from the group.
> >
> > I have myself promised not to come back to the meetings while I see
> > this kind of harassment in public being ignored, and the people who do
> > it not held accountable for their actions.
> >
> > What you can do: talk to these members and make them at least
> > apologize for their actions and make women feel safe and comfortable
> > again at the TLUG meetings. I'd love to learn and hang out with you,
> > but your environment is not welcoming for me and for other women in IT
> > I know. We're in this for the same reason as everyone else - learning
> > and sharing.
> >
> > (Yes yes I realize there's more than man/woman in the world, but for
> > this case specifically I wanted to keep the universe limited. )
> >
> > Renata Rocha
> > http://renata.org
> > --
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--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists