Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Renata Rocha]

Thanks, Aruna, for the support, and for sharing Good Old Val Henson's
Linuxchix How to Encourage Women on Linux HOWTO. Great contribution.

I have been a member of Linuxchix Brazil - a country with astonishing
numbers of violence against women and I was quite surprised to find
out there was no female initiative here in Canada, nor a welcoming
environment for women.

Again, I appreciate your contributions and I believe, together, we all
can help make this group more diverse.
Renata Rocha
http://renata.org


On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Aruna Hewapathirane
<aruna.hewapathirane-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I am yet to attend a TLUG meet so can't really comment. I would like to
> apologize to Renata though if anyone did make her feel uncomfortable. I
> would put this down as a lesson learnt and experience gained but I would not
> stay away, I would get involved and there are many other ways to do exactly
> that :-)
>
> Just a though about there being a 'derth' of women, we do have women and
> kernel hackers at that, and this article by one of them who is a kernel
> hacker may help:
>
> http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/
>
> This has a list as well of women in Linux:
> http://www.linuxhaxor.net/women-in-linux/
>
> This is the wiki for ubuntu-women:
> http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/
>
> There are two IRC channels as well:
> #ubuntu-women and #ubuntu-women-project chats on irc.freenode.net port 8001
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 2:19 PM, Gordon Chillcott <gordontc-HLeSyJ3qPdM at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>> > > --
>> > > 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
>> > --
>> > 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
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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
>
>
>
>
> --
> Aruna Hewapathirane
> Consultant/Trainer
> Phone : 647-709-9269
> Website: Open Source Solutions
>
>
>
--
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