Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Bob Jonkman]

Hi Renata: I've only been to one TLUG meeting, although I've been to a
number of other tech events in Toronto at Linuxcaffe and Free Geek. And
not just the grass-roots events like LUGs and Ubuntu Hours, but also the
big commercial events at the Convention Centre, &c. And I go to _many_
tech events in Kitchener-Waterloo.

I've got to say I haven't seen or heard of any sexist experiences at any
of the events I go to. I don't know if that's because I wouldn't
tolerate it if it happened around me, or because it just hasn't happened
around me, or maybe because I've been oblivious.

I hope you'll come to Aruna's Ubuntu Hour this Saturday.  As an Ubuntu
event any non-inclusive behaviour is not tolerated. That doesn't mean
that people don't get passionate about their ideas. Just mention "Unity
vs. Gnome" or "Emacs vs. vi" and see if the volume of the discussion
doesn't go up. And while it's likely there is going to be a gender
imbalance at Saturday's Ubuntu Hour, there will be other women present.

Maybe give the TLUG meeting tomorrow another chance too.  Now that we've
been alerted to undesireable behaviour I expect everyone will be on the
lookout for it, and will deal with it before it has a chance to occur again.

--Bob.

(Agreement with The Ubuntu Code of Conduct is required at any event
using the Ubuntu name. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Hour and
http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu/conduct )

What: Ubuntu Hour Toronto
When: Saturday, 14 December 2013 2:00pm – 4:00pm EDT
Where: Dufferin Mall, 900 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON M6H 1K8
Registration: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-ca/2659/detail/
(optional, but appreciated)



On 13-12-09 12:19 PM, Renata Rocha 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
> 

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