Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Digimer]

On 09/12/13 20:39, Bob Jonkman wrote:
> 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.

For what it's worthy, and given that I don't know anything about the
even Reneta is talking about, I've been on the receiving end of
harassment before. I actually had to quit a job because management
couldn't understand what was bothering me.

In my case, the guy would in one breath tear me down; "why'd you use
that function name? That's not smart" right in front of everyone, then
in the next breath say stuff like "I like your hair". It's creepy as
heck. The other guys I worked with saw it, and they were good guys,
but they didn't understand why it was upset.

I think the problem isn't good guys not speaking up, it's good guys
not realizing when something is wrong.

-- 
Digimer
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