Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Colin McGregor]

On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 12:19 PM, 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



First let me note that I know my behavior has not been perfect, and for any
distress I may have caused let me apologize.

Beyond this there is at least one person who I know to be much, much worse
than myself, who I don't know how to deal with. The temptation is to say
"well that is so-and-so being so-and-so...", further knowing that short of
the use of a baseball bat, so-and-so is not likely to change (so-and-so
seems to enjoy playing the jerk too much...).

I'm not sure what the way forward is (issuing baseball bats to the women
who do show up at the meetings isn't a solution...), but I would like to
see more women at GTALug meetings.


Colin McGregor
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