Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[Zbigniew Koziol]

This is sick. I care now she is a woman or not.

On 10/12/13 17:10, Renata Rocha wrote:
> I've never had any problems with your behaviour, Colin, but I'm glad
> you can do a self-assessment and apologize in public for mistakes you
> might have done in the past. That's the right thing to do.
>
> I dislike the idea of pointing at people and telling that they've done
> this or that, as this accomplishes nothing - people need to realize
> their own mistakes and how some attitudes affect negatively others. I
> strongly believe in educating over punishing.
>
> I'm a strong believer in consent and touching someone or making jokes
> of crude nature without consent should not be tolerated at all. It's
> *not funny* and when you ignore these attitudes two things are
> happening:
> - you're giving the person permission to keep doing it, as it were an
> acceptable thing to do
> - you're giving the rest of the group permission to do the same,
> because nobody said anything against it
>
> Then it escalates.
>
> So when a female joins the group and sees another being a victim of
> this, she expects to be treated the same way by the group, as it's
> only logical.
>
> And you all also know if a woman wanted to find a romantic partner,
> TLUG would be the last place to go for it - there are plenty of online
> services offering matchmaking these days.
>
> I believe TLUG should be treated as a workplace, and if you wouldn't
> say/do something to a woman at your workplace because of the
> harassment/sexual harassment rules, then think twice before doing it
> at TLUG.
>
> Keyword: CONSENT.
> Renata Rocha
> http://renata.org
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 8:16 AM, Colin McGregor <colin.mc151-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> 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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--
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TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists