Women and TLUG - a personal rant

[William Porquet]

Hi folks,

I'm glad we renewed this discussion (after avoiding the inevitable trolling).

I've been to a few TLUG presentations over the past couple of years,
and I gave two last year (the first on wifi hacking, and the second on
hacking the Voynich Manuscript with Linux and FOSS tools).

I agree that the heckling can be too much sometimes. I personally
didn't mind it myself, but I think my subject matter was so obscure in
my second talk that no one had a lot of material to throw back at me.
Plus I started the talk with the famous XKCD "Voynich" cartoon, so
they didn't even have that on me. ;-)

This thread makes me wonder, however, how my experience giving a talk
would have gone if I presented as female? Reminds me of the scene in
The Little Prince about the Turkish astronomer giving two talks about
discovering a star, one in traditional Turkish garb and the other in a
business suit. In spite of having valid data, he was only believed by
the established astronomer community whilst wearing the business suit.

Maybe we need a presentation on gender sensitivity and geek social
fallacies within the IT community?

Just my $0.02 worth.

Cheers,
William


On 15 January 2014 16:25, Renata Rocha <natzilla-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> When presenting to adults, one should not have to "layout the ground rules"
>> of politeness. This is something most people are taught in kindergarten.
>>
>> I've presented at LUGs smaller than TLUG, I've presented before many
>> potential clients (where you expect arrows to be flung), I've presented at
>> large organizations (LCE '11, for one)... Never outside of TLUG have I had
>> problems with people interrupting and heckling.
>>
>> This said, 90%+ of the TLUG members are awesome and mature. It's time though
>> for the other 10%- to grow up if TLUG as a group wants to stay relevant.
>
> Can I just upvote this?
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-- 
William Porquet, M.A. ☨ mailto:william-HPpJ5Ac2/Hg at public.gmane.org ☨ http://www.2038.org/
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” - Lucius
Annæus Seneca
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