Perhaps the difference is that some geeks have less real life experience (because they spend so much time on computers) and thus don't know how to behave in real life situations when coming face to face with people of either sex.
Cheers,
Greg
From: chat-bounces at lca2011.linux.org.au [mailto:chat-bounces at lca2011.linux.org.au] On Behalf Of Ryan Stuart
Sent: Tuesday, 1 February 2011 10:42 AM
To: LCA2011 Delegates Chat
Subject: Re: [LCA2011-Chat] Some Anti-Harassment Policies considered harmful
I must admit, I am relatively new participant to this community and as such I am not caught up the history of this issue as it relates to this community specifically. However, I have been involved at a board level with both sporting clubs and governing bodies here in Brisbane for over 5 years now. It is a sport with a far greater number of Male participants then Female participants.
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 9:39 PM, Sam Vilain <sam at vilain.net<mailto:sam at vilain.net>> wrote:
There is one thing I noticed at this LCA that I haven't noticed before.
The Unicorns were there, and they were there in force.
And I feel that has to be a good thing.
If adopting Geek Feminism guidelines is partially responsible for that,
then I think that's great. I've read a large chunk of the site and I
don't think any of it is unreasonable. It certainly made me think a
lot. And what is feminism but support for changes towards gender equality?
I sincerely hope the Geek Feminism policy was not the reason. I'm all for encouraging more female participants on the FOSS community but policies like this one is NOT the way to do it.
If attitudes towards women is a problem in the community (and talk up until now suggest that it might be with at least a subset) then there is a way to deal with it which is used repeatedly by sporting organisations and companies both in Australia and around the world. Instead of writing policies like the Geek Feminism policy, effort should be put into educating people on the issues and how to resolve them. In this case, I think it would be a far better use of time if the people involved with Geek Feminism came up with an education program to highlight the issues with women participating in the FOSS community and how to make women feel more welcome. It should also deal specifically with sexual harassment if it is an issue with examples of what sexual harassment is and it should refer to the sexual harassment policies employed by the conference which has, so it seems, historically refereed to the law on the matter, These materials should be distributed to everyone that registers for the conference and a talk
should be given on registration day for those who wish to attend (subject to the content being approved by the conference organisers).
It is a proven strategy that has seen positive results across many sports and companies in Australia. It is also an ongoing process as new people enter the sporting communities and companies. I have never seen the need for a policy like the Geek Feminism policy while I have been involved in sport in Brisbane (the split between men and women in the sport is approx. 90% 10%). Education + existing laws has always proved enough.
Cheers
--
Ryan Stuart, B.Eng
Software Engineer
E: ryan at stuart.id.au<mailto:ryan at stuart.id.au>
M: +61-431-299-036
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Received on Tue Feb 01 2011 - 12:29:13 GMT