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From: Lætitia Avrot <[email protected]>
To: Boriss Mejias <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: What we need to do
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 14:51:18 +0000
Message-ID: <CAB_COdjRw-KkiEOUQPweS+hM0pgaTeVGZ63Lgg=gDVq+2tNunA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
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	<[email protected]>

Hi Boriss,

>
> I understand that we agree that as an organization, we better work on this
> together, women and men. That was my first paragraph about. This seems to
> be
> kind of a consensus in the group, so I feel welcome to participate and
> contribute.
>
> More comments here below regarding the part where we disagree.
>
> Lætitia Avrot wrote on 12-04-18 13:48:
> > Hi Boriss
> >
> >
> >     I think excluding men from certain activities can be positive in the
> goal of
> >     making women feel welcomed. For instance: Women-only IRC/Slack
> channels can
> >     be a good thing. Women-only Hackathon can also help in making women
> feel
> >     welcomed.
> >
> >
> > I strongly disagree. I want everyone to feel welcome, whatever their
> gender is.
> > If you start creating little worlds without men, first you exclude
> people and
> > that's a negative message to give and then it's totally artificial as
> our world
> > is populated with both men and women.
>
> I understand your concern, and I know you don't have problems
> participating in a
> world with mostly men. I saw your presentation at FOSDEM and you didn't
> seem
> intimidated at all. But for some women, maybe it is better to give some
> steps in
> a community removing some of the barriers (fictionally, I agree), but as
> an
> intermediate step, not as a fake reality, nor as a goal.
>
> When I was in academia we often discussed the fact that so few women study
> informatics. A professor told us that their statistics (sorry I don't have
> them
> to confirm) showed that the percentage of women studying engineering was
> smaller
> if they were coming from a mixed-school, than from a girls-only school.
> Their
> conclusion was that women in a girls-only school didn't developed the idea
> that
> computers and science was a boy-thing, so they wouldn't be affected by
> that
> cliché when making a choice for their studies.
>
>
>
>
> > So if we feel there is a problem with with
> > women representation in our community, we need to find a solution
> together.
>
> Absolutely. I started reading "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg (I like it a
> lot by
> the way). She insists that this is something we have to work on together.
> She
> also tells some stories of her experience speaking and participating in
> women-only events, with very good results.
>
> Note that I'm not saying that creating women-only activities is the
> solution. I
> just feel we don't have to discard them a priori, because they seem to
> have a
> benefit for some women in the long run, as an intermediate step. I think
> we
> should evaluate this when there is a more concrete proposal.
>

> I understand better your point of view. It's against my faith that men and
women can live together without harming themselves but I know that
statistics show that it can be beneficial.

So here are my thoughts : we could discuss some women-only activities, but
not now. It's too soon and would send the wrong message. I'd prefer we
focus on what we could do together for now.

Cheers,

Lætitia

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