thanks for the correction ginger - i had (stupidly) forgotten about the
river valley documentation which is of course a hugely valuable
resource; & yes a 1:10 ratio is much better than many other floss events.
your comment about falling at the first gate in your other email is
pretty much what i'm getting at; it's great that you came back & found
your place, i'm sure it's helped others to also find a place there &
it's good to know that LGM is doing better in terms of more women
attending every year.
i knew i was potentially opening a can of worms by raising this but i
also think it's good to consider & discuss issues of
inclusiveness/exclusiveness in this kind of group, & to give some
thought to those who might be falling at the first gate.
h : )
On 12/01/11 4:56 PM, ginger coons wrote:
a) Lovely film. The music is awesome and the whole thing is just plain
beautiful.
b) Yes, there are, indeed, two women in the whole two minutes of the
film and they're not the focus of the shots in which they appear.
They're scenery.
c) Does that actually matter? (see next point for why it might not)
d) This is not the only video documentation of LGM 2010. In fact, in
Kaveh's documentation of talks
(http://river-valley.tv/conferences/lgm-2010), there are lots of women
represented. Not only are they represented, they're represented as
active and valued members of the community who are having their voices
heard. There are 9 women represented in talks on page one of the River
Valley archive alone and more on the next page. There are a further 3
represented in the Constant Active Archives documentation
(http://activearchives.org/aa/qna/Libre_Graphics_Meeting/). And they
are, once again, represented as active participants whose opinions and
views matter and are listened to.
e) We're still way ahead of a lot of other F/LOSS events in terms of
straight-up, ratio-based representation (never mind the subjective
value of different kinds of participation and representation, which is
a whole other, very long discussion).
f) Every year, we do better. <anecdote> From my first LGM (Montreal,
2007) to now, there have been huge changes in terms of the number of
women attending, participating and talking. The event feels more and
more inclusive every time, which is great. It's a far cry from what I
perceived when I walked into the lecture hall at the Polytechnique and
saw what appeared to be a hundred or so men and maybe two women.
</anecdote>
g) +1 on Prokoudine's point. Maybe looking at the ratio is a bit of a
brute force type of tactic which really doesn't necessarily take into
account the actual impact of women in the event and the community.
-ginger
--
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helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst
[email protected]
http://www.creative-catalyst.com
http://www.avatarbodycollision.org
http://www.upstage.org.nz
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