On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 15:33, Sandip Bhattacharya wrote: > On Monday, 22 Aug 2005 1:19 pm, hassath wrote:
> Hassath, let us discuss this without getting bitter. I understand the > frustation, and I do agree with AMS that atmosphere in the LUG meets is > something that will make women (or children or any elderly people) > uncomfortable. > > Like someone recently said - nobody tries to make the environment > women-unfriendly. However, while I agree that the atmosphere is not right, I > also have to bring it to your attention that this is a chicken and egg > situation too. Because there are no girls or women or children generally at > these meets, people have conversation in a manner which would otherwise not > be acceptable in front of other sections of the population. > > We have had this discussion before, yes, but the reasons why they were > inconclusive was because it was discussed primarily between us males only. > > Hassath, there are certain aspects of male conversation which we know are not > appropriate if women are around (jokes about pr0n, for example). However, > there are many other aspects which only a woman can sensitize us about. As > you pointed out, you found an official announcement in bad taste. There would > be some parts of that which are immediately understandable as being > inappropriate. However, there might be other parts of the conversation which > might not be so clear to others. We need help on this from women like you. > Please help us "clean" out all our official announcements on Freedel, for > instance. > > Just as we need people with experience in dealing with physically challenged > persons, to sensitize us about building accessible technology, we need help > from women professionals like you who deal with such issues everyday, to help > make ILUGD more "friendly" to all sections of the population. (Uh. huh. Bad > analogy -> might be taken otherwise by certain people. I am not trying to > make any insinuation about women being challenged in anyway. ... Sigh. See > how difficult being politically correct all the time is?) > > - Sandip Yeah, if being gender sensitive is so difficult, and being patriarchal is so easy, maybe I made a mistake in raising the issue. And Sandip, my bitterness is not the bitterness of this thread on this mailing list- it is the bitterness of countless women being marginalised and being subjected to patriarchy by the dominant sex over centuries in various fields of life. Why can't you all help with empowerment- so that women don't feel bitter? I repeat- I am not bitter against the few males who have helped me learn what I do know, as far as FLOSS is concerned. If you can't take a certain amount of bitterness from the marginalised, then maybe you shouldn't be interacting with them. Have you noticed what has made me bitter- even limiting it to the list? Please try to understand. If bitterness becomes more of the issue,than the issue- then i really don't know. Like i said, I brought up the issue cos i thought the list was actually interested in changes. If it isn't, then sorry- I take my hands off. Regards, Hassath _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
