From joshua.mcadams at gmail.com Mon Aug 17 08:31:46 2009 From: joshua.mcadams at gmail.com (Joshua) Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:31:46 -0500 Subject: [Yapc-na-organizers] Free conference passes for women Message-ID: <49d805d70908170831s7db44cc5p73b5c2806469b07d@mail.gmail.com> To me it feels a little like "ladies night" that bars have, but in some ways it does seem like a good idea too: http://jaoo.dk/aarhus-2009/women/ Depending on how the development community takes the JAOO offer, could/should we consider something similar for YAPCs? For those who don't want to click the link, it looks like the conference is giving out free passes for a single day to women technologists in order to encourage them to attend: "There are not enough women in the IT industry, and almost none of them rise to senior management level. The women in the IT company Trifork A/S want to change that. When Trifork A/S for the 13th time welcomes participants to JAOO Aarhus, female software developers, project managers, IT architects etc. get free access to one of the 3 conference days. A part of the conference programme will be targeted towards those few women who are in the IT industry." From autarch at urth.org Mon Aug 17 08:44:46 2009 From: autarch at urth.org (Dave Rolsky) Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:44:46 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Yapc-na-organizers] Free conference passes for women In-Reply-To: <49d805d70908170831s7db44cc5p73b5c2806469b07d@mail.gmail.com> References: <49d805d70908170831s7db44cc5p73b5c2806469b07d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, Joshua wrote: > To me it feels a little like "ladies night" that bars have, but in > some ways it does seem like a good idea too: > http://jaoo.dk/aarhus-2009/women/ > > Depending on how the development community takes the JAOO offer, > could/should we consider something similar for YAPCs? I don't think there's any reason _not_ to do this. It's certainly a nice idea, and there's little cost to giving it a shot. However, I don't think that this alone will make a big change in how many women attend our conferences. YAPC and the Perl workshops are all _very_ cheap, so price cannot be the thing keeping women away. I suspect what keeps women away is some combination of (in no particular order): * Lack of self-confidence - "I'm not good enough to go hang out with 'real' geeks" * Real and/or expected assholery from the community - "I don't want to hang out with a bunch of jerks" and "I'm sure people who go to conferences are all socially retarded dipshits" * Lack of interest - "I program to make money, and when I go home I'm done" I'd also point out that these sorts of reasons can apply to men as well. While we can't do much about lack of interest, I think the first two could possibly be addressed a bit, possibly with some good advertising. Of course, the question then is _where_ to do said advertising. -dave /*============================================================ http://VegGuide.org http://blog.urth.org Your guide to all that's veg House Absolute(ly Pointless) ============================================================*/ From cbrandtbuffalo at gmail.com Mon Aug 17 15:32:37 2009 From: cbrandtbuffalo at gmail.com (Jim Brandt) Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:32:37 -0400 Subject: [Yapc-na-organizers] Free conference passes for women In-Reply-To: References: <49d805d70908170831s7db44cc5p73b5c2806469b07d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A89DA85.40004@perlfoundation.org> The other way to address some of these is to have more women speakers. So maybe we do this _and_ actively solicit talks from women? On 8/17/09 11:44 AM, Dave Rolsky wrote: > On Mon, 17 Aug 2009, Joshua wrote: > >> To me it feels a little like "ladies night" that bars have, but in >> some ways it does seem like a good idea too: >> http://jaoo.dk/aarhus-2009/women/ >> >> Depending on how the development community takes the JAOO offer, >> could/should we consider something similar for YAPCs? > > I don't think there's any reason _not_ to do this. It's certainly a nice > idea, and there's little cost to giving it a shot. > > However, I don't think that this alone will make a big change in how > many women attend our conferences. YAPC and the Perl workshops are all > _very_ cheap, so price cannot be the thing keeping women away. > > I suspect what keeps women away is some combination of (in no particular > order): > > * Lack of self-confidence - "I'm not good enough to go hang out with > 'real' geeks" > > * Real and/or expected assholery from the community - "I don't want to > hang out with a bunch of jerks" and "I'm sure people who go to > conferences are all socially retarded dipshits" > > * Lack of interest - "I program to make money, and when I go home I'm done" > > I'd also point out that these sorts of reasons can apply to men as well. > > While we can't do much about lack of interest, I think the first two > could possibly be addressed a bit, possibly with some good advertising. > Of course, the question then is _where_ to do said advertising. > > > -dave > > /*============================================================ > http://VegGuide.org http://blog.urth.org > Your guide to all that's veg House Absolute(ly Pointless) > ============================================================*/ > _______________________________________________ > YAPC-NA-organizers mailing list > YAPC-NA-organizers at pm.org > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/yapc-na-organizers -- Jim Brandt The Perl Foundation email: cbrandt at perlfoundation.org