[Yapc-na-organizers] Free conference passes for women

Jim Brandt cbrandtbuffalo at gmail.com
Mon Aug 17 15:32:37 PDT 2009


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
> 
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-- 
Jim Brandt
The Perl Foundation
email: cbrandt at perlfoundation.org


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