A thousand household uses
This afternoon, after Jon Corbet's fascinating and ever-diplomatic talk
about setting up Linux Weekly News, I attended
the Training
Allies talk of the Haecksen Miniconf. This was an eye-opening tutorial
for men about how to support women in the FOSS community. The format was
that we would be given a social situation and someone would have to behave
in some way that socially disadvantaged women. Then the other people in
the situation would get suggestions of things to say that could help defuse
or reverse that comment, and people from the audience would contribute
their own thoughts about how to deal with that situation in a positive and
constructive manner.
I found it extremely challenging to get up and say to a woman "are you here for the partners' programme?" even in a role-played situation. I never want to have to be in anything like that situation. If every man could feel the way that I did when they went to say that kind of comment, there would be no sexism. It's hard enough when such a comment is made accidentally, or without thinking, but when it's a deliberate, pre-planned thing it pushes really hard on all the buttons I've developed from a childhood of being bullied at school.
Other than my own physical discomfort, though, the whole thing went very well and was well received. I think Val's absolutely right when she talkes about "magical man sparkles" (don't let me analyze vampire movies right now, though) - men get instant 'blokey' credentials with other men and will heed a comment that would be ignored or criticised if made by a woman. We need to use these credentials to change the way other men act and think about women.
I had the opportunity to put some of this thinking into practice sooner than I had anticipated. Picking up dinner from an indian restaurant, I had been greeted by the woman at the counter who had taken my phone order; a man also working at the restaurant was standing at the counter. We had just started talking about my day when he said "She's very pretty, isn't she?"
I didn't even have time to consciously think abou what we'd done in the Allies session; something just stuck in my head about his choice of the word 'pretty'. I replied with "We're all pretty, aren't we?"
A grin, a laugh, and we moved on to other topics and I talked about how cool LCA was. The lady said "it sounds like it's an awesome day", and I had to agree. Maybe there was something even cleverer to say, but I'm pretty happy with having come with something that defused the situation without being negative. Picking up a take-away order isn't the time to fight the appropriateness of a comment like that, but I feel that by making light of it indirectly makes the statement "you do not have a right to single her out for comment to another person, nor make me part of whatever game you're playing". The lessons I've learnt in dealing with how to enable women in FOSS also apply equally well to everyday situations.
There is no victory for feminism, no point at which we can all shout
hurray and not worry about it any more. Feminism is just another way of
fighting injustice and prejudice, and that happens everywhere. We all
have to think carefully about the example we set. Ultimately to me it
boils down to hypocrisy - treating someone else in a way that you would
not accept being treated. We will all have to continue to fight
hypocrisy wherever we find it in whatever form, and with whatever energy
and tools we have to hand.
posted at: 22:36 | path: /personal | permanent link to this entry
The device will submit!
I arrived a bit early for the Southern Plumbers miniconference at
LCA 2011 and ended up watching
people trying to work out why the projection system wasn't working -
staring at various devices, switching things off and on, sulking, calling
for other knowledgeable advisors, opening cupboards, etc. It was rather
like that scene in The
Diamond Age where Doctor X is trying to get his nanotech working.
And I realised that, with virtually any other conference, if the projection system had stopped working there it would have been "Sorry, everyone, we can't get the projection system working, we're going to have to move". But here at LCA you have so many knowledgeable, analytical, people - people for whom a piece of technology working is almost a personal affront - the problem won't resist for long. The problem will submit.
That's what makes it such a fun conference.
(We do need to realise, overall, that sometimes we need to take a step
back and ask whether this is worth solving, or whether even we should solve
this problem at all. I put it that if some engineers were told to open the
gates of hell and let the unholy minions out upon the earth, they would
try to work out how to do it rather than ask whether it was a good idea.
But generally I think fixing things so they work - and knowing enough to
fix things - is better than relying on someone else to do it.)
posted at: 11:48 | path: /tech/lca | permanent link to this entry
LCA 2013 bid process opens - Canberra at the ready!
For the last several months, a small group of people in Canberra including
myself have been preparing a bid for LCA 2013. This is not just to give us
more time to make the conference the most awesome, mind-pummelling LCA you've
ever been to. No - 2013 is also the centenary of the founding of Canberra as
the nation's capital. It's a very significant year for us and we'd all be
thrilled if we could show the attendees of LCA our great city and Canberrans
the great work the FOSS community does to improve everyone's lives.
So we're really stoked that the bidding process is going to be opened early, and I think it'll lead to a really interesting competition that will result, whoever wins, in the best LCA ever!
If you're interested in being a part of the team putting this event together,
email me!
posted at: 10:21 | path: /tech/lca | permanent link to this entry
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