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<p>> This is a common mistake. If you aim for the already
declining percentage of women, you will not get far. You have to
aim for the percentage of population. The fact that only 37% of
our industry is female is itself a problem we have to address.</p>
<p>...<br>
</p>
<p>> But going back to the topic of this thread, until we have
half of the developers/speakers/users being woman, we have a
problem.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
I agree it's a common mistake, but I suspect I'm referring to a
different mistake. Equality is about equal <i>opportunity</i>. It's
not about forcing equal statistically representative numbers of
people of various diversity types into all industries equally.
Everyone should have the opportunity to do whatever they want.<br>
<br>
But rather than assertions, lets look at what science says on the
matter.<br>
Which set of countries has more gender equality in STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) - GIS falls under the T and
some of the S:<br>
Finland, Norway (Countries that address most of the issues in your
linked US-focused Forbes article)<br>
or<br>
Tunisia, United Arab Emirates?<br>
<br>
Chances are you picked wrong. It turns out that in countries with
poor human/women's rights records (UAE, Tunisia) there are <b>more</b>
females in STEM, and in countries where there is more gender
equality (i.e. the Scandinavians), the women choose <i>not </i>to
go into STEM.<br>
<br>
For discussion see:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://researchtheheadlines.org/2018/04/20/the-stem-gender-equality-paradox-from-fallacies-to-facts/">https://researchtheheadlines.org/2018/04/20/the-stem-gender-equality-paradox-from-fallacies-to-facts/</a>
- and the actual paper:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617741719">http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617741719</a><br>
<br>
It's great that you chose GIS, but given the choice, the research
indicates that most women chose something other than STEM if they
live in a progressive country, most likely psychology, education,
and healthcare, all of which are generally dominated by women. Given
this, to me at least, trying to force a perfect 50/50 gender balance
would thus seem to be doing a dis-service to people of both genders;
it's not equality of opportunity even if it does achieve perfect
diversity.<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2018-08-11 14:29, María Arias de
Reyna wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAERgKeC-ZQ8NOY4KgXQkHfAxfYY5Z2Z2x4ZO9mf13pQKez7B1g@mail.gmail.com">
<pre wrap="">On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 2:43 PM, Jonathan Moules
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jonathan-lists@lightpear.com"><jonathan-lists@lightpear.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap=""> Once we have a 50% of speakers that are women (even 40%), we can start
saying that having a full keynoter line of women speakers is no diversity.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
At the risk of asking a question that I know isn't meant to be asked - why
50%? Or "even 40%"? Surely the % should be around the same as the percentage
of the workforce that engage in the field? This survey indicates it's about
37% globally so 40% would be reasonable -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.gislounge.com/gender-gis-workforce/">https://www.gislounge.com/gender-gis-workforce/</a>
(Why the rate is 37% globally is an entirely different kettle of fish).
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
This is a common mistake. If you aim for the already declining
percentage of women, you will not get far. You have to aim for the
percentage of population. The fact that only 37% of our industry is
female is itself a problem we have to address.
The lack of role models (speakers? women in the mailing lists? women
in developer leading roles?) and specially the lack of a friendly
environment for women at work is a problem in most tech related
industries:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://code.likeagirl.io/women-are-leaving-tech-and-management-is-responsible-a6187a4d5d81">https://code.likeagirl.io/women-are-leaving-tech-and-management-is-responsible-a6187a4d5d81</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/02/28/why-women-leave-the-tech-industry-at-a-45-higher-rate-than-men/">https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/02/28/why-women-leave-the-tech-industry-at-a-45-higher-rate-than-men/</a>
Not my best talk (blame jet lag), but this can give you more
perspective: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://vimeo.com/241597584">https://vimeo.com/241597584</a>
And this also applies to racial diversity. If the global foss4g is
mostly white... we have a problem.
But going back to the topic of this thread, until we have half of the
developers/speakers/users being woman, we have a problem. And the
longer we ignore it, the worse it gets.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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