[TriLUG] Palmer for another SC term; proposed amendment to the bylaws

[Kevin Hunter Kesling]

Hello TriLUG,

My wife, Elizabeth, was intrigued by the conversation that Cristóbal 
started with this thread, and felt compelled to respond.  This response 
is not necessarily to Cristóbal's original message, but to the entire 
thread and linked background information (thank you for those, 
Cristóbal!).  Below is her response, since she is not subscribed to the 
TriLUG mailing list.

Kevin

At 1:22pm -0400 Wed, 24 Apr 2013, Cristóbal Palmer wrote:
> I hope you'll read the blog post below and engage with the group to
> make our bylaws better. Come May, you'll have a chance to vote on
> both my candidacy for the SC and the amendment. Please see my blog
> post introducing this topic here (warning -- long and potentially
> difficult):
>
> http://pebkac.homelinux.net/2013/04/24/an-anti-harassment-policy-for-trilug

To TriLUG,

First, let me start off by saying I am not writing on behalf of all 
women.  I am only one woman among many, but having attended a few TriLUG 
meetings with my partner, Kevin, I felt that I should contribute, as a 
woman, to the discussion on the anti-harassment policy and the problem 
of gender in TriLUG on the whole.  I'm not speaking for all women, but I 
do make some general comments about women.  They're based on my 
experience as a woman in education and teaching women.  Like all 
generalities, they are used in the spirit of my argument -- please do 
not interpret these generalities as hard-and-fast rules.

While I am appreciative of the effort and philosophy behind writing and 
putting into place an anti-harassment policy, I share many of the same 
views as some of the other members who have contributed to this thread. 
  Namely, that an anti-harassment policy makes an environment more 
inclusive, but it does not in and of itself bring more women to TriLUG. 
  I have been to 5 or 6 TriLUG meetings (without an anti-harassment 
policy in place), but I went largely to increase the number of women 
present and to spend time with my partner.  Of those 5-6 meetings, only 
1 meeting was of significant interest (Greg's OLPC talk).  It was of 
interest because 1) it connected to my larger field of education, and 2) 
it connected open source tools and technology to real-world scenarios. 
As a woman, I am well aware of what I am getting into when I step foot 
in the door of TriLUG.  I recognize I will be a minority in many 
respects, and because I am often under-represented in many other aspects 
of my life, including my career, I have to weigh out just how much 
mental energy I have to devote to being a minority in yet another 
setting.  The bottom line is, if you want more women involved, you have 
to make the content and presentation of the TriLUG meetings more 
appealing.  Sure it's great to know once I'm in the door that I won't 
have to worry about being harassed, but the removal of potential 
harassment doesn't make the meetings any more interesting or appealing 
to me.  I am not more likely to attend what I consider to be a boring 
meeting just because there is an anti-harassment policy in place.

As an educator, I am keenly aware of the groups of individuals that are 
not reached by traditional education in this country.  And in this 
respect, women and autodidacts (of which self-proclaimed geeks make up a 
large part) are two groups (not to exclude the female autodidacts) who 
are not typically well-served in the public school system.  In the last 
ten years, with an increased focus on standards and one-time performance 
based measures, we have seen an ever-increasing gap in the number of 
women who stay with STEAM [1] subjects, as well as the number of 
autodidacts who stay engaged within the traditional school system.  We 
know a lot of things about how women, autodidacts, and female 
autodidacts (let's call this sub-group WAFAs) process information 
differently from other groups of individuals: they typically are master 
synthesizers -- folks who can take a large amount of information and 
rapidly piece together connections between prior knowledge and new 
content/problems.  Because of this ability to synthesize, WAFAs also 
prefer a variety of ways to learn new information, and favor 
visual-kinesthetic approaches in particular, as these typically allow 
greater flexibility in risk-taking.  Many of these WAFAs are also master 
storytellers: they can take newly acquired content and weave it into an 
existing narrative.  A clear tech-related example of this idea of 
synthesis and narrative-making are open source tools.  The idea of being 
able to view and manipulate the source code of a webpage, for example, 
allows individuals to make connections visually between the "finished" 
version of a webpage and its code, and then to physically manipulate the 
code to achieve a variety of visual results.  What's more, often open 
source tools offer web-based communities, in which developing skills can 
be proofed by a group.  Community-based feedback is an incredible tool 
for intellectual risk-taking: when you know you have the support, even 
if it's critical, of a larger group, you are more likely to continue 
taking the risk of sharing what you've learned.  And we know that the 
first step to learning something is to be able to take the risk to share 
it with others (and even better if you can then share your "proofed" 
code and teach it to others!).

Yet in all this beautiful critical thinking and risk-taking, there is 
little opportunity for WAFAs to demonstrate their intellectual ability 
in the traditional school system.  How can you involve the community in 
intellectual risk-taking when your performance is measured by a single 
test on a single day? What if the connections you are trying to make 
between X and Y don't fit within the 9-week quarter? What if your 
performance in STEAM subjects was dependent on your ability to verbally 
participate in a large lecture-style class, to memorize unrelated series 
of facts, and to spit them back out on a single final exam? As an 
educator, the beauty of open source tools is that they allow more unique 
thinkers and minds to get hooked into learning in a community rather 
than assuming that because they don't fit the "standard," they must head 
out solo.

What opportunities does TriLUG offer to those individuals who want to 
engage in community-supported intellectual risk-taking? In my 
experience, many of the TriLUG meetings are a traditional lecture-style 
format, with very little opportunity for participants to try out what's 
being presented or to contribute in meaningful ways.  It is not just 
women who are not being reached; there are other diverse members within 
the community who are also not being reached.  My point is this: vary 
the format of delivery and vary the types of individuals presenting, and 
you'll not just attract more women to TriLUG, but will hook in a wider 
variety of individuals.  Why should open source tools be presented in 
the "standard" format when most folks drawn to the open source community 
don't fit most standards?

And now to close with the gender piece.  I wrote here today as a woman, 
because I think it's important that women speak for themselves.  I also 
wanted to broaden the scope of the conversation and suggest that geeks 
and women (geek or otherwise) have a lot more in common than one might 
think.  I think the larger issue here is that the TriLUG community wants 
to benefit from a diversity of voices, but is unsure how to go about 
increasing that diversity.  And, not wanting to speak for women, it is 
also having a hard time getting more women's voices in the conversation. 
  As a woman, then, let me say that I recognize that improving gender 
equality is not solely up to men.

I also do not want to merely iterate that there is a problem with gender 
in TriLUG and not offer specific suggestions as to how we can begin to 
address it.  I am not an expert on women's issues, and I am by no means 
an expert on the tech world.  I do, however, have some experience in 
connecting open source tools with education.  And since education is 
often a microcosm of the larger socio-political reality, being 
intentional about how we include young children is a great way to 
reimagine how gender and tech might intersect.

To that end, let me offer my own set of skills for the benefit of the 
TriLUG community: as an educator, I would be thrilled to help develop a 
more meaningful way to involve the younger members (i.e. children) of 
the TriLUG community.  By creating multi-age, open-ended problem and 
play-based opportunities for our youngest, we are helping to accomplish 
two goals: 1) not reproducing the traditional educational system that 
teaches children that a) a problem only has one answer, b) that adults 
do adult things, and children do child things, and c) that only 
"standard" minds can participate in an intellectual community, and 2) 
helping more women and men, particularly single parents, to be able to 
attend TriLUG.  For me, supporting a developmentally-appropriate "Mini 
LUG" would be a great way to get me hooked into TriLUG and feel a sense 
of purpose in connecting my developing understanding of open source 
tools with my prior knowledge in educating young children.

I am only one woman.  But like many women, and people in general, I 
enjoy contributing to a community where my skills are nurtured and 
valued.  Perhaps with this example, others might find ways for their 
particular skills to be nurtured and valued in the TriLUG community.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth

[1] There is a growing movement to add to STEM (science, technology,
     engineering, math) the A, or art component.  See, for example:

 
http://news.investors.com/technology/042213-652817-add-art-and-design-to-educational-needs.htm

     Or Adam Savage's (of Mythbusters) Maker Faire 2012 talk (watch for
     about a minute):

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_otrgJ8Lmx4#t=975s