Re:#FFFFFF Diversity
by petercooper on Friday October 16, 2015 @06:39AM
(#10398497)
Just my opinion, but the idea of "50% women speakers" isn't out of some sort of over-representative fairness to a "minority", but a reflection of real world demographics.
In any case I can think of, roughly 50% of people in a given conference's catchment area are women, and since tech is an industry in which anyone could excel, having "50% women speakers" is promoting and encouraging a desired ideal to both the industry and potential participants in that industry. (I must note that "failing" at having 50% women speakers at a conference is by no means a fatal flaw, but having the ideal there and the principles in mind can still effect long term change.)
The idea of having 50% "trans" people at an event would be a very different one given less than 1% of people are trans, allegedly (although given the stigma still attached, I think being trans needs to become more acceptable in society as a whole before we'll know the true number. They're probably a lot higher than we'd suspect, as we saw with homosexuality through the 20th century).
In any case I can think of, roughly 50% of people in a given conference's catchment area are women, and since tech is an industry in which anyone could excel, having "50% women speakers" is promoting and encouraging a desired ideal to both the industry and potential participants in that industry. (I must note that "failing" at having 50% women speakers at a conference is by no means a fatal flaw, but having the ideal there and the principles in mind can still effect long term change.)
The idea of having 50% "trans" people at an event would be a very different one given less than 1% of people are trans, allegedly (although given the stigma still attached, I think being trans needs to become more acceptable in society as a whole before we'll know the true number. They're probably a lot higher than we'd suspect, as we saw with homosexuality through the 20th century).