[LRUG] Stealth Group!?

[Robert McKinnon]

At an event last week, I had a chat with Sarah, organizer of Girl Geek
Dinners (http://www.londongirlgeekdinners.co.uk/), about how to make a
user group more accessible for women attendees.

Sarah's noticed women are more likely to go to an event if they
personally know other women who are going, or at least know that other
women will be there. Obviously there's a complex set of factors
involved, but since Sarah's been active in encouraging women to attend
tech events, I'm sure she's on to something with this point.

Bringing this back to our group, I'd like to encourage everyone to
invite female acquaintances who might be interested in Ruby along to a
meeting. When you invite them, you can maybe let them know a) that
other women come along, and b) if you think it's appropriate, indicate
you can put them in touch with other women who might be going. Guess
you'll know your friends best and whether this is really an issue for
them, versus them just not being interested in Ruby!

The December BBC Backstage party could be a good time to invite people
along to an event, so they can meet others from LRUG and see we're
quite a welcoming fun bunch, for geeks anyway! Also London Girl Geek
Dinners are another community that'll be in attendance at the party.

It's been a great day of discussion on the list!

cheers,
Rob

--- soledad penadés | sole <listas at soledadpenades.com> wrote:
> As a woman, developer and ruby-developer in progress I also have to
> agree with Paul :-)
> 
> Working in the IT industry is sometimes complicated enough for us,and
> when I saw the pizza girls at POR I got a bit like "oh no...".
> It doesn't encourage more women to join IT related things, since it
> looks like a desperated-for-women nerds meeting.
> 
> Anyway, we know he was joking :D
> 
> On 10/27/06, Paul Hammond <mail at paranoidfish.org> wrote:
> >
> > > On 10/27/06, Tom Medhurst <Tom.Medhurst at exony.com> wrote:
> > >> May I suggest getting some photos of some really hunky guys and
> girls
> > >> otherwise they'll find something else to dig us about! :p
> > >
> > > Quick! Someone post this on teh LRUG homepage!!
> > >
> > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/pizzaonrails/243555779/
> > >
> >
> > I know you're joking, but please don't.
> >
> > I'm really disappointed in that photoset and how Pizza on Rails are
> > choosing to market themselves.  There are lots of people working
> > really hard to ensure that women are equals in our industry (eg:
> > the
> > recent discussion sparked by http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2006/09/15/
> > the-future-of-white-boy-clubs/).  A photoset like that does a huge
> > amount of damage to that work, particularly when it doesn't
> > actually
> > reflect what happened at the event, and it makes the London Ruby
> > scene look pretty poor by association.
> >
> > I don't go to these events to gawp at (supposedly) attractive
> > women, I go to meet interesting people and chat about technology
> > and our
> > industry.  If pizza on rail wants to be about the former, then I'm
> > not interested in attending.
> >
> > I hope that LRUG doesn't follow their example, particularly when
> > it's so unnecessary. We don't need the glamour, there's already
> > too much exciting stuff happening around here,
> >
> > Paul

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