[TriLUG] women in tech, childcare in TriLUG

[Steve Litt]

On Mon, 4 Jun 2012 20:38:54 -0400, Cristóbal Palmer said:
> Greetings LUGers,
> 
> Two things.
> 
> 1) An article for you to look at. It is not about Linux in
> particular, but it is about tech and it is about doing what's right
> because it's right, not because, for example, it means more money. I
> think a lot of Linuxy types are Linuxy types because they like doing
> what's Right, not just what's easy or what's cheap. Anyway, here's
> the article:

I agree with everything in the preceding paragraph.

> 
> http://www.chesnok.com/daily/2012/05/11/what-i-mean-when-i-say-i-would-like-more-women-in-the-software-industry/  

Until one finds the root cause of the underrepresentation of women in
tech, I think it's premature to pose it as an ethical or "what's right"
issue. Even if it turns out to be an ethical or "what's right" issue,
it might have been caused by something long before employment time,
like parents teaching their daughters to play dumb, or boys not liking
smart girls (in high school one guy told me I was dating the wrong
girl because she was "smart"), or it could be a roll model thing, or
the stereotypes shown on TV.

I *am* pretty sure that women in tech situations are subjected to
dirty jokes, and the thing where business decisions are made at a
roudy bar, and those things should change, but we really need to find
a cause before implementing a solution. 

> 2a) Policy and lawyers help.

That's a very good point. Where there are children, there are injuries,
most just booboos.

What I always did was just brought my kids to LUG meetings. Nobody said
I couldn't, but nobody hung out a sign saying I could, so the legal
details were minimized.

My finding was that if you bring your kids to LUG meetings, give them a
video game or computer to play with. After five minutes they'll glaze
over when you're trying to teach them how to configure your window
manager, but they'll play quietly in the back with their video games.

> children. Both of my parents have been educators and coaches in the
> whole range from pre-K to undergrad. I'm also very aware that I'm not
> qualified to take on any number of the roles they've taken on. Put
> another way: I'm not volunteering to watch your kids. I'm
> volunteering to help make sure TriLUG has a system in place that will
> help parents with young kids come to and enjoy TriLUG meetings. If
> you think that's a laudable goal, then please help me make it happen.

You know another thing you accomplish by doing that? To an extent, you
give TriLUG a supply of young talent. Most of the LUGs I see are aging
rapidly, with the same people that have been there since the dot com
boom. Recruiting young people is a good thing.

One more thing -- if some of those children are female, perhaps they'll
think it's cool and go into tech.

SteveT

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