Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Fwd: Event: Manchester Girl Geek Dinner #2 - 7:00 PM Friday, July 25, 2008

[MJ Ray]

Dave Page <address@hidden> wrote: [...]
> A *feeling* of exclusion is still a serious problem for the community to
> tackle.

Indeed, I wasn't meaning to belittle the problem.  I agree with many
of those comments in this and other emails, so I've cut them.

[...]
> Forgive me if this is an inappropriate analogy, but you seem to be
> drawing a straight line between where we are now with respect to
> equality and where we should be - a fully equal society. The idea of a
> women-plus-guests geek dinner does not appear on that route.

That's probably fair.  Furthermore, I believe that women-plus-invites
events are in the wrong direction, away from equal, which is actually
a pretty remarkable achievement, given the terrible starting position.


Lucy <address@hidden> wrote:
> [...] I don't see giving women a rare opportunity to
> interact as discriminatory and I'm sorry if that offends you.

I don't mind giving women a rare opportunity to interact, but how does
one see this particular implementation (only men must have invites) as
non-discriminatory?



Paul Robinson <address@hidden> wrote: [...]
> The only thing GGD does is take ONE EVENT out of the EIGHTEEN  
> currently on the local scene and try to redress the balance for one  
> evening every few months. And what do narrow-minded morons do? Shout  
> them down as being "discriminatory" as if the other eighteen are  
> balanced, female-friendly and gender-neutral somehow.

That one seems a bigger current danger to equality than the others
because of its method.  By all means, there should be more balanced,
female-friendly and gender-neutral events and other events should be
encouraged to be more balanced, female-friendly and gender-neutral,
but an imbalanced gender-judging one isn't one of those.

[...]
> To suggest we fight current inequality by giving more access to men is  
> just absurd.

No less absurd than fighting current inequality by creating new
inequalities.

> > If I'm told about any men-only event, I will criticise it and I will
> > probably also be better able to change it, because my opinion won't be
> > criticised merely because I'm a man.
>
> If it were a man-only event in nursing, childcare, or any other  
> industry where men are looked down upon within society as a whole and  
> within the industry in particular, I doubt you'd be able to argue very  
> convincingly.

Well, it doesn't seem that I'm arguing very convincingly here
either... but at least there would be one less barrier to overcome.

(By the way, in UK nursing, while women-dominated, men are more likely
to reach the higher levels than average.  Both are current open
problems for the professional bodies, with initiatives like RCN's
Gender Equality Scheme.  Does it involve men-only events?  I've never
worked in nursing, although I do some work with the health sector.)

> [...] There is no reason for it to be  
> like that, unless you accept that the industry is generally racist,  
> class-orientated and sexist.

I'm only on the disadvantaged side of one of those, but I think it's
much more subtle and insiduous than outright racism, class and sexism,
building on historical phenomena, role models, media portrayal, access
to education, working methods and so on.

> [...] It's not like it's actively hurting  
> you through its existence, unless of course you feel threatened by it.

No, not active for me, yet.  That's why this started off as a one-line
request not to participate, until someone made this personal by
suggesting I was seeking a ban, so I decided to explain my position.
There's a lot else which could be done if it was actively hurting.

[...]
> Right now it's the only thing women in the sector have got and when  
> people like you who don't know them, don't know their concerns, have  
> never listened to their horror stories of how they're treated, act in  
> such an absurd way, I frankly refuse to let you call them names and  
> lecture them on equality because they want some space on their own  
> terms for once.

It's very kind of you to tell me that I don't know any women in the
sector and so on.  The women that I thought I worked alongside for
years, discussed things with during coffee breaks and so on, must have
all been figments of my imagination!

Alternatively, maybe I've been following this topic for years, trying
to help on this issue and have reached different conclusions to those
which seem to be held by GGD supporters.

> [...] You're  
> missing the entire point of everything about GGD, its structure, its  
> rules, and its eventual goals. [...]

Sure.  I don't know much about GGD's structure and rules but any good
done by GGD seems to be eclipsed by entrenching gender discrimination.

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237