Lessons learned from the Boston Python Workshop, an outreach event for women
openhatch.org
openhatch.org
At the end of the article they suggest there might be a larger trend at play because anecdotally all workshops are very succesful. So women are interested but maybe intimidated; or not drawn enough to try programming on their own.
More of these workshops I say.
I tend to view intentional partitioning of communities, rather than inclusive interaction, as counter-productive.
My experience has been that (a) women are a minority in almost all computer communities and events, and (b) how large a minority they are correlates strongly to how much effort is made to encourage their participation. Activities like the Boston Python Workshop are effective
If you can figure out ways to help newcomers participate in conferences despite feeling intimidated, that's also a great way to deepen the talent pool.
I suspect if you run a workshop for men only, even the men would wonder why. This is evidence that men don't need men-only workshops.
Now here's my answer: This isn't about sexism. It's about the way a group of men behave when they are working in / learning a field of study where the overwhelming majority have, in the past, been men. It creates a lot of needless tension for the women in the group.
Women stand a far better chance of learning to program when they are in a non-intimidating environment where they don't have to put up with a bunch of condescending jerks (take your pick): staring at them, competing with them, putting them in "their place", patronizing them. And this is not because they are women, but because enough of the guys are jerks. Reverse the roles, and this would be just as true.
Nothing I said was worthy of sarcasm. I would sincerely enjoy the opportunity to learn python from the ground up with that level of support and mentoring. And yes, it's a little disconcerting that some conferences would keep me out based on my anatomy.
In the face of such support generated by this event, is it so bad to hope for an analogous event aimed at my demographic?
Hidden in that is the subtle assumption that women need to be protected. Particularly in the clause "competing with them," I find protectionism evident.
Now, I'm not saying these groups shouldn't exist, or that they're wrong, or that a group of mostly men can and often does create a hostile environment for women.
But your phrasing makes me uncomfortable, internally, as if I feel you're not quite leery enough of how much you're using sexism to combat sexism.
There is nothing wrong with that, it is very pragmatic and a good chunk of the 'ism' reasoning behind affirmative action (which I generally support). But "Reverse the roles, and this would be just as true" is essentially saying "If men were women and women were men, we'd still be playing with standard gender roles, so it's fair!" which doesn't quite compute.