Re: What we need to do

A little history. I had tried to create a postgres-women mailing list several years ago. I wanted it to be women only, a la systers, and once established possibly opening to anyone. I felt the time to forge our space was important.

I was not included on most mail in the discussions with the committee. And so was prevented from arguing my case. I also received vicious personal emails.

I have worked as a woman in tech for 30+ years. I have worked on productized and open source postgres since 1992.

I have happily worked with many postgres men. But the vitriol about our list was beyond the pale.

With all that said, carry on in your best way and I will support you.

Elein Mustain
elein(at)varlena(dot)com
510-637-9106

> On Apr 12, 2018, at 10:33 AM, Debra Cerda <dcerda(at)postgresql(dot)us> wrote:
>
>
>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 10:51 AM Valeria Kaplan <vk(at)dataegret(dot)com> wrote:
>> Agree with Lætitia,
>> It doesn't matter what sex you are or feel that you belong to, everyone should feel welcomed in our group and activities. In my opinion, excluding men in any way would be contra-productive. As if to say, "you are not a woman - you can't contribute" or "you will be too pushy". Those are the exact assumptions we are striving to break, no?
>>
>> another ++ to: Anyone (men or women) that want to force their vision to our group should be explained that it's not the way we work.
>>
>
> +1
>
> Please note these scenarios were mostly observations and not my beliefs. Indeed, most of my professional mentors have been men.
>
> It’s wonderful and humbling to have past male colleagues reach out and ask for my advice and help in diversifying their workforce, or building up their female staff through female centric professional organizations. Paying it forward however I can.
>
>
>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:48 PM, Lætitia Avrot <laetitia(dot)avrot(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>> Hi Boriss
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think excluding men from certain activities can be positive in the goal of making women feel welcomed. For instance: Women-only IRC/Slack channels can be a good thing. Women-only Hackathon can also help in making women feel welcomed.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I strongly disagree. I want everyone to feel welcome, whatever their gender is. If you start creating little worlds without men, first you exclude people and that's a negative message to give and then it's totally artificial as our world is populated with both men and women. So if we feel there is a problem with with women representation in our community, we need to find a solution together. Men and women both have brain, so they can both come with creative ideas.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Lætitia
>>