[UbuntuWomen] UW article for Fullcircle mag
Elizabeth Bevilacqua
lyz at ubuntu.com
Sun Jan 13 04:01:33 UTC 2008
On 1/12/08, Emma Jane Hogbin <emmajane at xtrinsic.com> wrote:
> Ubuntu/Canonical goes to the trouble of putting 50% women on their CD
> covers. But I don't see them actively seeking out female participation
> in the project. I'm new though. I want the user base to reflect the
> marketing material. I'm not sure whose job it is to get more women
> involved, so I'll assume it's at least 50% our job as "Ubuntu Women." I
> definitely don't think it's 100% our job though...nor do I think it's 0%
> our job.
I've spoken with Canonical folks on this issue (a call with Jono Bacon
several months back was especially helpful) and they will lend support
to female based initiatives launched by the Ubuntu Women project one
we have a RoadMap for the project, which hasn't come to fruition yet.
They've also helped a little by finally offering women's shirts in
their store - and listening to our objections about the "linux for
ladies" logo vs the normal "linux for human beings" logo. I'm a very
proud owner of a woman's t-shirt from the canonical store with the
proper logo!
> I think it is our responsibility to *JUMP* at the opportunity to support
> women in whatever way they want to contribute to the project. My
> frustration with Lyz's original comment about not wanting to segregate
> tech content was the way it was presented. I wanted her feedback to be,
> "OMG! Awesome! Let's find an even bigger readership for that article!"
> And I'm pretty sure that's sort of what Lyz meant... :)
Right, I could have presented it better :)
> I think we do need to address women's issues in technology as well. We
> definitely can't sit around and wait for anyone else to solve it for us.
> And there may be a *lot* of different kinds of solutions. I don't think
> there needs to be one single UW Way of solving the problem. But I think
> we do need to report back to the group to say, "This is what I did this
> week to get more women involved. I gave a talk; I wrote an article; I
> mentored a new developer; I showed up at my LUG..."
Very much +1
I think there really isn't enough "I did this to get more women
involved" stuff posted to the list, and I know I personally benefit
from the experiences of others and often incorporate things that they
do into my encouragement toolkit.
I also think it's really easy to forget how important "simple" things
like showing up at a LUG can be for those of us who do it all the time
(I am the *contact* for my local LUG! phillylinux.org).
> Can the "technical" articles be submitted to
> the main magazine? Can we collectively come up with ten new ways to get
> women interested in Ubuntu and use that as the article? Or maybe this
> column is used to promote ONE member and ONE way to get more women
> involved in tech? Ideas that all genders can implement to share the
> burden of getting more women involved...
All very good ideas, I'm putting the wiki page together about our Full
Circle contribution so I'll be sure to include these (and post a link
to the list when it's done).
--
Elizabeth Bevilacqua
http://www.princessleia.com
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