[UbuntuWomen] Hi & Best Practices Links & asking for advices

[Natacha Rodriguez]

Hi Vid!


Thanks for such a fast response! Actually, so far it's just a facebook group mostly in spanish (https://www.facebook.com/MujeresIngenierasFRM) but the idea is to invite the women in the fb group to a meeting in the upcoming weeks and then try to start a group with regular meetings where we can propose things to improve regarding gender issues both in the careers at college and if possible at our workplaces. I'm not the administrator of the fb group, so I don't know who is in so far (though I can tell at least a couple of boys are there bc of their 'like' to some posts).


The administrator of the group is a teacher at college and she wants to see through the group if the first meeting will be useful, since male teachers are actually laughing at her for this idea, telling her that we 'just want to have a paid tea evening to gossip'.


The meetings are meant to be women only, since many women would refuse to even attend the meeting if the guys come up, but the advise about having a moderator is useful anyway, since some of us tend to be more vocal too (me, for example :P).


Finding out what they are interested in is a good advice too, and a really hard one right now since neither I nor the admin is getting them to talk, but we'll keep trying! Whenever we get them to talk, I'll also follow your advise about the short tech talks, I'd really like to make that work :)

Thanks!




________________________________
 De: vid <vid at svaksha.com>
Para: Natacha Rodriguez <natachaviviana at yahoo.com.ar>; Ubuntu-Women <ubuntu-women at lists.ubuntu.com> 
Enviado: viernes, 1 de junio de 2012 11:52
Asunto: Re: [UbuntuWomen] Hi & Best Practices Links & asking for advices
 
On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Natacha Rodriguez
<natachaviviana at yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> First of all, thanks for making this group :) I've been following the email

Glad you are a part of us too, Natacha :)

> list for a while now, I think I never introduced myself, my name is Natacha
> (Naty being the nickname), and I'm a systems engineer from Argentina. I love
> reading this list, and I really loved the best practices topics, while
> reading them, I realized how many of my coworkers and former college buddies
> usually use them, the world would be a better place if those rules could be
> established in every workplace.
>
> Also, I'd like to ask for some advice, since my college is trying to start a
> group to deal with gender issues in all kinds of engineering carreers, and
> they notice that the girls in the group are not making any comments or
> suggestions, no kind of feedback at all. What can you recommend to inspire
> them to participate?

You mentioned its a "group", so is this a mixed-gender meeting or
restricted to women only? If its mixed, sometimes some people may be,
unintentionally, a wee bit more vocal than others. Usually a quiet and
shy person may give up trying to voice themselves if they are
constantly interrupted mid-sentence or spoken to loudly.  I assume
there is a moderator or professor or lecturer who conducts these
meetings, and you can request them to observe for this pattern and
rein in the most vocal person(s), which can be done very politely
without offending anyone.

Secondly, find out what each women are interested in and ask them to
prepare a small lightening talk -- say 4-5 minutes of presenting
(read, talking in front of the class) on their favourite language/tech
topic/etc.. Strictly enforce the time limit to ensure that everyone
who wants to speaks, gets to.

Hope that helps.
Regards,
Vid
॥ http://svaksha.com ॥
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