Re: IETF Diversity

On 6/19/13 2:47 PM, Doug Barton wrote:
> On 06/19/2013 11:31 AM, Melinda Shore wrote:
> > Even in fields in which the overwhelming majority of
> > practitioners, the majority of people in leadership or
> > management positions are men.
> So again, it's not at all clear how that relates to the IETF (given 
> that we don't fall into the category of "the overwhelming majority of 
> practitioners [are women]."
I think the point was that if organizations that have a majority of 
women in the ranks have trouble getting women into leadership roles 
(where one would think, ceterus paribus, women would have an easier time 
moving up as against other organizations), then an organization that has 
a majority male population won't fare much better unless there's some 
reason to believe it is interestingly different.
Institutional biases in organizations are not uncommon. We almost 
certainly have *some* brand of it here, whether it's Americo-centrism 
(cf. SM's comments about Selma and Dan's comments about baseball), or 
one of gender. I'd be (happily) shocked if there were some reason to 
believe that we're different than other organizations when it comes to 
gender, but I haven't seen much to convince me we're all that different. 
Certainly we should look for evidence of the existence and nature of any 
biases that exist in our institutional practices, but given how 
prevalent such biases are elsewhere, I'm not uncomfortable presuming 
prima facia that we do have some and doing some things that might 
(again, surprisingly to me) turn out unnecessary.
> I look at women like Leslie Daigle, Allison Mankin, Margaret 
> Wasserman, Lynn St. Amour, Joyce Reynolds ... those are just off the 
> top of my head; certainly not my intention to slight anyone ... all of 
> whom have now, or have had significant leadership roles, and made 
> lasting impacts on the IETF both in its work product and culture.
As the saying goes, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but it might 
be interesting to discuss with each of the people you noted their 
experiences getting into leadership and their experiences in it. 
(However, see the last paragraph of this message below.)
> Can we (and should we) do better? Absolutely. I would love to see more 
> participation by different groups, nationalities, genders, etc. And I 
> have a vested interest here. I have a daughter who is smart as a whip, 
> and when it comes time for her to find a job I want to be sure that 
> every door is open to her.
Agree wholeheartedly.

> But I also think it's possible for us to agree that we have room to 
> improve without constantly banging the drum that we have a deep-seated 
> institutional bias, especially when that point is far from proven.
Even if such a bias does not exist, it can come across a bit 
self-serving to complain about the banging drum. So someone has said 
there is an institutional bias against the (minority and not in 
leadership) group they are in and for the (majority and in leadership) 
group you are in... No use in getting insulted or complaining about the 
words used to express that perception. Looking to make sure that there 
is no bias and addressing any biases you find is a good use of time and 
energy.
> > > ... and while we're on that topic, what are you doing to help?
> > That is truly an unfortunate line of argument, and I hope
> > you don't use it very often.
> It's not a "line of argument," it's a legitimate question.
It did sound a bit confrontational in the original message. The MIME 
Intonation Protocol being what it is, this can sometimes be an 
unintended problem. I will take full blame for the lack of deployment of 
that protocol.
> Others have described their actions to help improve the situation, 
> which hopefully still others can latch onto and emulate. You bring a 
> unique perspective to the table, so I'm hoping that you can describe 
> what you're doing to help solve the problem so that others can emulate 
> your example.
That's a reasonable request. People should in general describe 
experiences and volunteer whatever advice they can for the community. 
However, do keep in mind that some things folks might do (especially 
folks in the minority population) are not things that they necessarily 
want to talk about it public. For example, if some folks were helping 
women off-list to deal with incidents of harassment or sexist behavior, 
or simply poor treatment that seemed different than how males were 
treated, they might not feel comfortable talking about that publicly 
because it would bring up some thorny issues that are difficult to 
discuss in private, let alone in public. And there are certainly other 
things of less serious import that are still dicey to lay open in 
public. So it's probably at least a bit pushy to individualize a message 
saying "what are you doing to help?".
pr

--
Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478