[BangPypers] Why PyLadies

[Jonathan Toomim]

I can give a few answers for you:

1. The desires of minorities tend to be poorly served in 
rule-by-majority groups like democracies and anarchic mobs.

2. Being a minority (e.g. woman; expatriate) can be an unpleasant and 
alienating experience. Humans are social mammals who seek out the 
company of similar individuals. We have developed the ability to 
compartmentalize those needs to some extent, and can get by some of the 
time by associating with people we are compatible on one or two specific 
or important traits, like occupation/hobby, gender, religion, native 
language, etc., but this is never as fulfilling as associating with 
people with whom we are compatible on multiple traits. A guy joining 
(e.g.) BangPypers gets to hang out with other guys like him; a gal 
joining BangPypers gets to hang out with guys that might be like her if 
she weren't a she.

3(a). Guys sometimes make sexual or romantic advances towards women 
around them. When the gender ratio is heavily unbalanced, this can be a 
huge problem. If each guy spends 5% of his time talking to and trying to 
flirt with the girls around him, and there are 20 guys for each girl in 
a group, then each girl will spend an average of 100% of her time 
dealing with guys trying to flirt with her (if you interpret 
multitasking as double-timing, at least). Perhaps you can see how this 
might be a problem in some circumstances.

3(b). In groups with highly unbalanced gender ratios, the majority 
gender tends to not get much practice and tends to be pretty awkward in 
how they make or take the advances. As a female Physics major friend of 
mine used to say about romantic prospects with her predominantly male 
classmates, "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

4. If you want to rectify the gender ratio imbalance, creating an 
atmosphere that is extra-friendly towards women can be desirable, since 
it would help counter any cultural prejudices against women entering 
science or technology fields, and would also help to counter some of the 
effects described in 1-3. It wouldn't fully counter either of those 
effects, but it's a start.

On 9/8/2013 10:58 AM, Mandar Vaze / मंदार वझे wrote:
>> before, and I would be interested in your response:
>>     "What purpose is served by creating a women's group, instead of
>> joining the existing group thus making it more diverse?"
>>      In other words, what purpose is served by intentional segregation?
>>
> Was this ever answered ?
>
> -Mandar
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