[Inpycon] Encouraging women developers to join PyCon

[Noufal Ibrahim]

Thank you Priya. These comments are valuable.

priya iyer <wordsofagirl at gmail.com> writes:

>>How about we decrease ticket price to some amount or maybe waive it
> totally for them?
>
> Umm... I am kind of taking offence at this. If we girls want to attend, we
> can pay too. The only way to increase the female attendees is to go pitch a
> demo of python at a girls only college.
>
> I remember that girls from my college had a tendency to 'flock' and if a
> few key people go, I am sure the rest would too. Secondly accommodation for
> outstation girls. It may also be just a room at the girls hostel for 4
> girls at a time, but even as a girl developer staying was my first
> challenge.
>
> Another challenge is transportation. If you talk in the college to give
> their transportation to and fro after the evening time with drop off at key
> places in the city, I think it would personally help.
>
> I personally remember my mother being all anxious to let me attend
> conferences that are in different cities or requiring a travel in the
> evenings. I had to find some good male community member support to travel
> 'with him' after telling about him to my mother and assuring I was not
> alone.
>
> Anyway, this was my two pieces of personal experience wishlist items.
>
> Best,
> Priya
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 9:47 AM, Noufal Ibrahim <noufal at nibrahim.net.in>wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm not sure if decreasing ticket prices is sending the right
>> message. It's kind of condescending. I've always thought that the idea
>> is equality in the domain rather than special treatment.
>>
>> However, initiatives like what the pyladies group does are useful. I'm
>> just not sure how to go about this. It would be nice if there were a few
>> active female members in the organiser group.
>>
>> Bibhas Ch Debnath <me at bibhas.in> writes:
>>
>> > Hi everyone,
>> >
>> > We have been talking about encouraging women to join PyCon and start
>> > working on python. Why not take a step towards it? How about we decrease
>> > ticket price to some amount or maybe waive it totally for them?
>> >
>> > This could bring some questions like how'd we know that the ones joining
>> > are bringing some value to the conference. Well, if more women are
>> > attending, that's already a plus. To ensure even more, we could start a
>> > program, like, ask them to create a github account, create 2-5 repo, show
>> > us and they get a free ticker. Sounds odd and silly, but this will also
>> > encourage them to start using git or any VCS. And this also shows us that
>> > those participants actually made some effort to join the conference. They
>> > are not just drove by the offer of freebies.
>> >
>> > I haven't seen many girls take up the initiative to become a developer,
>> > only couple of my college friends did. They have no one to encourage them
>> > in becoming developers. So to do that, we might have to put some extra
>> > manual effort. But it should be overall good for the community.
>> >
>> > PS: Should have put the gender field in last year's feedback form. Could
>> > get a statistic. This year will definitely do it.
>> >
>> >
>> > ----
>> > Bibhas
>> > http://bibhas.in
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Inpycon mailing list
>> > Inpycon at python.org
>> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon
>>
>> --
>> Cordially,
>> Noufal
>> http://nibrahim.net.in
>> _______________________________________________
>> Inpycon mailing list
>> Inpycon at python.org
>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Inpycon mailing list
> Inpycon at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon

-- 
Cordially,
Noufal
http://nibrahim.net.in