[CREATE] spy report

[Gregory Pittman]

On 06/03/2010 03:16 AM, Jan Claeys wrote:
> Op woensdag 02-06-2010 om 17:03 uur [tijdzone +0200], schreef Aileen
> Derieg:
>> Although I have no wish to interrupt current discussions, I just
>> wanted to let you all know that I have now posted my "spy report":
>> http://blog.furtherfield.org/?q=node/334
>
> First of all: I'm male and I still feel young at 36, but:
>
>          With a more mixed audience, would it have felt slightly less
>          jarring, for example, to hear a young man talking about "old
>          women", as though "old women" were an alien, barely intelligible
>          species? He meant well, of course, his talk was delightfully
>          enthusiastic, and I imagine he didn't mean me (I don't know
>          anything about knitting or quilting, after all), but I know from
>          experience what it feels like to be identified and treated as a
>          member of this alien species in other contexts, and I wonder how
>          it might feel if there were more of us, a visible, palpable
>          presence, listening to a talk like this.
>

My take on this is that it's an example of being jarred to the point of 
not paying such close attention from the point of being jarred, since as 
one followed the track of the talk, it ended with what we might call a 
denouement of admitting that he has himself become a quilter along with 
these women.

I think there is also a misperception that the speakers, the content, 
the entire attitude of LGM is somehow engineered by the organizers. My 
experience since my first LGM in 2007 is that there is more to Libre 
than graphics, and there has been an effort, quite successful really, to 
be more inclusive, encouraging of various points of view, making 
non-developers welcome, and as Femke said, no proposed talks were refused.

But this is a permission, not a pulling in of viewpoints to create some 
kind of "balance". In addition, there has always been by most I think an 
appreciation that we have mostly non-native English speakers trying 
their best to splice words and ideas together, with varying discomfort, 
accuracy, and success at being clear, not only trying to translate words 
but also cultural points of view.

In the end, I don't think it's so far off the beam to suggest that Libre 
Graphics Meetings have the subtext of Libre Minds, both applying to the 
organizers, but also speakers, and hopefully the audience.

Greg