[CREATE] "Reclaim your tools". A film by Jakub Szypulka

[helen varley jamieson]

thanks for the correction ginger - i had (stupidly) forgotten about the 
river valley documentation which is of course a hugely valuable 
resource; & yes a 1:10 ratio is much better than many other floss events.

your comment about falling at the first gate in your other email is 
pretty much what i'm getting at; it's great that you came back & found 
your place, i'm sure it's helped others to also find a place there & 
it's good to know that LGM is doing better in terms of more women 
attending every year.

i knew i was potentially opening a can of worms by raising this but i 
also think it's good to consider & discuss issues of 
inclusiveness/exclusiveness in this kind of group, & to give some 
thought to those who might be falling at the first gate.

h : )

On 12/01/11 4:56 PM, ginger coons wrote:
> a) Lovely film. The music is awesome and the whole thing is just plain 
> beautiful.
> b) Yes, there are, indeed, two women in the whole two minutes of the 
> film and they're not the focus of the shots in which they appear. 
> They're scenery.
> c) Does that actually matter? (see next point for why it might not)
> d) This is not the only video documentation of LGM 2010. In fact, in 
> Kaveh's documentation of talks 
> (http://river-valley.tv/conferences/lgm-2010), there are lots of women 
> represented. Not only are they represented, they're represented as 
> active and valued members of the community who are having their voices 
> heard. There are 9 women represented in talks on page one of the River 
> Valley archive alone and more on the next page. There are a further 3 
> represented in the Constant Active Archives documentation 
> (http://activearchives.org/aa/qna/Libre_Graphics_Meeting/). And they 
> are, once again, represented as active participants whose opinions and 
> views matter and are listened to.
> e) We're still way ahead of a lot of other F/LOSS events in terms of 
> straight-up, ratio-based representation (never mind the subjective 
> value of different kinds of participation and representation, which is 
> a whole other, very long discussion).
> f) Every year, we do better. <anecdote> From my first LGM (Montreal, 
> 2007) to now, there have been huge changes in terms of the number of 
> women attending, participating and talking. The event feels more and 
> more inclusive every time, which is great. It's a far cry from what I 
> perceived when I walked into the lecture hall at the Polytechnique and 
> saw what appeared to be a hundred or so men and maybe two women. 
> </anecdote>
> g) +1 on Prokoudine's point. Maybe looking at the ratio is a bit of a 
> brute force type of tactic which really doesn't necessarily take into 
> account the actual impact of women in the event and the community.
>
> -ginger
>

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helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst
helen at creative-catalyst.com
http://www.creative-catalyst.com
http://www.avatarbodycollision.org
http://www.upstage.org.nz
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