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

Sat Jan 15 04:42:43 PST 2011

Hi,

Of course the one scene can’t do that.
However I do suppose this could be a ‘personal’ film, because it clearly takes the perspective of the filmer—
And that’s a good thing 
Any good documentary features an awareness of the film maker and her or his role in what is happening.
that doesn’t mean it couldn’t represent LGM—it’s probably a better road to take than to try and make *the* film.

I think the this film looks absolutely wonderful, 
And I think this aesthetic could be very helpful in attracting people to Libre Graphics

I have a qualm though, 
in this edit, it is not very clear just what these people are doing.
Just how are they reclaiming their tools? What tools?
Now the impression I get is: nice shots of interesting looking people (though I do miss the women too)

While I think one should aim for:
Nice shots of interesting looking people who are working hard to make design technology more accessible (or however you want to phrase the goal of Libre Graphics)

So I really like the starting point, but I think it can be taken a step further!
Sorry if that sounds patronising :)

take care
Eric

Op 15 jan 2011, om 12:06 heeft Jakub Szypulka het volgende geschreven:

> Femke,
> 
> the film definitely is not the one-and-only report, but I don't see
> how one 3 second scene "clearly marks it as a personal film". I was a
> participant, as were the dozens of other people visible in the film.
> I'd be disappointed were the film doomed personal and thus
> disadvantaged in the pool of representations of the Libre Graphics
> Meeting.
> 
> Jakub
> 
> 2011/1/15 Femke Snelting <snelting at collectifs.net>:
>> Hello all, hello Jakub!
>> 
>> Thanks for making the film Jakub, it is very nice and the tiny scene with
>> yourself in the hotel mirror clearly marks it as a personal film, not the
>> one-and-only report. The questions it sparked off about representation are a
>> bit larger than your work alone, and I am glad they came up now we are
>> starting to prepare the sixth edition of LGM.
>> 
>>>> 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).
>> 
>> With only 1 woman on stage in 2006, 4 in 2007, 3 in 2008 and 2 in 2009 LGM
>> has not been doing much better than FOSDEM, OSCON and GUADEC in those same
>> years. In the mean time, many F/LOSS related projects have realised this is
>> a problem and decided to develop activities to track and change the numbers
>> -- see links below.
>> 
>> I am convinced that the quality of Libre Graphics software has everything to
>> gain from actively diversifying participation. Through it's generally
>> friendly character and amazing collection of very different projects,
>> involving many nationalities, gathering experience with open standards,
>> localization; negotiating technical and cultural questions ... LGM should
>> actually be leading the list!
>> 
>> Addressing participation and representation becomes more relevant now the
>> community starts to grow and clearly will continue to do so. Bringing up the
>> uneven male/female ratio is only scratching the surface of what the actual
>> conditions for an inclusive community might be and it is boring to have to
>> do a headcount. But sometimes brute force creates awareness and than opens
>> up the possibility to acknowledge that *all of us* bring gender to the
>> meeting, not only if you wear a hat to mark it ;-)
>> 
>>>> 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 andg
>>>> saw what appeared to be a hundred or so men and maybe two women.
>>>> </anecdote>
>> 
>> This change did not happen automatically. For Brussels 2010 we worked with
>> gnome-women, debian-women, LinuxChix and other activist groups to locate and
>> invite women involved in Libre Graphics. We wrote e-mails to women we knew
>> were active in LG, but never had considered participating. We specifically
>> targeted support to women speakers through funding and lodging. Also the
>> grant from the OIF helped widen the scope of participants. We made sure that
>> volunteer-teams were mixed and replacing T-shirts by aprons was not an
>> accident either.
>> 
>>>> 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.
>> 
>> This might be true, but than the question is: How do we make sure that their
>> impact is equally visible?
>> 
>> Femke
>> 
>> 
>> - Free Software Foundation, recommendations from the womens caucus:
>> http://www.fsf.org/news/recommendations-from-the-womens-caucus
>> - Kirrily Robbins, Standing Out in the Crowd:
>> http://www.oscon.com/oscon2009/public/schedule/detail/10173
>> - Python foundation diversity statement:
>> http://www.python.org/community/diversity
>> - Gnome Outreach Program for Women: http://projects.gnome.org/outreach/women
>> - Debian Women Mentoring Program: http://women.debian.org/mentoring
>> - FLOSSPOLS (EU study about the societal impact of F/LOSS. A few years old,
>> but still relevant) D17 - Gender: Policy Recommendations
>> http://flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D17-Gender_Policy_Recommendations.pdf
>> 
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