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Getting different perspectives is always a positive and gender differences will certainly bring in different perspectives. If you were holding a general non-la
by georgemcbay 14y ago
Getting different perspectives is always a positive and gender differences will certainly bring in different perspectives.
If you were holding a general non-language-specific web development conference and 17 out of the 22 possible speakers were focusing on Ruby development, would you not want some of the remaining 5 to not be focusing on Ruby, for diversity? I don't see this example as being all that different.
I don't quite agree with the OP in terms of how 'inexcusable' the situation was, but I do think that sometimes a bit of tokenism is fine if it serves towards reaching a critical mass of inclusiveness that isn't already naturally present.
- natrius 14y agoGender and race are orthogonal to one's merit as a speaker. Content is very relevant to one's merit as a speaker. There's a huge difference. Choosing speakers based on gender and/or racial diversity is a bad idea. It's disrespectful to the people being chosen and to the people who are trying to attend a quality conference. It's also uncomfortable when you can tell that a speaker has been chosen for diversity's sake, and it reflects poorly on the other underrepresented folks speaking at the conference. If you have a transparent process that judges speakers independently of those culturally sensitive traits, that problem can be avoided. Everyone knows that all the speakers are there because they submitted the best proposals. Diversity can be achieved without tokenism.