[PD] [OT] Re: about sexism is TERMINATE THREAD PLEASE

acastonguay at artengine.ca acastonguay at artengine.ca
Sun Oct 21 17:36:57 CEST 2007


From: "Alexandre Castonguay" <acastonguay at artengine.ca>
To: pd-list at iem.at
Cc: ydegoyon at free.fr
User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.9a
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Importance: Normal

Hi all, Yves,

Here are some facts may help explain and paint a correct picture of the
convention's gender distribution.

Number of applications received for the exhibition component :

9 (F)
26 (M)

Invitations sent :

6 (F)
12 (M)

Number of applications for performances (* I am unsure as to the gender of
one applicant as we didn't ask people to specify it in their application.)

3 (F)
32 (M)

Invitations sent :

2 (F)
18 (M)

As Andrew Brouse noted, the applications for papers did not carry the
author's names so it makes it hard to get a picture of the gender
breakdown. Out of 46 'papers invitations', 2 were extended to women and I
believe that may unfortunately be the number of applicants?  Andrew may be
able to answer to that.

I believe that the impression Yves got is justified.  It is just that the
community is overwhelmingly male and 'white' (another thread!).  It also
seems that the juries for the papers, exhibition and performances were
conscious of the fact as it is somewhat reflected in the final breakdown
of invitations sent.

Some observations on other parts of this long thread that may yet yield
something positive.

* The component of the convention that had the highest representation of
women applicants was the exhibition. It shows that this form of
contribution is often the way through which women enter the community. It
should be maintained and expanded through other conventions.

* I heard through the application process that some women were intimidated
by the perceived technological sophistication of the pd scene and thought
that their work may not be 'pure' enough to warrant an application. In
that light, dismissing people whose work process calls on external
expertise to be realized does not help with that perception of purity.

* I am personally glad that our efforts of providing better documentation
and access to the software got a renewed push through the work groups and
discussions happening at the convention.

* Building a more representative community will take time and many more
pd-conventions, workshops, efforts through documentation and packaging,
participating in long email threads and chats.  Let's keep in mind that
most of us take part in these efforts because we believe we can make the
community more inclusive, make good work and have fun while doing it.

A bientot,

Alexandre





On Friday 19 October 2007 08:24:26 ydegoyon at free.fr wrote:
> ola,
>
> > Honestly I wasn't even sure this sevy was really Yves, and for that
> > matter I know nothing about Yves.  As I said- the original statement was
> > completely untrue; and the original poster hasn't responded to that fact.
> >  I honestly did not believe the subject was a problem on this list.
>
> wrong! i sent this after reading 'wettest dream' in a mail from 2 weeks
> ago, but anyway it was 2 years or more that this was going on,
> and was also a general feeling from pd convention
> ( seems work groups were only constituted of men ),
> too bad some people speaking here were not there.
>
> saludos,
> sevy
>
> _______________________________________________
> PD-list at iem.at mailing list
> UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management ->
> http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list






More information about the Pd-list mailing list