Promoting female participation at VlogEurope
I just read an interesting blog post from FactoryJoe, where he says this:
Promoting women when they’re doing great things in the tech community has to become a top priority. Providing and seeking out the women who are serving in backbone roles within our community and bringing the spotlight to them and supporting them must become a shared priority. Working with women’s groups to create both inviting events and interesting opportunities to draw out and inspire the reluctant or hidden female talent is something that conference and *camp organizers alike must attend to.
I remember the feeling when I looked around the people present at VlogEurope 06 in Milan. There were quite few women among us, even though I do not remember quite what the ratio was. I remember talking with Schlomo about this, and he told me that it really took a concentrated effort to get so many females to attend VloggerCon in SF. You simply cannot have a bunch of - well - white guys - sitting together planning an event where you basically invite mostly male voices to present. Female participation in tech conferences does not come by itself, I guess.
We are well into May now, and VlogEurope* 2007, which is the first weekend of September in Heidelberg, Germany, is only four months away. What kind of conference do we want this year? What will we do to include more females in the discussions, or more voices from the middle- and Eastern European countries?
What do you think? How can we include more voices into the discussion? What would make more women interested in these kinds of meet-ups?
* : Yes, we will update the VlogEurope website soon 
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Women play differently than men. Men don’t usually value chick perspective. My bottom line’s lately been, “Fuck ya, then.”
Make up your mind to listen, to open to the possibility that there’s a different, equally successful, valuable way to do and be.
Until then…I’m not having any fun at Evilvlog for all the testosterone there - and I’m a HUGE fan of testosterone-based atmosphere.
Perhaps something’s changed in me that I’m no longer tolerant of or interested in being in situations where my perspective isn’t valued.
Exactly. Ask yourself why you’d want me or any other woman there to begin with. This isn’t about how you get us there; it’s about why you’d want us there and then why we’d even want to bother.
i can only speak for myself here
but what would make me more interested in coming is if there are other women going/organizing. reach out to women, invite them personally. that’s what i do, i write people (men and women) personal invites if i want them to be at something. otherwise it’s pretty normal for me to ignore all the geek events that are happening, unless jay drags me to them. ; )
@Jan: Evilvlog? What is Evilvlog? *heh* I haven’t spent much time there lately myself, but I guess for different reasons than you. Testeterone - yeah, the lack of estrogen at the site really worried me, but it seemed like we were pretty good at scaring away any females who joined, soo. Yeah, that was fun, especially during season 1 - now on to something else. About our perspectives being valued or not valued. Can it be our perspectives not being valued because of Other Things than our gender? I don’t know. It’s a tricky question.
What is “chick perspective”, Jan? I mean, what would “a female perspective” be to tech, videoblogging, podcasting? I know, there are some general things to be said, but can we generally summarize the points of view into male / female points of view? I think we might be able to - I just don’t know what those are.
@B: I want diversity. That’s basically it. I don’t feel I need to justify wanting Different groups in the arena, besides the usual comment that “different people with different backgrounds ensures a more interesting discussion with more possibilities of interesting “wild tangents” than if we are all white guys wearing suits with an MBA degree and interested in videoblogging as a way to market products on the net”. Why would I want girls there? Why would I want people there from the working class? From the VC community? From Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe? Why would I also want participation of people from beyond Europe, like we have had a strong group of people from the U.S. at both VlogEurope I and II. (I wish we could offer someone from - for instance - sub-saharan Africa the opportunity to come as well this year)
VlogEurope can be so much better than what it has been these last two years. I mean better, not bigger. I think 40-50 participants is perfect. (Does that sound elitist, btw? Hmm)
Why do I want female participants at VlogEurope? I guess I want to hear perspectives from people who are also pretty free of the testoterone influence. I don’t know. I can’t say “Men are aggressive, seek competition, love to hear themselves talk” when we all know there are meek men and dominating women around. Am I talking too much in stereotypes here? Holla at me if so
@Ryanne: Yes, inviting people personally is the way to go, regardless of what gender they are, and I plan to work a lot on that the coming months. Making sure everyone has a reason to come, besides hanging out with other videobloggers and vlog-interested people in gorgeous Heidelberg. I am actually getting quite excited about this!
Time to get that VlogEurope wiki up and running again.
Thank you all for your comments. Please feel free to criticize me, or come with other suggestions, or just comment with anything regarding genders at conferences.
Ryanne is right: if you want a certain type of person, you have to personally invite them to the event. Usually the underrepresented doesnt show up because they dont normally go the these types of events.
After all, isnt that how I got you to go to Vloggercon? I emailed you telling you I really wanted you to be there.
One On One Connections– they are time-tested constructs that work.
Where are the European chicks? Dierdre S. being the sole (American-in-Europe) exception who comes to mind.
I went to Vloggercon ‘06 because Markus badgered me and made it fiscally possible. I turned some of that fisicality around to give to others so they could be there.
Why are the European countries so guy-heavy? Cultural thing?
If you didn’t see any women at VlogEurope you were hanging out in the wrong rooms, Raymond. There were no non-Italian women present apart from Deirdré, but that is not the same thing as there being no women. Hell, all the practical organizing (sponsor work, getting someone to bring us food, finding a place to have the event) was handled by a group of 3 hard-working women (Deirdré, Adrianna, Maria-Giovanni, you rock).
A couple of quick points: European countries aren’t guy-heavy - the split is 50/50 like everywhere else. There is no unified European culture so saying that something may or may not be a ‘cultural thing’ when talking about all of Europe makes no sense.
When I hear things like “Men don’t usually value chick perspective” I am reminded that close-mindedness goes both ways. I’m sorry if you’ve been burned in the past, Jan, but I (as a participant of VlogEurope) can’t be expected to take the blame for the faults of men you’ve previously encountered. Are you saying the attendees at VlogEurope has created an event where a woman’s perspective is not valued? I don’t think so.
I have to be honest that for an event like VlogEurope gender diversity is very low on my personal list. VlogEurope for me has two goals: Experience a new part of Europe every year and meet with video-interested people from around the world. My fondest memory of VlogEurope ‘06 was talking with Alberto about the government initiatives in Tuscany for bringing ICT to the masses (and me sharing what similar initiatives are being introduced in Denmark). Cultural, social and national diversity helps improve VlogEurope for me - your gender doesn’t play into the equation. In the case of VlogEurope it’s a kind of diversity that doesn’t really bring much diversity with it (except perhaps in theory).
Bear in mind that VlogEurope is more like a class reunion than a tech conference. It’s not a gathering of MBAs in suits and thinking of it that way does not do the event justice.
I’m sorry to hear that Ryanne will only participate in events with lots of women. I have started to do my lobbyism to get the people I feel are important to attend VlogEurope ‘07, but I’m not looking at gender when I’m deciding who to e-mail. Just as I didn’t look at gender when picking videos for the Pixelodeon screening because ensuring an even gender spread would do nothing to improve the quality of the video collection.
I hope all three women in this thread will come to VlogEurope because I’d like to see you there (not because of double-x chromosomes, but because of your other qualities). I think Joel will be putting together a great weekend of fun and learning in Heidelberg. I have invited the two people I missed the most last year (Trine and Rupert). If you three show up with Trine and Deirdré we will already have 16.66% women (in a 30 person event, ). :o)
For the record: I tried the method of inviting people individually last year and I had little luck (so pfft to you Schlomo). It seems I’m having a bit better luck this year.
That was much longer than I intended it to be.
one thing to consider is the structural problems of attending conferences like these. for me, there are usually too many costs. flights, travel, accomodation, food, drink, etcs.. then there’s childcare (at home) or lost earnings for my other half..
going off for the week suddenly ate our entire budget for this month… ok maybe i’ll stay at home..
Sadly, an event like vlogeurope doens’t fully fall into a category i can get funding for attending, it’s not academic enough. (not that this is a problem with the conference, merely spoils my chances of head of department wanting to pay for it..)