[Osmf-talk] Reaching out and diversity (Was: Re: AGM and board elections)

[Derick Rethans]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2014, Jaak Laineste (Nutiteq) wrote:

> 
> On 27 Sep 2014, at 14:01, Oleksiy Muzalyev <oleksiy.muzalyev at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> 
> > The issue with diversity, for example, is that there less than 10% 
> > of women in the OSM project.
> 
> I think it is even well below 5%. After hearing inspiring talk by 
> Alyssa Wright in last year SOTM I totally agree than this is an issue 
> by itself. Map is reflection of the world of mapmakers, so if only men 
> do it, then you end up with underrepresented kindergartens and 
> overrepresented brothel amenities, to give a trivial example. If OSM 
> wants to be “objective model of the world” then it cannot be so much 
> white-western-rich-male-geek centric.
> 
> But I was asking for something different - examples of sexism (direct 
> hostility against women) in OSM.

Sexism is often not "direct hostility" against women. It's all the 
little things in daily life that men just gloss over. It is people 
making comments about what a (wo)man is eating, it is brushing things 
off as "boys will be boys", it is hositily on mailinglists where I've 
often heard "grow a thick skin", it is about not having childcare at 
conferences, it's being asked (overtly) whether you're soon going to 
have children because you just got maried; and it's insisting on proof 
before be able to realize things are wrong. If you (not meant as 
singular in this post) have never seen anything like this, you need to 
learn to open your eyes. Have a look at 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4UWxlVvT1A&feature=youtu.be

I didn't start this thread to be questioned about these things. I 
started it to see whether it is possible to improve the diversity. 
Asking for proof does the opposite.

cheers,
Derick