Hi Natacha,

I just now got this email (perhaps it was held for list moderation) but thought I would note that there have been gender-specific events before. I'm aware of the WikiWomen's lunch which seems to be held yearly at Wikimania, and I believe that Wikimedia Mexico has women-only editathons.

As a male I have no objections to gender-specific events happening on occasion. I think that it's fine to have those kinds of sessions so long as they are designed and resourced in ways that are arguably fair and don't suggest favoritism. I would be concerned if such events happened in a way that excluded certain classes of people on a regular basis in a way that seemed designed to deny them access to resources or personal connections which might be of interest to them, if resources were assigned to one group and not another in a way that suggested gender-based favoritism, etc.

In the situation that you described, setting up one event out of four to be gender-specific sounds reasonable to me.

You might consider talking to organizers of previous WikiWomen's lunches and/or the Wikimedia Mexico women's editathons to see if they have comments.

Writing as a male member of this list,

Pine

On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 10:48 AM, Natacha Rault <n.rault@me.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

I would like to starts a discussion on women only events. How are they perceived and do they generate antagonism? I have always organized mixed events, until the first of march 2017, where an Art+feminism editathon was hosted by an LGBT lesbian association in Geneva, and I announced it on the French Bistrot here (among other Art+Feminism events that were all inclusive)

I did not want to impose other rules than theirs on their surroundings,so I announced a woman only event for one of the 4 events organized. Some members of the community disagreed and reacted strongly (although I can’t say all were extremely respectful this is just normal bread when dealing with the gender gap) but one was so stunning and persistant (he was blocked in the end and now has a topic ban) that this generated the thought that we might need to reflect more on safe spaces and organize such events more systematically, in each conference and each Wikimania, until this is no issue any more. I remember attending the women only picnic at Wikimania in Esino Lario and being confronted with a different attitude: there it only seemed normal.

What do you think and what is your experience on this issue? I am interested to know all points of vue provided they are formulated with respect.

Nattes à chat (mostly active on les sans pages on the French wiki)

_______________________________________________
Gendergap mailing list
Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org
To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap