- This topic has 13 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 6 months ago by
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I had the unexpected pleasure of mentoring three girls (14hrs and under) at WordCamp Sydney 2014. They’re all bloggers and very interested in technology, code and related fields. To be honest, my time with them was the highlight of the WordCamp for me and it’s got me thinking about how to do more of that and how to use our WordPress network to offer more support and encouragement to women and girls interested in this area.
I already run an ‘all women’ WordPress meetup (to which we do permit men to attend) and it’s pretty popular. Its initial focus has been to build up and encourage confidence in the attending women’s skills and abilities in order to broaden the pool of speakers and contributors available to speak at meetups and WordCamps. Is that working? I’m not sure… do we have a good time? Yes.
I’m keen to bring this conversation to the Summit talk to other people who are running such groups (if they exist) about what works, what doesn’t, whether gender specific groups are actually useful or not, and if yes, how best to try and encourage women in and into WordPress.
I would be interested in attending a session about this topic, as we’ve made considerations as to how we could do that too.
+1
I’m interested about your topic.
I’m lucky that in Japanese WordPress community many women are already involved.
I understand it encourages other women to jump into the community.
In our last WordCamp, one in five attendees were women but I want to make it even!A large part of my community involvement in my hometown revolves around getting women into tech of all kinds and facilitating conversations around how our teachers (primary, secondary, and non-traditional) can do it better, too.
I would love to join a session like this!
+1!
+1
I love this topic as I am part of PHPWomen but shouldn’t this be part of the global solution of supporting minorities better than just targeting women & girls?
I agree with Jenny that supporting and encouraging all underrepresented groups should be a priority and think it makes sense to either expand this topic or have a second one on the broader area of mentoring underrepresented groups.
+1
As the co-founder of the network WPWomenDE.org, I welcome this discussion and absolutely would like to attend. Particularly in view of the still undiscovered opportunities for women to participate.
I see it like Jenny that all marginalized groups should be integrated. Nevertheless, I consider it useful to strengthen first within the groups, and then to represent the interests in the community better and to get involved.
+1.
I think including “youth” as a minority group should be considered. I think we need a way to get more younger ones (<18 years or even younger) involved with WordPress and representing more at WordCamps. Miami had one last year along with a WordCamp For Kids, but I feel there’s a gap between the Kids workshop (and similar events) and the speaking schedule.
+1 based on expanding to traditionally marginalized groups. I would not include youth in that, given the youth-focused nature of to industry and the fact that youth is he one area we actually participate in mentorship programs. There will be several people working on youth-focused outreach programs at the meetup, but I think it is separate from diversity outreach.
Excellent topic, I would like to be involved in this discussion, I definitely feel that we need more focus on this area to recruit new technological talent from women in general.
+1 to this. Mentorship and promotion of groups to produce a more heterogenous and diverse community is key to the longevity of our community and the wider goal of truly democratizing the publishing, dissemination, and discussion of ideas on the web.
As for how to conduct such a discussion it is important to recognize that the different underrepresented groups – women, ethnic minorities, non-English speaking groups, those with accessibility needs, and beyond – are all very different and may require substantially different approaches. The one thing we don’t want is for the discussion to get too fractured and thus end up with nothing actionable at the end.
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