On 27/09/2017 10:57, Shane Kerr wrote:
So to me it’s more: if this TF does a great job, as a result we’ll see diversity increased, but that is not the direct goal - to me the direct goal is more removing barriers that prevent diversity, and looking for ways to offset barriers we can’t remove.
I like your way of looking at this :)
May I ask why the TF's goal should not be an actual increase in diversity and instead should just be the removal of (some) barriers? How can we know whether the TF's work addresses the right barriers if the goal is defined by the work being done and not the outcome of the work?
I agree.
The goal should not be to have a RIPE community that could in theory be diverse, but rather to have a RIPE community that *is* diverse.
There may be factors in society at large that mean fewer women want to come to a RIPE meeting. We can address some of those, by being a more welcoming place, and by actively showing that we are. But we can't fix everything: it's not given to us in this TF to persuade more women to become network engineers in the first place, or to study STEM topics. I think "fixing RIPE" is ambitious enough. Fixing society, well that's a rabbit hole beyond the scope of this TF. But we don't need to limit ourselves to "some" barriers. Any barrier that RIPE places in the way of diverse participation that reasonably can be removed, without causing more problems than it solves, we should address. In short, let's try to do what we can. But not more. -- Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523 Head of Public Affairs | Read the LINX Public Affairs blog London Internet Exchange | http://publicaffairs.linx.net/ London Internet Exchange Ltd Monument Place, 24 Monument Street London EC3R 8AJ Company Registered in England No. 3137929 Trinity Court, Trinity Street, Peterborough PE1 1DA