Is it only me who finds inviting women to be speakers only because they are women wrong and in fact sexist? You shouldn't differentiate people like this.
It's basically wrong in the same way as saying "Im looking for white, heterosexual men who want to speak about Python"
There is a glut of white heterosexual male role models in science and technology, and that shapes cultural perceptions regarding what a programmer should be like, and causes discrimination against people who do not fit this mold[1].
This might be a clumsy solution (promoting people as successful programmer/role models based on considerations other than achievement), but the risk is low (lower the value of PyCon France slightly) and the reward is potentially very large (increase Python's stake in an underutilized labour pool), if the experiment is successful.
My impression is that it tends to be more about reaching out to women and making sure they know they're welcome and less about inviting women because they are women. (Like, putting some effort into making women submit talks to your conference and then treating their submissions like all other submissions.)
That makes sense if you suspect that other people spend a lot of time making women feel unwelcome and that you're going to miss out on some great talks if you don't do anything about it. I don't think it is always unreasonable to suspect something like that.
Oh no, to be able to find speakers for my next upcoming conference, I'll have to communicate with actual people. What a hassle. Let's build something to fix this problem.
[+] [-] yakxxx|12 years ago|reply
It's basically wrong in the same way as saying "Im looking for white, heterosexual men who want to speak about Python"
[+] [-] pliny|12 years ago|reply
This might be a clumsy solution (promoting people as successful programmer/role models based on considerations other than achievement), but the risk is low (lower the value of PyCon France slightly) and the reward is potentially very large (increase Python's stake in an underutilized labour pool), if the experiment is successful.
[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.full.pdf+html
[+] [-] Garoof|12 years ago|reply
That makes sense if you suspect that other people spend a lot of time making women feel unwelcome and that you're going to miss out on some great talks if you don't do anything about it. I don't think it is always unreasonable to suspect something like that.
[+] [-] grapjas|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rolfvandekrol|12 years ago|reply