Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G
Let me tell you something: having legal rights doesn't mean you have equal opportunities. Those studies are falling into the wrong conclusions probably because bias of the researchers. Apologies, but that's a general dismissal of a peer-reviewed scientific paper, seemingly because you don't like the result. That's not how science works. If there is a problem with the paper (and most papers have a few quirks) I would suggest the correct way to refute it is to start by pointing out the methodological and/or statistical flaws, not dismissing it out of hand. If done thoroughly enough you can probably get a subsequent paper published via peer-review with some other experts in the field that refutes it which is usually good for career prospects. Like you I would have expected more women to choose STEM given the opportunity, but apparently they do the opposite and so I've updated my world-view accordingly to fit the facts. As the saying goes: You're welcome to your own opinions, but facts are facts. Anyway, we're heading off-topic. I was originally simply pointing out that Dar doesn't have gender diversity in the keynotes either (a point I maintain), and I question the unfounded assertion that 50% females in the industry/speakers/etc is something that is feasible given the research on female career preferences. I'll leave it at that. Cheers, Jonathan ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G
On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 10:36 PM, Jonathan Moules wrote: >> This is a common mistake. If you aim for the already declining percentage >> of women, you will not get far. You have to aim for the percentage of >> population. The fact that only 37% of our industry is female is itself a >> problem we have to address. > > ... > >> But going back to the topic of this thread, until we have half of the >> developers/speakers/users being woman, we have a problem. > > > I agree it's a common mistake, but I suspect I'm referring to a different > mistake. Equality is about equal opportunity. It's not about forcing equal > statistically representative numbers of people of various diversity types > into all industries equally. Everyone should have the opportunity to do > whatever they want. > That's the thing, we don't. I guess you haven't seen the video. Unfortunately I don't have a good internet connection here to look for more bibliography, but I can point you easily to Neil, who can explain it again to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5S7QD9dryI > But rather than assertions, lets look at what science says on the matter. > Which set of countries has more gender equality in STEM (Science, > Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) - GIS falls under the T and some of > the S: > Finland, Norway (Countries that address most of the issues in your linked > US-focused Forbes article) > or > Tunisia, United Arab Emirates? > > Chances are you picked wrong. It turns out that in countries with poor > human/women's rights records (UAE, Tunisia) there are more females in STEM, > and in countries where there is more gender equality (i.e. the > Scandinavians), the women choose not to go into STEM. > > For discussion see: > https://researchtheheadlines.org/2018/04/20/the-stem-gender-equality-paradox-from-fallacies-to-facts/ > - and the actual paper: > http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617741719 > > It's great that you chose GIS, but given the choice, the research indicates > that most women chose something other than STEM if they live in a > progressive country, most likely psychology, education, and healthcare, all > of which are generally dominated by women. Given this, to me at least, > trying to force a perfect 50/50 gender balance would thus seem to be doing a > dis-service to people of both genders; it's not equality of opportunity even > if it does achieve perfect diversity. Let me tell you something: having legal rights doesn't mean you have equal opportunities. Those studies are falling into the wrong conclusions probably because bias of the researchers. Do you really thing a woman can choose freely to study STEM in so called advanced countries? Because I live in one of the most feminist/advanced countries in the world regarding gender and... no, we don't have equal opportunity. We are very far from that. Society push us outside tech. Please, watch the video of Neil, he explains it perfectly. In fact, the best stories are the ones told by trans, because they have experienced both sides of what society forces you to be. And how they are treated is completely different. And all of them agree: women and men are treated completely different and while being a man can be difficult, being a woman is far more difficult. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrYx7HaUlMY I think there are better videos, but this is the one I have in hand. This is not a matter of forcing anything, it is a matter of really having an equal field. Which, unfortunately, we don't have right now. And same happens with PoC. And it is worst if you are WoC. We have a lot to conquer here before we can really say we have equal opportunities. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G
> This is a common mistake. If you aim for the already declining percentage of women, you will not get far. You have to aim for the percentage of population. The fact that only 37% of our industry is female is itself a problem we have to address. ... > But going back to the topic of this thread, until we have half of the developers/speakers/users being woman, we have a problem. I agree it's a common mistake, but I suspect I'm referring to a different mistake. Equality is about equal /opportunity/. It's not about forcing equal statistically representative numbers of people of various diversity types into all industries equally. Everyone should have the opportunity to do whatever they want. But rather than assertions, lets look at what science says on the matter. Which set of countries has more gender equality in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) - GIS falls under the T and some of the S: Finland, Norway (Countries that address most of the issues in your linked US-focused Forbes article) or Tunisia, United Arab Emirates? Chances are you picked wrong. It turns out that in countries with poor human/women's rights records (UAE, Tunisia) there are *more* females in STEM, and in countries where there is more gender equality (i.e. the Scandinavians), the women choose /not /to go into STEM. For discussion see: https://researchtheheadlines.org/2018/04/20/the-stem-gender-equality-paradox-from-fallacies-to-facts/ - and the actual paper: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797617741719 It's great that you chose GIS, but given the choice, the research indicates that most women chose something other than STEM if they live in a progressive country, most likely psychology, education, and healthcare, all of which are generally dominated by women. Given this, to me at least, trying to force a perfect 50/50 gender balance would thus seem to be doing a dis-service to people of both genders; it's not equality of opportunity even if it does achieve perfect diversity. On 2018-08-11 14:29, María Arias de Reyna wrote: On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 2:43 PM, Jonathan Moules wrote: Once we have a 50% of speakers that are women (even 40%), we can start saying that having a full keynoter line of women speakers is no diversity. At the risk of asking a question that I know isn't meant to be asked - why 50%? Or "even 40%"? Surely the % should be around the same as the percentage of the workforce that engage in the field? This survey indicates it's about 37% globally so 40% would be reasonable - https://www.gislounge.com/gender-gis-workforce/ (Why the rate is 37% globally is an entirely different kettle of fish). This is a common mistake. If you aim for the already declining percentage of women, you will not get far. You have to aim for the percentage of population. The fact that only 37% of our industry is female is itself a problem we have to address. The lack of role models (speakers? women in the mailing lists? women in developer leading roles?) and specially the lack of a friendly environment for women at work is a problem in most tech related industries: https://code.likeagirl.io/women-are-leaving-tech-and-management-is-responsible-a6187a4d5d81 https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/02/28/why-women-leave-the-tech-industry-at-a-45-higher-rate-than-men/ Not my best talk (blame jet lag), but this can give you more perspective: https://vimeo.com/241597584 And this also applies to racial diversity. If the global foss4g is mostly white... we have a problem. But going back to the topic of this thread, until we have half of the developers/speakers/users being woman, we have a problem. And the longer we ignore it, the worse it gets. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G
On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 2:43 PM, Jonathan Moules wrote: >> Once we have a 50% of speakers that are women (even 40%), we can start >> saying that having a full keynoter line of women speakers is no diversity. > > At the risk of asking a question that I know isn't meant to be asked - why > 50%? Or "even 40%"? Surely the % should be around the same as the percentage > of the workforce that engage in the field? This survey indicates it's about > 37% globally so 40% would be reasonable - > https://www.gislounge.com/gender-gis-workforce/ > (Why the rate is 37% globally is an entirely different kettle of fish). > This is a common mistake. If you aim for the already declining percentage of women, you will not get far. You have to aim for the percentage of population. The fact that only 37% of our industry is female is itself a problem we have to address. The lack of role models (speakers? women in the mailing lists? women in developer leading roles?) and specially the lack of a friendly environment for women at work is a problem in most tech related industries: https://code.likeagirl.io/women-are-leaving-tech-and-management-is-responsible-a6187a4d5d81 https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/02/28/why-women-leave-the-tech-industry-at-a-45-higher-rate-than-men/ Not my best talk (blame jet lag), but this can give you more perspective: https://vimeo.com/241597584 And this also applies to racial diversity. If the global foss4g is mostly white... we have a problem. But going back to the topic of this thread, until we have half of the developers/speakers/users being woman, we have a problem. And the longer we ignore it, the worse it gets. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G
> Once we have a 50% of speakers that are women (even 40%), we can start saying that having a full keynoter line of women speakers is no diversity. At the risk of asking a question that I know isn't meant to be asked - why 50%? Or "even 40%"? Surely the % should be around the same as the percentage of the workforce that engage in the field? This survey indicates it's about 37% globally so 40% would be reasonable - https://www.gislounge.com/gender-gis-workforce/ (Why the rate is 37% globally is an entirely different kettle of fish). > Up till then, having all women as keynoters is not a diversity issue, but an effort to try to promote gender diversity and balance with the rest of speakers. I included the definition of diversity for a reason. As stated, by definition neither of the conferences has any gender diversity in their keynotes. Now, if the Dar committee wants to engage in gender-discrimination when picking their speakers to try and rectify a shortage of female-speakers in the general line-up, that's their choice, but it cannot then be claim keynote "diversity" when there is, again by definition, no such diversity. What you appear to be saying is that it's fine to discriminate as long as it's in favour of the minority, aka "Affirmative action" which I think is just replacing one wrong with another. > For me, saying you are only seeing the glass half full is like saying "we have done enough, don't press more". I was commending them for the racial diversity they have (in a topic titled "Diversity in FOSS4G"), where others skipped over this and went straight to pointing out a diversity they had not achieved (while ironically not achieving it themselves). Personally I seek to be an egalitarian - I'm a big fan of equality - which is why I pointed out some of the various other forms of diversity as they so often get forgotten (age especially). On 2018-08-11 12:10, María Arias de Reyna wrote: On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 12:35 PM, Jonathan Moules wrote: Glass-half-full observation: In a topic talking about the FOSS4G Asia diversity, no-one has commented on the commendable range of racial diversity in those keynotes. As to gender in keynotes, a Devils Advocate would point out there is no gender diversity in the 2018 Dar es Salaam keynote speakers either (assuming the four on the 2018.foss4g.org front page) - they're also all the same gender. Except that given the gender disparity in this field, it seems reasonable to me to conclude that Dar have probably done this intentionally whereas Asia's seems statistically plausible without even needing to factor in unconscious biases. Once we have a 50% of speakers that are women (even 40%), we can start saying that having a full keynoter line of women speakers is no diversity. Up till then, having all women as keynoters is not a diversity issue, but an effort to try to promote gender diversity and balance with the rest of speakers. Or... maybe the keynoters were good on their own? Beware of thinking that chosen woman speakers are there only because of quotas. That's why I said we still have to check about percentages considering the full program. But as a starter, having a full male line of speakers is not a good sign. Statistics is only an excuse. I can understand that this can be something the organization didn't have in mind and, as they are volunteers, they have limited effort to spend on the organization of the conference and gender diversity was not on their priorities. As said, it is a subject difficult to approach and it is no good to try to fix it in a rush because you may end up doing more harm than you expected. For me, saying you are only seeing the glass half full is like saying "we have done enough, don't press more". While I think we should press much more! We already know the conference is going to have a lot of outstanding talks, the discussion here is where is the visibility for woman. I don't think any of us is demeaning the speakers lineup, we are just pointing to a real current problem we (all) have. And what of diversity of age? I'm fairly confident in guessing that the Asia keynotes are all 40s-50s. I'm less confident guessing Dar's, but I'd say in their 20's to 30's. I agree that age diversity is another concern. And also having always the same "token" person talking. The classy "haha, I found a woman or a poc that gives good talks, let's put her everywhere!". Nope. But still, age diversity is something that gives everyone equal trait at some point because everyone reaches the "good" range of ages at some point of their lives. So, even if it is something we can improve, it is a problem way behind of the gender diversity problem, where some people just don't have an oportunity ever. Definition (from the OED): Diverse (Adj), "Showing a great deal of variety; very different." By that definition, neither have gender diversity, both have racial diversity (Asia's more-so), and both have little age dive
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G
On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 12:35 PM, Jonathan Moules wrote: > Glass-half-full observation: In a topic talking about the FOSS4G Asia > diversity, no-one has commented on the commendable range of racial diversity > in those keynotes. > > As to gender in keynotes, a Devils Advocate would point out there is no > gender diversity in the 2018 Dar es Salaam keynote speakers either (assuming > the four on the 2018.foss4g.org front page) - they're also all the same > gender. Except that given the gender disparity in this field, it seems > reasonable to me to conclude that Dar have probably done this intentionally > whereas Asia's seems statistically plausible without even needing to factor > in unconscious biases. Once we have a 50% of speakers that are women (even 40%), we can start saying that having a full keynoter line of women speakers is no diversity. Up till then, having all women as keynoters is not a diversity issue, but an effort to try to promote gender diversity and balance with the rest of speakers. Or... maybe the keynoters were good on their own? Beware of thinking that chosen woman speakers are there only because of quotas. That's why I said we still have to check about percentages considering the full program. But as a starter, having a full male line of speakers is not a good sign. Statistics is only an excuse. I can understand that this can be something the organization didn't have in mind and, as they are volunteers, they have limited effort to spend on the organization of the conference and gender diversity was not on their priorities. As said, it is a subject difficult to approach and it is no good to try to fix it in a rush because you may end up doing more harm than you expected. For me, saying you are only seeing the glass half full is like saying "we have done enough, don't press more". While I think we should press much more! We already know the conference is going to have a lot of outstanding talks, the discussion here is where is the visibility for woman. I don't think any of us is demeaning the speakers lineup, we are just pointing to a real current problem we (all) have. > And what of diversity of age? I'm fairly confident in guessing that the Asia > keynotes are all 40s-50s. I'm less confident guessing Dar's, but I'd say in > their 20's to 30's. I agree that age diversity is another concern. And also having always the same "token" person talking. The classy "haha, I found a woman or a poc that gives good talks, let's put her everywhere!". Nope. But still, age diversity is something that gives everyone equal trait at some point because everyone reaches the "good" range of ages at some point of their lives. So, even if it is something we can improve, it is a problem way behind of the gender diversity problem, where some people just don't have an oportunity ever. > Definition (from the OED): > Diverse (Adj), "Showing a great deal of variety; very different." > > By that definition, neither have gender diversity, both have racial > diversity (Asia's more-so), and both have little age diversity. So this means we are doing very good in racial diversity this year, but falling behind on gender diversity on regional events. Let's see if we can keep up on racial diversity next year for the main conference and improve gender diversity in regional events? As said, this is a long-distance race. It is not very helpful if we have a good racial diversity this year but forget about them in the following years. Also, good time to remind amazing work of TGP for bringing economic diversity to FOSS4G (which is another huge concern). > > Cheers, > Jonathan > > > > On 2018-08-09 10:43, María Arias de Reyna wrote: > > I agree this is a good topic to bring into the open, and not an easy > one. For what I have seen, FOSS4G Asia organization is doing a good > job, this is just a hard subject to address. Even if that keynote > lineup was full of women (like in main FOSS4G!) we still have to check > about the rest of speakers and the attendees. But you are right, > adding at least one woman keynoter can make a difference. > > For those of you who may be reading this and need some context, this > is a long-distance race, not a sprint. Reaching outside your comfort > zone networks (usually mostly male contacts in the case of male > developers) to get more women speakers is not something you can do on > a blink. Specially if the organizers didn't have the problem in mind > when the organization started. We usually say that if you start > worrying about diversity after you choose the venue, you are already > too late. > > I will be in FOSS4G Asia and I hope to get in contact with the > organization to know about their idiosyncrasy, their worries and their > challenges. Trying to help from here is difficult, as my networks are > mostly european and american. But still, we can work together in > strategies and how to improve diversity. I am going to give a talk > with Malena on Tanzania about general strategie
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G
Glass-half-full observation: In a topic talking about the FOSS4G Asia diversity, no-one has commented on the commendable range of racial diversity in those keynotes. As to gender in keynotes, a Devils Advocate would point out there is no gender diversity in the 2018 Dar es Salaam keynote speakers either (assuming the four on the 2018.foss4g.org front page) - they're also all the same gender. Except that given the gender disparity in this field, it seems reasonable to me to conclude that Dar have probably done this intentionally whereas Asia's seems statistically plausible without even needing to factor in unconscious biases. And what of diversity of age? I'm fairly confident in guessing that the Asia keynotes are all 40s-50s. I'm less confident guessing Dar's, but I'd say in their 20's to 30's. Definition (from the OED): Diverse (Adj), "Showing a great deal of variety; very different." By that definition, neither have gender diversity, both have racial diversity (Asia's more-so), and both have little age diversity. Cheers, Jonathan On 2018-08-09 10:43, María Arias de Reyna wrote: I agree this is a good topic to bring into the open, and not an easy one. For what I have seen, FOSS4G Asia organization is doing a good job, this is just a hard subject to address. Even if that keynote lineup was full of women (like in main FOSS4G!) we still have to check about the rest of speakers and the attendees. But you are right, adding at least one woman keynoter can make a difference. For those of you who may be reading this and need some context, this is a long-distance race, not a sprint. Reaching outside your comfort zone networks (usually mostly male contacts in the case of male developers) to get more women speakers is not something you can do on a blink. Specially if the organizers didn't have the problem in mind when the organization started. We usually say that if you start worrying about diversity after you choose the venue, you are already too late. I will be in FOSS4G Asia and I hope to get in contact with the organization to know about their idiosyncrasy, their worries and their challenges. Trying to help from here is difficult, as my networks are mostly european and american. But still, we can work together in strategies and how to improve diversity. I am going to give a talk with Malena on Tanzania about general strategies and how to work on improving diversity and my plan is to write down later whatever comes from that conversation so we have some guidelines or good practices that any OSGeo event can use. Maybe it is time we renew the woman@osgeo mailing list to join forces? On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 12:25 AM, Jody Garnett wrote: Hey Mark, good on you for voicing publicly. Our ability to discuss openly is a strength of our community, and one we are learning to use responsibly. I saw your tweet yesterday, but find the discussion list more useful for internal discussion such as this. It is a hard balance between requesting or encouraging changes we want to see vs expressing dissapointment in the activities of others. This is especially important in a volunteer organization such as ours where disappointment however kindly expressed can hit really moral hard (especially as volunteers are pulling an event together). I have been on both sides of this balance and it is never comfortable, as you express in your struggle above. Ideally, I seek to offer my time if I am in position to be of assistance and if the assistance is welcome. If not in a position to help I seek to learn or look for an opportunity for feedback. I learned a lot as your foss4g event planning has unfolded and your challenges, priorities and direction became clear. It is my hope that we will learn what challenges the foss4g-asia event is facing and what we as an organization can do to assist. If you have been following the board meetings the Sri Lanka chapter is just being officially recognized (and the membership shows some diversity). OSGeo has also set aside funding for our president to attend the foss4g-asia event. -- Jody Garnett On Wed, 8 Aug 2018 at 14:53, Mark Iliffe wrote: Hi All, I’ve really agonised over whether to send this email. First of which, being the imminent final preparations for FOSS4G taking up a lot of time, but also whether it’s appropriate for me in my role of chair of FOOS4G to offer public critique of regional events. It is in this vein that I’d like to really stress that I’m writing this as an OSSGeo charter member. When I first saw this, my heart sank: http://www.foss4g-asia.org/2018/keynotes/ Where is the gender diversity in the line up? I know that organising a FOSS4G is really difficult, but we need to be reaching far and wide and that starts with our keynotes. Potentially I’m missing something here - and I probably am, if so I am sorry if this is the case! - but can we have a rethink of the line up to really represent our community? Thank you, Mark _
[OSGeo-Discuss] PostGIS 2.5.0beta2 release
The PostGIS Development team is pleased to release PostGIS 2.5.0beta2 Source: https://downloads.osgeo.org/postgis/source/postgis-2.5.0beta2.tar.gz Docs: PDF - https://downloads.osgeo.org/postgis/docs/postgis-2.5.0beta2.pdf HTML - https://downloads.osgeo.org/postgis/docs/doc-html-2.5.0beta2.tar.gz EPUB- https://downloads.osgeo.org/postgis/docs/postgis-2.5.0beta1.epub Changes since 2.5.0beta1 are as follows: * 4115, Fix a bug that created MVTs with incorrect property values under parallel plans (Raúl Marín). * 4120, ST_AsMVTGeom: Clip using tile coordinates (Raúl Marín). * 4132, ST_Intersection on Raster now works without throwing TopologyException (Vinícius A.B. Schmidt, Darafei Praliaskouski) * 4109, Fix WKT parser accepting and interpreting numbers with multiple dots (Raúl Marín, Paul Ramsey) * 4140, Use user-provided CFLAGS in address standardizer and the topology module (Raúl Marín) * 4143, Fix backend crash when ST_OffsetCurve fails (Dan Baston) * 4145, Speedup MVT column parsing (Raúl Marín) Please test and report any bugs to our ticket tracker or mailing list http://postgis.net/support/ Thanks, PostGIS Development Team ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
