(PyLadies Panel) Reflecting Within: Challenging Narratives in Tech Feminism

Speaker 1 [00:05]

We're going to start now with a very interesting panel discussion. Paloma here from PyLadies Berlin will talk about reflecting within challenging narratives in tech feminism.

Speaker 2 [00:19]

Thank you, Heike. So, PaiLadies, for the ones who doesn't know, is an international organization that in the last time I count has 75 chapters around the globe. Well, that was the last time I checked. We may have more born in this conference, which is pretty cool. And the main purpose of 75 different chapters is to align what align us, is to push gender equity and woman in leadership in Python and tech communities. And we have been working with several other Python organizations, such as the Python Software Verband, to bring us to spaces such as here, the PyCon.de, and PyData Berlin, for at least what I can recall the past four years that I am personally involved. And this exchange with other foundations is very intentional. Here, we can bring our questions and concerns with different Pilates from chapters around the Germany and the world, and also for you, for a more broader Pythonist and technologist perspective to this exchange. All of the panels are recorded, you can check online, and we can see also how have we been evolving and changing our concerns during the years. Celebration is also a very intentional thing. We change together with the world around us. And in order to serve our communities, and I love the serve brought by Leah Silent from the Noon Focus on Monday, if you have heard her talk, we need to be able to not only celebrate but also to learn from our mistakes. And to step out of our very lovely bubble, because it's often very lovely, and understand how can we serve in a minimal manner and unafraidly unveil our own bias and understand how we are actually impacting the communities we serve. But look at the world around us. I think that's a first step. Have we reached gender equity? Have we closed the pay gap? Have we stopped being absolutely sensitive about the fathers taking care of their child for six months, which is a great German celebration, but feeling nothing about the women taking care of them for six months? So we have a lot of depth to think about it and to tackle. So it's a clearly no. are far from equal, not just in the big picture, but also within our own undefending gender equity organisations. This is what this debate is about, to raise our awareness and to find pressing issues we need to tackle because we certainly gain our awareness of it. We're growing together and evolving with the world around us. And This was triggered by a book called Feminisms, a Global History, where Lucy de Laupe brings a historical documentation about feminist history in Africa, Middle East, Asia, South America, and all around the globe. And that makes me wonder about the necessity of regionalities and global issues. it calls for the book itself calls for a more inclusive and multifaceted understanding of feminism that respects and incorporates diversity and its expressions and the different challenges faced by women all around the world so this book was an inspiration and this opportunity is an opportunity to critically reflect on actional items so this is what's going to happen today. Instead of a common CV reading, I am presenting all the outstanding things all these women around me have reached, and they have. I recommend to reach their LinkedIns. But what I will start doing is I will ask them to present themselves for you to understand the context, because context really matters. So they will present themselves in about two minutes each where their voices come from. And then we will try to introduce a more debate style. It is very structured, but that it's meant that everyone has exactly three minutes to answer three different answers. In between those answers, I need you, because your voice is important to have it too. And although it's a very big audience and room, I think it's important to include you in. So Heike, our lovely session chair, will resume your comments in Slido in between each question. So make sure if you hear something, your interest, you want to discuss, intrigued you, write it down and Heike will be your voice or call her she will go to you and then we will have two minutes each for closing our thoughts this is also a call this of course it's not enough time to discuss such an in-depth issue if you do this is our community so me you everyone here want to go deeper and create a meetup to go deeper weekly or once let us know or hop in the pie booth right after here, so we can follow this conversation, it's a call to that, so let's start with Na.

Speaker 3 [06:00]

Hi, everyone. My name is Nacho Konote, and I'll just give a one line that sounds like a CV. So I'm a master's student by day, and I think currently a volunteer by night. I helped organize PyCon DE, and I'm helping to organize EuroPython 2024, which I'm hoping to see all of you. So I've lived in Ghana almost all my life, so two years ago. and in Ghana I was a part of Pi Ladies Ghana and I volunteered for five years I'm still a part still I'm not living there anymore I volunteered with the communication team and interestingly enough as soon as I joined I started volunteering so um yes currently I'm battling with thoughts of starting Pi Ladies in the city I'm in so let's see fingers crossed yes I think that's a good of me.

Speaker 4 [07:00]

Oh, I should have prepared my production. My name is Tania Allard. I wear a lot of hats in the open source ecosystem. My day job is a director at Quantity Labs, which is a not-for-profit organization, mostly we work towards maintaining a lot of the packages that you use, tools, like a lot of projects under the PyDate umbrella. I'm also a director of the PSF board, part of the PyLadies Global Council, and have been participating in open source for a very long time. I'm originally from Mexico, but have been living in the UK for quite a while now.

Speaker 5 [08:01]

Hi, everybody. I'm Catherine. I sometimes go by the nickname K-Jam. So I will tell, instead of talking about myself, I will talk about the origin story of Pie Ladies. So Pi Ladies was born at my dinner table in Los Angeles, California in 2011 with a group of women who were not happy with the way that the current meetup scene worked and with the idea perhaps of if we just decided to run our own events, maybe it would change. and it was a group of eight of us and we formed the original chapter then in Los Angeles, California, where I'm from and I'll be sharing some stories about kind of the vision that we had at the beginning before it was taken over by this PSF. So I'm happy to be here. Thank you.

Speaker 6 [09:00]

Hi, I'm Czech, and yeah, how do I start? So I grew up in Hong Kong, so, you know, kind of maybe that's why I'm a little bit different and bring some different perspective. I grew up in a culture, it's an East Asian culture, but my background is actually in physics, so I studied science and then moved to the UK eight years ago and then started my data science career and then slowly transitioning into, like, who I am today, that now I, well, before I served the EuroPython Society board that helped organise EuroPython, and right now I'm serving the Python Software Foundation board, and I still help organise EuroPython and other conferences, and also I'm also starting this initiative called Humble Data that is trying to bring more diversity into data science community and teach Python.

Speaker 2 [10:02]

Thank you. So the first question goes about evaluating the impact we have. And this question is about your own experience with the communities. What have you lived during BELT? What was concrete but has only worked in a specifically space and time? And have we gone backwards somehow? Are women in tech really impactful when necessary, back and now? and who and what are those communities for. And for this, I will start with Catherine.

Speaker 5 [10:39]

Yeah, I mean, I shared a little bit of our original impulse. So this small group, what we decided to do as our first experiment is to run some workshops. And we were pretty amazed in those initial workshops by how many women that we got to meet that we didn't know from just going to the local tech conferences and seeing and so forth. and so we also decided to have our first event where um where you know cis dudes were invited and at this event we decided we would call it a hackathon and that it was hosted by pi ladies so there was an ally group that formed around the time called they called themselves pi laddies and um and yeah that was the ally group for people that didn't want to be in pi ladies they were in high laddies and we created this hackathon and we were amazed so first off it was kind of sold out so we had a very like small ticket price and then also scholarships available and then we had 100 people there and 70 of them were women and I had never ever been to a single tech event this was in 2011 so sorry I'm dating myself but at that time I had never ever even been to a tech event that had more than 10% women attendees and 70% for me was a massive shift. And so what we decided to do is to create an open source kit and some people, some journalists wrote about what we were doing and then some other chapters started forming and we started kind of sending money and support and open source software to help other chapters get started, which was pretty exciting. And I just want to say that like I don't think that I ever knew that it was going to be I don't think any of us knew that it was ever going to be around this long and I definitely don't think we ever knew it was going to be this international and I think we probably would have chosen a different name so I'm really sorry because in hindsight it's not very inclusive it was kind of a joke between us because a lot of the communities at that point in time were girls or chicks and we thought both of those were not very appropriate so we chose ladies kind of with the mind that you know in LA kind of the queer culture is very active and that kind of gender queer and ladies feel more appropriate than saying women at the time so I'm sorry for the name I think maybe we could call it like pi pi gals and non-binary pals I like that phrasing so I'm definitely open for riffing on on the name but I think the coolest thing about the impact is the idea was always that grassroots chapters have their own authority to do whatever they want and to take it and own it and maybe that didn't work as well as we thought but that's the most inspiring thing that I still think is working well within Pi Ladies globally is that there is local ownership of what it means to be a Pi lady at any point in time. Yeah. Thanks.

Speaker 2 [13:49]

Tanya?

Speaker 4 [13:51]

So, yeah, like, I'm a bit starstruck here with Catherine here. I'm not going to say that I built Labs because when I joined, it was already there. But I think over the years that I've been a director at Labs, we've managed to build, like, this beautiful bubble where we have a great team of very, very talented people that care deeply about communities, that care deeply about projects and building a sustainable ecosystem. As a director, my job is sometimes boring, sometimes exciting, always chaotic, but something that I've tried to embed in every single decision, and my co-director, Ralph, is an incredibly kind and thoughtful person. We stumbled across this principle of feminist co-leadership, which is an approach towards challenging power dynamics, adopting more transparent practices, being intentional about that power that you hold, and more transparent about the decisions that you make, so that these are done in a non-oppressive way, but in ways that are actually empowering others and empowering others to emerge as leaders, because that's ultimately what we want within an organisation, within a community. And I think that has allowed us to just sometimes have fun and play and try new things, like start a new internship for people from marginalised groups to contribute to open source with the maintainers of the open source projects. We We can do that because those are already our staff members, because we have resources, we have time, and we can. We can make those decisions. We have the power to make those decisions right now. I also have, and I know this is probably what a lot of you are going to find boring, but spend a lot of time looking at policies, because policies are important. We always talk about how messed up our diversity pipeline is, like how hard it is to break into the industry, how hard it is to get people into the jobs. But that is just the bottom line. It doesn't matter if you get, I don't know, like 100 amazing candidates coming from all over the world with all the skills, if they leave the organization in three months because you didn't have the processes and policies for them to thrive and for them to be themselves and for them to have all the tools. So, yeah, sometimes it's boring, but I think spending a lot of time thinking and reflecting about how my power can be used in those egalitarian ways has basically just driven everything that we're doing. Like, spending time looking at more inclusive sick leave policies, parental leave policies, and our turnover rates are tiny because of that.

Speaker 2 [17:24]

And I will ask for Chiuk to follow up or deny the thought.

Speaker 6 [17:32]

Talk a lot. So I think one thing that I want to point out is that some people may think that, oh, like, well, we have been doing this for a long time, right? So you started PyLadies 2011. We are lucky that, like, in Python community, we see, like, quite a drastic change, you see. Like, we see more female speaker in PyCon US. Like, we see more participation of women in the community. I think if you look, like, further away, you see, like, the whole tech scene, I think it's not the case for other communities. And sometimes, like, you know, it feels like, oh, is the effort still, like, kind of worth it, like, worth doing all these things? Because a lot of, like, initiatives are run by volunteers, and it's, like, you know, of course a lot of, you know, it's kind of personal expenses to put in these efforts and resources to do it. But from my perspective, I think like no matter what, we have to do it because of like how the situation is and if we don't try to do something, it will just get worse even though like maybe you don't see the result immediately and then you don't see the improvement immediately. I have talked to a lot of conference organizers. they may have a crash, like the childcare, that they have been, like, maybe trying it because they see other conferences doing it, trying it for years, maybe the first few years nobody use it, and it's still worth investing the money and, like, you know, because you have to kind of arrange a room for that, you have to hire someone professional for that, like, is it worth doing it? I would say keep doing it, keep promoting it, eventually someone will realize that that's an opportunity for them to, like, for parents, for especially, like, mothers to be able to go to a conference in the weekend and, like, you know, to be part of the community. And so, yeah, like, this is something that I think, you know, we have to be, like, resilient and keep doing it. And, like, it's not just something that we just, like, oh, hope that, like, it's done. And then we can just, like, oh, everybody's happy. I think that's too optimistic. And then we have to just, like, keep constantly doing it.

Speaker 2 [19:54]

And now, from your perspective, we have policies, we have constant don't giving up or opting on the actions, we have issues with naming and following up. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3 [20:10]

I think I'd go into support what Chook said. So these communities are important. These communities play a role. And I would say I'm an example of that. I mean, being part of Pai Ladies in Ghana, I didn't think I would be sitting here today in this cute chair with these nice lights and these phenomenal women, day in, day out, contributing in Pai Ladies Ghana and everything that was happening. I didn't think it would get this far for me to be here. But then that is an example that it really does work. And just like Truc said, the results might not be immediate. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow. But then it might take some time. But then it does work and it does play an impact. So I think the dream I've been having of starting Pie Ladies Tampere, so I live in Tampere in Finland, I think it's about time I realize that dream and live it out, no matter the ifs, buts, and maybes that are coming with it in my head. So, yes, that's it.

Speaker 2 [21:22]

Just because you spoke, but you have still almost two minutes. We'll follow up on that to ask comparing your experience between Ghana and Finland. What are the most precious actions that you think, this one we cannot give up and this one we cannot do it anymore?

Speaker 3 [21:41]

So, about the not giving up, telling more women to get into tech, I think there are times where we assume that there's a lot of information about it out there, but being in Finland, being an international in Finland, and communicating with other internationals, the general aim of internationals is to, okay, I'm here for school, get a job. but then there should be more to it and I think that's what they need more information about like the women I meet a number of internationals in Finland that are women and they are more in tune with getting jobs that are easier to get and not tech jobs because they think maybe I'm not fit for that role maybe I don't have that experience I meet a number of them wanting to only go into nursing because maybe that's easier to get they just have to learn the language and they could be a nurse they've not i think they've not had the information that okay i could actually try to learn a programming language and be a woman in tech and get exposed to other job opportunities and i think there's that gap of knowledge in there so there is that okay more women should get into tech but then when you meet internationals that gap of knowledge might not be there if they've not been exposed to communities like PyLadies Ghana for me I have so I do have it but I meet other internationals and they haven't so their thinking is just in a box and limited

Speaker 1 [23:28]

Yes, thank you. So to summarize that, like 10 questions that came up, there is a lot of questions about support, like what kind of support with specific examples can people do, also privilege people specifically. There's also the question about ally workshops, so basically to teach them how to help. if they didn't hear it already a couple of times. And there was a specific question for Tanya, which is on the top most now. Should I read it out or you want to work on the...

Speaker 2 [24:13]

We're not answering the questions now, because we have structured questions, but I want to summarize the thoughts for them to include in their questions, and is there any statement or any opinion?

Speaker 1 [24:23]

any opinion on the poll? Only questions. So for the next round, you can also state your thoughts in the polls, even if it's Q&A.

Speaker 2 [24:33]

So the next round of questions is about critical reflection on the work we're doing. So at this point, I hope you all know what intersectionality is about. But if you don't, I highly recommend you to search and understand deeply what it means. It's the understanding that issues never come along. Where you were born, in which time, in which body, and with how much money you were born with will change your experience of the world and which opportunities you have or not. And we as humans fighting for equity on gender disparity coming and leaving in different parts of the world, from your experience, what are we failing and why? And which questions are we not asking ourselves? ourselves, which people are missing on our own tables, and most importantly, how to include the ones missing. And for that, I will start with you.

Speaker 6 [25:38]

Yeah, so that's a very good point because I would consider myself in some aspect privileged because I, you know, I received very, like, you know, good education. I was lucky to be in a girls' school, so I don't feel the pressure of, like, oh, you know, girls should do, like, all this art stuff. Like, you should not design things because I was really into science when I was in school. and being in a girls' school, I just feel that, you know, or maybe I'm one of those a little bit more nerdy girls that love science and it's okay. Because, you know, in girls' school, we also have science subjects. We just don't have that, like, woodwork subject, which I think nowadays they change it. But at that time, I was like, that's not fair. I want to do woodwork. But anyway, yeah, that's the tension. So I think communication is very important to understand Because, again, like, I would say that in my perspective, everybody is biased. I am, like, I would have my own bias because of my experience of, like, being lucky to, like, you know, don't have this. So I can't imagine if someone, let's say, grow up in a, you know, like, a family that are more conservative and think that absolutely, you're a girl, you should not do anything science or engineering or, like, you know, being discouraged. I can't be, you know, understand what's, like, be in their shoes and understand how it feels like. So I think it applies, like, the same for, like, for example, I can't imagine growing up in another country or, like, in other kind of financial situation will be like. So communication, being open-minded, understanding, I think, and having the sympathy, like, I think. And also a meeting. Sometimes a meeting that you don't understand is important. I think that's the first step that we understand that we accept the fact that we are all human I'm biased because I'm a human and sometimes I can be wrong and then you can open your mind and then you can accept new ideas accept someone's perspective and then try to learn so I think that's how I see the situation

Speaker 2 [27:53]

And I will stop the claps just because of to have more time. Naa, do you want to follow up on that?

Speaker 3 [28:01]

Okay, so I think one question we are probably not asking is the why. I mean, yes, someone would join PyLadies, but do we actually do ask, why do you want to be part of PyLadies? And for me, it's exciting to have heard Catherine talk about how PyLadies came about. And I remember I went to PyCon Lithuania and I met Audrey and I had a conversation with her and she told me again about how Pi Ladies came about. So their why is so clear, but for us joining, what is our why? Why do we want to be part of Pi Ladies? As Pi Ladies leads, when we get members joining, do we ask them of their why and how we can navigate that in the system, how we can support that? because sometimes the lack of why is you might find difficult to know the reason why you're part of the community and I think that's one question that we need to address and I would say that yes there are a number of people missing at the table and I'm just trying to remember some of my experiences in Ghana and I don't remember us being specifically saying that okay this time we're going to look especially about people.

Speaker 4 [29:25]

old people.

Speaker 3 [29:25]

especially abled women, to be part of PyLadies Ghana. And I think that's definitely one area that we need to address. I remember a few months ago in March during International Women's Day, there's this lady in Ghana who has changed her perspective of tech in Ghana. She's called Farida Bedouin. And she posted a comment that probably the people at the table that made the decision of the sign for IWD for this year there was no one who was specially able because she has cerebral palsy so she can't do the sign and I was like oh my god that didn't cross that didn't cross my attention so we need to look widely we might not be able to check every box immediately, but we do need to look widely.

Speaker 2 [30:24]

I'll ask Tanya to follow up on that because after...

Speaker 4 [30:28]

After here, you have...

Speaker 2 [30:28]

Because you know I have thoughts, right? And if you don't know, Tanya will have a following here, talk about accessible documentation.

Speaker 4 [30:37]

Yeah. Actually, Nan touched on a group that I care very, very, very deeply about. Like, I myself am a disabled person, and I think we're not very openly represented for whatever reason. There are a lot of barriers for participation in many spaces. Like, that's where we can definitely do more of a diversity of people with disabilities. I think also, when we, and this is something that I've noticed in many spaces, not just in pilot, it's not just in Python, but there is a huge emphasis in bringing people into our communities, bringing people into coding, bringing people into open source, but there is still this association of, like, beginners or newcomers with young people. And sometimes you forget that there are a lot of people that are career changers, that are looking for a better quality of life, and have decided to change careers, like late, or had to have a pause in their careers and are coming back after a few years. And we don't talk about age, like ageism, like how hard it is to see that representation across all ages in our in our communities um and like there are many other groups that i can probably list that we're not including but for feminism to be true feminism and successful it has to be intersectional and we cannot keep thinking in the binary of gender like we really need to look at all like that amalgamation of characteristics and experience that every single individual brings with themselves, because that's what we are. We're a mixture of our background, where we grew up, what we did, the people we talked to, and our lived experiences. And it was very interesting that a lot of the questions that we were getting were around what type of support can we give? There is a lot of things that we can do. There are a lot of things like type of support that we can do but I think many of us like fixing things or like doing things and sometimes the one question that we forget to ask others is what kind of support do you really need like what is what I or my community or my team could do better for you could do better to help you and I get it like we get that urge to jump in and fix things and sometimes just asking is the best type of support or the best starting point.

Speaker 2 [33:30]

It's a good follow-up for Catherine because you started talking about the queer scene in Los Angeles, maybe when I had other things, but that made me think about your own experience from setting up from the beginning of PyLadies, you already have like this idea in mind.

Speaker 5 [33:47]

Yeah, there's kind of a lot to unpack and I just want to appreciate from the other panelists like hearing their perspectives. I want to kind of talk about a thing that we recognized early on in the first PyLadies chapter and one of the things that we recognized is when communities reached out across the global south, they were often also reaching out for financial aid to start their chapter and there was a reason why we charged entry fees to our events in Los Angeles and particularly especially to events that were open to anybody who identifies as an ally and so forth and this was because we knew that we could use the power of the Global North monies and the Los Angeles monies that we were able to collect to support and fund PyLadies movements across Global South and in other places that might not have as easy access to financial aid. So when we first formed Pi Ladies, we formed it as a non-profit organization. We voted as a Pi Ladies community who would sit on the board, and all of our first presidents were not white women. They were people of color from the L.A. community. And I just want to share that because I think that Pi Ladies changed when it moved into the PSF, And I would call maybe it's not a communal decision that that happened. And I think that there's something to be said about a community that decides democratically who is in charge and decides democratically how to support other participants in other parts of the chapters. At some point in time, the PSF decided to stop the financial aid program. And this was something like we often gave 500 USD in local currency to the new chapter so they could cover meetup fees and they could maybe print some shirts and do some other things. There were some other wild ideas we had too at the time that maybe will come up later. But I think the important thing to know, and especially sitting here in a mainly wide, wide mainly european context is that like there is an obligation that we have in the unequal distribution of power in the world and myself as a white woman mother language english cis woman mainly hetero reading i think like people think i'm hetero and these types of things like i think that this means that i hold a lot of power and privilege and i think that for those of you that asking questions about allyship and how you can support I think some of the ideas is how do we create space and how do we fight inequality in the spaces that we make and some of that is allowing true democracy to happen and making sure that you're using your power to support and uplift and not take up your own space so

Speaker 2 [36:46]

hike

Speaker 1 [36:49]

Yes, we definitely have a big wish to communicate. A lot of questions are coming in, but I try to rephrase. One comment I really also like is allyship is action, not a role or identity. It's active, constant, and intentional. Bring an ally. Being an ally is challenging yourself every day, actively listening and observing. So I'm quickly reading through this again. There's also the wish, yeah, to support the community, and especially groups of women also underprivileged of any other kind also with disabilities and I'm losing my thought also yeah the question is if it

Speaker 6 [37:55]

is.

Speaker 1 [37:56]

still at the same time maybe a bit dangerous or tricky to put those people in the spotlight. There's also this in two questions. And another thought that it's a bit sad that those people who care about those topics, obviously, are maybe not in the room because we have still a lot of seats left. Ah, okay. One more. And a very nice suggestion, which could be, I think, added on, or, yeah, because I don't think we're going to change the name of PyLadies, but the suggestion is to also have PyVisibility empowering stories of overcoming any kind of discrimination and increase inclusivity.

Speaker 2 [38:58]

It's very tough. I acknowledge because it's very tough to read it all and try to put it in real time. Thank you, Heike. And that would be our last structure question of the day, which is about the future directions and improvements. So we go leave this room with actionable items and some positivity. Considering the critiques and challenges discussed here today, what specific changes or strategies or policies should we consider to serve better and represent a broader spectrum of genders or individuals or bodies in the technology. And for that, I think we should start with Tanya.

Speaker 4 [39:46]

Which list? I don't know. I don't really know. Thanks. Well, Catherine already has mentioned how PyLadies has changed over time, and I think it started with such a beautiful principle of allowing people in their communities that know best what their communities need and are struggling with to have that agency and being empowered to act on those and, like, build a more egalitarian place for themselves. Like, that has changed. Like, it's the nature of communities evolving, of projects growing. And I think, like, building again, like, this global council and some of the ideas that everything comes full circle. Like, rethinking how we can have, like, these micro grants, again, something akin to what it started, going back to listening to people, that is something that we can do more of. I think sometimes we don't listen to people as much as we should. So, yeah, we have a lot to learn still at PyLadies. We still have a lot of things to improve, and probably some things that were better at the beginning. Like going back and reflect, I think that is also something that is very, very useful. Looking back at where you've been, what decisions have been made, who made those decisions, who was benefited or harmed by those decisions, and knowing that some wrongs can be righted, But being intentional and fixing those things and improving those things that can be improved and preserving those things that are working well. So, yeah, I think, like, it is all... I don't think we're ever going to get to a point where I say, oh, yeah, here, we're done. There is no more diversity, inclusion, and accessibility work to do, and I'm just going to focus on writing code. I don't think we're ever going to get to that point. I think at most what we can hope to do is leave the place a bit better than what we started, like opening a bit of the road for whoever is going to come after you and take the baton, because that is probably what we can hope of as leaders, like seeing other leaders emerge, becoming a leader on themselves, and let them continue or build something better.

Speaker 6 [42:34]

May I add to that? So I think that, again, like, I think sometimes we have to be realistic. We can't be just like, oh, it's so nice. We have pilot this launch. We have pilot this event. It's so amazing. But also, at the same time, we have to understand that our community is not perfect. There's still a lot of problems that's happening. There's still different opinions about things should be done that way or should not be done that way. I think people who are in the community who are brave to voice out their opinion they're brave they care about the community it's very easy to walk away it's very easy to say you know what, this is not a community for me because you didn't do the thing right and I'm leaving that's very easy to do but those who decided that to stay, to voice out the mistake that takes a lot of courage and I really appreciate that And I think that because we care, we want to make it right instead of abandoning it. So, yeah, I think that, you know, we still have a lot of things that we have to do. Sometimes we make mistakes. Actually, a lot of times we make mistakes, but because we care, because there are people who care, and because there are people who care, who try to steer it back to where we can be better. And that's very important. And I think that, you know, today, everybody who sit here are the ones who care and I really appreciate that and thank you so much.

Speaker 5 [44:02]

I don't know.

Speaker 2 [44:04]

And now I'm going to finish with you.

Speaker 3 [44:08]

So I'm glad you mentioned listening. It just reminds me of what I wanted to say, that we should have those honest, difficult conversations, definitely with a lot of empathy. There are times where we don't have these conversations because we are maybe not sure about how the person is going to react to it. So let's have those in the Pai Ladies community and other communities. Let's have those honest, difficult conversations to address the issues that we need to address. Let's have reviews, let's have assessments, ask the members of the community what we can do better, how we can improve, what we can work at. As leads, let's have reflections on what we can do better, how we can improve, how we can serve the community because it's a community run by the community for the community and we are the community. So reviews, assessments, and also let's implement and actionize the code of conduct. I remember filling PyLadies forms in Ghana, and I see the code of conduct. And I can count the number of times I've read it. And I'm just wondering how many people have actually read it, or how many people even know what a code of conduct is. Fine, here in the European community, we know what the code of conduct is. But then, in other countries, people might not know what a code of conduct is. And I believe a knowledge of this, orientation of this, is definitely going to make a positive impact. Because these code of conducts are there for a purpose. They have a reason. And they will not be actionized or implemented if the people don't know what it's about. Yes, that's it.

Speaker 2 [46:02]

And I want to intentionally finish with you because you shared with me some really bold, interesting things that I haven't crossed my mind. So I want you to help us dream big to the things we can achieve.

Speaker 5 [46:16]

Yeah, so I'll share some of the things. So there was a disagreement in the original PyLadies chapter and the chapter ended up splitting and, yeah, some people stayed and some people left. And when this chapter split, that was also when the PSF took over PyLadies as an idea. But there was a very good reason why we started PyLadies separate from the PSF. And the reason why we did so is like we weren't actually that impressed or happy with the way the PSF was running diversity or essentially not running diversity. And I think the work that we were able to do and the vision that we had was that underrepresented person should be in charge. They shouldn't just get a seat at the table. And I think that the vision for Pi Ladies was to create a space and we had ideas to create our own conferences. We had a plan to create a PyLadies retreat center where we could bring in PyLadies volunteers from around the world who were burnt out, who needed some time to regenerate. We wanted to create a PyLadies international congress where people could send representatives from their local chapters and have a global conversation about diversity in Python and technology. And we wanted to do all of this separate from the PSF because we didn't want a seat at the table. we wanted our own table, and I think that that's okay. I think that that's okay to have, and I think it's okay to ask for, and I think it's okay to dream that big. And we also didn't think that we could do it alone, so we created intersectional coalitions and communities within the L.A. community so that we could go to schools in East L.A., where there's mainly Chicano, Chicana, Latinx population, where we could go teach Python in schools, but we don't need to own that community right that community already existed and we could connect with them via some maker spaces that existed in east la at the time and so i think the question that i have for us and maybe the future that i have for us is you know where are the times that we want pie ladies to run the show and where are the times that pie ladies or whatever communities you're involved in shouldn't just ask for a seat shouldn't just ask to be considered but instead actually be running your own thing and the reason I think why we had such success at the beginning is because we didn't have to get sign off from somebody else whether our initiative or idea was okay or not or whether it was palatable to a corporate entity or not we did it because you know we believed in a radical concept of feminism in technology and I think it's unfortunate that idea is still radical but I still think that we should be radicals and yeah that's my ask for us today.

Speaker 6 [49:20]

hike

Speaker 1 [49:24]

So, first of all, there is a wish for these recordings and videos to be subtitled for accessibility for deaf people. I hope that's going to happen. We will make it happen. Then there is a thought. Oops, now it's swapping around again. for people who would like to support or join the meetups but don't want to be affiliated with only women they would love to join a dedicated community as well interesting thought people who just learned what PSF means were very interested to find out about PyLadies and the organization, how the decisions are made I think we answered that question a bit and an opinion informed democracy is only possible with education especially when the community grows and there is a lot of thoughts also about hiring processes that they need to change and how the gender pay gap should disappear that's basically my Summary, yeah.

Speaker 2 [50:46]

I do appreciate everyone who shared their thoughts. Now we have, before we have to leave the room, a small time for each of you to put some closing thoughts. And for that, I will start with Nga.

Speaker 3 [51:01]

Closing thoughts? Okay. I think I'll just repeat what Catherine said because I think it really hits me that as women, we shouldn't just want a seat at the table. We should want our own table on the table. So for me, that's it. And most importantly, we should empower ourselves and empower each other to own those tables. So yeah, that's it for me.

Speaker 4 [51:38]

I would just probably build a table. But, yeah, no, I think every time I'm invited to things like this, I just feel so incredibly privileged. And it's both a nice feeling and a humbling feeling. It's like being reminded of how far I've come, but also how much good I can still do. With that, however little or however much power I have, and I always learn something new. Like, that is something. Like, it doesn't matter how long I do this, however many initiatives I'm involved, I always ever discover there are things I didn't know, or there were things that I was not asking myself, or things that I could be doing better. I think that is something that we probably should all keep, like that curiosity and that open-mindedness and awareness to recognize we do know everything and we need every single other person to build something more equitable, to continue fighting for liberation and equality. Because it's a global movement. We need every single person. and we need every single individual ally, or women, or however we identify ourselves. Because it's a long fight. It's a very long fight.

Speaker 5 [53:18]

um yeah i mean i think i'm i'm very honored to to kind of sit here and to hear that like pie ladies mean something to people um and i'm also very sad that like i left you know i take to heart your thing of like the community belongs to the people that stay and fight and you know we didn't that first chapter really didn't in a lot of ways and um i guess like um as to kind of reflect now looking whatever 13 years back um a with a little bit of empathy and knowing that like 13 years ago I was a different human I was on a on a path and I thought like we'll just make some cool events and maybe we can get some people that we know better jobs and maybe we can have a fun community and that it has grown so much I think is um is a reflection of everybody else's work, not our initial chapter's work, you know. So I just want to thank all of the people that have helped make Pilates a thing that still exists today. And I want to maybe also challenge us that in 13 years, maybe the impact can continue. Maybe we can do things about the gender payback gap. Maybe we can do things about global South-North inequalities. Maybe we can run a Pie Ladies collective congress. Maybe there are things that can happen. So, yeah, just thank to all of the Pie Ladies who have made it what it is today. I appreciate you.

Speaker 6 [54:57]

Yeah. And actually, we do have a pilot discount. So, yay! Even though it's online, but it's maybe even better. It's online because everybody can participate around the world. So, yeah, I would say that I'm very inspired by today's conversation. I'm a very greedy person. I won't choose between, you know, having my own table or sitting at someone's table. I want both. Why not? Because, you know, I appreciate the fact that, like, we have a space that's lived by women, it's for women, and we have this very comfortable and safe environment, but also at the same time, I feel like since we have so many, like, it's beautiful that we make friends, like, we kind of connected via PyLadies or other, like, you know, women-focused initiatives, but at the same time, how about we group together and go to some other conferences When I started, I joined a meetup in London called AI for Gender Minorities and met a lot of amazing women in tech, non-binary folks in tech, and we decided to, let's go to a conference together. And some of us, like me, today become a speaker, and that's not just me, there's other amazing women I met, they become speaker, there's a conference that they still keep going to. And I think this is a beautiful step to, you know, you know, we have our own very comfortable, very cozy space. But at the same time, we can be brave and be, you know, charge out together to, you know, to be seen, to be at somewhere. And because you are not doing it alone, you're doing it together and it's less scary and it's more powerful. So, yeah.

Speaker 2 [56:42]

tough to wrap it up this panel I think there's a lot we need to process and follow up on these conversations together in each chapter in each group, in each intersection groups, there's a lot of great ideas for us to rethink and dream big together and put our efforts together to build that not to be just a thought or an action. I invite you to bring a plus one next time so this can be a bigger audience so we can make the difference together. Most than anything, I want to thank you, you, you, you, you and every single one who made the time to be here. And of course, to our absolutely brave women who are putting their faces and their opinions to be judged and analysed by others. That's really brave of all of you and I really deeply thank you for sharing. And to Heike for being a lovely chair and trying to resume all of your crazy thoughts into this tiny cell phone. Thank you all.

Speaker 1 [57:59]

two minutes you still have two minutes oh my god that was

Speaker 2 [58:01]

That was great. Do you want to answer some questions?

Speaker 6 [58:03]

question

Speaker 2 [58:04]

If there's any really good questions, do you want them to answer?

Speaker 1 [58:08]

yeah so on top of the list is actually it's a bit of a question we have more women at conferences but if you look at keynotes ladies talks about tech stuff so let's talk about tech stuff ladies talk about soft skills topics can or should we try to change something yes we should i guess Yeah. Number two, labels like women in tech can become almost a gimmick for companies to tell themselves they're inclusive while doing not even the minimum. How to avoid this? I keep reading. There is the Tanya question. What's the policy all companies should apply, but differently which policy you put in place was most effective it came up in the beginning I think when you talked about policies I can keep reading and maybe the person wants to talk to you directly if you don't know anymore what this was about as a student I struggled but driven by passion for tech I became a data scientist and project manager knowing about PyLadies would have helped a lot. Don't give up. Thanks. Oh, and that's also our time limit. I just looked at the watch. So thanks a lot, everybody, and thanks to the amazing panel.