[diversity] Options for gender on meeting registration

Amanda,

[ Sorry for the long mail. I'm feeling to lazy to trim properly. ]

At 2017-06-02 10:43:34 +0200
Amanda Gowland <agowland at ripe.net> wrote:

> Hey Shane,
> 
> On 02/06/17 10:02, Shane Kerr wrote:
> > Amanda & everyone else,
> >
> > At 2017-06-01 12:05:00 +0200
> > Amanda Gowland <agowland at ripe.net> wrote:
> >  
> >> We have an opportunity to include a question on the meeting reg software
> >> in time for RIPE 75, but we need input by this coming Monday (hard
> >> deadline) if we want to have something in place.
> >>
> >> It's a chance to start gathering those metrics early. Question is, what
> >> do we want to include? One suggestion:
> >>
> >> What is your gender?*
> >>
> >> ☐  Female
> >>
> >> ☐  Male
> >>
> >> ☐  Non-binary/ third gender
> >>
> >> ☐  Prefer to self-describe _________________
> >>
> >> ☐  Prefer not to say
> >>
> >> *And then we can have a pop-up info window to explain why we're asking
> >> this question:
> >>
> >> "We are committed to increasing diversity and inclusion at RIPE
> >> Meetings. One way we're doing this is to gather data to see where we
> >> need to improve. This data will only be used anonymously for metric
> >> benchmarking."
> >>
> >> Happy to hear your thoughts (soon please) so we can include this in our
> >> discussion with the developers.  
> > Our approach should depend on whether we care about gender data or
> > diversity data.
> >
> > --------
> >
> > My initial idea was to gather gender data, as an initial proxy for
> > diversity data. The recommendation that I received was three options:
> >
> > * Female
> > * Male
> > * Fill-in-the-blank ("self-described" above
> >
> > If we focus on gender data, I would prefer that making any choice be
> > opt-in, rather than "prefer not to say" be a 4th choice. So, the UI
> > might look something like:
> >
> > [ ] Provide optional gender information [why this is important pop-up]
> >      ( ) Female
> >      ( ) Male
> >      ( ) ________________
> >
> > I don't know enough about gender issues to say whether having a
> > non-binary/third-gender option is a good idea, but on the face of it
> > keeping it as simple as possible makes sense to me.  
> The suggestion I put forward was the result of some research into the 
> best (most respectful, inclusive) way to ask the question in surveys. 
> Simplicity is doable, but I just want to make sure that we don't 
> sacrifice inclusion for simplicity.

Okay, if we decide to focus on gender and it makes more sense to
include non-binary/third-gender as an option, then we should do it.

I do think that presenting all options under a single "opt-in" checkbox
makes more sense than including "prefer not to say" as an option.
Logically there are two things going on:

1. The attendee decides to opt-in, and
2. The attendee provides the information.

> > I recognize that a fill-in-the-blank field will complicate statistics,
> > but I think it is probably the best that we can do.
> >
> > --------
> >
> > Alternately, we may decide that we should look at diversity instead of
> > gender. This approach was suggested during the workshop that we had
> > before RIPE 74. The idea is more like this:
> >
> > [ ] I consider myself a part of an under-represented group at RIPE
> >      (Check all that apply.) [why this is important pop-up]
> >      [ ] Gender
> >          ( ) Female
> >          ( ) Male
> >          ( ) _________________
> >          ( ) Prefer not to say
> >      [ ] Sexual orientation
> >      [ ] Religion
> >      [ ] Race or ethnic origin
> >      [ ] _____________________
> >
> > This can gather gender statistics, but also provides some insight into
> > how many people think they are under-represented and for what reason.
> >
> > I pulled the proposed list here from the RIPE Code of Conduct. I am in
> > no way wedded to it, and take no offense if you think it is crap.  
> I think we need to have a discussion about the pros/cons of having the 
> question worded this way.

Yes. Certainly not something that we can do in the next 3 hours. :) 

> My preference would be to limit the question to gender for RIPE 75 so at 
> least we can start and then expand to other aspects of 
> diversity/inclusion when we have more time to figure out the best way to 
> phrase the question.

The problem is that if we decide to move to a style where we ask people
to self-identify as belonging to an under-represented group, then we
cannot compare the results of that with the RIPE 75 gender-only data.

Still, I guess I support your proposal for two reasons:

1. Something is better than nothing, which is what we have now. ;)
2. It provides a message that we take diversity seriously have have
   started doing something to improve the situation.

> > Note that some people may prefer to say that they are in an
> > under-represented gender but not wish to provide any more information.
> > So the "Prefer not to say" option returns, in a slightly different
> > context.
> >
> > --------
> >
> > What is important is that we try to collect data in a way that we can
> > maintain a series over time and have a reasonable comparison between
> > meetings. That means we should try to get it right. :)
> >
> > We has assumed that we would NOT be able to add this for RIPE 75,
> > because of the short timelines involved in the software. If we think it
> > is important, then we can go for it. I am not sure that we can get it
> > correct today. :( I'm happy to join a call/chat later today or early
> > next week if that makes sense. (Not Monday though, because it's a
> > public holiday here and I'm on a long weekend away. I'm surprised at
> > the Monday hard deadline since I expected that the RIPE NCC would be
> > off on Monday too!)  
> We're not working on Monday either, Martina wanted us to have the 
> content ready for Tuesday when she meets with SWE so that they can let 
> us know what's possible. So, it's not guaranteed that we can have 
> anything in place for RIPE 75...but certainly keeping the question 
> limited in scope (for now) will give us more of a chance of having 
> something in place at all.

Understood. Have a good weekend!

Cheers,

--
Shane
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