[diversity] Options for gender on meeting registration

Shane Kerr wrote on 02/06/2017 13:46:
> Amanda,
>
> [ Sorry for the long mail. I'm feeling to lazy to trim properly. ]

I'm going to trim a little more than Shane because I'm waiting for a 
plane in VIE and I have lots of time. :)

> 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."

I very much like the Non-binary/third gender option here. Thank you for 
that.

I do think it might head off some criticism if we explicitly state this 
is the first step in collecting more volunteered metrics and we'll look 
to have more options regarding race/class/whatever for future RIPE 
meetings? Could just be added into the text box?


>> 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 have no strong opinion here. :)

>> 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.

But not the end of the world, as you say below.

> 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.

And importantly sooner than we thought we would be able to.

>>> 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!

Long weekends for all! Apart from those who had one last weekend!

And thanks for the work of the NCC teams who will hopefully be able to 
enable this for 75!

Enjoy,

Brian