[diversity] Diversity in RIPE Meeting leadership

Amanda,

On 11/06/2019 16.52, Amanda Gowland wrote:
> 
> I read this and wanted to pass it on:
> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613320/ais-white-guy-problem-isnt-going-away/
> 
> The research they cite recommends:
> 
> "The researchers offer several recommendations for improving workplace 
> diversity in a more comprehensive way. These include measures aimed at 
> closing the pay and opportunity gap, increasing diversity at the 
> leadership levels across departments, and changing the incentive 
> structures for company executives to hire and retain workers from 
> underrepresented groups."
> 
> ...which leads me to think this:
> 
> What is the TF doing to address the extreme lack of diversity in the 
> RIPE community leadership, eg: RIPE PC, RIPE WG Chair Collective?
> 
> In the RIPE PC, we have two women and 11 men and almost no racial 
> diversity.
> 
> In the RIPE WG collective, we have 28 WG Chairs - 4 women. Same as ^ for 
> racial diversity.
> 
> Tackling diversity in the community leadership is key for us to acheive 
> our goals of increasing D&I at RIPE Meetings.
> 
> Interesting to note...I've been spending some time doing some data 
> gathering to see if there's any correlation between the # of female 
> presenters in a WG when there's a female WG Chair. I'll report back when 
> I'm finished (it's a lot of manual work).
> 
> Anyways - curious to get a dialogue started on this.

I think it's important to address this, and we can talk about ways to 
get more diversity in leadership roles and in front of groups of people 
in general at RIPE.

However, as a somewhat disconcerting data point, I note that the IETF 
made a concerted effort to have a more diverse leadership with some 
success, but that does not seem to have translated into more diversity 
anywhere else (meeting attendance, mailing list participation, RFC 
authorship, and so on).

My hope is that the IETF has been to narrow in their efforts to improve 
diversity, and that in RIPE we are being more broad-based. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,

--
Shane