[CivicAccess-discuss] Scassa review of the OGP IRM report blogpost

[David Eaves]

I definitely echo Tracey here. 

This isn't about artificially pumping up a demographic - it is about getting a range of perspectives. 

The fact is, I don't often think or worry about getting stalked online, nor have I been threatened with rape or worse for opinions I have online - sadly I know women who have and having that (and other) views of our society shape the discourse around tech is important not just to encourage more diverse participation but to create tools that serve the diversity of needs we have and not be predisposed to help one sub-segment. 

--
eaves.ca
@daeaves
Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 6, 2014, at 2:34 PM, "Tracey P. Lauriault" <tlauriau at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> russel,
> 
> It is important that if there are competent females available for technology panels they should be sought after and there should be some sort of gender balance.  At the moment things technology are heavily stacked with men and that discourages female participation, it also doe not give women a voice, and it says that techology is not for girls.  The google hangouts were terrible, and some of the guys they had on them were gamers who did not even have subject matter expertise. the minister was thus saying that his work is about boy and men things, even if the men do not even have the prerequisite knowledge, it is ok cuz their guys,  and not about things women care about, which you know is absolutely not the case.
> 
> The push back with commercials for girls about pink games or the lack of girl characters in leggo and cool science and make adds for girls is part of that.  girls and women in the male dominated gaming community are also under attack.  so for a whole, we need to support and sponsor and seek out women capable of doing good work in this space, and not only have bro spaces.
> 
> If we have conferences, then we can aim to seek out competent and knowledgeable females.
> 
>> On Thursday, February 6, 2014, Russell McOrmond <russell at c11.ca> wrote:
>> 
>> A few quick thoughts..
>> 
>> Giving ePetitions a voice in tandem with paper isn't a big change, other than potentially as a way to engage younger demographics with this type of method of mentioning an issue to government.   That is a great thing.
>> 
>> As someone who has coordinated petitions my experience has been that age is a larger divider than gender when trying to leverageing  paper petitions as a "toe in the door" to more active participation in an issue.   This is always how petitions should be seen: toe in the door.  While a form-letter has to be tabled, there has never been a requirement for a parliamentary petition to actually be "responded" to in any meaningful way.   The petitions I've coordinated had government replies that simply repeated the policies we were petitioning against, without acknowledging an understanding of the issues we were presenting.
>> 
>> While it is true it would be better for more participation in democracy, lets not for a moment confuse a small change in how petitions can be presented as having much of an impact one way or the other on that larger issue.  I also don't think lack of participation is a failure of government as much as it is a failure of citizenry, so don't think changes in government processes around petitions/consultations/etc  will make much of a difference.  Now, if we want to move away from parliamentary processes to educational policy....
>> I know it isn't politically correct to say this, but I have never believed in artificial external manipulation of demographics.   If a given issue happens to be dominated by a gender (male or female -- and I've seen both), or dominated by an age, or dominated by a racial background, I don't consider it helpful to artificially "balance" things.  I believe it causes the opposite to what people think it does: people who are otherwise not as strongly motivated by an issue being given a larger podium than they would otherwise gain causes harm to whatever the issue happens to be. Ensuring equal opportunity for participation is not the same as artificially mandating demographics.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Tracey P. Lauriault
> http://traceyplauriault.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/moving-to-ireland/
> https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault
> http://datalibre.ca/
> 
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