The EuroPython 2015 Keynotes

[Jon Ribbens]

On 2015-07-10, beliavsky at aol.com <beliavsky at aol.com> wrote:
> On Friday, July 10, 2015 at 2:58:18 PM UTC-4, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 10:01 PM, beliavsky--- via Python-list
>> <python-list at python.org> wrote:
>> > On Friday, July 10, 2015 at 7:21:14 AM UTC-4, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>> >> With Mandy Waite we have announced all keynotes for EuroPython 2015:
>> >> 5 keynotes, 6 speakers, 4 women and 2 men.
>> >
>> > Your mentioning these numbers makes me wonder if the organizing
>> > committee is using gender preferences in its selection of keynote
>> > speakers. I hope not. It is better to choose the speakers who
>> > will give the most interesting talks and let the demographic
>> > chips fall where they may.
>> 
>> I think that's more a matter of having the statistically-curious
>> brain. In my father's family, there are 5 sons and 2 daughters - does
>> that indicate gender preference in my reporting, or just an
>> acknowledgement of a fact?
>
> If 80% of Python programmers and potential speakers at a Python
> conference are male, the chance of 4 out 6 speakers being female is
> fairly low if gender is ignored. Some people think gender diversity
> in tech is so important that there should be gender preferences --
> see for example this post by a Python blogger
> http://ilovesymposia.com/2015/04/03/calling-out-scipy-on-diversity/
> . It is plausible that the organizers preferred female keynote
> speakers.

I certainly hope they did, and applaud them if so.