[mattpointblank]

Hello, blogpost author here.

I don't really buy that logic (if something is complex, people who write about it don't "respect" it?). My goal with writing this (as stated in the article) isn't to launch some Twitter hate mob or cancel a conference, but to start a dialogue (which I couldn't continue with the organisers). I don't claim to understand every facet of the issue but I'm most definitely an interested "amateur" if that makes snese.

I don't think it's fair to say I "ignore the possibility" that women could've been invited / applied. My whole point is that we have no idea about this process because the organisers are being opaque about their methods, and in my opinion, if your speaker list is 100% male, you should explicitly explain why that ended up being the case, otherwise we're left to assume that you think there's nothing wrong with that. If they genuinely tried every approach they could to make things more diverse and weren't able to, good -- I'm happy to be proven wrong. But we have no idea whether they did and we can only assume from the communication that it isn't an issue for them -- that's bad.

No need for rhetorical questions:

In the "Postscript" below the entry itself I recommended a good amount of local-or-close-to-London female devs who could've spoken. For all I know, they were approached. But I don't know (see above).

I also tried to answer the question of what "good" I hope to bring: by highlighting an "injustice" as I perceive it, and starting this discussion. It needs to be on everyone's minds.

thanks!

[catshirt]

>>> I don't really buy that logic (if something is complex, people who write about it don't "respect" it?)

you're right. i was being too broad and my intent was to suggest that anyone who places the blame on one thing does not understand the complexity. your tone here feels less accusatory than the blog post.

>>> if your speaker list is 100% male, you should explicitly explain why that ended up being the case

i agree in that i think this would be the proactive thing to do. i disagree in that i don't think this is a requisite. and that's my point of contention: your post is criticizing and questioning a group of people for not being as proactive as you think they should be. this seems arbitrary. and by this definition, hardly anyone is as proactive as they could be. and that is certainly a problem. but i don't think the way to approach that discussion is by singling out (for most intents and purposes) one guy.

>>> I also tried to answer the question of what "good" I hope to bring: by highlighting an "injustice" as I perceive it

what is the injustice you perceive, while admitting you don't know any of the details? is the injustice that the speaker process is not transparent? if they had a 50% female roster, would you be ok with it not being transparent? what about 20%? again, your flag for concern seems arbitrary and hyper-directed.