[pp.int.general] Women Pirates project

[Bogomil "Bogo" Shopov]

I think we need that project and I will work on that. So if anyone wants to
join - please feel free.

Bogo

2010/5/3 Joonas Mäkinen <joonasd6 at gmail.com>

> What he said. O_o
>
> 2010/5/3, Eric Priezkalns <eric.priezkalns at pirateparty.org.uk>:
> > I feel this is a mistaken way to deal with a symptom, not a root cause.
> >
> > Yes, there are too few women in the pirate movement.  There are also
> > too few older people, too few poor, too few ethnic minorities.
> >
> > These people are not in the pirate movement not because of a failure
> > to 'mainstream' or 'empower' or any other jargon words that might be
> > spoken by a New York Professor of Sociology.  They are not in the
> > pirate movement because the pirate movement makes too little effort to
> > appeal to them.  In short, we do not try to explain our policies in
> > ways that appeal beyond a audience that is predominantly young, male,
> > white and reasonably privileged.
> >
> > The worst thing we could take is to take women, or any other group,
> > and place them in a 'special interest' faction.  Instead of modifying
> > the policy message to make it more appealing to a wider audience, they
> > will just be pushed into creating 'special interest' policies.  I
> > dislike the idea of that intrinsically, but more importantly, that
> > approach never seems to work in politics.  Voters can see through it
> > and it does not appeal to them.  In short, if you cannot come up with
> > a political philosophy with a core message that is appealing to women
> > or any other subset of society, you cannot address that by creating
> > specialist policies around the edges.  People can innately see the
> > special interest policies do not fit with the philosophy and so become
> > sceptical about them, and rightly so.
> >
> > If we want more women etc in the movement, the right place to begin is
> > not by creating a ghetto for them.  The right place is to look at
> > ourselves and ask what is in our behaviour that is a barrier to
> > inclusion.  It is not hard for me to see examples of behaviour that
> > leads to exclusion from the pirate movement.
> >
> > When you talk to fellow pirates, it is extraordinary how often the
> > conversation ends up in narrow techno-jargon.  Well, there is nothing
> > wrong with that in itself.  Young white men from a certain kind of
> > background like talking about that kind of thing.  Problem is, it
> > probably does not appeal to others so much.  If you do not understand
> > what somebody is talking about, chances are you will lost interest in
> > listening to that person.  Similarly, pirates often explain their
> > motives using analogies that once again draw on narrow knowledge that
> > not everyone would appreciate or understand.  I'm a man, and I can
> > hold my own in debates where phrases from formal logic crop up, or
> > where people talk about an aspect of Microsoft's business model, or
> > concerning the merits of STV versus AV, or where someone uses internet
> > slang.  But not everybody will want to participate in such a
> > conversation.  Some will just run from it as fast as they can.
> >
> > The real challenge here is to recognize that people like to be around
> > and to form communities with other people with a similar outlook.
> > There is nothing wrong with, say, young people wanting to canvass the
> > support of other young people, and being proud when they win their
> > support.  But this is the kind of behaviour that can so easily limit
> > the horizons of who the party talks to and appeals to.  So if we want
> > to help the party to appeal to and engage more women supporters, we
> > should not push them into a special faction where they disconnect from
> > the rest of the party, or are given enhanced 'visibility' because of
> > their gender instead of merit.  If we want to help the party to appeal
> > and engage more women, and any other group in society we fail to
> > reach, then we should sit back and think for a while about our own
> > behaviour, and how aspects of it might exclude others.  We should
> > listen to the concerns of people who are not like us, and think about
> > what we say that is of relevance to those concerns.  If we can all
> > learn to modify our language when appropriate, think more of others,
> > put ourselves in their shoes, and engage with their concerns in terms
> > they relate to, then we really will reach out to more people and help
> > both them and us.  That needs every pirate to be more open to engaging
> > the support of every person on this planet, whatever their gender,
> > race, class or whatever.  I would rather see every pirate moderating
> > their own behaviour and engaging more widely, than the creation of a
> > special interest faction with the movement.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >>
> >> From: "Bogomil \"Bogo\" Shopov" <bogo at piratskapartia.bg>
> >> Date: 2 May 2010 12:26:34 BST
> >> To: Pirate Parties International -- General Talk
> >> <pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> >> >
> >> Subject: [pp.int.general] Women Pirates project
> >> Reply-To: Pirate Parties International -- General Talk
> >> <pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Hey again,
> >> Here is some ideas and tasks for a project called WOPI. I am looking
> >> forward to see you participating.
> >> http://int.piratenpartei.de/User:Bogomil/Projects/WOPI
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Joonas "JoonasD6" Mäkinen
> Varapuheenjohtaja, viceordförande
> Piraattinuoret – Piratungdom
>
> Department of Mathematics and Statistics
> Faculty of Science
> University of Helsinki
>
> gsm +358 40 700 5190
> ____________________________________________________
> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>



-- 
Bogomil "Bogo" Shopov
Pirate Party Bulgaria
http://piratskapartia.bg

Blogger, FOSS and Mozilla advocate, Digital Rights Warrior.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/bogomep
Blog: http://mozgull.bogomil.info
CV: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bogomil
GPG: 0x03CCF750
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