Looking through the photos from DrupalDevDays in Brussels http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/drupaldevdays from this past weekend, I noticed something... there were hardly any Drupalchix there! I think I spotted a total of 3 or 4 (of course there could have been more not in the photos) among the sea of guys. I think there was somewhere in the vicinity of 600 people there over the weekend, so this really surprised me!
Wondering if anyone of the few who were there, or anyone who didn't go might comment on why they did/didn't go, or why they think the split was so much larger than usual. Was it because it was more developer focused? (I didn't think that would have that big of an impact since there are usually lots of women developers at Drupalcon...) Or was it marketed a certain way?
Really curious to hear from the EuroDrupalchix contingent, and maybe point the organizers at this thread if there's some useful feedback.
Comments
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...I really wanted to be there... but 1300.km distance was too much :-(( ...which is also the subject of "how to get fair money" working as a woman and independent developer/freelancer in Eastern European IT industry...
...I fear that with such mundane reasons I also cannot be with you in Chicago... pity... the prose of life... I would like rather not to write about it...
I was at FOSDEM and only went
I was at FOSDEM and only went to DrupalDevDays on sunday afternoon, if it had been the days before or after FOSDEM I would have been there all the time.
I was there, had a really
I was there, had a really great time :)
But you're right, -hardly any girls there at all.. Maybe 10, 15 or so, I guess (520 attendees in all).
Was however an awesome weekend!
As for tips..
I don't really have any. Don't think it was marketed in any particular way other than usual, or whatnot.
I felt very welcome and definitely included (as always) there.
-They even had the much discussed T-shirts, although I think they only sold 2..
The devdays do have a strong developer focus and maybe women (in Europe?) are still somewhat (more) underrepresented in this area of Drupal? I don't know.. I think we really are in Copenhagen, Denmark at least. There's only 2 or 3 female drupal developers here that I know of (including myself) nationwide. So we were probably very well represented, really.
Anyways, I was there, met a bunch of new people from all over Europe and for me the whole thing was just perfect. Must say I really enjoyed the opportunity for more developer focused sessions.
We have the best community, the girls will come along, I'm sure of it. Maybe lack of creativity on my part, but I really can't think of anything that should or could have been done differently, with regards to women.
Thanks for the feedback all!
Thanks for the feedback all! I didn't realize there was another conference on at the same time there, that probably didn't help!
Tine - really glad to hear your report that the event was enjoyable, inclusive, etc. Sounds like there were quite a few more gals than showed in the pictures too, so that's a bit better than I thought!
I was asking myself the same question...
Me and my (male) colleagues were astonished to see so extremely few women in Brussels. Like Tine, we suspect the developer focus of the event might be discouraging women?
That was not..
-what I meant :)
It is not my impression many female developers find the developer focus discouraging, quite the contrary. But of course I could be wrong. The ones I know find this focus just as attractive as the guys do. So do I. It's BrainFood galore, really :)
My point being that maybe (?) female developers (in Europe?) aren't (yet) as "well" represented as we seem to be in other professional / geographic areas of the Drupal community. This is a personal impression of course, not something I know for a fact.
And yes.. I actually do think we're generally well represented at least in comparison to other tech communities. My guess is that we also have more female role models in very visible positions (and very talented ones).