We welcome you to join our general discussions about diversity in Python:

• Diversity -- Promoting diversity in the Python community mailing list

  • Diversity archives (Only open to subscribers. It's not hard to subscribe though!)

• #pydiversity on irc.freenode.net

Aahz's blog post on why the Diversity list was created, in response to: Background stats on percentage of women in Open Source based on commonly disbelieved stats from Kirrily Robert's OSCON keynote "Standing Out in the Crowd" about women in Open Source.

What you can do

Simple, personal actions:

• If you attend Python User Group meetings, invite someone from a different background to yourself. Go out of the way to invite young people, women, people from different ethnic backgrounds, people from different cultures, or people from other under-represented groups.
• If you are in a workplace, try to make sure you are friendly and welcoming to people. Try to be aware of your own cultural biases.

• Download the diversity presentation [n.b. we are discussing what will be in one] from the DiversityInPython page and present it at your local user group

• If you are yourself in an underrepresented group, please consider blogging to the Open Mike in order to increase the visibility of diversity within Python

• If you are not in an underrepresented group, consider blogging to the open-mike blog with stories about challenges you've faced as a newcomer to a project, conference, or other open-source activity, and how you were able to overcome them. Point out resources that newcomers can use to overcome their own challenges.
• At the next Python event you are at, make a point to talk to someone diverse or new.
• Before going to your next Python event, email/call/contact someone diverse from the community and encourage them to meet you there.
• Encourage diverse non-programmers you know to come to Python for beginners events.
• Sit down with a diverse non-programmer and teach them the basics of Python.
• Recommend a diverse Python programmer for a job (even if they already have one).

• Organize a weekend workshop like the "Boston Python Workshop for women and their friends" in your city. Feel free to use the documents Jessica McKellar created for the Boston Python Workshop. General: http://meetup.bostonpython.com/events/22818421/. The schedule and links to all documents: http://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop_3. Links to all dependencies to be set up on Friday: http://openhatch.org/wiki/Boston_Python_Workshop_3/Friday. You can read her "lessons learned" here: https://openhatch.org/blog/2011/lessons-learned-from-the-boston-python-workshop-an-outreach-event-for-women/

• Organize an event for women Python developers (or another diversity group) -- could be a cocktail party, a networking event, a barbeque....
• Run your own meetup event to teach a topic you know, and spread the word to your diverse Python friends to bring a friend (diverse or not -- bringing friends makes everyone feel comfortable).
• For all future Pycon's, offer to help diverse people with their talk proposal submissions. This would be around Oct-Nov each year so for those few weeks you can help with proof-reading talk submissions, suggest improvements to enhance it from a technical POV.
• The easiest way to reach out to a diverse community is online. You can offer to conduct a Python course on a mailing list (or a website) for any skillset you wish to pass-on: ranging from, your python packaging skills, to writing a simple web framework in python, writing bioinformatics apps/libraries, a python markdown library, ...basically, just about anything python-related.
• If you have an existing python app and want contributors, offer to mentor one or two students with getting started with its codebase so they can learn and become contributors over the years.

• Reach out to diverse delegates from the Welcoming NotCommittee, which is tasked with organizing a Thursday-evening "welcome to PyCon" event specifically to welcome newcomers and pass on some lore.

Technical actions:

• Edit the Python.org wiki to include more information in more languages

• Help create foreign-language versions of the Python documentation example - French

• Maybe diversity@ or the PSF should look at GSOC projects which support diversity somehow?
• Add the Python Diversity Statement to the homepage for your local PUG

• Check the PythonProjects page for projects with special interests that use Python.

Bold action:

• Blog about your own experiences with diversity problems (including your own story if possible). Better yet, blog about positive diversity experiences and anything you've seen that helped bring more people into the community.
• Become familiar with the statistics about under-representation of various social groups. Come-up with ideas about how to help the community better serve their needs.

• Join diversity@ and work with others on whatever needs doing at the time

• Ask your company to sponsor conference attendance for under-represented groups. Ideally, this should represent new funding and not a diversion of existing sponsorship money.
• Next time you feel uncomfortable about what someone is saying, stand up and tell them so. Remembering that the community (including conference speakers) consists primarily of volunteers, try to provide leadership that encourages people to follow practices that make everyone feel welcome.
• Buy a diversity@python t-shirt [nb we should design some of these, I'm happy to help]

Broad action:

• Ask your local school if they are have a computing programme / class, and ask if they ever consider diversity issues and whether there is anything you can do to help.
• Visit your local school and talk about what various groups can expect from Python and the geek community
• Volunteer to support a local community group's website etc, and use Open Source / Python tools, then tell them about it
• Become part of a technical mentorship program
• Try to find tie-in evens between your local PUG and any women's or other diversity technical groups. Have a biannual BBQ get together

Share your story:

Diversity is what happens whenever you have enough people in the same place at the same time, whether you realise it or not. Any group of people, regardless of whatever common features they may share, will nonetheless express enormous diversity in other respects. There is no better way to prove diversity that to show the diverse stories of all of the people who are present. Please share your story by answering one simple question, so that you can help to proudly display the diversity of the Python community.

"Why programming, why F/OSS, why Python?"

[PythonUserStories]

Practical advice and suggestions on how to increase diversity.

Ten tips for getting more women speakers

Dos and Don'ts of encouraging women in Linux -- the immediately practical part of a larger article. Some of these suggestions can also be translated to other issues.

How to encourage women in FLOSS - also the practical part of a larger article.

Consider the recording and photography policies at the conference you're running.

Invite someone who has something to say but no blog of their own to post on the Python Open Mike blog.

Make sure your web pages meet accessibility standards for people with disabilities and older users.

Taking Action

Links to activities, posted to the Diversity list, encouraging participation:

PyCon2010 related links: Call for reviewers - Call for Proposals - Financial Aid for attendees - Places to send calls for papers and conference announcements

Roll-Call for Women in Python

Join us for Ada Lovelace Day, 24 March 2010 and Finding Ada (Ada Lovelace Day)

Terminology

Terms you'll see on this wiki page and in use on the Diversity mailing list.

101 - shorthand for "introduction to the issues that face a certain group". The term originates in the US practice of designating introductory courses in some_field as "some_field 101". If the list is discussing an aspect of diversity related to a specific group and you are unfamiliar with the issues involved, it might be a good idea to look at the "101-level" resources below. If you are unsure where to find information about issues facing a group not listed in the "101" section below, please ask on list and well see what we can find for you.

Abilene paradox - breakdown in group communication where groups take an action that the all of the group's members oppose.

Bystander Effect - social psychological phenomenon where individuals in a group do not offer help to people in trouble.

cis-gender - person for whom the sex they were assigned at birth corresponds with their identity. Used as the opposite of "transgender"

Offense - recommendation against using the word offense which focuses on reactions instead of actions.

Polite - on the trickiness of defining it.

Privilege - What it means and how it's used on the Diversity list.

Spoons - Used by people who are sick or disabled to describe the limited and fluctuating capability to get anything done

Robustness Principle

Tact Filter - Another perspective on Politeness.

Language Diversity

The Diversity discussions and mailing list are in English, but there is a listing of non-English Python User Groups.

Languages

Chinese Python

French Python

101 Resources

Anti-racism

Anti-racism reading list (some US focus)

Anti-racist FAQ

Racism_101 Community on LiveJournal

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (An article examining the author's own sense of privilege.)

Anti-racism and anti-oppression links

Anti-racism and activism links

RaceFail 09 - An example of how the Science Fiction community's addressing one kind of diversity doesn't automatically translate to other kinds.

Racism 101 - Beyond Bingo Cards

Anti-transphobia

Transgender 101

Anti-sexism and more general gender stuff

Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog (tinyurl preview link due to the wiki blocking the real URL)

Feminism 101 - The Essentials

The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck - A blog post about the absolute pervasiveness of sexism and the effects it has on trust.

Sex and Gender terminology (tinyurl preview link due to the wiki blocking the real URL)

A theory about why interactions between men and women are so complicated - For folks who've never studied sociology of gender.

Anti-neuro-normativity

A Primer On Autism

On Trust and Diversity - a blog post about the invisibility of neuro-diversity and its effects.

Autism activism

Anti-ablism

sophy's Rethinking Disabling Metaphors, sasha_feathers' Rethinking Disabling Metaphors - two writeups from a WisCon33 panel.

Respectful language - Thoughts on disability and respectful language

Other Diversity Statements/Actions

Dreamwidth's Diversity Statement and their Guiding Principles

RailsBridge - guidelines, more than "a statement" (top left on the page linked).

Ohio LinuxFest '09 Diversity in Open Source workshop is/was on 9/27/2009.

Diversity/Careers in Engineering and IT

Women in IT - emphasis on PHP, which seems to show better gender balance than Python (as of the Summer of 2009).

JAOO 2009 diversity effort

How to Encourage Women in Linux

Standing out in the crowd - Kirrily Robert's OSCON talk, the repurcussions from which inspired Aahz to create the Diversity mailing list (see above.)

Addresses lack of gender/race diversity in Science Fiction - was suggested as having applicable insight/inspiration to the Python Community re: thinking outside the box.

On the HARD work of reaching out (Science Fiction editorships) - also suggested as being insightful/inspirational. (link is tinyurl preview link because the real URL contains a word banned on this wiki)

Gr8 Designs for Gr8 Girls - A computer science activity day for Grade 8 Girls. (NOTE: Browser security certificate has expired. )

Women and FOSS - blog post with a number of good links to resources re: feminism and/or technology. EduPython post also with a number of links (Note: not sure how to classify this or if links from it should be promoted to this page directly... -DougPhilips)

Related python.org Mailing lists

Are supposed to be friendly to all newcomers. Also a place to hang out and encourage others:

Tutor list - Help list

Various Links - not yet classified

In the first post to the Diversity mailing list, Steve Holden posted a link to Remixing Angie Byron to create the next Million Mozillians asking it would apply to the Python community.

Universal Design and how it can improve design for everyone. Parallels to how diversity can benefit everyone too?

Derailing for Dummies on the various ways discussions can be derailed, how to spot them, convenient names for talking about them. (Note: "... for Dummies" is a popular series of books (at least in the US) and uses "Dummies" in a some-what self-deprecating way. I've personally often found that the "for Dummies" books are very good introductions. --DougPhilips)

Google's Diversity Delegates Programme - Some of what Google is doing.

TeX Users Group's Bursary Fund description - does not specifically address diversity, just those who might need assistance, but there is probably a correlation.

Gender interactions - a continuum where one end leads to rape - (STRIDENT CONTENT - NOT SAFE FOR WORK) - This is not just a Western issue, cultures around the world are overwhelmingly patriarchal. How we interact in more civilized ways is not irrelevant, but starts the slope ending in this kind of abhorrent behavior. Why the "little stuff" matters. (Link from Steve Holden's message). Aahz then linked to this article a bit more directly applicable to the topic/Diversty list.

Article explaining the "Why work on X when Y is so much more important" distraction/derailing. Here because this came up in the context of a post suggesting "Open Source is no worse than Closed Source" regarding gender diversity. Those looking to tackle the broader issue of Women and Technology might find The Anita Borg Institute a helpful resource. (tinyurl preview link since "oh one dot wordpress dot com" links are forbidden here, and this is a link to a Feminism 101 URL on wordpress.)

Unlocking the Clubhouse - Published Research from Carnegie Mellon University on closing the Gender Gap in Higher Education. Has been recommended many times on the Diversity list.

Thinking in Python - resource for teaching Python to non-programmers. Free online version. It is used in several teaching situations, generic good resource.

Edu-Sig: Python in Education

Code-n-Splode - grew out of Women in Open Source BOF at OSON 2007

WisCon Feminist Science Fiction Convention - WisCon encourages discussion and debate of ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class. Suggested as a possible model for a Diversity and Open Source panel (perhaps not at a PyCon event)

Teaching Open Source

FOSS Mentor Projects (at Teaching Open Source)

A Tale of "O": On Being Different in an Organization - Recommended as being descriptive of being the only woman in a room of men.

A female student using Python for a science fair project - posted as inspirational.