Subject: Re: [Diversity] IETF Diversity

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:42:07 -0700

Hi Doug,
At 11:16 19-06-2013, Doug Barton wrote:
>It's not clear to me how this example relates to the IETF.

The majority of people on the IETF Secretariat are women.  The 
majority of Area Directors are men.

>... and while we're on that topic, what are you doing to help?

I peer with a few people.  I don't think I am doing it correctly as I 
have not been spending as much time as I should on that.  Please note 
that I do not consider the messages I post about diversity 
discussions as helping as it is not a concrete action to me.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Aaron Yi DING <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:14:04 +0300

> majority of Area Directors are men.

Again, IF the underlying assumption of such statement is IETF ADs are 
more noble than the IETF Secretariat, please stop now from going down 
the humiliating/snobbery path.

IF not, let's calm down somewhat to figure out what possible concrete 
actions can be done here to improve, rather than throwing emotional 
arrows here and there.

Reading the discussion mails is a serious contribution because we all 
contribute our most precious resource - TIME. and therefore thanks for 
the participants who even reach here :)

Regards,
Aaron

> that I do not consider the messages I post about diversity discussions 
> as helping as it is not a concrete action to me.
>
> Regards,
> -sm
> _______________________________________________
> diversity mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/diversity

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:14:22 -0700

Hi Doug,
At 12:22 19-06-2013, Doug Barton wrote:
>And what does that have to do with anything? That's a serious 
>question, BTW, the 2 things you described bear little if any relationship.

If I start doing comparisons I can compare two things which bear 
little or no relationship to make my point.  It may generate 
emotional responses.

My understanding of what the women are saying is that:

  (i)  The IETF is not a place for women as there are very few women around.

  (ii) Most people who succeed in the IETF are men as I see that all the
       Area Directors are men.

>The more interesting questions are whether or not the current makeup 
>of the IETF leadership is reflective of the population (nee 
>"membership") of the IETF as a whole; and whether or not the IETF 
>population reflects the larger population of the tech community it 
>draws from. Those are problems that outreach, mentorship, etc. can 
>make concrete impacts on.

Yes.

>... and all that is completely aside from the fact that I've yet to 
>see a clear explanation of what "the diversity problem" is. Someone 
>else pointed out very early in the process that the IETF way of 
>doing things is to jump immediately into the solution space. I don't 
>see that this issue is being handled any differently than that.

I don't have a description for "the diversity problem".  There are 
too many interconnected problems.  I don't think that the IETF way of 
doing things would work out well.

>Oh and BTW, the majority of the RSE staff are women, but for the 
>majority of the existence of that organization it was headed by a 
>woman. How does that affect your analysis?

I should stop annoying the RSE staff. :-)

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Aaron Yi DING <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 01:57:50 +0300

On 19/06/13 22:56, Yoav Nir wrote:
> On Jun 19, 2013, at 6:26 PM, Brian Haberman <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> To help facilitate the mentoring aspect, there will be a call soon for volunteers to act as mentors for newcomers (starting with IETF 87). Once the web page for the mentoring program with all the information is up, you should be seeing a call for mentors.
>>
>> We hope that this type of program will aid in assisting newer members of the IETF community become more involved and productive in our activities.
> This may be helpful in getting first-time attendees to stay on with the IETF. That is a laudable goal in itself, but I'm not sure if it will help diversity. Just bringing in new white male employees of US router companies will not increase diversity. It might work if the pool of newcomers is considerably more diverse than the pool of veterans, but having been in the last two meet-and-greets, I see a lot of the same, except that the newcomer group has more people from China. I see few women, hardly any Africans (from Africa or the US), and not a lot of company names I recognize as operators.
>

There is one observation puzzled me, and it will be good to hear from 
the community, sort of like 'request for comments'.  Part of it is based 
on the previous IETF panel discussions plus all sorts of mails from ietf 
related lists.

By following our diversity discussions so far, the term "white male" 
seems to be cited rather frequently and most of time with some kind of 
emotions attached to it, e.g. dominant, power, monopoly etc.  To be 
honest, I do have a mixed feeling when encountering such KEY WORD in a 
public speech or along the lines of mail. That feeling resembles very 
much when I heard Chinese being associated with minority, passive, 
reserved or even, communist ...

I understand the term "black" is not friendly to mention in US, but 
seriously, is the other term WHITE now being so freely used as such, 
especially in IETF, not even a slight concern? Just because the 
tolerance level among the white male group is already so high that no 
one really cares about it anymore? or just because currently IETF 
engineers tagged with white male background are found in most 
management/leadership slots so that it is easier to draw some kind of 
hatred feeling or recognition from the under-present group who have 
being pressed for so long? Sometimes it is quite hard to distinguish the 
intention of such, being considerate and thoughtful for the healthy 
development of our community, or just to fit in certain group's craving 
for the taste of the throne (here I don't target at any specific person, 
seriously)

One visible flaw is that to wire the "white male" up against diversity 
in IETF is largely irrelevant to the topic itself. This is in large a 
stereotype. Like currently there are so many Chinese living 
permanently/grow up in America, Europe and Asia. The "white male" are 
similarly not just from or living/working in the US, there are so many I 
know actually are living outside, oh well, definitely covering EU, and 
in many Asian areas, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and in major Chinese 
cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong. They definitely can understand and 
appreciate the culture differences in terms of working and 
communications, which are most relevant to the IETF functionality.

The more relevant thing here is that what do we actually want? Would it 
be that we need more diverse participation from the globe which in the 
end maximize the output and impact of IETF? Right now our white male 
engineers are put on the front line to be 'scrutinized' under the 
'diversity' microscope, what if a couple years later, the trend shifts 
to Asians? or Latin America or Australians or Africans. Sorry, I really 
try to avoid the skin color or gender here, because I personally believe 
it is essentially off the topic of the whole IETF diversity thing we 
shall focus on.

As the title hinted, really hope the goal of this diversity movement 
does not end up into against or wiping out "white male" from IETF, just 
because people 'firmly' believe they are the ones controlling the whole 
scene and resources, and won't let it go unless a revolution is called 
upon (btw, does it sound similar to many others demanding a radical 
revolution to the existing Chinese dominant 'group'? :)

Well, if the dominant ones later being replaced by other groups, do we 
need to revamp again? What will be the end?

Thanks, particularly for tolerating such long mail,
Aaron

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:20:19 -0700

Hi Aaron,
At 15:57 19-06-2013, Aaron Yi DING wrote:
>seems to be cited rather frequently and most of time with some kind 
>of emotions attached to it, e.g. dominant, power, monopoly etc.  To 
>be honest, I do have a mixed feeling when encountering such KEY WORD 
>in a public speech or along the lines of mail. That feeling 
>resembles very much when I heard Chinese being associated with 
>minority, passive, reserved or even, communist ...

The term old boys club has been mentioned previously.  The above term 
appeared in public discussions a few months ago.  The question of who 
is in power has been discussed over the years.  Some people likely 
perceived that their concerns were being ignored or that they were 
not being given honest answers.  It is reached a point where they 
expressed their feelings about the situation.

>The more relevant thing here is that what do we actually want? Would 
>it be that we need more diverse participation from the globe which 
>in the end maximize the output and impact of IETF? Right now our 
>white male engineers are put on the front line to be 'scrutinized' 
>under the 'diversity' microscope, what if a couple years later, the 
>trend shifts to Asians? or Latin America or Australians or Africans. 
>Sorry, I really try to avoid the skin color or gender here, because 
>I personally believe it is essentially off the topic of the whole 
>IETF diversity thing we shall focus on.

I doubt that the trend will shift over the next few years.  The 
problems are larger when there are two groups of people, those who 
are straight-forward and those who are politically correct.  The 
politically correct group can easily make the group of people who are 
straight-forward look bad.

What people actually want is to be WG Chair, Area Director or RFC 
Author.  It has been said in other communities that IETF positions 
are based on merit.  The changes being asked is not to choose people 
solely on merit.  Please note that I am not saying that the positions 
are actually filled based on merit as I don't choose the persons who 
will fill the positions.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:22:14 -0700

On 06/19/2013 11:42 AM, SM wrote:
> The majority of people on the IETF Secretariat are women.  The majority
> of Area Directors are men.

And what does that have to do with anything? That's a serious question, 
BTW, the 2 things you described bear little if any relationship.

The more interesting questions are whether or not the current makeup of 
the IETF leadership is reflective of the population (nee "membership") 
of the IETF as a whole; and whether or not the IETF population reflects 
the larger population of the tech community it draws from. Those are 
problems that outreach, mentorship, etc. can make concrete impacts on.

... and all that is completely aside from the fact that I've yet to see 
a clear explanation of what "the diversity problem" is. Someone else 
pointed out very early in the process that the IETF way of doing things 
is to jump immediately into the solution space. I don't see that this 
issue is being handled any differently than that.

Oh and BTW, the majority of the RSE staff are women, but for the 
majority of the existence of that organization it was headed by a woman. 
How does that affect your analysis?

> as helping as it is not a concrete action to me.

Excellent point. :)

Doug

---

From: "Fred Baker (fred)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:14:21 +0000

On Jun 19, 2013, at 3:57 PM, Aaron Yi DING <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Well, if the dominant ones later being replaced by other groups, do we need to revamp again? What will be the end?

I'm told that white babies are now a minority of the population in the US. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341066/Whites-soon-minority-American-children-age-5.html

It's all about political correctness. It is not politically correct to comment on women unless you are one and hate men. It is not politically correct to comment on whatever-they're-called-this-week, black, negro, afro-americans, or whatever. It is not politically correct to comment on hispanics, or to note that they are not a race; they might be a culture, but for the most part they are people who grew up outside spain but speak - or whose parents speak - some derivative of spanish as a native language. Or Asians, for that matter. But it is absolutely politically correct to make racist and sexist remarks - the same remarks that would draw outrage and umbrage if made about any of a list of other groups - about people who happen to be caucasian and male.

A conversation from the 1993 movie Gettysburg comes to mind. 

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Tell me something, Buster... What do you think of Negroes? 
Sergeant 'Buster' Kilrain: Well, if you mean the race, I don't really know. This is not a thing to be ashamed of. The thing is, you cannot judge a race. Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time.

I would replace "man" or "men" with "person" or "people" in the observation, and would agree with it. There are a lot of pea-wits in the world. Some of them are white males. Many are not.