About a month ago, on December 1st, we hosted the last meetup of the year 2016 in the international coworking space The Living Room, where we presented the latest news and activities around our community Yes We Tech and debated about “positive discrimination” as a tool for gender equality.
In the video – recording provided by Valo – you can follow the (Spanish) conversation happening among the participants and how different opinions allowed new and interesting points of view emerge.
Is positive discrimination a good tool for gender equality?
Via the community Yes We Tech our goal is to find ways to support, visualise and empower women through their interest in technology. At the moment an inequality in absolute numbers is being observed in both the professional and cultural sector based on stereotypes and prejudice. Positive discrimination can be an effective tool to:
- create events showing diversity by implementing gender rates for participants
- request participation of minorities publicly and explicitly to make them feel included
- create controversy forcing a change of perspective and a social debate
- diversify social networks to avoid inbreeding and logrolling when calling for speakers
One or another way, it does not seem realistic to accept an equal distribution without discriminating the ones with the disadvantage of prejudice. It’s even worse, it helps maintain the status quo and widen the inequality gap.
That is why and what for Yes We Tech work, always counting on the help of the people who participate and support our initiative. Thanks to all participants for expressing their opinion freely and contribute to the debate once more.
Welcome to the year 2017!
As the founder and organiser of the community Yes We Tech, Carmel Hassan Montero coordinates activities and events to promote and support the woman’s role in the IT industry. Check out Carmel’s website for more.
