This is such a controversial topic, I hesitate to even raise my hand. So, I'll try to preface my comments with the fact that I do understand your point about how booth babes facilitate the pattern of attractive women not knowing much (about the product/service in the case of a booth).
I am honestly curious if this is not more related to the fact that DrupalCon is no longer primarily for developers, and the difficulty in judging someone's area of interest (or level of skill/knowledge) when looking at them.
In the example used above about the friend ignoring the woman to go directly to the nerdy guy at the booth, this assertion definitely illustrates your point but I feel it also illustrates another stereotype which is that the skilled person is the glasses-clad male that isn't dressed professionally. I wonder if non-technical men that wear glasses are offended when someone asks them a technical question?
To be clear, I'm not trying to deny the stereotype of women in tech or ignore the real gap that exists in our profession. I'm just really unsure if the situation being described is really the whole issue and isn't a larger one.
Physical appearance is (rightly or wrongly, and gender is only a part of that) a horrible indication of someone's knowledge or skill level. How many people would've taken a look at Dmitri (dmitrig01) and brushed him off as just some little kid, probably making the assumption he was only at drupalcon with his parents? How many people might look at Keiran Lal's (Amazon) nice suit and assume he's just a sales guy or some empty executive suit that isn't really part of the community? Or brush off Karen Stevenson (KarenS) as some senior citizen, help vampire? Is fedora-wearing Morten (mortendk) just at DrupalCon to find cheap developers to cut up his uncompromising designs? (apologies to those above for abusing your appearance - Morten has also written on a similar issue http://morten.dk/blog/second-rate-citizens-drupalcon)
Within every other tech groups I've been part of and even in casual small groups of techs, I find so commonly that people tend to engage in a nerdy form of dick measurement by trying to "out tech" everyone else. Who hasn't been part of a discussion like:
"Ah, fond memories of my first laptop"
"Oh yea? what was it? I remember my first desktop - a pentium 1!"
"Yea, my first desktop was an old apple 2e"
"Yea, I remember building my first computer"
"Yea, Drupal 6 is so crummy compared to Drupal 7"
"haha - yea, I remember how bad Drupal 5 was"
"Oh - you should try to run Drupal 4.5 some day - you'd all thank your luck stars"
"Yea, good times - i remember my first modem - saved up all my allowance"
"Yea, remember finding files on bbs?"
"Oh yea, i used to run a bbs"
and ad-naseum until in a light hearted way, everyone has effectively been "placed" on their pecking order in terms of tech knowledge and therefor determine how much weight and credibility everyone else will treat their comments. (Once I noticed this myself, I now try to catch myself doing it and actively avoid these conversations). I have also noticed women who participate like this as well, so its not just a man thing. Its not really any different that other forms of posturing for social order and our general need to rank people via games and scoreboards.
Having our community online tends to have the complete opposite problem. People can only really attach a judgement based on your screenname. On the face of it "supergenius524" or "flowerpants2011" don't really indication about their age, sex, background, or skill level.
Which would you trust more?
(A) a 500 word explanation that provides a mathematical proof for 300 lines of code to be committed in the drupal boot strap from username "kleptopaul"
(B) a screenshots that compare performance test results for 3 lines of code to be committed to SimpleNews module by username "DriesK"
(C) "+1 - I wrote this code last night" by username "Dries Buytaert"
(D) "I am not sure this is the right approach" by username "Dries"
(note, these are all real usernames - apologies again)
There is already work being done to help address this issue on d.o, but back to the original point which is that I think this is more than just about judging females on equal footing.
DrupalCon used to be primarily for developers (perhaps that is still the primary audience) and it was much easier to know what to expect from attendees which provided some type of playing field (perhaps after some tech posturing) for developers to discuss problems and ideas and have some ability screen out the noise of naive participants. Now that DrupalCon is much more that just for developers, there isn't a common framework for people to position themselves on in a way that people know who's opinion is the most relevant any more - so we often revert to more broad stereotypes to help us navigate the 4,000+ people we can talk with.
This comment has been a bit longer than expected, but my main question is whether our community (primarily drupal developers) are overly dismissive of any input from people who can't code?
IMHO, we've made great strides to make sure that UX/Design was seen as a more respected and important part of our development process. I think that developers should look at DrupalCon as an opportunity to get a much broader set of contributions and opinions instead of simply dismissing anyone who can't code. I also think that people should try to be less offended if the stereotype of your appearance doesn't match your actual situation. Perhaps be willing to mention how you built your own modem from a magazine schematic back in the day or casually point to your name badge where it says, "drupal docs contributor" or even adjusting your appearance by wearing your old drupalcon t-shirt or something. Its not any different than people putting on suits so other people will take them seriously in a business meeting.
Honest Question
This is such a controversial topic, I hesitate to even raise my hand. So, I'll try to preface my comments with the fact that I do understand your point about how booth babes facilitate the pattern of attractive women not knowing much (about the product/service in the case of a booth).
I am honestly curious if this is not more related to the fact that DrupalCon is no longer primarily for developers, and the difficulty in judging someone's area of interest (or level of skill/knowledge) when looking at them.
In the example used above about the friend ignoring the woman to go directly to the nerdy guy at the booth, this assertion definitely illustrates your point but I feel it also illustrates another stereotype which is that the skilled person is the glasses-clad male that isn't dressed professionally. I wonder if non-technical men that wear glasses are offended when someone asks them a technical question?
To be clear, I'm not trying to deny the stereotype of women in tech or ignore the real gap that exists in our profession. I'm just really unsure if the situation being described is really the whole issue and isn't a larger one.
Physical appearance is (rightly or wrongly, and gender is only a part of that) a horrible indication of someone's knowledge or skill level. How many people would've taken a look at Dmitri (dmitrig01) and brushed him off as just some little kid, probably making the assumption he was only at drupalcon with his parents? How many people might look at Keiran Lal's (Amazon) nice suit and assume he's just a sales guy or some empty executive suit that isn't really part of the community? Or brush off Karen Stevenson (KarenS) as some senior citizen, help vampire? Is fedora-wearing Morten (mortendk) just at DrupalCon to find cheap developers to cut up his uncompromising designs? (apologies to those above for abusing your appearance - Morten has also written on a similar issue http://morten.dk/blog/second-rate-citizens-drupalcon)
Within every other tech groups I've been part of and even in casual small groups of techs, I find so commonly that people tend to engage in a nerdy form of dick measurement by trying to "out tech" everyone else. Who hasn't been part of a discussion like:
"Ah, fond memories of my first laptop"
"Oh yea? what was it? I remember my first desktop - a pentium 1!"
"Yea, my first desktop was an old apple 2e"
"Yea, I remember building my first computer"
"Yea, Drupal 6 is so crummy compared to Drupal 7"
"haha - yea, I remember how bad Drupal 5 was"
"Oh - you should try to run Drupal 4.5 some day - you'd all thank your luck stars"
"Yea, good times - i remember my first modem - saved up all my allowance"
"Yea, remember finding files on bbs?"
"Oh yea, i used to run a bbs"
and ad-naseum until in a light hearted way, everyone has effectively been "placed" on their pecking order in terms of tech knowledge and therefor determine how much weight and credibility everyone else will treat their comments. (Once I noticed this myself, I now try to catch myself doing it and actively avoid these conversations). I have also noticed women who participate like this as well, so its not just a man thing. Its not really any different that other forms of posturing for social order and our general need to rank people via games and scoreboards.
Having our community online tends to have the complete opposite problem. People can only really attach a judgement based on your screenname. On the face of it "supergenius524" or "flowerpants2011" don't really indication about their age, sex, background, or skill level.
Which would you trust more?
(A) a 500 word explanation that provides a mathematical proof for 300 lines of code to be committed in the drupal boot strap from username "kleptopaul"
(B) a screenshots that compare performance test results for 3 lines of code to be committed to SimpleNews module by username "DriesK"
(C) "+1 - I wrote this code last night" by username "Dries Buytaert"
(D) "I am not sure this is the right approach" by username "Dries"
(note, these are all real usernames - apologies again)
There is already work being done to help address this issue on d.o, but back to the original point which is that I think this is more than just about judging females on equal footing.
DrupalCon used to be primarily for developers (perhaps that is still the primary audience) and it was much easier to know what to expect from attendees which provided some type of playing field (perhaps after some tech posturing) for developers to discuss problems and ideas and have some ability screen out the noise of naive participants. Now that DrupalCon is much more that just for developers, there isn't a common framework for people to position themselves on in a way that people know who's opinion is the most relevant any more - so we often revert to more broad stereotypes to help us navigate the 4,000+ people we can talk with.
This comment has been a bit longer than expected, but my main question is whether our community (primarily drupal developers) are overly dismissive of any input from people who can't code?
IMHO, we've made great strides to make sure that UX/Design was seen as a more respected and important part of our development process. I think that developers should look at DrupalCon as an opportunity to get a much broader set of contributions and opinions instead of simply dismissing anyone who can't code. I also think that people should try to be less offended if the stereotype of your appearance doesn't match your actual situation. Perhaps be willing to mention how you built your own modem from a magazine schematic back in the day or casually point to your name badge where it says, "drupal docs contributor" or even adjusting your appearance by wearing your old drupalcon t-shirt or something. Its not any different than people putting on suits so other people will take them seriously in a business meeting.