Re: [Diversity] IETF Diversity Update

[SM <[e-mail]>]

Hi Kathleen,
At 04:59 06-12-2015, Kathleen Moriarty wrote:
>I do think we've come a long way in the past few years and am sad to 
>see no acknowledgement of that except mine in any of these 
>posts.  Sure, there's lots to be done and I clearly see the issues, 
>but think without some acknowledgment of progress, it's hard to make 
>more or to get people to come to an IETF to make a judgment call of their own.

I'll comment by taking a glimpse at the IETF mailing list as I did a 
year or more ago.  Over the last two weeks, there were two messages 
from female participants.  Both of those messages are from Area 
Directors.  There was a message from a participant in Africa which 
was a vote of support for a call about selecting members of a 
non-IETF board.  There wasn't any message from Latin America.

I took a cursory look at 
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg95497.html  I 
did not find any female participant.  Here are the numbers by hemisphere:

   North  26
   South   2

I used place of residence instead of characteristics of a person for the above.

The graph from Jari shows U.S. versus rest of the world.  I'll use 
the statistics from Jari for a author/continent breakdown (recent RFCs):

   North America 78%
   Europe        64%
   Asia          22%
   Australia      5%

I skipped the other regions of the world as the numbers are lower 
than 1%.  I looked at current IESG membership; the members are either 
residents of the U.S. or Europe.

What has changed in the IETF over the last few years?  There are more 
female IESG members from the U.S./Europe.  The statistics silently 
ignores everything else.  Does it make a difference for a woman 
residing in the U.S./Europe if there are more women on the 
IESG?  Does it make a different for a woman residing outside the 
U.S./Europe?  The better answer would be from a person in those regions.

An ISOC Trustee stated the following: "It's become clear that there 
are systemic issues".  If there is any issue, it would be that the 
person who openly speak/write will face negative action.   Everyone 
else will see the consequences and will not dare to openly speak/write.

Regards,
-sm