My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think I recall one of the early WiT
lunches hosted at NANOG that was women-only, where some men were upset
for being "left out". Whether that was good or bad is less important
than understanding what the outcome of a women-only activity is for
women, especially for those for whom it may not be immediately obvious.

My recollection is that every WiT lunch was always open to all. Happy to be corrected if any were that I don't recall.

There were definitely a few meetings during my PC years that someone complained that men were not allowed to attend. If my memory serves me correctly, we at one point were asking session moderators to remind people of this in general session for a while too. For some meetings, a few of us were standing at the doors telling people who asked that men were allowed to attend that if they would like.

On Fri, Mar 29, 2024 at 1:34 AM Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:

On 3/29/24 07:03, Eric Parsonage wrote:

> It's easily fixed by having a mixer at the same time for the other
> half of the gathering population thus showing all the population
> gathering matters equally.

My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think I recall one of the early WiT
lunches hosted at NANOG that was women-only, where some men were upset
for being "left out". Whether that was good or bad is less important
than understanding what the outcome of a women-only activity is for
women, especially for those for whom it may not be immediately obvious.

While equal access to opportunity between the genders is the most
effective policy, I think there is utility in women having their own
session, given that they face unique challenges in an industry where
they are the minority operators.

Mark.