[J3] (SC22WG5.6256) 2022 WG5 meeting

[Vipul Parekh]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 8:10 PM Steve Lionel via J3 <
j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:

> .. Some have expressed antipathy to Las Vegas for
> these, though I haven't spotted specific objections. ..
>

It's entirely from the D&I perspective of current and *future* attendees
that I mentioned the concern with a repeat Las Vegas location.

As I mentioned earlier, as-is "there is considerable evidence involving
*gender* and *parenthood* and diminished in-person conference/meeting
attendance."

Without getting into details and not wanting to, I'll attest from my
personal experience the Las Vegas location discourages attendance for
certain folks on the diversity spectrum.  This is true for myself as a
parent but more importantly for the other gender in my family (many of whom
have a strong STEM background or interest) should they ever get into
numerical computing and programming and have to *travel by themselves* to a
destination to work on Fortran standard development.

The heightened situational awareness they bring any time they are on their
own, particularly as nearly half have or can experience harassment **, can
be compounded by greatly increased tension when the destination is Vegas.
Something as simple as a seat assignment on a plane to and from Vegas or
catching a taxi/uber in the city or needing to walk to a pharmacy can all
be tremendous stressors in this situation.

If one has empathy, one gets this instantly but no amount of explanation
will be sufficient otherwise.

So I'm not going to elaborate further.

Vipul Parekh

**  THE WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCE EXPERIENCE & IMPACT STUDY,

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d8a838628b7472b2aa38999/t/5d960aaef1b8cc4d58f44473/1570114225760/%23TheConferenceStudy+Summary+9.30.pdf
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