Why you should be more sensitive
Travel, technology, art and feminism?
I’m glad that it hasn’t reached a point where I miss writing a blogpost for a week and my readers call the cops to check if I’m okay. Perks of not being famous! This morning(or was it yesterday night🤤), I got some time to reflect on the past week. Why? Because I had an early morning flight✈️ and had nothing to do at the airport with 45 minutes of Free WiFi.
What was I up to last week?
I was at Kaizen speaking about Community Management as a career option and how I got started with communities(yes, I take up every possible opportunity to talk about this topic). I really enjoyed the entire Kaizen experience and the energy at the event.
I could probably go on all day describing the beauty of Munnar, but that probably deserves a blog on its own.
Besides, you might want to read travel blogs for that. So I’m just gonna put down a photo that shows how greeeenn🌳 Munnar is!
The real problem
I had one slide during my presentation(which otherwise is just filled with pictures of cats and minions) with the below image-
This was in the context of startups. I first showed a ‘rosy’ picture of working at a startup, followed by this and asked them to guess what happened here. Among the options that students shouted out, one of them was-
This is the point where you got a girlfriend
He said that and then he laughed. The girls in the audience also laughed. Couple of years back, I would’ve laughed. But then, this time I responded saying — “ I’d really appreciate if we don’t make such statements”.
Probably the bullish gang of boys sitting at the back would’ve sneered at me for saying that. I didn’t care about that. Instead, I cared about the the real problem of lack of sensitivity and to understand the importance of respecting each other.
This morning I talked to someone and she told me that during a particular developer conference where they had a stall. She was talking to a guy and he asked her-
Do you women actually code?
No we’re not perfect
We all make mistakes. I’ve made a conscious effort to be inclusive and sensitive while talking- be it to individuals, groups or at events. However, I might make mistakes. It might slip my mind to address some things the way it’s supposed to. But I’m open to be corrected. I’m happy to learn more about what I can do to be more inclusive in my speech, behaviour and conduct in general(this is where you can point out my faults and I would be happy 😉).
It took Susan Fowler’s experience with Uber to probably get some of us who have been living under our rocks to come out and understand the seriousness of what’s happening.
Art Attack
After the super fun and amazing time at Kaizen in Munnar, I went down to Kochi to attend the Biennale in Kochi. If you haven’t visited it yet, you have time until the 29th of March, 2017 to go before they wrap up. Do visit their website to get an idea of what places to visit.
My visit was a short and quick trip to Aspinwall. The place is huge with a lot of installations. For someone who’s not from an arts background, it took me some time to first see the work, read the description and then see the work again to realize that it actually meant a lot.
After Aspinwall House, I went to Pepper House, which was a 3–5 minutes walk. Pepper House had fewer number of installations and with the humidity in Kochi, you shouldn’t forget to carry water bottles with you. Once Pepper House was done, it was a long walk to Kashi Art Cafe to finish off the Kochi trip with delicious chocolate cake🍰.
Off this week going new places, eating new food and talking to new people! Until next time…
This blog is a part of my “One Blog Per Week” resolution. Contains random rambling, learning and experience. If you have any inputs/thoughts, shout out to me at @dun3buggi3.
