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OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be consideringOK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be consideringPosted Aug 25, 2009 3:13 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)In reply to: foot out of mouth by elanthis Parent article: FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software Want to hear a man telling you there's not a problem? It's not me, I know there's a problem. But what we're talking about now is not the problem. If anyone had the slightest chance of understanding EMACS virginity to be in the slightest way related to sex, and then feeling threatened, it wasn't because they were a woman. To believe that is insulting women much worse than anything RMS said. Lots of women handle much worse social challenges every day. And this is not approaching why there are so few women in the technologies. IMO, someone who espoused that sort of feeling during RMS talk was primed for this to happen before it did, looking for a fight, and towed any number of people looking to be politically correct along with them. I saw Lefty at the Community Summit and he was totally sickly nonlinear about this. He had a cry in his voice the whole time he explained it to me, and ran off in a huff when I didn't buy it. Nobody is considering the men's side of this equation. It happens that virginity is pretty much a social affliction among the young nerdy men who flock to computer programming. And RMS goes without a girlfriend for a while now and then. What do you do when something's painful and you can't make it go away? Joking about it makes it feel better. I remember my first year in communication arts at NY Tech, there was one woman entering the program. They used to bus us to events with Fashion Institute of Technology and Barnard just so that we could have social interaction with women our age. But you already knew this was not a problem unique to Free Software. I think we have to solve the overall problem with women in Science and Engineering to solve Free Software's problem. It's not all discrimination and bad jokes, or we would not have other minorities at the level that is currently represented. Some of it is what women grow up wanting to do and be. Remember what the Jesuit said: Give me a child until he's 7 years of age, and he's mine for life. I think we have to concentrate on very early training at home and in early grades. Bruce
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OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 8:03 UTC (Tue) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
So... why did Stallman say it was women specifically who needed to be relieved of their 'EMACS virginity'? That's the issue - if EMACS virginity is nothing to do with sex, why not just say 'people'? From the accounts I've seen it was a really sexist comment that didn't do him any favours.
http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/good-gcds-begi... is the link to Lefty's blog with his viewpoint.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 8:15 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] So... why did Stallman say it was women specifically who needed to be relieved of their 'EMACS virginity'? Because women who use EMACS are especially rare. I have found out about only one in the past 30 years, and she was trained on it for a job and doesn't use it any longer. I think that link is broken, but the host name works. But it is a lot more heat than light.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 11:52 UTC (Tue) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]
> Because women who use EMACS are especially rare.
Perhaps that merely means women, on the whole, have far better taste in text
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 13:11 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] So, uh... I'm trying to imagine this. A world where the Emacs user base isn't male-dominated, okay, I got that part, but then in that world you can see RMS saying "In the church of emacs we believe that taking his emacs virginity away is a blessed act."?Because... I mean... really? I can't imagine it. Admittedly, the reason I can't imagine it has a lot to do with the cultural rules for how men cannot say anything vaguely homosexual public, but... there it is. Jokes that allude to the metaphorical rape of women are just more publicly acceptable than jokes that allude to the possibility that the speaker might be gay. (Of course, that version also alludes to homosexual rape, but sadly, I don't think that has much to do with its unacceptability.) (Oh, just to ++ your count: my wife uses emacs. So do the, like, 40% of the entering CS class at Berkeley who are female, etc., it's actually not that big a deal, but hey, since you're counting.)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 14:54 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
First, calling someone else sexist because *you* can't imagine replacing "her" with "his" in a joke is just baffling.
Second, nobody mentioned rape or even hinted at it, until you did.
Folks, if you want to help gender inclusion, then dissecting a joke and making up stuff to feel offended about is not the way forward. How about organising a summit on the topic? Oh.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 15:38 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Telling people that they're wrong to be offended is not the best way to engage in a constructive dialog about why they (in general) feel excluded from the community. People *were* offended. You may feel that they're misinterpreting what was said, but the helpful response to that is to try to understand why that misinterpretation occured and either help to avoid it in future or (perhaps) decide that they're not worth it and just ignore the issue entirely.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 16:41 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
In your first sentence, grammatically, "people" refers to the "they" in "they (in general) feel excluded", which in the context is women.
If you read my comments in this thread, you'll see that I haven't said that any woman is/was wrong to feel offended.
In my comment, I pointed out some unfair accusations by njs. You've replied by launching unfair accusations at me :-) I'm sure you're well intentioned, but I think this topic is being approached in an unproductively hot headed manner. I expect the ladies will do a better job on Sept 19th, and then we can listen instead of discussing how offended we feel for them.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 17:02 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
You said "Folks, if you want to help gender inclusion, then dissecting a joke and making up stuff to feel offended about is not the way forward". The obvious reading of that is that anyone offended by the virginity thing is making it up. If that's not the case then it'd be helpful to clarify what you did mean, because right now it sounds like you're claiming that it's fine for women to make these arguments but not for men. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, but still.
In any case, this isn't a situation that will magically get rectified by the existence of a summit. If there's a problem here then it doesn't get solved unless men (as well as women) are willing to do something about it. That includes calling people out on perceived poor or unhelpful behaviour, and it includes accepting that people might be offended for themselves rather than being offended on other people's behalf. RMS's behaviour offended me not because I think women are unable to stand up for themselves but because he managed to undo some quantity of the work many people have been doing to try to make the Linux community a welcoming and friendly place that doesn't marginalise anyone on the basis of biological differences they have no control over. I'm offended because he made us look bad. I'm offended because it was entirely unnecessary and could have been avoided with a straightforward apology, and the refusal to do so encourages the perception that our community leaders are all unwilling to accept that they may have made mistakes but we love them anyway.
By saying that people are merely being offended on behalf of women you imply that there's no rother reason for a man to have been offended by the case in question. You're writing off their concerns as an irrelevance. It'd be very easy for you to just put this down as another unfair accusation on my part, but at some level I'd hope that you'll put some time into considering why people feel this way about what you're writing instead of deflecting it without any obvious thought.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 23:55 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
I was replying to someone who blatantly made stuff up. I thought I made the target of my "making stuff up" comment pretty clear, but you're putting it in a different context (it does apply to a wider context, but not as wide as where you put it).
Then you criticised me for "telling [women] that they're wrong to be offended", which I didn't say at all. Now, when I say the summit could be helpful, you complain that the issue won't "magically get rectified by the existence of a summit" - I never said it would!
Do you think misrepresenting people and making careless accusations is a way to make a gender inclusive forum? I don't think a vague joke by rms is the only problem here. Not by a long shot.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 0:00 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
It's pretty straightforward. You're accusing someone of making stuff up. Do you believe that other people who say exactly the same thing are making stuff up? Do you believe that the women who said they were offended by RMS's statement were justified in being offended?
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 23:25 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> First, calling someone else sexist because *you* can't imagine replacing "her" with "his" in a joke is just baffling.
Uh. Then I suppose you're glad I didn't call anyone sexist...?
Bruce claimed that the reason RMS talked about women was a simple reflection of user statistics -- that it had nothing to do with the sexual/gendered overtones of "virginity", and indeed, that those overtones didn't even exist in context of the joke.
I'm skeptical. Note that this is not "I think Bruce is sexist", or even "I think RMS is sexist". It's "I'm skeptical of Bruce's claim that I was replying to". I think that's a pretty unremarkable sort of stance to take in LWN comments.
One way I tried to express that was by appealing to people's intuition for cultural rules about sex -- AFAICT, around here (here being America, more or less) it's much more okay for a guy to joke about taking a women's virginity than to joke about participating in homosexual sex. If you then try to imagine RMS taking guy's emacs virginity and your brain goes "whoa whoa what?", then that suggests that yeah, "emacs virginity" *is* pulling up all those sexual/gendered stereotypes. Sorry Bruce.
But maybe you don't share that intuition, and that's fine. Cultural rules are messy, variable, and hard to articulate; maybe you're coming from somewhere else, maybe I just got it wrong, it happens. But that doesn't mean they don't exist, or don't matter, or that "*I*" cannot talk about them on the basis of my own knowledge. I'd rather try and get it wrong occasionally that pretend they don't exist.
And as for hinting at rape... well. Here's the quote again: "we believe that taking her emacs virginity away is a blessed act." Does that call on men to go out and rape women? Absolutely not. But when I take my lunch out of the fridge, the lunch doesn't have any say in the matter. I decide to take it, it doesn't make a decision. It's just some apples and lasagna and stuff, decision-making isn't what it does. I certainly wouldn't ask it if it minded being taken. That's the metaphor he chose to use; women are like my lunch. Whether women lose their virginity/learn emacs is something for a man to decide and implement, with no place for her to have an opinion on the matter.
One more time, before people rise up with pitchforks: I'm not saying that anyone who uses that sort of language is an evil misogynist who hates women and wants to rape them. This stuff is subconscious and out there in the culture; it's easy to miss. (Esp. for men, who don't spend their lives with the spectre of real rape hanging over them.) But you know, one could just as easily talk about helping women relieve their own virginity, or just offer to answer their questions about emacs. When we choose not to, then yeah, that has something to do with our nasty cultural models about power and sex and agency.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 1:25 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> Then I suppose you're glad I didn't call anyone sexist...?
Heh. I guess I'm also not immune to reading people's comments with tunnel vision. Sorry 'bout that.
(As for "taking someone's virginity", I think that's a pretty normal turn of phrase for two consensual partners where one or both is a virgin.)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 2:08 UTC (Wed) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> Heh. I guess I'm also not immune to reading people's comments with tunnel vision. Sorry 'bout that.
np. Thanks for being willing to listen.
> (As for "taking someone's virginity", I think that's a pretty normal turn of phrase for two consensual partners where one or both is a virgin.)
Oh, it's definitely common. It's still just a bit icky. And of course context matters: when you're not talking about two consensual partners, but publicly exhorting a crowd of men to go out, find some women somewhere, and take away their virginity... yeah, it's a joke, but within that joke it's asking listeners to laugh at a really disturbing scenario.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 15:00 UTC (Tue) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Where in the world is "take virginity away" equal to an act of rape? In countries where all people (except the geeks ;-) have sex first time before being of age? My take at what our problem is: Women hate us geeks. That's why there are so few women in geek-like activities. They hate us because we are boring, we don't dress properly (we look deliberately poor), we don't smalltalk easily on parties - if we go to parties at all (other than of course geek parties). It's not our social deficits - if someone who beats his spouse loses her finally, he's got a new one the next day. Yes, we have that kind of people in the OSS szene (think of Hans Reiser). He was married, and had children. Come on, this sort of social deficit is only a serious handicap if the spouse is six feet under, and you have to deal with a court. What matters a lot to women is if you are wealthy or at least care about wealth. Free software and wealth? Doesn't seem to fit. This was Hans' real problem, this is our real problem. Women who do software already have a gender-specific handicap. But doing it for free, just for fun, and not out of monetary interest, that's a much larger handicap for female way of thinking. Remember: Men are driven by recognition, by rank they achieve through fights. Women aren't. Their rank comes of age, not of achievement (we are apes, after all). The ranking system we in the FOSS szene have is not recognised by women - it has no obvous benefits outside, you can't pay the rent with Linux kernel patches (well, you can, but the reward system is extremely indirect). This will change all on its own. IMHO it is basically a recognition problem: Do ordinary people recognise how important software is? More and more, they do. Computers for young people are everyday's tools. They aren't strange things stuffed in geeky cellars any more. Women often lag behind in adapting new technologies, but when the technologies are old and boring, they are usually only operated by women. Again: Remember that rank in the female ranking system comes primarily of age, not of achievement! What has been around long enough obviously is important. And always remember: The question is "why are there so few"? All those points that prevent people from joining are not the points that annoy people who already are in there. You have to ask the people who are not in there, why they won't join. They may have completely different reasons. I think what we need to fix first to appeal more to women is the reward system. We can't go on with a reward system where the joy of having a working program is the only reward, and that is spoiled by the bug reports. I know of no woman personally who is rewarded by the result of her work. They all need compliments in addition. "Bug reports" usually don't work. Even when women complain about problems, it is no good to help them by telling them how they should do (especially when completely counter-intuitive things are involved). They want that you listen and agree to their laments. Women apparently can improve. But an open discussion how to improve things - no way. Of course this is a very stereotypical view. But like the long-haired geek with goatee, stereotypes are not generally wrong. They are only wrong in special cases, in the other cases, they are mere exaggerations. Statistically, special cases are not that relevant. So to sum that up: The most urgent thing to establish is a positive reward and compliment system. Put a "send flower picture to developer" button on Sourceforge pages, next to the donate (developer can choose secretly what kind of picture it actually will be, and the option "porn" is only shown after the developer has proven he's male ;-). Add a "thanks for fixing that bug" button to bugzilla. Make sure that the social page of your project shows how long each developer has been with the project, how many flowers and how many thanks for bugfixes they got (and build a social page first, idiots! If women care about anything, it is about brownie point competition with their peers). Add a pink flower and butterflies theme to Sourceforge (also for gay developers; if you need inspiration, look at a random web page from Asia ;-). Wait for asian people to become significant part of the community - the girls there have less problems with technology and being geeks than ours. And that despite they are usually much more stereotypical girls than ours. They haven't been that much through emancipation, so they just accept the gender differences. Some things go away by themselves, our young girls have less problems with them being girls than the generation before - this gender-mainstreaming is already failing.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 16:36 UTC (Tue) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Some people here are trying to seriously discuss the tricky problem of how to deal with the human (in)ability to express interpretations and interpret expressions. Not a huge mental exercition, but practically challenging.But not this challenging.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 20:15 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] What matters a lot to women is if you are wealthy or at least care about wealth.Well, free software developers are not badly paid, certainly not worse than your average non-free-software developer, so if this was the controlling factor, it would be falsifed thereby. But in fact it isn't. Do you actually know any women? Hint: female motivations are every bit as complex and multifaceted as male ones (hell, more so) and it is erroneous to say 'all women X' for almost any value of X. (In any case, this bit of pop evo-psych applies to mating strategies. We're interested here in why so few women become free software developers, not in few male free software developers get dates, if indeed this is true, which it probably isn't unless you have some other major deficit. TBH this latter effect is of interest to nobody but male free software developers.)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 19:28 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
> Women hate us geeks.
Oh! You're right, I *do* hate myself!
Here's the problem I have with what RMS said: he made the wrong-headed assumption that all EMACS users, all geeks...are men. And you just did too. Can we stop with the marginalization?
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Sep 8, 2009 12:02 UTC (Tue) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Why is it so difficult for you to parse expressions? I'm not marginalizing anybody, I'm just making a generalized statement (would you like it better if I write "70% women hate 70% of the geeks" or whatever figures there actually are?). Most women are non-geek, just as most men are non-geek. Most women "hate" female geeks as much as male geeks (or even more, because they directly compete with this "knows-all-better" but badly dressed, w/o makeup girl). We geeks all are marginalized! The society is pretty anti-geek and pro mediocracy as such! And of course most women approach men (and professions) with "mate selection mode" applied. If you don't - I'm fine with that. But to explain "why are there so few xxx" (e.g. xxx=properly shaved, without ponytail) geeks, then generalization works. Those few who are there are the exceptions. If you fail to understand that you are an exception, please learn more about yourself. And if you don't accept your own exception-state, you are marginalizing yourself. I just came out of a conference full of geeks. The only woman was the wife of one participant, and she was only there for the social activities (the geek parties). There was an obvious separation between groups, which became visible when we started discussing about foreign language interfaces (to C and other languages). The left side of the U-shaped table was the side of Windows users who didn't see the problem with their approach, because it works for them - basically one OS, two processor architectures, of which they mostly support only one (32 bit x86). It didn't work for the other side of the table, where the weird, bearded, pony-tailed Unix guys where sitting (in fact, only one of us was actually bearded and pony-tailed, but it is completely sufficient if you have one of those in your group ;-), who have lots of different architectures and OSes, and know of problems the other side never has heard of - and therefore propose to use the C compiler (which is not available to Windows users... typically). And even though discussions like this bring up personal things, we can get along with each others well. Technical discussions have to be hard, it's about not giving in when you know that the other side is wrong. There's a time where you are nice to your peers and there's a time where you are rude. And sometimes, discussions like this bring up your beard+ponytail state. Or your gender, if it differs. So what? If the results are worth the hard discussions, it's apropriate. The occasional women in this sort of meetings often is said to "have hairs on her teeth", i.e. she masters this sort of discussion style perfectly. And after all, as geeks, we won't compromise on a process that's working just for having more girls in that field. Or other complaints, like occasional sexual harassments: Come on, girls who go to a club are more than occasionally harassed, yet the places are packed full with girls. This is just a crazy argument. Unless, of course, you really hate the male geeks, and therefore their sexuall harassment is much worse than the ones of the guys in the club.
clubbing Posted Sep 9, 2009 3:00 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]
Aww, c'mon. Clubs are all about sex.
One goes clubbing for the purposes of overt public exercise of one's sexual animal nature (well 99% of patrons do, some just like dancing or drugs or deafening music). People are there to show off their bodies and those of their partners if they have them. Plenty of people are there in order to advertise their availability, and it's a good bet quite a few intend to 'score'. The rules in a nightclub are, for this reason, very different from those on the street (your local red-light district partially excepted) or in a daytime workplace. Harrassment is still unacceptable, but the very definition of harrassment is different. Sex-related signals abound and they must be read and understood, and ambiguities tactfully resolved, before it is clear what behaviour is acceptable.
Technical mailing lists and websites are not sexually charged environments. Well, they *shouldn't* be.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:58 UTC (Thu) by lizhenry (guest, #60479) [Link]
So in your mind "us geeks" doesn't include women? We're here and we're not invisible.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:32 UTC (Thu) by artibasos (guest, #60487) [Link]
"Women hate us geeks."
I am so glad to know that "geek" and "women" are mutually exclusive
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:29 UTC (Fri) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
Hmm. Three comments that all say the same thing. Maybe my joke detectors are off, or perhaps you all missed what he was trying to say. Or perhaps this is some kind of meta-sarcasm meant to trip up someone like me, stepping right into trap...
I think the guy was trying to say, poorly, that he thought women would be most attracted to sort of (male) social climbers who try to get status, not the sort of people who dress poorly and don't care if they work for free for idealistic reasons. Starting from the next paragraph he's quite clearly implying a mate-selection context with "What matters a lot to women is if you are wealthy or at least care about wealth."
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 21:51 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Yeah. That's also implying that all readers are male. And people wonder why women feel out of place in this community...
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 22:33 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I just took his comment on what he thinks women like as irrelevant to the discussion.If anyone wants to discuss why some women go for abusive dirtbags instead of you, with all of your shining geeky qualities :-), there are appropriate net venues. LWN isn't one.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 29, 2009 21:54 UTC (Sat) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
Well where does it say that it's suddenly unfair to address your words to male audience, either implicitly or explicitly. I just noticed that apparently not one of the women seemed to read further than that sentence until firing a comment, because that's the only thing they commented upon and I think it wasn't even what frosty meant. Maybe he could show up to clarify, though.
We're concerned with editor choice among female open source developers? Really?? Posted Aug 25, 2009 17:29 UTC (Tue) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link]
I teach open source (among other things) at Portland State University. 20-30% of the students I've worked closely on open source projects with over the last five years are women---around 2-3 of about 10-15 per year. Of those, as near as I can remember about a third prefer emacs and about two-thirds vi. The ratio among my male students seems the same.
If you want to meet female open source developers who use emacs, I guess you're welcome to drop by and say "hi" to some. But it would be kinda weird---I guess you could give a talk in one of my classes or something and chat with them afterward. You can also meet married open source developers with kids who use emacs, and 40-something open source developers who use vi, and an up-and-coming young open source developer who prefers nano, and any number of other combinations of demographic and editor choice with varying likelihoods...
Here's a blog from one of my students, a woman who develops open tech and (IIRC) uses emacs: http://dotfiveone.com . Her current entry is about a bunch of women, one of them another of my students, who spoke at our recent open source conference in Portland. It's pretty likely some of them use emacs too.
Whatever.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 19:23 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
Yeah...we've enough sense to use a standard editor that exists on all UNIX variants...like vi ;)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:13 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
Wow, you use Emacs and have never run into Sacha Chua? As well as being an awesome all-around Open Source contributor, she's currently writing "Wicked Cool Emacs" for No Starch Press.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:29 UTC (Thu) by artibasos (guest, #60487) [Link]
Really? My female friends frequently try to convince
me into switching over to emacs. Off the top of my head, I can think of five or six women who would happily lecture me for hours about How I Should Use Emacs.
(I am female; I use vi.)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Sep 22, 2009 15:29 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] Because women who use EMACS are especially rare. I have found out about only one in the past 30 years, and she was trained on it for a job and doesn't use it any longer. I'd suggest that you need to get out a little more, Bruce. I've certainly met many more than a single female EMACS user in my past thirty years in the industry... In any case, putting the supposed situation in terms where the male component of the audience (outnumbering the women at a ratio of, at a minimum, twenty to one) are encouraged to unilaterally take it upon themselves to "relieve" those women of their "virginity" seems a pretty peculiar way of making a point.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 8:40 UTC (Tue) by engla (guest, #47454) [Link]
Why *not* say women if they are in fact underrepresented, and perhaps getting more women to use Emacs is Stallman's way of saying he wants more Women in the Free Software movement?
njs industries: filling your tl/dr quota of today -- and tomorrow! Posted Aug 25, 2009 13:10 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] I'm not a woman myself, so this will be going off of my own imperfect understanding, based more on reading and thinking than experience. For purposes of responding, I'm assuming that you aren't either. But let me try to give you a rough idea.For most of us, our gender just doesn't come up when hacking. Who stops and thinks "hey, I'm male" in the middle of discussing a patch or whatever? But if you're Julie Random Hacker, it doesn't work that way. You can't forget you're female and be "just another hacker". Sometimes it's because of malicious jerks who will harass and threaten you. (They're a minority, but that can be enough.) Sometimes it's because of desperate geeks with weird impulse control and deeply twisted or broken social skills, especially regarding sex. They're not malicious, not evil; if anything, they're damaged victims of their culture. But you're the one who has to deal with it. Sometimes its because of perfectly well-meaning, easy-going people who nevertheless will make casual jokes about women, or bring up your gender in the middle of an argument about other things entirely, or otherwise demonstrate that while they're perfectly nice people, it's never occurred to them to think about how things look from your perspective. That in their world, your experience just isn't that important. Sometimes, even, it's internal. You screw up, you wonder if everyone is nodding sagely and thinking "yep, that's why women aren't real hackers". You look at your friends and co-workers who really are cool, don't fall into any of those categories above, but you still know that they're aware of your gender, that they can't forget it, that they know all the stereotypes, and you wonder what subtle influence that has, what internal struggles they face just to deal with you as an ordinary human being. You wonder what they say when you aren't around, and sometimes when people assume you're male (since everyone is, right?)... you find out. Or maybe you try and get away from all that, go by "J. Hacker" to hide your identity... and accept that you'll have to be constantly vigilant about what you reveal to who, and what might happen if you let the wrong thing slip to one of your hacking buddies. For years. The point is, there is no escape. It's not always violent, it's not always blatant, sometimes you can forget about it and it's not even always negative, but. It's always there, at some level. You are never plain "you", you are "you (a woman)". Always. Now, given that. Getting more people to use emacs is certainly a virtuous act, and inasmuch as FOSS is a particularly toxic environment for women, finding ways to counter those particular forces is certainly virtuous as well. I don't think RMS is a bad person trying to do harm in any way. I'm even willing to believe what you suggest, that this is his way of trying to do good. But telling a bunch of men to go out and "take" women's "virginity" is not the way to do that. It's not malicious, but it is -- at the least -- deeply ignorant of who women are and what their experiences are like. And so when RMS said it, and when other men defend it, they end up sending the message that they only care about some people's experience, and not others, and that they draw that line based on an accident of birth. I'm not saying it's on purpose, but that's what's communicated. Men matter, you don't — except as another notch on Emacs' bedpost. It's not just ineffective, it's toxic. But there's a solution: ignorance is easy to treat. Just read, and think, and read some more, and think some more, and try to keep an open mind. Remember that no-one's being graded, but being a decent person is worth fighting for. Pretend women are Haskell or something. Sure, you have to learn to think in new ways — and that's awesome. The only people who really can't learn are the ones who find learning scary, and would rather be certain than right.
njs industries: filling your tl/dr quota of today -- and tomorrow! Posted Aug 29, 2009 10:57 UTC (Sat) by spzeidler (guest, #60508) [Link]
> Or maybe you try and get away from all that, go by "J. Hacker" to hide your identity... and accept that you'll have to be constantly vigilant about what you reveal to who, and what might happen if you let the wrong thing slip to one of your hacking buddies. For years.
Actually you only need to keep gender out of the equation long enough that first contact and assessment is over; once somebody has filed you under 'person I know' instead of 'wow something potentially fuckable !!1!' (no, the "thing" is not an accident), people tend to generally behave.
njs industries: filling your tl/dr quota of today -- and tomorrow! Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:30 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
Nod -- good to hear.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:50 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
Because it's fucking creepy, that's why.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 10:55 UTC (Tue) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]
This is hilarious. In the space of a handful of comments we've gone from a conference specifically about the relative lack of women in Free software, to asking why RMS specifically highlighted the lack of women using EMACS.
You can believe that there's a problem, or that there isn't; but you can't reasonably hold the view that there's a problematic gender disparity and then blame someone for saying that it "was women specifically who needed to be relieved of their 'EMACS virginity'".
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 20:19 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
This is, of course, a classic example of derailment. Note that we went from a conference about the lack of women in free software to wondering about the effect of one *man's* comment on the problem.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 20:40 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Only if you believe that the FSF's conference was not at least partially motivated by that particular incident. I'm willing to buy that it was.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 19:33 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
They're trying to make amends. Sounds about right.
Amends or not Posted Aug 26, 2009 22:27 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] In that case (making amends), an apology for the failed joke would have been due as a first move. But maybe the FSF (not just Stallman) wants to learn more about the issues involved before making an opinion. Sounds honest enough.
Amends or not Posted Aug 27, 2009 2:24 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
For all we know, he's not even involved in this and the rest of the FSF is trying to make up for his poor behaviour. As in "see? we're not all like *elbow jab* him"
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:06 UTC (Thu) by lizhenry (guest, #60479) [Link]
And not only that, but straight into assertions that there aren't any women in FLOSS and when there are, they're rare exceptions or they don't really count anyway because of not being technical/passionate/paid/unpaid enough.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 8:19 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I'm not sure I completely agree with all of your comment, but overall this seems the best one I've read to date on the RMS EMACS-virginity thing.
IME, those ranting about a (bad) joke would do much better to look instead at the mundane, day-to-day behaviour of many people as they work on free software. Discussions all too often descend into over-heated argument, rife with assertion, misunderstanding and failures to to even *attempt* to understand the other. There are many project leaders and other high-profile individuals who seem particularly prone to causticism, defensiveness and communication-failure - and rarely, if ever, are they taken to task.
I don't know why things are so - perhaps it's the heavy reliance on the low-bandwidth medium of email lists. However, it seems a deeper problem than just a few bad, sexist apples. It seems we, in free software, would do well to step back and consider how we could improve communication between each other in a more systematic fashion.
I.e. I think the problems possibly might be due more to extremely poor (if not destructive) communication practices than sexism.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 8:35 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] There are many project leaders and other high-profile individuals who seem particularly prone to causticism, defensiveness and communication-failure - and rarely, if ever, are they taken to task. Some of them are high-functioning Asperger's syndrome sufferers and it's not their fault. Indeed, the only reason their plight is not considered worse than that of the women is that there are so many of them that the community is collectively used to their quirks.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 11:42 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I used to do voluntary work for people with Asperger's. It doesn't automatically make you an asshole. Nor is it an excuse for being one. Implying that this kind of behaviour is a direct result of an autistic spectrum disorder is a grotesque insult to all the people with Asperger's who aren't assholes. This kind of behaviour should not be acceptable in the community, and shrugging it off as "Oh, it's not their fault" does nothing whatsoever to solve the problem.
Observation Posted Aug 25, 2009 12:35 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
Does nobody else find it strange that the people who are making public comments about being highly offended by rms's vague joke are mostly men who don't seem to have done anything previously about gender equality?
For people with such strong feelings and rigorous moral standards on this issue, I'm puzzled by the lack of visibility of their related work.
If a politician was in this situation, they'd be accused of empty opportunistic points-scoring.
Observation Posted Aug 25, 2009 12:39 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I'm not clear whether you're referring to me or not, but if so then suggesting that I've done nothing about gender equality in the past is pretty clearly inaccurate.
Observation Posted Aug 25, 2009 12:48 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
I wasn't referring specifically to you.
Your post just motivated me to join the discussion because everyone else had used polite language before you.
Observation Posted Aug 26, 2009 19:35 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
What % of LWN readers are female? Bet it's somewhere around the % that contribute to Free Software. So, ya know... 1.5%
Observation Posted Aug 26, 2009 19:37 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] According to the brief survey we throw at people when they create an account, LWN readers are 2.9% female, 12% "unspecified."
Observation Posted Aug 27, 2009 2:25 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
Thanks! So 3-15%...and there are what...? 6-10 people in this thread? So umm...yeah it being a male-dominated thread when it's a male-dominated community...not that surprising
Observation Posted Sep 6, 2009 7:51 UTC (Sun) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112) [Link]
Who are you actually referring to here, and what research have you done into
their gender identity or activism?
Why do you find it suspicious that, in a community which is estimated to be
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 14:57 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
To be fair to Bruce, he did say "Some of them".
It's possible, if HFAs/Aspies are for some reason overly represented amongst free software developers (compared to engineering generally), and given that developers are the 'rock stars' of the free software world and so are somewhat trend-setting, that they could have a disproportionate effect on culture.
I agree bad behaviour shouldn't be accepted.
I wonder if we need some kind of "How to communicate and generally discuss things productively 101" manual for the free software world. I.e. some kind of positive effort to help improve our communication, rather than a debate about who is and is not sexist (which will inevitably become very heated).
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 15:46 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> I wonder if we need some kind of "How to communicate and generally discuss
> things productively 101" manual for the free software world. I.e. some > kind of positive effort to help improve our communication, rather than a > debate about who is and is not sexist (which will inevitably become very > heated).
I think a lot of the problem with this community is that many of us are willing to devote epic amounts of energy to really lame, petty arguments in order to bolster our fragile egos. I've certainly been of this persuasion myself, but lately I've been getting quite sick of it -- to the point where I'm spending more and more time with 'real people' who want to just sit back and have a beer rather than have geek-wars about silly things.
Anyway, my point is that I'm not at all convinced that most of the people here (or in computers in general) *want* to learn or follow etiquette. We want to be intellectual bullies duking it out to become the biggest jackass on the playground. Just look at this conversation.. or.. any topic the libertarians can turn into a dick-wagging free-for-all about their silly absolutist ideology. It's all a sport. A game's being played here -- and a particularly insipid and pointless one at that.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 1:13 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I see your point about the arguments becoming tiresome (it must be that, like me, you've gotten older? :) ).
That said, I enjoy free software. I want to still do so in X decades time, so it needs to be sustainable. There seems to be a very definite problem of a gender imbalance in free software, relative to software engineering generally. That inherently hurts sustainability by greatly limiting the pool of expertise available to free software, in addition to harder to quantify social sustainability effects.
So yeah, it's annoying we have to spend energy on this, but it seems really important. It's good mjg59 spends energy on this (though, I think he still needs to fine-tune his approach a bit more). It's good the FSF are having a conference.
Course, seems we can't even discuss the issue with each other without getting worked up, so far..
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 17:06 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] No, it does not make the sufferer an asshole. Indeed, it can make them quite sensitive to the things that they do sense. But there are things that you and I might sense that they just won't get. I have spent some interesting hours calmly attempting to explain the viewpoint of another person to a certain leader. I could have been barking like a dog for all that got through to him. Another leader was not able to parse the physical cue of a hand thrust out for shaking. And one, on being introduced to my wife, sort of looked through her rather than make eye contact.All of these folks write very eloquently and place email correspondence at a very high priority. I've seen one of them repeatedly insist that he had to get back to his email during face-to-face meetings. There are real physical brain deficits coming into play in these situations.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 17:38 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
The reason I hate this argument is that it manages to simultaneously try to excuse unacceptable behaviour while also marginalising a serious mental disorder that in more extreme cases renders people unable to function in society at all. The reality is that anyone who refuses to believe that their behaviour is unacceptable and then excuses it on the basis of being on the autistic spectrum is being an asshole.
I've been that asshole. I'm very sorry about it, but if more people had pointed it out at the time maybe I'd have dealt with it faster. In the end it took working with people who were unable to, say, go into a bar and order a drink without elaborate social coaching to show me that I was just making excuses for myself. If you're able to turn up to a conference in person and have face to face conversations with multiple people then you're able to learn to recognise that your behaviour has an effect on others and train yourself to avoid things that are likely to cause offence.
Nobody benefits from just saying "It's not their fault". Offended people are still offended and the offender continues offending people and ends up dying sad and lonely. Using the Asperger's defence is itself offensive to people on the autistic spectrum who've overcome the adversities they've faced, those who've put themselves through hell in order to be able to step outside their house on a daily basis, those who you wouldn't know had a diagnosis unless they told you. I'd respectfully ask you not to do it again, but instead to accept that the personality flaws of some of our leaders may be down to their fundamental personality more than any mental disoders they have.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 18:13 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] First, you're confusing your own emotional situation with that of your (former) clients. This is probably not productive because your own behavior issues can not simply be treated as a smaller-scale version of their (much worse) problems. And then you're assuming that mistakes are made because people haven't been coached and are resistant to coaching. RMS in this case is by now well informed that this particular joke won't work in the future, and he's sensitive to things like that. But I know from personal experience that RMS, who on a good day is entertaining, eloquent, a good dancer, and even pretty good at getting girls, simply does not have the empathy to understand some things no matter how long they are explained.IMO, understanding a not-entirely-sympathetic audience's perception of innuendo in advance to telling the joke is something he would find difficult. This is from personal experience as long as yours, and with all due respect I will go on saying that you can not expect some folks to reliably act the way you and I would be expected to act, and it's not their fault.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 18:55 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I wonder if perhaps what mjg is saying is that it is generally the case that those with HFA tendencies who are HF-enough / not-so-far-down-the-scale that they can be productively involved in collaberative software development are by definition sufficiently intelligent and self-aware to be able to modulate their online behaviour.
They might not do brilliantly in face-to-face social settings, but they can almost certainly learn to apply to some rules to improve the way they communicate online. (Note that these rules can include things like appropriateness, etc.. which could go to addressing the more specific perceived problem of sexism, in addition to generally improving the state of communication in free software - the sometimes aggressive/unfriendly/unappealing aspect of which I personally suspect is at least a co-contributing factor in the gender imbalance).
In order to form and apply any such rules, HFAs would need /more/ in the way explicit feedback, rather than just accepting inappropriate behaviour from them. Further, the "form" part can be bootstrapped somewhat.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 19:58 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Regardless of their function / impairment the average engineer has little grasp of the writer's control of tone. This is an area where training can help almost everyone.It is a problem I encounter frequently in consulting corporations on how to operate relationships with the Open Source community. In general that setting allows me to help choose the corporate communicators for their mediative ability and their capacity to work with unskilled communicators outside of the company without taking umbrage. Sending the engineers to occupational therapy would be beyond the scope of the engagement :-) Dispensing additional coaching isn't always easy. At some point we can exceed people's ability to receive criticism, and they get upset.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 19:41 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
I would guess that if you're on the ball enough to figure out 1) that people are upset 2) you're the reason and then that you can use Aspergers as an excuse...you're probably aware of both yourself and others enough to moderate your own behaviour.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 23:10 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
There's several issues I'd like to address here.
The first, and perhaps the most important, is the difference between misjudging your audience and refusing to accept that you've misjudged your audience. I'd have been absolutely fine with RMS apologising for misjudging the audience and accepting that he may face similar audiences in future and adjusting his act to cope. He's given no indication that he's going to do so. I don't think anyone expects people to be perfect all the time. But I do think that the community expects its leaders to be willing to accept that they've fucked up and do better in future. If they're unwilling to do that then they don't deserve to be the community's leaders, regardless of what else they've accomplished. Implying that people with Asperger's are unable to tell the difference between these two situations is a significantly further stretch than I'd take. The response to "I'm offended, please don't do that again" does not require empathy.
Secondly, I take grave offence at the accusation that I'm transferring my own issues onto the people that I worked with (voluntarily and unpaid - I think clients is the wrong word here). How many people with a professional diagnosis of Asperger's have you spent a significant period of time with? Where did you gain the professional qualifications that allow you to correctly position RMS on the autistic spectrum? What basis do you have for accusing me of describing these issues incorrectly and having a faulty understanding of what people with severe levels of Asperger's face?
I suspect that many people would be happier if you stopped implying that Asperger's is equivalent to being unable to say sorry. If individuals want to offer it as an excuse then that's their prerogative. Offering it on behalf of individuals is as insulting as me accusing you of being able to understand my position because you're fundamentally sociopathic. Neither of us is qualified to judge what socio- or psychological disorders are present in others. If you want to persist in this argument then I'd strongly suggest that you find someone with more experience than general folklore to guide you in it.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 3:04 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Matt,I was a rafting guide for Environmental Traveling Companions, a group which took people with many different sorts of disability on white-water rafting trips. There were people with developmental delays, and blind people, and kids with cancer, and paraplegics. My job was to help provide them with a good time and to help get them down the river without getting them killed or hurt. Dealing with their emotional issues was one part of it, but I also had to help the blind folks use the pit toilet and the paraplegics to empty their catheters. There were often multiple guides per boat due to the nature of the clients disabilities. I also helped to assist a blind person through his entire time in college. And I am myself a survivor of (a different set of) developmental delays. So, I've got the experience. I'm not at all clear who RMS is supposed to apologize to. The most vocal complainer has been Lefty, who does not appear to be a woman. I know Stormy Peters, one of the people behind the upcoming FSF meeting, and I've not heard her calling for an apology. And I still question that the few women who I have heard (third-hand) claim to be offended really should have been offended. In RMS' position I might well have chosen not to engage in what would rapidly become a low-road argument, and to instead operate some sort of high-road activity such as we see scheduled. I have known many critics of RMS, but none who would do a better job in his place, and certainly none who put as much of their lives into it as he does.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 9:29 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] So, just to make things clear, you have no professional experience in dealing with (specifically) Asperger's?And I still question that the few women who I have heard (third-hand) claim to be offended really should have been offended I really don't think there's much left to say.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 21:26 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Did you not read the commnent at all? Yes, I have experience far exceeding yours, including with the developmentaly delayed, which very certainly includes Asperger's.What was that about your having learned not to be an asshole?
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 22:07 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
What I learned is that there are situations in which I was being an asshole and not realising it. What I'm sorry about are the cases where I offended people without wanting to or without realising the degree to which I was causing offence. But at around the same time, I learned that there are times when the correct thing to do is to be an asshole in order to attempt to demonstrate that someone else is being one. Sometimes appeasement isn't the correct answer.
If you've spent weeks of your life working with people with Asperger's, then I apologise. "There were people with developmental delays" is not obviously referring to Asperger's any more than "I've worked with sick people" obviously implies "I have significant levels of experience working with people with advanced prostate cancer", so it's not inherently surprising that I might misinterpret you. I still think you're utterly mischaracterising the condition. It's certainly the case that some people with Asperger's are unable to recognise that they've caused offence, but this really isn't a direct result of Asperger's. Asperger's and assholery are orthogonal axes. Someone's presence at the positive end of both doesn't imply correlation.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 22:34 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well spoken, apology accepted, and I apologize too.The way I see it is that I have continuing relationships to this day with a few folks who really do fit the diagnosis to the best of my knowledge. I never did imply that RMS was incapable of apologizing. As someone who speaks in similar situations to those of RMS, I have made any number of jokes about sex or religion that might offend someone, while speaking. I am not interested in encouraging anyone who would subject me, and people like me, to a political-correctness magnifying glass and for that reason I will probably not engage such people at all. Not apologize, and not communicate with them at all. While I believe that the way we represent ourselves may indeed make women uncomfortable sometimes, I still don't believe that's why there are so few women participating.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 23:09 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] While I believe that the way we represent ourselves may indeed make women uncomfortable sometimes, I still don't believe that's why there are so few women participatingWhat would it take to get you to believe that? This is a serious question.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 0:01 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, I do not see that the emotional challenges of insensitive male discussion that a woman meets in working with free software are greater in scale than the challenges that woman might meet if she volunteered to work in a hospital or as an intern at a law firm or a congressional page. There are stories about each. And yet, they have significant female participation.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 2:29 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
I think this is where the difference between "I'll put up with their shit because the pay is good, and it cant get *too* bad since there are rules at the office" and "I don't need this from something that I'm doing in my free time that's supposed to be *fun*" comes in.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 4:35 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Candy-stripers don't get paid. And they do get abused, between male staff who think they're fresh meat and the union folks who think they're scabs. And yet, lots of women do it.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 16:05 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
Candy-stripers still exist? I thought they were a World War II era thing, and nowadays hospitals employ real Registered Nurses.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Hospitals employ registered nurses, and many also have volunteers who perform lesser tasks than the registered nurses. Candy-striper is one designation for such people, because of the pink and white striped uniform. They still exist. Often the nurses are unionized, and sometimes there is tension between them and the non-unionized volunteers.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:46 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
And presumably the volunteers in a hospital are able to access the same venues for redress of things like harassment as the paid employees are. At least they can in every organization I've ever volunteered with, though none of them have been hospitals.
After all, there's an additional incentive to not lose volunteers, since the organization isn't paying for their labour.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:07 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] And presumably the volunteers in a hospital are able to access the same venues for redress of things like harassment as the paid employees are.I am not so optimistic that the situation is fair to the little people. The hospital has much higher stakes in dealing with the union than with volunteers. It is a lot easier for the volunteer to walk out than to accuse some "important" doctor and have a long controversy in which she is tarred too - including in the newspaper. And managements all around have tended to prefer to keep such things quiet.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:24 UTC (Thu) by james_w (subscriber, #51167) [Link]
> While I believe that the way we represent ourselves may indeed make women
> uncomfortable sometimes, I still don't believe that's why there are so few > women participating.
Some evidence that may sway you:
http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richa...
A woman that as a young lady was intimidated by RMS' same routine. Choice quote:
> The sexism on display in his talks and in these comments are the
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011418.html
The ever excellent Abi Sutherland on being a woman in a tech environment. Choice quote:
> Frankly, if I were doing this for anything other than pay, IÂ’d have
http://carolynresearch.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/bad-mood/
Bemoaning the apparently pervasive attitude that allows sexist comments to be the norm in many situations. Choice quote:
> ItÂ’s all just a joke, IÂ’m sure. But IÂ’ve reached a point in my life
Yes, one person making a sexist remark in a talk doesn't cause all women to leave the community, but put it in to context, with some women encountering almost daily reminders that they are the minority and that not everyone in the community sees them as more than their gender and it adds up. "Jokes", marriage proposals, scantily clad women in technical presentations, assumptions about interests and skills, physical intimidation, marginalisation, and good old-fashioned disrespect all add up to an uninviting environment.
Yes, the problem starts early with societal pressure on women to not get in
If you are interested in other opinions on the topic I suggest you subscribe to the Geek Feminism blog. Even if you disagree about the causes, listening to smart people talk about the issues is worth a try, we might all learn something.
Thanks,
James
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 18:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Lefty appears to be a man in his 50's. You weren't reading a woman's comments on the "Open Source to Go" blog.I'll state it clearly: Women are not so weak that words can keep them from participating in Free Software, amateur radio, and other technical volunteerism. IMO, you'd be insulting them if you thought so. There must be some other reason keeping them out. I suspect gender-based differences in interest, and do not have a good call on how much of this is nature vs. nurture. There are of course exceptions. This isn't to say that being less than polite and welcoming of them is acceptable.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:37 UTC (Thu) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
However, on the converse, I'm sure that many people, regardless of gender, do stop/never start participating in communities that are hostile towards them -- regardless of the reason for the hostility.
If you were randomly but frequently insulted, I'm sure you would also come to the conclusion that that particular community is not worth participating in.
I've come to that conclusion multiple times in the past.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:50 UTC (Thu) by james_w (subscriber, #51167) [Link]
> Lefty appears to be a man in his 50's. You weren't
> reading a woman's comments on the "Open Source to Go" > blog.
I linked to a comment on his blog, left by someone who
> Women are not so weak that words can keep them from
When women tell you that these things keep them from
> This isn't to say that being less than polite and
Well, thank you for being so gracious as to acknowledge
Thanks,
James
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:09 UTC (Thu) by lizhenry (guest, #60479) [Link]
LOL, thanks James, you and njs rock. 8-)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:25 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Of course I know they are there. All 5 or 6 that we have heard from here, and perhaps 200 across the entire Free Software community. I am not yet accepting that the reason that the other women stay away is that women are too weak to counter the social issues.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:34 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
There's a difference between "weakness" and "being unwilling to put up with a constant stream of hostility, othering, and bullshit". One puts the responsibility where it's due. Hint: it's not "weakness".
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:06 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] That's a great observation, it does turn around the way I'm looking at the problem.But we do have a self-fulfilling prophecy here, don't we? Without you being there to tell the men when they're being intolerable, they probably won't realize they are.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:18 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
But Bruce, we're here. And we're telling you what's not ok (RMS's virgin "joke" creepiness, for example). Please start listening :)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:28 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] You did write RMS and tell him how the joke made you feel, right?
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:18 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
Based on his response to criticism in this case and others, I elected to not waste my time.
This is the guy who at Wikimania yesterday asserted in front of a crowd of people that any difference of opinions with him constitutes a personal attack. I'm just not going to bother, sorry :/
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:18 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] He's not very well-equipped to deal with conflict.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Sep 22, 2009 16:20 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] I did, twice, much good it did me. I was interested to note that the word "women" didn't appear a single time in either of his responses.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:21 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
But, uh, I'm going to leave it to the other folks to do the talking, because I have to go teach an introductory Python class to a bunch of women. Woot!
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:24 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Hypatia personally, or any of us?
Here are things that are not acceptable and driving women away:
* Being treated like we're invisible or non-existent
Hope that helps.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:45 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Booth babesI resent them too. Vendors trying to lure me in by my gonads.
* Upskirt photos on Planet blog aggregatorsUgh. Go ahead and make noise. * Blowjob-related ads in Linux publicationsIs this "Do you suck at coding", or something else? * Not having our experiences believedOh, I believe you. The folks I don't believe are the troop of men here telling me what you think. Maybe it would be better if some of you stuck with LWN instead of being on some girrls-only list. If you want to be believed, being there counts. * Being asked to explain things over and over again and STILL not being believedUnless you're telling me there aren't any early-childhood or nature issues in the mix as well, there is not a lack-of-belief issue here. * Being asked "A/S/L" or having pics demanded of usIt sounds really raw. I do admit to having been discouraged to find that purportedly female project participants were really men. But I don't want to ask them A/S/L to establish that. * Out-of-band communications of an inappropriate personal natureI'm assuming this means on IRC. Really bad. * Death threatsI get them too. What are these folks objecting to? Just your presence? Are they really project participants? I see some people whose job or obsession is to demotivate us and aren't really project participants. * Accusations of reverse sexism when we ask people to avoid the aboveYou are not being sexist with me at all as far as I'm aware. But what do I do when someone is? It can happen, you know, and right now I'm damned if I do, and damned if I do not.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:22 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
* Blowjob-related ads in Linux publications
Is this "Do you suck at coding", or something else?
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Linux_Journal_blowjob_ad
* Not having our experiences believed
Maybe it would be better if some of you stuck with LWN instead of being on some girrls-only list. If you want to be believed, being there counts.
I am on one women-only list out of dozens. Do you seriously believe I (we) are active participants in open source without being on mixed mailing lists, websites, twitter/identi.ca, IRC, conferences, LUGs, etc? Strawman.
* Death threats
I get them too. What are these folks objecting to? Just your presence? Are they really project participants? I see some people whose job or obsession is to demotivate us and aren't really project participants.
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Debian_and_LinuxChix_h...
* Accusations of reverse sexism when we ask people to avoid the above
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/faq-ar...
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:41 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, QSol's out of business, it appears. I won't lament.Was Mike-whoever-he-is identified as a real member of a Free Software community? The reason I am asking is that I have had people do similar stuff to me, and when I've explored I find that they have no real connection to any project and are more likely someone who is paid to make us look bad. OK, "reverse-sexism" is bogus, and not the sexism I was concerned with.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:02 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
I believe MikeeUSA was an open source developer of some kind; some kind of gaming-related stuff? But it's not really relevant: his death threats are no less scary and offputting.
As for the fact that you (and presumably others) receive death threats, I don't think it's cool or OK that *anyone* threatens anyone's life ever, but I do think men are in a better position to brush it off: there is not such a history of men being killed purely out of misandry. The Debian death threats had an eerie similarity to the Montreal Massacre killer's anti-feminism, and more recently to George Sodini. It is absolutely and realistically scary that men kill women just for being in technical fields and/or believe that feminists are ruining everything. Much as we'd love to ignore it and brush it off, we can't.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:58 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I agree with you about threats.While I would not be a victim of misandry, there is a history of similar nutcases targeting ethnic semites. And lots of folks believe we're running everything too.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:42 UTC (Fri) by spender (subscriber, #23067) [Link]
He also seems to be a user of grsecurity. He's annoyingly littered up completely unrelated technical topics with his misogynistic views several times.
-Brad
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 6:18 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
thanks for that pointer, spender. lead me to find his real name, finally. seems he's a law student in maine.
i <3 your exploit videos, incidentally.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:35 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
>> * Blowjob-related ads in Linux publications
> Is this "Do you suck at coding", or something else?
Linux Journal ran an ad for QSol about how their servers wouldn't "go down on you either" with an image of a woman's heavily-made-up face.
>> * Death threats
> I get them too. What are these folks objecting to? Just your presence?
Some nutjob was going off about how women were destroying Debian and he was going to kill them for it.[0]
>> * Accusations of reverse sexism when we ask people to avoid the
I've seen a few guys enter the #linuxchix IRC channel recently and tell us that our IRC Etiquette rules[1] are sexist because they're about making men not be men (ie not, as you put it, led around by their gonads). That's just an example of the many times guys say it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to control themselves enough to not hit on every woman they see who can code.
[0] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Debian_death_threats
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:54 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I've seen a few guys enter the #linuxchix IRC channel recently and tell us that our IRC Etiquette rules[1] are sexist because they're about making men not be men (ie not, as you put it, led around by their gonads). That's just an example of the many times guys say it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to control themselves enough to not hit on every woman they see who can code. They're children. Either real children or emotionally handicapped adults. I counsel companies on their relationship with the Open Source community. One part is preparing them for childish behavior on mailing lists, and helping them find mediators who will never take umbrage and then say something that makes the company look bad. There are actually worse groups than Free Software in this regard. If you have to work with cypherpunks and the crowd who go to defcon, be prepared. Attempting to educate them is all we can do, I guess.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 3:52 UTC (Fri) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
Mmmm yeah DEFCON...Friends asked if I was going to go this year, but knowing my partner wasn't going to be there...no. Young, female, and at a hacker con [that I can't literally run to my apartment from, if necessary] alone? Bad idea.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 6:44 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
you should come next year. we'll make "maco has a posse" stickers, just like nick's :)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:41 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
> * Being asked to explain things over and over again and STILL not being believed
> Unless you're telling me there aren't any early-childhood or nature issues in the mix as well, there is not a lack-of-belief issue here.
There are absolutely early-childhood issues at stake. They are covered extensively in the Unlocking the Clubhouse study. It's really a fantastic read.
As for the nature issues, here are three things to consider:
1) Studies which show a lack of difference tend to not get published. This messes up our understanding of gender issues a heck of a lot. This is feminist science studies 101, in a nutshell.
Here's some further reading about the problems with the "nature" argument, which is also called essentialism within the gender studies context: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Essentialism , which links to http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/faq-bu...
Leaky pipes and early childhood interventions Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:53 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
I'd also like to suggest a good search term for discussions about this: "leaky pipe". The analogy is that the process of getting women into open source is like a pipe with leaky points all along the way. All of the leaks need to be stopped up, and stopping any particular leak (whether it is early childhood influences or sexism at tech conferences) will help more deliver more women to the end of the pipe.
Nobody's saying that there aren't other leaks. There absolutely are. But the ones that the open source community can best address are the ones that are specific to the open source community.
If you are interested in eg. encouraging girls in STEM (science/tech/eng/math) education at early ages, there are many other organisatinos working on that. Many of them take donations, or would welcome your volunteer time.
Leaky pipes and early childhood interventions Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:44 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The analogy is that the process of getting women into open source is like a pipe with leaky points all along the way.That frames the issue pretty well.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 3:06 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> 1) Studies which show a lack of difference tend to not get published.
Just to expand for the benefit of those without a lot of experience in social science: this has two unfortunate consequences.
First, social scientists constantly have to ask themselves whether some pattern they observe in their data is a result of some underlying principle, or just a coincidence. (If you flip a coin 10 times, and got 8 heads, is that because the coin is unfair? If you had 10 men and 10 women perform some task, and 8 of the women did better than the average man, is that because women in general are better at your task?) That's what statistical testing is for. Unfortunately, statistical tests are never perfect -- they won't tell you that getting 10 heads in a row means your coin is unfair, just that if not then that's one *heck* of a coincidence.
But if you keep trying long enough, then eventually you'll get that coincidence. And "science says women are <...>!" gets press, so lots of the time, when someone's running some random study, they'll do a quick check for gender effects, just in case. If 20 people do this, then 19 of them will get nothing, shrug, and forget about it; 1 of them will flip 10 heads in a row and publish a really excited paper! They don't know they're the 20th person to try, after all. (And that's leaving out the effects of confirmation bias, etc.)
Second, once a claim like that is out there in the literature, it's hard to disprove; if you just repeat the study and don't see a difference, then maybe you just did it wrong or something -- it's hard to get that published. (And even if you do, it's not as exciting, so it won't get press coverage, so a heap of people will go on believing that they Know Something About Men and Women that's just wrong.)
The end result is that the literature on gender differences has heaps of confusing nonsense in it. There are real gender differences too, but they're hard to pin down, and after all that nonsense it's hard to imagine that people would have *missed* anything so dramatic as to cause 98.5%/1.5% differences in participation a specific field invented in the last 30 years. Seriously, that'd be Nobel-worthy.
This isn't my area of specialty, but AFAICT, whether you're right or left handed has more of an effect on your general cognition than what you keep in your pants (and your culture matters a lot more than either).
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 29, 2009 17:05 UTC (Sat) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
Thanks for expanding on this - it /is/ my area of study (along with my other major in Computer Science) and I kinda glossed over it because of that :)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 31, 2009 22:21 UTC (Mon) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
Yeah, anything to procrastinate on writing this stupid methods section :-)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 2:40 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> I resent them too. Vendors trying to lure me in by my gonads
But you also realize that there's a difference between the resentment due to someone trying to lure you by your gonads, and resentment due to being told that -- roughly speaking -- those companies didn't consider you a real member of their audience, and implicitly "reminded" that your proper aspiration in life is to use your body to lure others by their gonads?
I hope so; it's just that I've heard a lot of men grumble about booth babes, but if they really *hated* the concept of booth babes the way that they might, then one way or another I'm pretty sure booth babes wouldn't still exist.
> The folks I don't believe are the troop of men here telling me what you think.
Speaking as part of that troop, that's why I've tried to provide logic, data, and links. I'm well aware that I may have gotten things wrong despite that, and if I become aware of any then I'll certainly apologize. Is there anything I've claimed that you still particularly disbelieve?
> I get [death threats] too.
For thinking about this issue, I highly recommend this comment by Kathy Sierra, especially the second half about what's happened since she talked about her threats in public: http://geekfeminism.org/2009/08/17/george-sodini-montreal...
On merit, that comment actually deserves front-page treatment. But I don't know what the consequences of that would be :-(
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:16 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Re: the front page -- yeah, our thoughts exactly. We talked about it and were uncomfortable putting it in the spotlight, all things considered.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:35 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> if [men] really *hated* the concept of booth babes ...
> booth babes wouldn't still exist.
My theory, which I'm pretty confident about, is that this is a general issue of conferences with mostly male attendees, nothing to do with the free software community.
Booth babes continue to exist at conferences because conferences are full of men with no interest in the topic but were sent there by their employer.
When I see booth babes at a free software conference (actually, I've only seen them at "Linux" conferences), then I know that that stall is a reputationless company selling something with no differentiating features. Red flag for "ignore this stall". Most other LWN readers would also ignore that stall at a free software conference, by my theory.
Then there's the separate category of attendees who can't tell the difference between the companies and who aren't interested in the details anyway - that separate category, which has almost nothing to do with us, is the target of booth babes.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 2:03 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> Without you being there to tell the men when they're being intolerable, they probably won't realize they are.
Things *may* not be so hopeless: it turns out that telling men when they're being intolerable is actually possible even *without* ovaries.
I joke, but seriously, I don't wait for women to pop up and tell contributors that my community values testing, regular releases, or clean code; why should I make an exception when it comes to human decency? Obviously I'll screw up sometimes or miss things, but 1) women aren't born knowing how to handle this stuff either, 2) if I pick up some of the slack maybe they'll have a chance to actually do the stuff that I can't, instead of fighting fires and pounding their head against walls 24x7.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:22 UTC (Sat) by spzeidler (guest, #60508) [Link]
do you need a woman to actually _tell_ you that someone is a sexist idiot if said sexist idiot, upon learning by accident that a participant in a open source themed chat is female, tells said female that females can't do open source and kicks her out? Do you expect the woman to come crawling in again (possibly on her belly apologizing for being her sex) when noone of the other attendants of the chat feels like telling the guy doing the kick he was being an idiot and to stop that?
I'll tell you my reaction. They can stew in their own bugs for all eternity for all I care, I'm not going to touch -that- project with a ten foot pole again.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:42 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Bruce, there are over 300 women on the LinuxChix grrls-only mailing list alone. I've met over 100 myself, and although I am fairly well travelled and know many women in FLOSS I do not know nearly all of them -- as evidenced by the fact that I only know a few of the people on the LinuxChix list! There are approximately 50 women just working on Dreamwidth and the OTW's Archive. Over 200 women responded to the Perl Survey I ran in 2007, again, mostly not overlapping with those I know from elsewhere.
Pull your head out of the sand.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:13 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Thanks for the data, I am really not trying to have a head in sand. My point was that there are too few women participating. That is equally true if there are 2000 rather than 200. It seems that things would be different if there were 20,000 and more different with 200,000. I am still trying to understand why, so few are participating, and I thank you for the assistance with articles.
Desiring respectful treatment isn't about weak vs. strong... Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:45 UTC (Thu) by miss-electra (guest, #60481) [Link]
Why should I have to fight for respect and recognition that is accorded to others simply by their BEING PRESENT? Why should I have to demonstrate "strength" enough to stand up to some bullshit hazing to be part of a community I want to contribute time, energy, and knowledge to?
Knowledge and time and effort are as much currency as money is. So why is it okay for me to say "I refuse to spend money on someone who acts disrespectfully towards me" and that doesn't cast me (or any woman) as weak...but if I make the same statement about my time/knowledge/effort then it's "weakness"?
Desiring respectful treatment isn't about weak vs. strong... Posted Sep 4, 2009 6:49 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link] Why should I have to fight for respect and recognition that is accorded to others simply by their BEING PRESENT? Clearly you shouldnt. However you *might* be overestimating the respect others are getting. I wasnt there and I dont know, but I have seen that happen for sure - in many groups (not specific to free software but online conversation in general) there is a hazing process that may be informal and undocumented but is very real. I have seen females in such situation get very offended and storm out, appearing to believe they were singled out for disrespect when in fact each and every guy in the room had gone through the same crap earlier. Now I'm not justifying it and I am NOT saying that was what happened with you - I am just saying it's a possibility. I do know from experience that females *are* routinely singled out for special treatment on the internet, for multiple reasons many of which have been mentioned, it's not right or good but it's a fact. This quite naturally and predictably results in females being generally more likely to take offense based on mistakes as well, or to perceive disrespect even when it is not intended. This is not intended as a criticism at all - it's natural and understandable and predictable, and I think ultimately only improvement in communication can address it.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:48 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Also FYI, women in this thread: me, maco, hypatia, yatima, cesy, itgrrl, lizhenry, myrtti, zrusilla, selena, talbutt == 11, plus many more mentioned and linked to.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:37 UTC (Thu) by dannyobrien (subscriber, #25583) [Link]
There is some irony that the person asserting that "weakness" is the only possible reason that people feel they can no longer work with a community turns out to be Bruce "I resign! Again!" Perens.
Arguments against this irony from Bruce himself will be rejected as anecdotal. To be valid, I need to hear from everyone else before I can understand what his arguments are.
(If Bruce even exists, which I doubt.)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:51 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> "weakness" is the only possible reason that people feel they can no longer work with a community
He argued that weakness is *not* the reason for women leaving. i.e women are not weak.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:36 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
Yes, and he originally concluded from this that woman were not leaving, because only weak people would leave. Danny's point looks accurate to me.
(I can't believe we're *actually* describing Bruce's arguments to each other in this subthread.)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 29, 2009 1:29 UTC (Sat) by niv (subscriber, #8656) [Link]
Ah, the old "I haven't heard from any or many women" gem. Oldie, but a goodie.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Sep 6, 2009 7:58 UTC (Sun) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112) [Link]
Really? Women are "weak" for being moved by language?
Why should the pervasive language of patriarchy be any less influential in
Language is a conduit for ideas and feelings. It's how we communicate with
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Sep 22, 2009 17:15 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] Sigh. It would serve you well to actually read what's being cited before you respond to it, Bruce. It's a bad habit of yours, just like "responding" to people in person before they've actually finished what they were saying. That aside, since you seem to doubt the comments in my blog posting, I'd direct you to Celeste Lyn Paul's identi.ca feed, and Chani Armitage's blog. Celeste asks (while RMS was giving the keynote in question), "Do men really think RMSs virgin joke at #gcds was not sexist? Very disappointed in FLOSS comm chatter about this." In the comments to the posting, Chani writes, "talking about relieving women of their virginity casts women in a submissive role, with men in a dominant role, and brings up thoughts of oppression and (indirectly) rape. (yes, thinking about a roomful of guys thinking about taking womens’ virginity does eventually lead me to wondering how many of them would take it by force.) it becomes less about the non-sexual meaning of “virgin” and more about all the crazy ideas societies have had about virgin women. and thinking about that stuff would make any woman uncomfortable." Apparently you know a lot better than these women who were present at RMS' GCDS keynote, Bruce. Maybe they're just being "sickly nonlinear" here.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 20:39 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Well, their problems *may* be down to Aspergers, but if they are this does not reflect well on them.
See, Aspergers is sort-of-curable. It takes large amounts of time and effort, but unless you have noncommunicative autism, by the time you're thirty or forty you have coping strategies that can lead you to appear mostly normal in most non-extreme social interactions (e.g. don't ask us to function at weddings).
But RMS, for instance, is in his mid-fifties now. If he doesn't grasp the elementary atoms of social intercourse by now it is because he *has not tried*, and that's nobody's fault but his. I know formerly-noncommunicative autistics who dragged themselves to near-outward-normality in less time than that. Plainly, if he has an ASD, he has overcome some of it: he can give public speeches without disintegrating, which either indicates a successful coping strategy in one domain or the absence of an ASD.
Note: I'm not saying here that it is incumbent on all autistics to spend huge amounts of effort acquiring coping strategies to function in normal society. I'm saying that if they don't, then that is their choice: and the consequences of that choice are also theirs, at least insofar as they extend to things like social ostracism. If they turn themselves intentionally into a community leader, as RMS has done, then it is sheerest foolishness not to acquire such coping strategies in advance, as that is a social position in which the interpretation of social cues is of paramount importance. So RMS is in a dilemma here: either he doesn't have ASD, and has shown himself to be a boor, or he does, and has shown himself to be a fool. A man can be a fool in one area and brilliant in another, so the latter is quite possible: but I can't see a third alternative at this point.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 20:59 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Whatever his issues are (I'm not really qualified to use the DSM) there is no question that he's worked very hard to cope. I've seen him in much more extreme situations than a wedding. He's met heads of state and is a public speaker on an almost daily basis. This doesn't mean his coping is perfect.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 20:27 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Strongly seconded, with one caveat: because autistic spectrum disorders are conditions of developmental delay, hackers with ASDs who haven't had a few decades to figure things out *are*, in a sense, blameless: they're working on it, give them time. But even they would not be assholes to women in particular, but rather to everyone, and generally not intentionally. (Or, rather, if they are being assholes to women in particular, rather than accidentally to everyone, that's because they're assholes, not because they have ASDs, as you said.)
People with ASDs are in any case rarely assholes: that trait is found in people on the top of the social pile, and when ASDers are found anywhere in the social pile at all it is generally at the bottom. When you have very few friends, you really don't act like an asshole anywhere, because it might lose you the few you've got.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 20:35 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Understood. I have worked my way out of what I suspect you'd call today a sensory-motor integration disfunction, but back then they just thought it was cerebral palsy. I did not speak clearly for a long time and still walk on my toes a bit.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 23:21 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Really, the point I was making is that it's not interesting to judge someone by an individual act - from a social point of view it's far more important how someone deals with having fucked up than how often they fuck up in the first place. What primarily distinguishes a neurotypical from someone on the spectrum is whether they can identify whether a given act is going to be offensive in advance, not whether they modify their behaviour to avoid identical behaviour in the future.
The biggest problem people on the autistic spectrum face is generalising from a specific item of behaviour to broader behavioural aspects. People with no experience of working with those on the spectrum tend to generalise this into a complete inability to learn, which leads to positions like Bruce's implied "It's not their fault if they offend people, no matter how often they're told it's offensive". When we look at the specific case ("Don't make the joke about taking women's emacs virginity, it can be interpreted in a variety of unfortunate ways"), suggesting that it's not RMS's fault if he does it again is entirely inexcusable. I'm genuinely upset at the implication.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 0:52 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
You seem to have gotten stuck slightly attacking Bruce for his Aspie comment, which he seems to have withdrawn more or less.
FWIW, the debate here seems to have at least the first if not more of the elements I wrote about earlier: "over-heated argument, rife with assertion, misunderstanding and failures to to even *attempt* to understand the other". And this amongst commentators who are, afaict, **all agreed** on the core issue of there being a gender problem (possibly due to sexism) in free software, and do not seem to be sexist themselves. I have to say, and perhaps you might take my view on board even if you disagree with it, that you have played a part in ramping-up the heat and miscommunication somewhat.
Why exactly does our community suck so much at having rational, productive debates? If someone makes a well-intentioned but disagreeable point, why not correct it in a friendly manner instead of becoming terribly offended (or, if it's not particularly important to overall topic - let it slide, perhaps with a small comment). If there seems to be miscommunication, try to at least *present* your reply as if the miscommunication may have been your fault (and hide any exasperation). If the heat starts to rise, instead of fanning the flames, why not instead try douse them with some humour or self-deprecation (which works even when the heat source is at the other keyboard)? etc..
It's probable these tricks do not come naturally and take time to be acquired - having them spelled out may help some people.
Whether the female-anti-factor in free software is down to Aspieness, sexism, heavy metal poisoning due to teething on electronics or whatever combination of those and other factors, who knows - but it seems like we have an even bigger .*-anti-factor thanks to our communication norms.
NB: I hope it's obvious that the above was not meant to attack you personally, but rather to generalise from this thread to help illustrate my general point about communication problems in our community. ;)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 1:07 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I really didn't intend to attack Bruce in particular. I wanted to emphasise that while conditions like Asperger's may predispose people towards certain behaviour patterns that are contrary to how I'd like the community to behave, they're not the fundamental cause and they don't provide an absolute excuse for any offence caused as a result.
My concern is that, as a community, we're too focused on acceptance of anyone who fits our model of what a Linux developer should be and are entirely willing to accept multiple character flaws as long as they don't completely prevent someone from fitting into that model. If someone later points out that they're being discouraged from involvement because of that person's behaviour, we're inclined to argue that since the behaviour doesn't conflict with our model then it's acceptable for one reason or another - they've got Asperger's, they're from a different cultural background, they're just like that and don't mean any harm. And when people like Bruce (who is at some level still identifiable as a community leader) make that argument, it makes it sound like we all agree.
I don't think that's helpful. I think we need to accept that the cost of alienating potential contributors is likely to be greater than the cost of asking the more extreme characters we work with to tone down their behaviour. I'd be shocked if any of them are utterly unable to cope, but I'm also entirely prepared to believe that it may be a slow process involving a lot of explicit explanations. That's something I'm willing to bear if the perception is that people think this is a good thing. But it does mean that we need to stop making excuses for people, no matter how high-profile they are. Let them make their own excuses and then judge them appropriately.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 1:33 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] they're from a different cultural background Ah, good one. E.g. Sino-Asian culture, I guess, would clash particularly badly with the more overtly-confrontational disagreement-resolution culture in free software. There really do seem to a number of related problems that could be solved through a collective effort to elevate our civility.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 15:10 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> Some of them are high-functioning Asperger's syndrome sufferers and it's not their fault.
I seriously doubt Linus Torvalds is an aspie. I think he's just a dick.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 13:21 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> I think we have to solve the overall problem with women in Science and Engineering to solve Free Software's problem.
Cherry-picking the best case measurements, our female participation ratio is still 10x worse than for any other science/engineering field I can find statistics on.
Not 10%. 10 times. If we were only doing as badly as engineering as a whole then that would be *wonderful*. There's plenty of room for debate on why this is, but the numbers are what they are. It's a FOSS problem specifically. We own it.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 17:10 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] There's a pretty big difference between folks who do engineering for employment and those who do it for love. Free Software needs the latter. Having employed the former, the word "professional" doesn't mean quite the same to me as it used to, and I'll go out of my way to find the talented amateur.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 25, 2009 23:04 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
I'm sorry -- I'd like to continue the discussion, but I can't figure out what your response has to do with anything upthread. Yes, FOSS and professional software development are certainly different. It seems like that would just support my argument that -- contra to your original claim -- our gender disparity is a problem with FOSS specifically, not with software development generally? Can you elaborate?
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 5:48 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] What I meant was that there are more women who hold technical jobs than there are women who so love the technology that they will work on it whether they get paid or not. That seems to be an especially male thing.There is a difference in how much of themselves they put in to the work. The amateurs often take the time to make it beautiful when the professionals would rather finish a job and go on to the next. I teach, and this is obvious in the students too. I'll be teaching an Open Source at Agder U. next month.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 14:59 UTC (Wed) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link]
I've been teaching open source at Portland State University for close to 10 years. My experience suggests that your comments are sexist nonsense.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 17:51 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] If you'd like to disprove my argument, it takes more than just an impolite word. I will show you some data.There are very many parallels between Open Source and the Amateur Radio Service. Both are used for technological development and experimentation. Both demonstrate a "love" of the technology beyond what is needed for employment. And both have carried out this same discussion: why aren't there more women? While there is no database of Open Source developers, Radio Amateurs are licensed by the FCC (in the US) and there is a public database of their names and addresses. Information on how to utilize the FCC database is at http://www.n6lhv.net/uls/ . A trivial scan of a sample of the data for women's first names vs. men's first names is easy. You'll find that less than 5% are women.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 21:51 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Are you seriously trying to equate "There are few women engaging in this activity" with "Women are not interested in this activity"?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 22:10 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Are you seriously trying to equate "There are few women engaging in this activity" with "Women are not interested in this activity"? Since we last corresponded, Jon posted the number of people answering the LWN survey as "female" being 2.9% and 12% didn't state. This, I think, is roughly parallel to the statistic for Amateur Radio. Can we say that women aren't joining because they, as a population rather than as individuals, are not interested? The other alternative would be to say that men in the field had established mechanisms which were astonishingly effective at keeping them out even though they really were interested, and which still stood today. Now, I do think that men don't help the situation with their acerbic nature and the way they might talk about women. A specific offense is the telegraph abbreviation for "married woman", "XYL", which means "ex young lady". This goes back to the '20's, I guess, and is still used today, even by people who are speaking rather than using telegraph. But I just don't accept that such treatement is enough to keep the vast majority of women away even if they really are interested.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 23:09 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] Can we say that women aren't joining because they, as a population rather than as individuals, are not interested?Based on the evidence? No. HTH, HAND.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 23:25 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] This isn't argument, it's just contradiction.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 23:38 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
You're asking whether we can assert that women as a population are less interested in being involved in free software than men. The only evidence you cite is the small population of women involved in Linux and amateur radio. Studying a non-randomly selected subpopulation gives you no information about the overall population, so it's straightforward to say that the conclusions you draw cannot be drawn from the evidence you've presented.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 26, 2009 23:51 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] For argument's sake, I can ask whether women are less interested in Linux and Amateur Radio, and say yes from the evidence I have on hand, unless you'd like to propose another mechanism that works to keep them out with extremely high efficiency.You could propose a more representative sample of Free Software participants than the LWN subscription roles. There are many projects, mailing lists, etc., that you can scan for participation of women. Good luck showing that more women participate that way, I'll be astonished if you do. Or you could propose a cause other than interest.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 0:01 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] For argument's sake, I can ask whether women are less interested in Linux and Amateur Radio, and say yes from the evidence I have on handYou can ask that, yes. It's still not a supportable supposition. You can't make statements about the general population if your evidence is based on a non-random subset of that population. Ever. Identifying why there's such a small percentage of women involved requires spending time talking to the women who aren't as well as looking at the number who are. (I should possibly point out that I have a fairly reasonable set of experience in statistical analysis, experiment design and criticism of unsupported conclusions, including teaching that at the undergrad level)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 1:50 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] If you're going to insist on that high standard, it has to apply to you too. Upon what scientific basis do you claim that RMS' statement was harmful?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 2:40 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
At least one woman at Wikimania expressed discomfort with his joke, according to Kirrily Robert: http://geekfeminism.org/2009/08/25/quick-hit-rms-at-wikim...
I would think the number of responses listed on the Geek Feminism Wikiato when he said it at GCDS would show that at least a handful of us were put off by the statement.
Now, I wasn't there. If I was, though? "Ugh, why do they always assume all the geeks are guys? *roll eyes*" The issue with assuming and perpetuating the assumption that we don't exist is that it creates an atmosphere where some [asshole] male developers think they are well within subcultural norms to say some pretty nasty things to female developers (when they encounter them). Things that include telling us we don't exist, crediting the men we are in relationships with for our successes, assuming we must be there to get picked up by male developers since we're obviously not there to be developers ourselves...
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 4:15 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I'm not doubting that. I'm just haranguing Matt for telling me that I can't do any science with the sample I have.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 8:12 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
There exist people who were present at his GCDS keynote and were offended by his statement.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:13 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Yes. But by your standards this is anecdotal evidence.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:43 UTC (Thu) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
Out of curiosity, are you more interested in being right, or in winning a pissing match with Matt?
(I actually disagree with Matt -- I think your data is fine for showing that women are rare in FOSS and ham radio. You don't need more data. The problem is that you want to conclude from this that the reason they are rare is that they're uninterested. For that you need *different* data. Like data that tells you something about why they are rare, or whether they are interested. There's lots of that available, including stuff written by Real Scientists, and we even did the googling for you. It doesn't support your conclusion. In the mean time, in this game you're playing about which evidence you have to listen to, you're denying that it matters that actual, individual people were actually, in reality, hurt.)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:02 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I just wanted to point out to him that he is not arguing under the same rules he demands of me.What googling? I didn't see anything dealing with technical volunteerism. I submit that there are differences between this and technical employment.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:31 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] I just wanted to point out to him that he is not arguing under the same rules he demands of me.Yes, I understand that. I'm not convinced you're right -- he's explained why -- but I was responding to the fact that in choosing to make that point, and in the way you did, you communicate that you're more worried about the rules than the actual content of the discussion; indeed, that you're willing to deny the relevance of real people's pain in order to score a point. ("These intellectual, clever, engaged men want to endlessly probe my argument for weaknesses, want to wrestle over details, want to argue just for fun—and they wonder, these intellectual, clever, engaged men, why my voice keeps raising and why my face is flushed..." There may be a reason that it's mostly men who have been willing to *cough* volunteer to discuss this with you?) What googling? I didn't see anything dealing with technical volunteerismI was referring to the copious links I gave earlier, all of which deal with FOSS specifically (i.e., not proprietary software development, though they don't *avoid* the broader issues); the FLOSSPOLS work in particular should satisfy any demands for scientific rigor.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 4:41 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I rejected Matt's effort to shut down my discussion with scientific standards that he would not accept himself. I have every right to contest such rhetorical trickery.I have already explained that to do so was not meant to deny anyone's pain, but to point out to Matt that by his standards he could not make any statements from the data either. Now that there are women contributing to the discussion, you might do better to let them speak for themselves.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:15 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> I have every right to contest such rhetorical trickery.
I agree, and have never claimed otherwise. You have every right to say whatever you want.
I was pointing out that the things you chose to say were, perhaps, problematic, and that choosing to exercise your right in that way might be causing collateral harm in order to pursue a (relatively) trivial point. When I do things like that, I like to be informed -- not because I'm worried that I'll overrun my rights and get arrested or something (?), but because I generally prefer not to be an accidental asshole. It isn't necessarily a big deal in this instance, but there was an underlying principle there that I thought you might want to have pointed out.
> I have already explained that to do so was not meant to deny anyone's pain,
I heard that, and I appreciate it. But should I therefore not point out the problem? If I punch someone in the nose, and it was an accident, then 1) their nose is still broken, 2) they may be legitimately unimpressed if I say "oh well but my intention was good!", 3) I'm still responsible.
Again, I don't need an apology or something. (I can't, of course, speak for others either way.) But you've used your good intentions as a defense several times on this page, and so again, it's a general principle you might want to consider.
> Now that there are women contributing to the discussion, you might do better to let them speak for themselves.
I speak for myself, about things that I see and believe. Certainly I don't mean to co-opt or silence any women in doing so. Nor do I see evidence that they think I have. I've seen two comments from women about my participation here: Liz Henry said I "rock"[1]. Skud said that one of my comments described "*exactly* why [she hadn't] dived until this thread until now"[2]. (Ironically, she was talking about my explanation[3] of why your demanding to talk to a woman was uncool, with the links I referred to above.)
So far, you're the only one who's objected. If people -- esp. women -- find my contributions problematic then I'll absolutely listen. But perhaps you should let them speak for themselves?
[1] http://lwn.net/Articles/349243/
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:12 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Not at all. You're looking at this in the wrong direction. If your null hypothesis is "U238 is an absolutely stable isotope" then you only need to see a single particle decay to disprove it. If your null hypothesis is "The relatively low proportion of women in open source communities is entirely because they are less interested in the first place" (ie, there's no active process in the community itself that excludes women) then verifiable anecdotal evidence is entirely sufficient to disprove the null hypothesis.
I'm not denying that your figures show that there are few women involved in free software or amateur radio. I'm just saying that it's impossible to deduce *why* there are few women involved from that information.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 14:25 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
It occurs to me that there's another way we could look at this.
Are interest and involvement different things? It seems to me that for an activity that has no direct monetary cost, is conducted online and internationally, and about which information is readily available, they are essentially the same thing.
Compare with eg. sailing. I'm interested in sailing but not involved, because the monetary costs are high and I can't do it in odd bits of free time from home or work, but have to go far out of my way to do it; also, many kinds of sailing I'm interested in require certifications/licenses/training that take extensive time and money to acquire, and for which I can't self-educate.
So if you have an activity where interest and involvement are very close to being the same thing, the question "why aren't people involved" is almost exactly *the same question* as "why aren't people interested".
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 15:03 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I thought that the claim being made was that many females are interested, but are not involved due to sexism.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 21:38 UTC (Fri) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link]
Yeah, I mostly agree that in Free Software those are almost synonyms. But as dlang points out,
the main idea behind many of the women-encouraging projects I have observed and worked with in recent times assumes that there are women who are interested, but do not involve themselves because of some kind of barrier: usually, we believe, the bad atmosphere created by bad behavior against women.
So bear with me here: maybe it's time to rethink this whole thing. Maybe all women who are
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:44 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> Maybe all women who are interested are already involved, despite having to deal with crappy behavior from time to time, and we need to work to shift our attention to what makes women not be interested in the first place, which I think is what Bruce is saying.
I'm not sure what you meant to say.
But what you said is "maybe we shouldn't do anything about existing crappy behavior -- or even bother noticing it -- since a few women seem to put up with it". (Not to mention ignoring all the women who say that no, they really would be interested if it weren't for the crappy behavior.)
Perhaps we can put attention *both* on fixing the crappy behavior *and* working on the problems women face before they reach FOSS?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 17:33 UTC (Sat) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
This also bring up the "Society sucks, we can't possibly do anything!" anti-pattern that Terri wrote about here: http://geekfeminism.org/2009/08/27/society-sucks-but-we-d...
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 30, 2009 1:35 UTC (Sun) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link]
I surely don't agree with that anti-pattern, now, what do you think of what Skud said, about
interest and involvement being the same? All of you who are here are good examples of women who were not stopped by stupid stuff, and got involved, and are doing your thing. I really cherish that fact, good to see you gals! Do you think there are actually women who are interested (as in, working with the code, and who would really like to contribute), but not involved in the projects because they tried and hit a barrier?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 30, 2009 2:27 UTC (Sun) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
> what do you think of what Skud said, about interest and involvement being the same?
I think that "lack of interest" is not a good metric, as I think there are a lot of social pressures at play outside of Free Software which cloud "interest" to the point where it's meaningless. Similarly with male "interest" in traditionally female-dominated professions like nursing - have you ever considered whether you were interested in nursing? It doesn't even cross most guys' minds.
That said, of the few women who are already explicitly interested, not all are already involved. I know for a fact that there are women who are already doing CS / IT / programming work in various capacities who look at what kind of crap takes place in free software and say "thanks but no thanks".
> Do you think there are actually women who are interested (as in, working with the code, and who would really like to contribute), but not involved in the projects because they tried and hit a barrier?
I think there are both men and women who have been interested but have hit barriers and not gotten involved. I personally know examples of both. I think there are additional barriers to women's participation relating to the various things that have been discussed over this thread - being hit on, being talked down to, being harassed, etc, which men don't deal with to the same degree or at all, in some cases.
I hope that answers your questions. I'm watching the RSS feed of the comments, let me know if it brings up new ones :)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 30, 2009 3:31 UTC (Sun) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link]
> Similarly with male "interest" in traditionally female-dominated professions like nursing -
have you ever considered whether you were interested in nursing? It doesn't even cross most guys' minds.
I have in fact. I have absolutely no interest for that, though I was quite interested in biology
> I think there are both men and women who have been interested but have hit barriers and
OK, thanks for the input =). I have seen some of that myself, and like I said, I think it's
> I hope that answers your questions. I'm watching the RSS feed of the comments, let me
Coolie, I am watching replies, so same here.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 30, 2009 4:41 UTC (Sun) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
> Being female-dominated areas was not what pushed me out, mind you, I
> just don't really like dealing with people day to day that much =).
That's a perfectly valid reason, and I'm glad that you did at least consider it. I think if you ask around your male friends you'll be surprised at how many never even got that far. It's the same with women and the "hard" sciences - in both cases, "interest" just never comes into play because it's not on the list of professions folks consider.
> My original point was that we should try to not blind ourselves by
I hear what you're saying there, but I also think it's super important to be able to make the link between the issues that we face in our day-to-day lives and the society we live in, or as second-wave feminists put it, that "the personal is political". As a specific example, the most interesting way that this works that I've seen lately is the way gender affects negotiation, and how this has a broad impact on the lives of both women and men. It ranges from the big-ticket issues like women's ability to negotiate pay, to the every day interpersonal interactions - how many times have you heard a woman ask "Would you like to do $foo?" when she really means "I would like to do $foo, is that amenable to you?". There's a whole book on the topic called Women Don't Ask, and let me tell you, it was a life-changing read for me. I've got 4 copies on my desk because I've been giving it to all the women (and some of the men) I know. http://womendontask.com is the interweb site for it.
The flipside is that our experiences of oppression or difference do not map perfectly, and we may not always be able to judge them accurately; there's a phenomenon called "denial of personal disadvantage" which basically means that even if we see that discrimination exists, we may not believe that it happens to us. Here's an interesting study on the topic: http://www.ur.umich.edu/9394/Feb07_94/15.htm
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 30, 2009 1:35 UTC (Sun) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link]
I didn't say that, and I think it would be good to avoid extrapolating additional stuff from what
people say.
Although I don't think we should expect to live in an ideal world, I do believe we need to keep
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 31, 2009 12:50 UTC (Mon) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
If I misread it, then I apologize -- as I said, I don't know what you intended. But you said, quote, "we need to rethink" the idea that women are driven away by the bad behavior, and we need to, quote, "shift our attention to what not makes women be interested in the first place". Rethinking something is what you do when your understanding of something is wrong. Shifting attention means that attention goes away from one thing (the "barrier" of "bad behavior", in this case), and towards another.
Those are the words that my response was based on; I don't see where I'm extrapolating. Is there some other way to read your words? Can you explain?
> People will still sometimes strongly disagree, and some discussions will keep being heated and not that civil. I think this is normal in any community of people. Working towards making sexist behavior go away keeps being a very important goal, nevertheless.
I definitely agree. I hope it's clear that I'm not trying to attack you personally with my remarks above, but just continue educating people on how to understand and deal with these issues. (Not that I know everything about it either, but apparently I know more than some, and that's enough to be useful...)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 31, 2009 13:24 UTC (Mon) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link]
> If I misread it, then I apologize -- as I said, I don't know what you
intended. But you said, quote, "we need to rethink" the idea that women are driven away by the bad behavior, and we need to, quote, "shift our attention to what not makes women be interested in the first place". Rethinking something is what you do when your understanding of something is wrong. Shifting attention means that attention goes away from one thing (the "barrier" of "bad behavior", in this case), and towards another.
I believe we need to rethink our belief that there is a large number of
When I say shift the atention, I actually mean shifting our focus. It
I believe seeing the world as black and white is one of the problems we
In some cases, we are so passionate, and so frigging tired of meeting
Why am I saying this? Because I think lots of interesting ideas have been
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 31, 2009 22:15 UTC (Mon) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> I believe seeing the world as black and white is one of the problems we usually have in these discussions, and I can see how my words could be misinterpreted if you use a binary view of the world.
That's... very generous of you?
If you re-read my original post in this thread, you'll notice that my point was that we *don't* have to choose. I'm not making things up because I have a binary view of the world; I'm pointing out that the plain meaning of the original term "shift our attention" -- and also your clarifying term, "shifting our focus" -- is to *reduce* the attentional focus we give to one matter so as to give it to another. Not drop to nothing, necessarily, but de-emphasize. You think that maybe there aren't actually all that many women who "got held back by these issues", and maybe we shouldn't worry about them as much as we are.
I disagree with that. I think that we as a community don't put nearly enough effort into dealing with "these issues". I also think we should put more effort into dealing with other issues, sure, but that that's no reason to reduce our (already paltry) efforts in this area.
> when someone questions anything, that one is surely one of the dumb guys who are our enemies.
I definitely see where you're coming from here. But I think you misunderstand our position. Dumb guys aren't enemies, they just need to... learn some stuff so they aren't dumb anymore :-). Everyone's a newb at some point, no shame in that.
> Because I think lots of interesting ideas have been raised here [...] but these ideas have been mostly shot down on the spot because they _looked_ like ideas you would hear from an enemy.
I don't know which specific comments you're looking at, so I can't respond to them. But I can say that in general, when I personally have critiqued people's responses, my goal hasn't been to shoot them down and make them go away. My goal is to draw out problematic assumptions and show just how unconscious and common they are, in the hopes that people will learn something, dust themselves off, and do better next time.
And I know that sometimes having someone do that to you is painful and sucks -- I've been on the other side of such comments, and probably will be again! -- but I don't see any alternative.
> I mean, when one says 'maybe the main problem is not this one', this is very different from saying 'there is no problem at all'
And the other problem is that on the internet, it's hard to tell who has good intentions. You're right that those are different statements. But people who argue in bad faith will often bring up some other issue as an attempt to change the subject and stop discussion of the original issue. And even people arguing in good faith will do this accidentally. In either case, the end result is that the conversation wanders around and doesn't accomplish anything. Since this is so common, and since these conversations are so exhausting in the first place, those of us with more of an investment in accomplishing something will therefore tend to jump on such topic shifts very quickly.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 1, 2009 23:39 UTC (Tue) by kov (subscriber, #7423) [Link] > If you re-read my original post in this thread, you'll notice that my point was that we *don't* have to choose. Exactly! We don't have to choose to forget an issue for the other, but there's no way we can make everything the focus, otherwise we have no focus at all. We are tired of knowing that if everything is a priority, there's no priority (specially if you have to deal with customers who have no idea of what planning actually is =P). Our current focus is on looking to the inside; I don't think we should shoot down questioning whether this is helping we further our common goals as well as we could. Doing that by no means denies problems; questioning status quo is essential to improve. > In either case, the end result is that the conversation wanders around and doesn't accomplish anything. Since this is so common, and since these conversations are so exhausting in the first place, those of us with more of an investment in accomplishing something will therefore tend to jump on such topic shifts very quickly. This is exactly my point. Just look at the threads. People spend so much time saying "that's not what I said", that many times questions or points that would otherwise have produced useful ideas are forgotten.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 16:10 UTC (Thu) by pyellman (guest, #4997) [Link]
If you'll allow me, Bruce, let me see if I can help simplify your position for the sake of Matt and others:
Men are more inclined to be "tinkerers" than women. Period. "Where's Dad?" "Oh, he's down in the basement fiddling with the broken volume control." Interest in free software development, progress, etc., is a classic tinkerer's refuge. In fact, the same phenomenon could be observed about the MS Windows enthusiast community, especially in its heyday in the 90's.
I'm absolutely, 100% positive that even if you removed most or all the "barriers" you and others see to women's participation in this activity and community, their participation rate will NEVER come close to their representation in the general population, or even in various other technical fields -- unless, of course, you and others are talking about fundamentally recasting the nature of free software development and community into something that does not appeal to the tinkerer, in which case your success would of course be self-defeating.
This is in no way intended to suggest that I think people in free software, or people anywhere for that matter, shouldn't make efforts to be more polite and welcoming.
Peter Yellman
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 4:44 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> I'm absolutely, 100% positive that even if you removed most or all the "barriers" you and others see to women's participation in this activity and community, their participation rate will NEVER come close to their representation in the general population, or even in various other technical fields
That may or may not be true. Given that in the mean time those barriers (I am not sure why you felt the need to use scare quotes there?) have been exhaustingly described, demonstrated, and clearly *are* driving many people away, I don't see how relevant the possibility is. The only way to find out whether it's true or not is to fix the stuff we need to fix anyway.
I also don't see how you can possibly be so sure -- to be that certain about such a complicated issue, you must either have information that the rest of us are missing, or be basing your judgement on something other than empirical reality.
But here's a more specific question: science is more or less distilled tinkering. If women are so incurious, then why are the technical sciences so comparatively full of women, including computer science?
> This is in no way intended to suggest that I think people in free software, or people anywhere for that matter, shouldn't make efforts to be more polite and welcoming.
Good to hear.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 13:19 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Your "NEVER" statement is demonstrably true.
Dreamwidth (http://dreamwidth.org/) is a fork of Livejournal's code, which differs from LJ as an open source project primarily in the fact that it values diversity and welcomes and supports anyone who wants to develop for it.
The percentage of women working on the LJ code is unknown, but is certainly small (I would guess under 10%, probably under 5%); the percentage of women working on the DW code is 75% of its 40-something developers.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 13:20 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Oops, ha ha, "demonstrably UNTRUE". Sorry, not fully caffeinated yet.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 0:01 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> This isn't argument, it's just contradiction.
So when does Inspector Fox show up and arrest you guys? :P
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 0:09 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Bravo...we can now replace the remainder of this thread with the full text of the the Monty Python argument sketch which to my reading, ends with you telling mjg59 to shutup and you going to another room and beaten about the head. Now that that is taken care of its time for something completely different.
-jef
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 2:17 UTC (Thu) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> The other alternative would be to say that men in the field had established mechanisms which were astonishingly effective at keeping them out even though they really were interested, and which still stood today.
Many women who currently participate in FOSS claim that yes, this is exactly the case.
That may or may not be correct, but I am a bit astonished that you can dismiss the possibility as ridiculous, unworthy of consideration. Have you ever *talked* to women? Do you care what they say?
I'll also point out that your argument -- that women almost never do <whatever>, therefore they must not be interested -- has an extraordinarily poor track record. Within the last 70ish years, people have made that argument about essentially every field of human endeavor, and in every case it has either turned out to be wrong, or the jury is still out. (With FOSS in the latter category.)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 4:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Many women who currently participate in FOSS claim that yes, this is exactly the case. I'd be a lot more comfortable if I heard it from them, and if they explained what the mechanisms were and how they were so effective that even people who were interested were barred from participating with almost total effectiveness. And why this was not so for a number of other fields.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 10:13 UTC (Thu) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] Well, obviously I cannot satisfy that request myself. Perhaps someone with the required chromosomes will chime in. In the mean time, though, can I point something out that you may not have considered? In FOSS, there are about 60 men for every 1 woman. Imagine that that one woman sees problems, and is trying to speak out about them. And suppose that -- as we see in these threads -- they can write dozens of comments to one man and yet fail to communicate those problems. Now multiply that by 60, and realize that's unasked-for work piled on top of, you know, actually hacking. Many women in FOSS do make heroic efforts to communicate what they see -- they form organizations like LinuxChix, Debian Women, they write essays, give keynotes, found blogs, curate wikis, etc. But those aren't what you want. You asking one of them to take the time to explain things to you personally. And after they do that, honestly, it also sounds like if you don't find their explanation sufficiently complete with regard to mechanism, with I don't know, charts and lists of people who never became hackers and circles and arrows on the back, then you reserve the right to ignore them and continue blithely on talking about how it's a shame women just don't have passion for programming. If someone posted a demand on some random mailing list, "I'm not going to believe that Bruce really thinks <...>, unless he shows up here and tells me so himself, and in *full detail*", what would you think of that person? You're an old school hacker, community leader, prominent person. It's easy to assume that with all that expertise and experience, if you can't see a problem then oh well, there must not *be* a problem. Please consider the alternative possibility that you are a good person, have the best of intentions, and also a big of unconsidered privilege that is making you part of the problem. Here are some quotes to start with:
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:30 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
FWIW, this is *exactly* why I haven't dived into this thread until now.
Bruce, I started using Linux in 1993 with slackware installed off a stack of floppies. I ran X with fvwm and kermit for dialup Internet. I learnt Perl a couple of years later and have worked professionally and full time with Open Source (mostly LAMP stack) since 1996. I've done all-nighters and adrenaline-fuelled hacking runs and totally fscked my PC with broken kernel recompiles. I have founded user groups, hosted mailing lists, launched open source projects, etc. I have contributed to major and minor projects all over the damn place; I regularly get email thanking me for writing one of the best known Perl manpages. I have spoken at conferences all over the world. I am well known by certain segments of USENET, IRC, and mailing lists, and geeks all over the world recognise my name when I travel; friends of mine threaten to get tshirts printed saying "Yes, I know Skud" because of this. I have been chewing people's ears off about why open source/free software is awesome and world-changing since I was 18 years old. And most of the above information is readily available online. About half the first page of Google results (from where I'm sitting right now) for "women in open source" mention me.
Recently, I have also been documenting issues that women face in open source, linking and discussing and synthesising and summarising and KEYNOTING OSCON. (I started doing this a bit in 1998, but stepped back from it for a while, so most of my women-in-open-source work is more recent.)
And then I look at this thread and see that a) "women are just less passionate about open source than men" and b) that nobody seems to believe us when we say there is a problem.
Fuck that. Follow some of those funny little blue underlined words and DO SOME READING.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:02 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] OK, I'm going to guess that you might be Yuwei Lin, and that you are a woman.In lin3_gender, there is discussion of a text-based environment as somehow more gendering. And the causes given are 1) perhaps they've had less IT training in general, 2) schools aren't teaching those environments, and 3) there is more reliance on externalized memory, but you're not implying that women are poorer at externalized memory. All of this seems to imply a nurture-based bias in early-to-middle education. And I'm very willing to believe in such a bias, but it's not Free Software's fault! Regarding why textual environments are seen to connote more expertise, rather than being a simple preference, it is true in many fields that the person who can function in a less supportive environment is seen as expert. It is also possibly the case that to those males with sensory-motor integration disfunction (I am a sufferer or ex-sufferer and anecdotal evidence is that such is common in technically-oriented males), a textual environment is definitely more comfortable. But I don't yet see the support for this as a female weakness rather than a male deficit. So, I agree that a more supportive environment for women is desirable. This is in part social and maybe part technical. I think you would need good experiments to support your theory that some software is inherently less supportive of women, and you don't have those experiments yet, and I'm still dubious. You don't seem to disagree with the early education differences, as far as I can follow. I feel this is where the most progress can be made. Unfortunately, it takes a generation to pay off. There is still the nature aspect. You narrate your own passion as an argument against this, but isn't there some chance that you are an outlier?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:11 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Bruce, I am Kirrily Robert, as a *trivial* search would have told you, if we hadn't met in person on multiple occasions.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:43 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Oh, sorry. I just went by who came up in the first half page of google searches for women in Open Source. Lyn comes up first here. I am dubious about some of her science.So, going from your content instead of Lyn's, I would guess that you feel women in Free Software are marginalised, uncomfortable because you are seen as sexual objects, and excluded. Marginalization is to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is cured by the presence of enough women that they can't be ignored. Certainly we can help by being more welcoming, but unfortunately the greatest load is on the women who choose to be pathfinders. Believe it or not (and no snide comments please) I have had women in the workplace make me uncomfortable because they treated me as a sexual object. And I've been treated that way by a gay man too. I agree this is more of a problem for women, but you aren't alone. Also, I suspect some of the problem with actions of men in our field how strongly they have been effected by a lack of approachable women who are interested in the things they are. That will improve over time. The college program where I reported there was one woman is doing better now. And excluded. I do notice that in-groups of any kind tend to exclude outsiders - regardless of sex. I've seen this most powerfully in a group of railroad motorcar enthusiasts who very strongly excluded interested people who did not yet own a "speeder". Is this so very different from RMS' own problems into fitting into a society that - in the large - does not accept and understand him, and which he can not understand? I don't think so. But having been in another group that tries very consciously to attract women (we even make commercials about it! http://www.arrl.org/pio/ARRL709D.mp3), I am still not seeing that all of the issues are under our control. We still have a nature or nurture problem - either early childhood education or hard-coded gender issues. Of course, these have outliers.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:55 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
If the early-childhood-education thing was the only issue, about 1/4 of FOSS devs would be women...just like in commercial software. Instead, 3/200 are women. Something's wrong internally too.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:29 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Yes. But I suggest that this is not primarily an issue of free software, but of what women choose to do with their free time.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:09 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> http://www.arrl.org/pio/ARRL709D.mp3
I can't even begin to imagine why that's not working for you....
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:29 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Believe it or not (and no snide comments please) I have had women in the workplace make me uncomfortable because they treated me as a sexual object.Look up 'derailment'. This is an absolutely classic example. Men being treated as sexual objects is both rare and pretty much without consequences. The same is emphatically not true of that treatment of women.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:56 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] So, you don't believe me and you discount that I could have consequences. This is just what the women are complaining about.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:17 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
It's the difference between "it happens" and "it's a systemic problem." Yes, men get sexually harassed sometimes. Women get sexually harassed all the time.
Bringing a guy with you when you go to tech conferences usually helps. Then it's clear that someone else has already called dibs. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes it just results in inappropriate things being directed at you both. Obviously my partner will not disagree with me on a technical topic because then "he won't get any tonight," according to a fellow developer (note: this is utter bull. he is quite ready to correct me on any technical matter where he has more expertise...which is most of them, since he's been at this since I was in elementary school).
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 20:34 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
Sometimes bringing a dude with you also results in a guy you were having perfectly interesting literally stopping mid-sentence and walking away from the conversation when he realizes that you're "with" the person standing next to you. No jokes. Happened to me at the first con I ever attended (Fifth HOPE).
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 19:07 UTC (Fri) by eon (guest, #60489) [Link]
This comment has pissed me off more than *anything* in this discussion:
>Believe it or not (and no snide comments please) I have had women in the workplace make me uncomfortable because they treated me as a sexual object. And I've been treated that way by a gay man too. I agree this is more of a problem for women, but you aren't alone.
Dude! really you haven't a clue what women have to deal with! Not a freakin' clue. I can not forget that I may be a target, on the street, at work, at the doctors office. And while you may feel "uncomfortable" I have to worry about rape. Dude, unless yr in prison or some other extreme situation you don't have to think about rape. You just don't. As women we modify everything & weigh the risks at all times. It's part of city life. And yea, I had a male, *MARRIED* co-worker who went out for drinks with other co-workers & told them he was gonna kidnap & rape me cause I was unavailable to him. I left that job.
And dude, I'm sooo not hitting on you cause I look you in the eyes while I talk to you. I'm not hitting on you cause I appreciate the cool things yr doing in tech. I'm just not hitting on you. So get a grip, be polite & treat me like the rest of the guys.
Don't trivialize the violence women have to deal with. It makes you look stupid.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 19:20 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I do not mean to trivialize what you go through in any way, but to indicate that I understand and have sympathy.The main thing that I go through is other's perception that I am physically or emotionally intimidating. And once in a while I've made women scream through no intention of mine. I guess this is the opposite of what is happening to you, but be assured that it gets old.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 22, 2009 15:12 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] I do not mean to trivialize what you go through in any way... You'd be well-advised to stop doing it, that being the case.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 12:05 UTC (Sat) by omnot (guest, #60509) [Link]
Bruce, regarding your belief that the dearth of women participating in open source is primarily due to lack of interest or aptitude, I'd like you to come for a thought with me.
You say that you have had women and gay men cause you to feel uncomfortable in the workplace. I ask that you use that experience to conduct a thought experiment:
Imagine that your industry has 98% female participation. These are the women who made you feel uncomfortable only, on average, they are stronger, more arrogant and more notoriously horny than you are comfortable with.
Imagine that of those 98% 4% are overtly misogynistic and hostile, loudly mocking of your contribution, males in general and you, personally. Only a few of the other women ever spontaneously chide them and ask that you be treated fairly. 80% of the women don't even notice the bad behaviour.
Imagine also that your overall impression is that about half of the women you have ever worked with (still the mooted 98% of all workmates ever) have been overheard making casually derogatory remarks about the sexual proclivities of men -- specific and general -- and some of those comments have been made about you, personally. Your objections are dismissed as irrational: you should be a "good sport".
Sexually explicit questions are routinely asked of you directly, by women you are trying to work with, in any form of media with which you communicate. Some of the women are unnervingly creepy and persistent, and get disturbingly hostile when you do not respond as they would wish.
Imagine that suggestive to semi-pornographic images of impossibly handsome men, and lewd "clever" captions are used widely to promote the product you are working on. Imagine that when you suggest that the imagery is not cool, your teammates tease you, deride you, ostracize you and talk about how uptight you are behind your back.
Imagine that whenever you arrive at an industry conference some harried organiser snaps "Deliveries around the back". Once they let you in, a few people will ask you who your partner is (you must be accompanying a woman because men don't work in the industry), and almost everyone who does not ask makes that same assumption.
Imagine that walking into the conference involves wondering which of the women there -- women you are not attracted to, do not know and only wish to interact with on a professional level -- are the 4% who have nothing but contempt for men. Who are the 50% who see men in your industry as a bit of a joke? And who among them are going to try hitting on you over the course of the conference? And, when you decline their unwelcome and inappropriate advances, will they graciously accept 'no' for an answer? Whether you say yes or no, will they lie or exaggerate to their friends, to your cost?
Imagine the appeal of asking a female friend to accompany you to such an event so that you don't feel like a gazelle in a lion enclosure? Can you imagine the disgust and despair you feel that such a precaution should even cross your mind in such an honourable, well intentioned field of endeavour?
So, Bruce, how good is your imagination? How long would you tolerate marinating in that before you could not be bothered volunteering your spare time and earnest efforts any more?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:06 UTC (Thu) by cesy (guest, #60482) [Link]
She doesn't look like an outlier from here.
Early education does make a difference, and there is bias there, but there is also prejudice in open source, as well as prejudice in the IT industry in general. All of those things need considering. However, here, we were talking about open source, not early education, so please don't derail the conversation.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I really think the problem is less Open Source than external factors. So, just talking about Open Source doesn't actually help to solve the problem significantly.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 22, 2009 15:15 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] If that were the case, why the order-of-magnitude difference in participation in FLOSS development versus the software industry in general...?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:27 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Some of us believe you (but you knew that).
(There are 'I know Skud' t-shirts? where? ;) )
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:48 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
They haven't been made yet, but my Canadian BFF Marna keeps talking about it, because wherever she travels she meets people who know me. Email me and I'll put you in touch :)
Posted Aug 28, 2009 2:04 UTC (Fri) by jamesmrh (guest, #31622) [Link]
Where can I get one of these t-shirts?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 22, 2009 15:10 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] Oh, I think you want to be careful, there, Kirrily: Bruce is likely to accuse you of being "sickly nonlinear". In point of fact, in my attempt to discuss the issue with Bruce at the Community Leadership Summit, I found myself being interrupted in mid-sentence by Bruce over and over so that he could provide me with an apparently endless series of reasons why I was wrong to bring up RMS' behavior at GCDS: "He's got Asperger's, he's incapable of perceiving when he's offended anyone, he's incapable of apologizing when it's pointed out to him that he's offended anyone, he's been doing the same joke for fifteen years, you're not a girl, and there's really not a problem, anyway." (The resemblance to the argumentation here bears an eerie familiarity, in fact. Bruce seems to have thought this through and, sadly, this is the best he can manage.)At which point I decided "this wasn't a discussion", and left to find someone more interesting to talk to. Fortunately, there proved to be no shortage. For the record, I personally view this "outreach effort" on the FSF's part, absent any acknowledgment of past bad behavior and any commitment to do better in the future, as being in essence a whitewash. Just sayin'.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:17 UTC (Thu) by Myrtti (guest, #57414) [Link]
I've been using open source for quite a while, first concious try was around 2001 with installing Red Hat from floppies. I've used Linux as my primary OS since 2003, and I've worked for Finnish Center for Open Source Solutions, am supervising the Finnish equivalent of Summer of Code for the fourth year, have worked as software developer for a Finnish open source software development and deployment company for two years. I'm an Ubuntu member due to my contribution to the community, and I use emacs daily in my work doing scripting and editing LaTeX.
But I know all too well that my existence is a matter of pure faith, a bit like the existence of Invisible Pink Unicorns.
So never mind me...
// Myrtti - http://myrtti.fi
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:43 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Hi,Since you are one of the people summoned to a thread already in progress, I feel it my duty to inform you that nobody was attempting to say that you don't exist. The topic is why there are not more women involved, and whether this is due to internal to Free Software issues or external ones. I believe that some of the problems, and indeed the most significant ones, are external to Free Software. I think one significant problem is early childhood education serving as a demotivator of women to participate in technical volunteerism as well as technical occupations. Beyond that, the question is whether there is something different about women - not you obviously but women as a population - that make them less interested in technical volunteerism. We have more data regarding technical occupations. I would be really glad to see a serious discussion of this.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:18 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Speaking of "threads already in progress", are you aware that this discussion is part of a larger thread that's been going on for at least a decade? From where I'm sitting, you're the one coming to a thread in progress, not having read the FAQs, reiterating threads that have previously been covered in enormous depth by people with greater knowledge of the subject area, and acting as if you know all the answers despite being (AFAICT) a complete newbie in the field.
It's like if I showed up on the Debian mailing lists and suggested that Debian would be much more popular and successful if it would only include a Flash player in the distro.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:23 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> It's like if I showed up on the Debian mailing lists and suggested that Debian would be much more popular and successful if it would only include a Flash player in the distro.
FYI: http://packages.debian.org/lenny/gnash
;)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:57 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
I think she means Adobe's, installed by default :P
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:00 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
What? No, that can't be right. What I want to know is why there isn't Flash support in Debian.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The program he pointed out does support Flash. Not as well as the version from Adobe, yet.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:28 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
I don't think that's true. I think the problem is that Debian doesn't have Flash support. Why don't we address that first?
(Do I need to put emoticons here to make this clearer? Would ";)" help?)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:46 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] :-)Well, I would swear that when I ran gnash as a mozilla plugin, I saw the not-HTML menus and animations that were supposed to use flash. Just slowly, and using a lot of memory.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 6, 2009 8:09 UTC (Sun) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112) [Link]
Bruce, if you read the past few messages carefully, I think you'll find that
Skud was making an analogy, mirroring the ignorance, and unwillingness to listen, which is so often displayed by men when this subject comes up.
Your line of argument sounds, to someone with a working knowledge of
With apologies for spoiling the joke by spelling it out...
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:34 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Q: Why isn't there flash support in Debian?
A: There is! The GNU Gnash player is installed by default, and it supports the Flash file format. Unfortunatly, it's not 100% complete in its support yet, but progress is being made.
Q: Why isn't Adobe's proprietary Flash player distributed on Debian media, such that it is installed by default?
A: You'd have to ask Adobe about this. Their licensing terms forbid it.
Q: Why doesn't Debian provide an installer that fetches Adobe Flash Player from adobe.com?
A: It does. The package is called flashplugin-nonfree.
Q: Why is flashplugin-nonfree in 'contrib' instead of 'main'?
A: Because it relies on non-free software, which prevents it from going in 'main' per the Debian Free Software Guidelines.
Q: I don't care about the DFSG. Why isn't installing packages from 'contrib' enabled by default on my debian system?
A: Because when asked, during installation, you said that the 'contrib' repository should not be automatically enabled for you.
Hope that clears things up. ;)
Debian Posted Aug 28, 2009 5:00 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
I saw a web page that says you just have to log in as root and go to adobe.com and download it.
But I haven't tried yet because I keep getting errors about my video card. I tried changing the permissions but it didn't help. What kinds of idiot designed this? It's a *brand-new* nvidia g10000, it works fine in Windows. Linux sucks :-(
I think I'm going to try this thing my friend told me about called "automatix", do you know it?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:23 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] You're chiding me for being a newbie after explaining in your paper how bad it is to do that. :-)I really do appreciate having you attach some data to this issue. The LWN discussion was not terribly factual with men telling other men what was going on with the women. Like many newbies, I think I have something to contribute to the issue. The proper reaction is not to smash me down before I have a chance.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 5:12 UTC (Fri) by rictic (guest, #58655) [Link] Like many newbies, I think I have something to contribute to the issue. The proper reaction is not to smash me down before I have a chance. And if, having been linked to a number articles, a FAQ and a wiki, you continue to evidence a lack of examination of the conversation already in progress? A more forceful indication that the newbie go and educate themselves before continuing, or at least ask questions rather than making suggestions seems appropriate to me.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:41 UTC (Thu) by zrusilla (guest, #60475) [Link]
If you registered for a YAPC::NA in the past few years through ACT and paid online, you can thank me. I wrote the gateway with TPF's payment processor. On my own time. For free.
I attend Perl Monger meetings, gave lightning talks at YAPC and OSCON, read copiously, expand my skills on the job, take classes, and dispense advice to fellow geeks of any sex. What I don't spend my free time doing is butting heads to establish alpha geekdom on IRC. That might explain why you've never heard of me.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:51 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] If I don't know you, it is because I am not in the Perl community. I hate IRC because so many people type slowly that I'd rather get them on a telephone and get it over with. But I was very conscious of who the women were in the Debian community, and disappointed when it turned out that some were not really women.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:19 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
So you're saying that your experience is limited and you have no particular knowledge of women in the wider open source community unless you personally know them (and maybe not even then). Gotcha.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:46 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] No, not at all. She implied that I did not know her because she doesn't participate in male battles on IRC. That was sort of a smear (although to be fair I'm not sure she meant it as one) and I felt it necessary to point out that I don't even like IRC.You went and tweeted that I'd said women don't exist in Open Source? That's sort of inaccurate, isn't it?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:42 UTC (Thu) by garethgreenaway (guest, #60483) [Link]
I'm curious what these "women" turned out to be and why that was disappointing? At the end of the day what does someone's gender or perceived gender have to do with their role or contributions to a community?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:52 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Batten down the hatches! This teapot's in for a stormy night!
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Men using their wife or girlfriend's email account and not correcting us when we responded to them using the wife or girlfriend's name. For months.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:46 UTC (Thu) by selenamarie (guest, #60476) [Link]
Hi!
I started using Linux in 1994, installing Slackware from floppies on a home-built machine some friends of mine from the dorms helped me pick out parts with. I screwed the motherboard into a case myself and tried not to bend pins when I put the cpu in for the first time. I was terrified I was going to break something, but my friends wouldn't do it for me.
More recently, I was the co-chair of Open Source Bridge (a conference for open source developers and "citizens" in Portland, OR), and am very involved in PostgreSQL.
Anyway, I have written a lot about the topic of women and open source -- primarily from angle that mentorship and social circles really impact women's participation.
I think your comment could be an example of this effect. :)
When more of the men who lead and code the core open source projects start to know and are friends with the women who participate, I think we will see a huge shift in perception and reality around recruitment and participation of women.
My approach is to just do stuff - start user groups, write code, tell people what I think - rather than argue about whether there are or are not enough women.
When people ask me how to get more women involved in their software projects, I tell them to look around, start talking to the women around them and ask the women they find who show interest to participate directly. This, oddly enough, tends to work. I live in Portland, OR -- which some people think is some kind of techno-communal utopia. But we're just like everyone else.. We just have a bit more energy around bringing social activity and tech together right now.
I'm not very interested in discussing the barriers to participation at this point. They are there, *shrug*.
I think it is far more productive to just take action, measure the results and adjust accordingly.
If you're interested in some of what we've done, I've got a blog post about a specific group that's was successful in the last couple years: http://www.chesnok.com/daily/2009/04/29/whats-changed-por...
And here's something I wrote for O'reilly a while ago:
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:16 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I like your papers. And I am very glad that you are bringing more women in. But pretty much your paper discusses women who are interested. Do you have any call on how many never will be, and why?
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:31 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
http://infotrope.net/blog/2009/07/25/standing-out-in-the-...
http://infotrope.net/blog/2009/05/19/dispatches-from-the-... (linked from above) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Open_Source_Software http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/x106.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262133989 http://flosspols.org/
Go, read.
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:06 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] This is helpful, thank you very much. I will read every one.From the top two, it seems that these are general, rather than gendered, barriers. The need to build a whole development environment has kept me from hacking on some code at times. I really cringed at the fact that mailing lists were prefixed baby- . Women will take that, eh? I would have considered it to be abusive of beginners.
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 28, 2009 13:08 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
When I worked for an engineering company, anyone with less than ~4 years of experience was a "baby engineer". (It was a small company and there were no female engineers)
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 28, 2009 15:32 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Probably worth noting that this is the term used by the babydevs themselves -- not imposed by anyone else AFAIK.
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 28, 2009 18:28 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I accept that. But I suspect it could be possible that they're excluding people just because of the name. I never buy those "Dummy's Guide to C" books either. It seems to me that that they promote low self-respect.
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 28, 2009 18:34 UTC (Fri) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Or it's a sign of enough self-confidence to be self-deprecating, and enough knowledge to counteract the Dunning-kruger effect? :P
Those 'Dummies' books are trash of course, but that's true of 90 percent of tech books.
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 28, 2009 18:39 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Yes, but since the goal of such lists is to lower the barriers to participation, asking for the participant to be self-actualized first is not productive. :-)
Reasons women avoid open source Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:02 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
For some, the name might be a way of giving themselves permission to make mistakes and be confused while learning, without risking their self-respect.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:31 UTC (Thu) by selenamarie (guest, #60476) [Link]
Hi!
Thanks for reading! I appreciate it.
Honestly, trying to figure out why there are a lot of women who never will be interested isn't really a priority for me at the moment. If we look at *open source hackers* as a slice of the population of the entire world, we're a minority - no question. So addressing the issue of why more *people* aren't interested in hacking on open source -- I think the same reasons apply to women.
The stuff that Nat Torkington (and many others) have talked about and done -- volunteering at schools, and finding ways of integrating interesting/fun technology into curriculum, and starting very early (primary school) -- are important. But those aren't the only ways that we can change our culture. We can actually change how many women are involved *now*, by simply looking around for the people who are on the fence.
I think it is counterproductive for hackers to throw up their hands and say, "Well, most women just aren't interested" when the due diligence has not been paid to encourage people who are interested, but not participating -- for whatever reason.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:34 UTC (Thu) by cesy (guest, #60482) [Link]
Do remember that there are many women who are interested but who don't get involved because of the barriers to entry. If you look at Skud's previous blog posts, this is particularly noticeable with Dreamwidth - many women who were interested but had never contributed to a project before became heavily involved once the barriers to entry were lowered.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:46 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
Skud linked to the "unlocking the clubhouse" book/study that CMU ran a few years back. There's an entire chapter in it titled :the nexus of confidence and interest". That's part of your answer - please go read it.
Sure, there will always be women who aren't interested. Just like there will always be men who are honestly just not interested in going into nursing. But at the moment, "interest" is so clouded by cultural expectations around gender roles - "computers are for dudes, nursing is for chicks" - that the idea of "interest" is effectively meaningless.
A more important point to focus on, that I think you're missing in this whole discussion - how is Open Source / Free Software <i>missing out</i> because women aren't participating? How can we change that, as a community?
Then go read the various link posted around this thread, where many suggestions regarding that have already been made :)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:57 UTC (Thu) by talbutt (guest, #60477) [Link]
Bruce, I gotta say, you COMPLETELY missed the point there. The previous posters were talking about documented examples of harassment of women on the Internet and at conventions, and you went off on some tangent about ... well ... I've got no clue really. No one mentioned "software [that is] inherently less supportive of women." Events and behaviors are being discussed, and your looking for a technical solution is part of the problem.
So you don't have to guess: I'm a woman too.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:58 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The theory of software that is less supportive in women is in this paper. We don't need to discuss it, as I was confusing the person I was replying to as the author of that paper, erroneously.As for women being harassed at trade shows, it's horrible. It's not restricted to our field, though. Consider this, perhaps the worst example known. On the internet? Yes, I'm sure it happens there too. I am just having trouble with the idea that this is almost 100% reliable in keeping out women. No other cause at all, eh?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:20 UTC (Thu) by ShinyShiny (guest, #60486) [Link]
Why do you want a theory that is 100% reliable in keeping women outta open source contributing?
There's plenty of women, right here, right now, on this thread saying the sexist shit that happens does drive them away.... Are you deliberately ignoring and discounting them?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:26 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Nope. I am just astonished that whatever is happening is so effective.I am not against fixing the problems within the free software community. I am not convinced that those are all of the problems or even the worst problems.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 7:34 UTC (Fri) by koipond (guest, #60493) [Link]
I've been lurking a while on the conversation but I'd like to stop at this for a second.
You're surprised that sexism has been effective in keeping women away?
Just stop on that comment for a second and then realize that this is privilege. You don't have to worry about this kind of thing at all and because you don't it is a symbol of your privilege. You are free from this kind of fear and frustration.
What had been increasing other people's frustration is that what you've been saying though your words is the whole, "I don't see it, ergo it must not exist." When people point it out you still have that hat on your head and there's nothing women comment makers and experience sharers feel that they can do to dislodge it because you're denying their experience.
It is a large problem because the people who are affected by it say it's a big problem. You can't tell people who are experiencing the situation that it's not a big deal because that's making their problems seem invisible.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 17:54 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, Skud was helpful with content that explains the situation. Before then I had mostly men telling me how women felt, which wasn't very helpful.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:01 UTC (Thu) by cesy (guest, #60482) [Link]
I am a woman and I do work in open source.
You appear to be repeating urban myths that have long since been disproved. Please go and read some of the 101 and FAQ entries on the GeekFeminism wiki.
Also, it appears that this website can't cope with the idea that I can develop both proprietary and open source software.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:27 UTC (Fri) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
Hmm. Where is it implied that free software and proprietary code is incompatible? I do both as well, and I think there aren't enough people contributing to the discussions here who have a healthy respect for proprietary software. If anything, I feel that this perspective might help open source software to "grow up" in some sense or other.
The sort of code I write for business generally has very little technical merit, it's usually just webpages and the required code behind to drive them, the sort of stuff that is so boring and predictable that my eyes glaze over just thinking about it. On the other hand, I use open source stuff to do something that interests me personally. In latter, doing the work is its own reward.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:05 UTC (Thu) by yatima (guest, #59881) [Link]
Hi Bruce, this is Rachel Chalmers. I first interviewed you _ten years ago_ and I have been writing about and consulting on open source ever since.
One of the powerful mechanisms at work is invisibility. You know Kirrily Robert and I - two founders of the Geekfeminism blog - in person, but you didn't remember us.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:24 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
Bruce. You sexist pig!
How dare you not remember someone you met years ago!
I guess by the sudden influx this thing must have been posted to one of the geekfeminism mailing lists.
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/cybersisters...
Corbet: Why not implement some feature to turn off comments on a article when things get too heated?
I'd say that when you start getting attacked for "silencing women" because you asked someone to quit talking about hymens would be a good place to draw the line.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:26 UTC (Thu) by james_w (subscriber, #51167) [Link]
A heated conversation is a number of women posting to confirm that they exist and cite some of their contributions?
*phew* it's hot in here, someone get me out.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:36 UTC (Thu) by cesy (guest, #60482) [Link]
That wasn't what was said.
And it was posted to Skud's twitter, which you can see for yourself.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:17 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Of course I remember you. But I am only barely acquainted with Kirrily Robert and meet thousands of people every year.I am not attempting to say you're not there. I am, however, saying that there aren't very many women participating, and I suspect that if we had a perfectly welcoming Free Software community we'd still have a lot less than 50%. And I suspect the reasons are not directly in control of the Free Software community. Nature or nurture is an old argument, but still going on.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:49 UTC (Thu) by yatima (guest, #59881) [Link]
"I suspect that if we had a perfectly welcoming Free Software community we'd still have a lot less than 50%."
You may well be right: let's try it and see!
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:58 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Free Software ought to be able to do *at least* as well as the broader tech community, which runs around 20%ish. As a movement dedicated to Freedom and hopefully to improving the world, I would hope we could do better.
We have seen communities that make an active effort to support and welcome women having 10% (Drupal) to *well* over 50% (Dreamwidth, AO3). If you could increase the ratio of women across open source to 30% (a not unreasonable goal), that would effectively increase the number of open source developers by 30%. People have suggested ways in which we could do this, and which appear to have worked in multiple cases. Why are you resistant to it?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:05 UTC (Thu) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> Free Software ought to be able to do *at least* as well as the broader tech community, which runs around 20%ish.
I *totally* agree.
What's more, Bruce's HAM community should be doing *at least* as well as commercial radio broadcasting in attracting women.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:22 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, it seems that one of the principles you are pushing is projects working harder to have easy entry. Why would anyone resist?Perhaps because they don't feel it's right for their project (might be true, might not be). Perhaps because they personally aren't good at dealing with newbies (in which case they need to recruit intermediaries first). Or because it's framed as a women's issue and this puts them on the defensive. Does it work better when you promote it in a gender-neutral style?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:05 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
I got pretty good feedback from my OSCON keynote, where I (partially) framed it that way, yes. But I wonder why the job of pointing out that a welcoming cmomunity will bring in more developers seems to fall mostly to women?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:29 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Because you are better at it.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:12 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
That's not giving guys a lot of credit :)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:03 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] In my corporate consultation, I specify for the person who interfaces with the Open Source community someone who will not take umbrage regardless of the incitement, so that they won't write something that gets in blogs and the press and makes the company look bad.I recommend a woman who has brought up teenagers, or if they can't find one an older man who has brought up teenagers. Of course this is not an automatic qualification for being level-headed, so the corporate PR officer has to judge the candidates individually. They have lots of hot-headed young men in their software departments. I don't generally find them qualified for the position.
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 28, 2009 13:31 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
I just can't even figure out how to respond to this, but I wanted to flag it as problematic.
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 28, 2009 18:06 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] The point is that a young male programmer is often - certainly not always - the wrong person for the job. Who would you pick for a task where you must always respond calmly and without provocation, regardless of how the other side is talking to you? And they're talking about your code. I assure you, this is a very difficult position for most male programmers. Women don't all handle it well either, but among the population of women you can often find someone with the necessary ego-detachment from the topic to do the job.
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 28, 2009 20:48 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]
I think that if the job requirements are actually explained as such - "you must always respond calmly and without provocation, regardless of how the other side is talking to you" - your young male programmers may be up to the challenge.
The reason I your earlier statements about putting women in this position problematic is that you're basically tailgating on a particularly shitty way that women are socialized - to take responsibility for other people's feelings at the expense of any of our own, to mediate, to avoid conflict, to have poor interpersonal boundaries. These are useful forms of social conditioning for this particular purpose, yes, but they are also frustrating ones to see perpetuated as an expected role for women.
I realize this is a bit meta, I hope it makes sense :) Fundamentally, it's socialized behaviour rather than actual skill, and that's problematic.
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 28, 2009 21:13 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, after some strong and all-too-public lessons and thorough knowledge that it's important, I still can't reliably do that job myself. So, I find it difficult to ask it of others with similar backgrounds.Is it not possible for a woman to do what I'm asking while maintaining internal strength? I see it as an area in which women often excel and something very powerful that they bring to the table as managers.
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:25 UTC (Sat) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
But many of us don't *want* to. Many of us would rather be hacking!
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 29, 2009 17:29 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, in between responding to LWN posts :-), I am working on something that is really important to society that I can't tell you about yet. And I'd rather be hacking too.
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 31, 2009 13:27 UTC (Mon) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Sure, but presumably nobody's saying it's your duty to do so because of your gender.
Women expected to take care-taker/support/social/maternal roles Posted Aug 31, 2009 13:26 UTC (Mon) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
It occurs to me to add that many women -- especially geeky women -- have trouble with this stuff too. I went through school having parent-teacher nights where the teachers said how I was poorly socialised. I got picked on in the playground. I had few friends. I hung out in the library and computer labs to avoid dealing with other kids. They considered keeping me down a year in school because of my social problems -- thank $DEITY that never happened!
As an adult, and particularly since my mid 20s, I've made a very serious effort to try and gain some social skills. It didn't come naturally to me, and I had to do it painstakingly and with lots of errors. I know other geek women who've done the same; one friend of mine treats it as a process of exploration and debugging, for example. It is absolutely possible for most people to do this (I concede that there are a small number who can't), and I don't see why men should be exempted from this.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 7:36 UTC (Fri) by koipond (guest, #60493) [Link]
This is also saying that it's your job to be more welcoming which is putting the onus on women to be more inclusive when it's been stated and linked and pointed at that they are in the minority.
What should be said instead of, "You're better at it" is that "The community could improve on it."
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 18:18 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I think the root of the problem is that the young male programmers very often take tremendous pride in their code and can not always take criticism with a level head, especially from those they view as of lesser skill, and they view communication as a conflict to be won.I can't take the time to put the male programmers in the company through whatever training (or is it therapy) they need to fill this role properly. Nobody would pay for it. So, the short-cut is to look for someone who already doesn't base his/her ego on his/her code and doesn't view communication as conflict, and who has long experience with difficult communication. Such a person often turns out to be a woman who has brought up teenagers. It works. This isn't to say that males can't or shouldn't solve this problem.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 0:33 UTC (Sat) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
A point to this:
Say you're a young woman, raised (as is still common for girls) to be quiet, maybe a little shy, definitely humble...it's not polite to brag, after all...and you encounter the Prideful Young Man. He starts talking about Slackware and how that's what real geeks use and listing off languages he knows (even if he only ever wrote a 5 line script in that language, he still lists it), and blah blah blah...bragging. You, being taught that one does not brag...believe that he does know all that...and much more, since of course he'll be humble and understate his skills. He, having been raised to...well...show off...interprets your "Oh, I just know Python" (with the unstated "fluently...but I also have used C and C++ and Java and Ruby on occasion...but I dont REALLY know them, so they don't count") as: ugh, noobie high-level programmer.
You end up with an inflated sense of what he knows. He ends up thinking you knows less than you do. And well...maybe you're just not 1337 enough for this group he's in. Maybe this isn't right for you. I mean, jeez, you're the same age and he's so much more advanced! You must not be good at this. That's it, this just isn't your thing. Hmm...maybe you'll go become a math teacher...
---
If you get past that point, you'll learn that in geek circles, overconfidence is the rule in stating your skills. You have to talk yourself up like it's a job application instead of being politely humble. It's intimidating until you realize this.
I spent the first year of university being intimidated of a group of guys in my class. Turns out we're pretty close in programming skills, and for Linux skills there's a range that I'm somewhere in the middle of.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 0:45 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Spot on. About the only way I know to build her confidence is with praise, and by facilitating achievement.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 31, 2009 13:34 UTC (Mon) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
There are a number of other ways to help, too.
One very important one is to allow women to behave and communicate in ways that men do -- being assertive, self-promoting, having vigorous disagreements with people, etc -- without applying a double standard and saying that they should be nicer or watch their tone.
Another is to call out people who silence and discourage women, including people who expect women (and girls) to behave nicely as above. (This goes right down to early childhood, btw, so watch how people act around their kids!)
Another is to proactively seek out women doing good stuff and help promote their work to others, by writing about them, nominating them for awards, offering them speaking engagements, etc.
Another is to donate money or time to organisations working with girls and women who are into technology.
Now you know four more ways :)
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 31, 2009 14:41 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] allow women to behave and communicate in ways that men do - being assertive, self-promoting, having vigorous disagreements with people, etc Eek, no! We need to *raise* the bar for communication - not encourage others to drop theirs.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 31, 2009 21:16 UTC (Mon) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
I think the issues are, if anything, complementary.
"Raising the bar for communication" is not the same as "subject everyone to the current feminine bar" -- personally, I'm all for assertiveness, self-promotion, and vigorous disagreements, so long as they're carried out in a way that respects everyone involved. The full rules for female/feminine behavior are weird and nasty -- disagreement may have to be expressed as ostensible agreement, misunderstandings are the woman's fault, things like that. I don't think anyone wants those to be universal, least of all the women who know them best.
And the double-standard is enforced by men (mostly) who freak out if women break the rules -- i.e., men who aren't meeting reasonable standards for respectful communication. Raising the bar for them, and fixing the double standard, work out to be the same thing.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 31, 2009 23:22 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] "Raising the bar for communication" is not the same as "subject everyone to the current feminine bar". ... The full rules for female/feminine behavior are weird and nasty No doubt there are many subtleties of the rules of female discourse that yet escape me, but in general it seems that females are slightly less inclined toward destructive, aggressive argumentation than men (particularly younger men). So to improve the tone in free software online communication from the (generally) young-male-like level to the female level would be an improvement. Perhaps that level again could be improved, but that's beside the point. The point is we should improve, not find a way to get women (and perhaps others) to be more comfortable with the current level. personally, I'm all for assertiveness, self-promotion, and vigorous disagreements, so long as they're carried out in a way that respects everyone involved. Ok, that's interesting. Why do you think that? I used to think that too, and I used to be *very* assertive and vigorous in my disagreements with people. However, with time, I've come to see these traits as actually being destructive to good debate. They tend to poison things and increase the risk that people start taking things personally. Further, these traits, I have come to think, do not bring anything positive to a debate. Assertiveness of personality is a poor substitute for sound reasoning with supporting data, such that the argument asserts itself (to right-thinking observers at least). Vigorous disagreement (as in "direct", "forthright") has a high risk of stimulating egos into taking offence, compared a more indirect and less confrontational approach (no matter how much we'd like to ignore egos, it seems they'll always be with each of us). Etc. However, I am probably misunderstanding your point. ;) Overall, I do not disagree with your more central point that we should be working toward some higher bar of respectful communication.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Sep 1, 2009 8:17 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> The point is we should improve, not find a way to get women (and perhaps others) to be more comfortable with the current level.
The complaint about the double-standard has nothing to with whether women are comfortable with the current rough-and-tumble of FOSS discourse; it's about men being uncomfortable with women who are half as outspoken as the men themselves are.
Re: assertiveness, self-promotion, vigorous disagreement: Yeah, I think we're talking at cross-purposes a bit. By assertiveness I mean, for instance, speaking up when one has something to say; there's nothing wrong with pointing out one's accomplishments when relevant (rather than as a way to knock others down); and as for vigorous disagreement, it is entirely possible to present one's thoughts in a forthright manner without attacking anyone's ego. "Thanks for the patch! The current version has a few problems that prevent me applying it as is; could you look over the following and see what you think? ..." All those are, I think, good things.
OTOH, there are some people who delight in turning fact-based disagreements into personal fights, and are happy to win through logical rudeness[1] and gratuitous nastiness. One of the usual ways to pick up social status in geek circles, for instance, is by flaming people to a crisp -- these are scored not on whether you happened to be right or wrong, but on how thoroughly the recipient is ground into dust, and how entertaining bystanders find their destruction. Many communities have designated targets for their members to practice on.
All that is just obnoxious, and goes *way* beyond "vigorous disagreement". Often someone who gets called on such behavior will start waving around terms like "free speech", "healthy debate", "vigorous disagreement", as a way to deflect criticism, but pff. That's just more of the rudeness that got them into the mess in the first place, and I'm under no obligation to buy into their self-serving redefinition :-).
One more point about the idea of raising the bar for men rather than lowering it for women: In addition to my concerns about whether that's an accurate description of what we want, it seems to me that by framing it that way, you run the risk of providing comfort to those who *don't* want to give up the double-standard -- you may give them an excuse to stop worrying about habitual sexism while feeling virtuous about working on the "real problem" (whether they accomplish anything or not). I assume that's not your intention, but the possibility makes me uncomfortable, and might be off-putting to other potential allies as well.
[1] http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/rudeness.htm
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:18 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] I suspect that if we had a perfectly welcoming Free Software community we'd still have a lot less than 50%Given that the number of women inolved in computing at pretty much any age is less than 50%, I suspect you're right. Fixing the issues in free software won't magically fix any of the problems that exist in the wider world. That's not an excuse for not doing it, though - we should strive to at the very least be no worse than the commercial software industry or CS intake. And once we're there, any progress in the wider world should be reflected in our own demographics as wel.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:25 UTC (Thu) by ShinyShiny (guest, #60486) [Link] Given that the number of women inolved in computing at pretty much any age is less than 50%, I suspect you're right. Worldwide yes - but you can find whole countries of millions of people, where the ICT work force is > 50% women. (Indonesia for example) And there are times in history where the gender of programmers, worldwide, was almost completely women.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 4:53 UTC (Sat) by yatima (guest, #59881) [Link] Are you maybe referring to Malaysia, and this study that Skud refuted last week?
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:29 UTC (Sat) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
To be fair, what I refuted was not that Malaysia has a high proportion of women in IT -- it absolutely does. I was pointing out that this doesn't mean that "the developing world" has more women in IT, nor that Malaysia lacks sexism in IT.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:56 UTC (Fri) by eon (guest, #60489) [Link]
Not a unicorn here! I was a DB engineer who got talked into being a Sys Admin in 1989 (I'd been using unix at an AT&T contract gig in the 80s). It was all DIY. I used my initials so no one would know I was a woman back in those wild days of usenet.
In 1995 at a conf where I went to find vendors for parts (worked in biotech at the time & the war put a crimp in our budget). A man in a suit handed me a biz card & told me & my older female mentor that we should have "the guy with the screwdrivers" give him a call. I handed him back his card & said "I'm the guy with the screwdrivers & I prefer email".
I'm back to being a DBA. When I made the move to MySQL from Oracle the first thing I noticed was that I was one of a handful of women at the MySQL conference. There are more women there now, but still not as many as in Oracle. And, yea, MySQL suits me better than Oracle & I'm very passionate about it and the open source database world right now. It's a *very* exciting time to be working with open source databases. VERY!
Why aren't more women contributing to open source? There are a lot of women that just don't want to deal with the male b/s after work. We have to deal with it at work, why deal with it in our after hours?
the guy with the screwdrivers Posted Aug 28, 2009 17:04 UTC (Fri) by jadelennox (guest, #60499) [Link]
I remember so many comments like that back when I worked in systems. Once I was talking to a guy from a vendor who kept asking for my "network address". I asked him if he meant IP address or Mac address, and he said in his incredibly patronizing voice "Your *network address*. It looks like a number, followed by a dot, followed by a number, followed by a dot... look, can I talk to your technical guy?"
I hung up on him and called his manager. His manager spluttered and groveled a lot. It felt good.
But that was professional technology. I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of miserable sexism in professional tech, but at least they were always managers who would splutter and grovel, you know? In open source somebody makes comments about virgins (and *yes*, I wasn't there, but here's another woman who has seen record of what was said and is incredibly offended by it), and he keeps getting invited back to get more and more speeches with the same joke.
unicorn herd check-in Posted Aug 28, 2009 16:57 UTC (Fri) by jadelennox (guest, #60499) [Link]
Not a unicorn, Bruce.
I first installed Linux (Slackware) from 5.25" floppy disks sometime around 1993. I was a systems administrator, and contributed in a small way to a number of open-source projects, never for financial renumeration. Mostly Perl, very early on some C. I left the open source communities for a few years -- burned out by all the sexism, in fact -- and have recently returned because of the much more welcoming environment of the two new predominantly-female open-source projects.
Even when I was young and had much thicker skin I always avoided online open-source community interaction (e.g. mailing lists, IRC, web forums), precisely because I don't have the Sanity Watchers points for threads like this one.
I love contributing to open source projects. But I hate needing to prove myself as something more than a real developer's girlfriend, I hate hearing sexist jokes, I hate the idea that I'm only interested in user interface or documentation, I hate flirtation. So my passion for open source, true, was not as overwhelming as my unwillingness to deal with sexism on the Internet. Now that I have found a place where I can be passionate about open source without all of that garbage, I'm incredibly happy.
Women don't have the same passion for open source men do? Really?? Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:03 UTC (Thu) by lizhenry (guest, #60479) [Link]
+1 to that, it comes off as sexist nonsense to me as well.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 9:03 UTC (Wed) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
Can't find the comment about RMS learning and all that, but I just stumbled across this:
http://geekfeminism.org/2009/08/25/quick-hit-rms-at-wikim...
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 18:31 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
"I think we have to solve the overall problem with women in Science and Engineering to solve Free Software's problem. It's not all discrimination and bad jokes, or we would not have other minorities at the level that is currently represented. Some of it is what women grow up wanting to do and be."
While related...I don't think you can assume the same fundamental problems are at play between Science/Enginneering/FOSS.
Not all of the sciences show the problem to the same extent. Out of the big 3: biology, chemistry, physics...physics has a severe problem as measured by the number of women seeking and attaining advanced degrees. Even though in high school level physics coursework women typically out perform men in aggregate. Even inside physics...some subfields are doing better than others. Astronomy and astrophysics see more advanced degree earning women than other subfields. And then of course there are the interdisciplinary fields like ecology or geology which again i think have a less dire problem as measured by the breakdown of higher degree earners.
All of that is to say, I think you have to look much more closely and do some comparative studies across subfields if you want to use "science" as an example and look for what is attractive and what is not. Hopefully this summit will be bring forward some specific project examples that are bucking the general trend...and by analysing those projects...dispassionately...we'll have a better idea of how to change other projects to be more attractive.
-jef
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 21:58 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I suspect the severe physics problem is overspill from maths, especially pure maths. If you want to see a field with a really low proportion of female members, almost as low as free software, look there. Cause: unknown, and people have been wondering for a century or so.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 22:47 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Cause unknown? Theoretical physics takes very intense concentration on really abstract mathematics. The folks who engage in it successfully are outliers as far as brain function is concerned. There is no reason to expect them to be regularly distributed across the population.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:38 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Yes, but there is nothing but speculation that the extremes of mathematical ability may be gender-linked. There is essentially no actual evidence. It's the same degree of mystery as is that surrounding why most great mathematics is done by the young. (Cognitive decline? Maybe. Evidence? None.)
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 5:59 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] A quick look at NSF statistics shows that in the US in 2006, women made up 31% of full-time mathematics graduate students, and 19% of full-time physics graduate students.Their mathematics numbers don't have a breakdown for pure vs. applied (probably because US universities tend to stick them both into a single department), so it might be more extreme in the pure side of things (maybe the answer is buried in HESA somewhere?), but the data that is available doesn't seem very supportive of a FOSS-level gender split in either field.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 29, 2009 22:52 UTC (Sat) by spzeidler (guest, #60508) [Link]
heh, it's not really -that- hard, if not exactly a stroll in the park.
You want to know why girls drop out of math?
Cue Barbie, "Math is haaAAaaard!" (as in, just don't make the effort, you're not really supposed to understand this, let alone have fun with it - even if you are better at it than most of the boys in your class, it's not girly to have a brain)
Plus "oh, you want to study physics? that's a strange subject for a girl" (as in, you're not a proper female if you are interested in that)
Those that survive all that active discouragement are either really good or really stubborn, or both, but on any account not lacking passion for their field. There are -so- -very- -many- easier ways to get to the same degree and the same level of income.
Much the same (if at a somewhat lesser degree) with women who go into IT; one doesn't wake up one morning, "oh what will I do with my life, hairdresser, secretary, bookkeeper, programmer? let's flip a coin", a young woman becomes a programmer in spite of 90% of her environment telling her she is nuts, and does it anyway.
regards,
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 19:25 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
> Nobody is considering the men's side of this equation. It happens that virginity is pretty much a social affliction among the young nerdy men who flock to computer programming. And RMS goes without a girlfriend for a while now and then. What do you do when something's painful and you can't make it go away? Joking about it makes it feel better.
"Affliction"? Uh... yeah... ok. It's the natural state into which all people are born.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 26, 2009 21:14 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] "Affliction"? Uh... yeah... ok. It's the natural state into which all people are born. Maybe you're religious. Please be assured that for many folks it's an undesirable state.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 2:43 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
Atheist.
And umm...well we are born virgins... I mean, unless you're a twin and for some reason gettin' frisky with your sibling in the womb...
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 4:34 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Read this. It puts a lot of doubt on the assumption that virginity is an anatomical phenomenon even in women. It's really a social thing, a similar statement to "I've never been to Paris".
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 7:48 UTC (Thu) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
Which, as far as I can read the discussion, is all that it has been about. After all, if the social perception of virginity in men and women would be identical, the RMS "joke" on the matter would be much less offensive.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 7:52 UTC (Thu) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]
The "gender-neutral" version, that is.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 15:39 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
The hymen has squat diddly to do with whether a person has engaged in sexual acts, as you would know if you read the page you linked to. What does this have to do with whether or not we are born virgins? Clearly, at the moment of birth, a person has not yet participated in sexual acts in their lifetime. Unless, of course, you are positing that people can do those things in the womb.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 15:47 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] OK, I think it's fair to say that we've wandered off topic here; this is not an LWN-style conversation. Could we maybe stop at this point?Thanks.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:09 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
Jonathan, I know you are trying to keep things civil, but it worries me that you are shutting down women who are talking about the very issue at hand (the lack of women in free software and reasons why) and telling them it's not appropriate here.
From what I can see here and in previous threads, LWN-style discussion is sexist, ignorant tripe that ignores and attempts to silence women. Is this what you meant?
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:27 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] No, that's not what I meant, and I think you know it.On rare occasion (decreasingly rare, unfortunately), I wander into a discussion that, I think, has gone off-track and doesn't really fit on LWN; I'll ask that the discussion stop. In this case, the discussion wandered into hymens and sexual history, which is just a bit off-topic for LWN. I have pointed not tried to stop the larger discussion, despite the fact that I'm tired of it and some of the participants in it. The larger discussion is important. That is why LWN continues to point out things like this summit and your keynote, and that is why I have made my own feeble attempts at writing on the subject. It would sure be a lot easier to just avoid the topic, but I don't think it would be right. LWN-style discussion tends to be technical, intelligent, and useful. Obviously, there are exceptions. I am not proud of them, to say the least, but there is far more to LWN than that.
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 28, 2009 2:26 UTC (Fri) by quotemstr (subscriber, #45331) [Link] Thank you. This entire discussion has been a giant distraction. I don't care one bit whether a coder is an XX human, an XY one, or a lump of old Pentiums and Win95 CDs that's managed to awaken to a tortured self-awareness. The code and philosophy is what's important. This discussion makes thefsync thread look like a lecture at Harvard.
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 28, 2009 18:46 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> I don't care one bit whether a coder is an XX human, an XY one
That makes sense to me, but I'm not part of the group that feels excluded.
Rather than "is is really important?", how about we look at what's being asked for. If the feeling-excluded group just wants a "no sexism" policy to be written down, then why not do it?
Either there's no problem, in which case writing this policy changes nothing, or there is a problem, and this policy improves things.
I didn't see this before, so I'm glad this big long discussion took place.
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 28, 2009 18:53 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
the problem is defining what sexism is.
there are things that are very obviously sexism, I'm not talking about those
but is referring to a user/developer in the third person as 'him' or 'he' disallowed sexism that needs to be aggressively stamped out?
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 28, 2009 19:11 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
I don't think anyone's asking for that.
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 28, 2009 20:43 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with very aggressive feminists who do consider such things to be sexism, and from their reaction, just about as bad as anything else.
if a project is making a formal statement to ban any sexist comments I think there is a need to give some indication where the project considers the line to be.
I have had a boss who, when referring to internal opinion will use the phrase 'just between us girls we know that .....'
this statement could very definantly be taken as sexist or potentially harassment
note that I have not made any comment on the gender of the manager or the staff that this is said to. it happens that the manager and the entire staff is male at this point in time. does this make a difference on if it's considered sexism or not?
I personally suspect that at one time in the past he would have said 'just between us boys' and got called on it as being a sexist comment so altered his habit.
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:32 UTC (Sat) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]
The tendency to use language that excludes women is a problem. You might think it's a small one, but it is part of the series of straws mentioned elsewhere in this thread, of which every single one adds to the load of knowing that people think you don't belong in a group.
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 28, 2009 22:26 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
This entire discussion has been a giant distration *if* you don't care that we may be throwing away half our potential developer base, in addition to making lots of people feel unhappy (which should be a reason to change in itself).
(If you happen to think that the reason for this is that women just naturally think differently from men -- I don't -- then you should be even *more* in favour of fixing this. That's a different viewpoint we're not getting, and different viewpoints = better design/coding/bugfixing.)
LWN-style discussion Posted Aug 29, 2009 21:35 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
> I don't care one bit whether a coder is an XX human, an XY one, or a lump of old Pentiums and Win95 CDs that's managed to awaken to a tortured self-awareness.
In theory, that's great. But in practice, it means that women face all sorts of problems, and you get it ignore that, because hey, they're just like everyone else. They don't get it ignore it. And if you don't care or think about people's gender, then how certain are you that you've never assumed everyone was male, made sexist remarks, etc.? I'm sure there are people around you who do that kind of stuff, and the human default is to pick up whatever the people around us are doing (monkey see, monkey do, as they say). If you're not making a conscious effort to avoid it, then how do you know you aren't?
> The code and philosophy is what's important.
Dude, we're social mammals. The philosophy's cashed out in the code; the code's produced by communities. Can you really say mailing lists, IRC, conferences, blogs, planets, conference calls, LWN, bug tracker threads, ... are unimportant? Have you ever seen a philosophy department take on multi-billion-dollar industries?
Discussing social interaction is in no way a distraction from the "important" parts of FOSS.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:58 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
He's right that it's OT. I don't know why Bruce brought up that body part in relation to virginity. It's nothing to do with it whatsoever.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:05 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I was trying to make the point that virginity is an artificial concept. You aren't "born" that way, someone whose philosophy or religion considers the concept to be important attaches the label to you.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:57 UTC (Thu) by lizhenry (guest, #60479) [Link]
Well I'll bite back, Bruce. While I could discuss any number of the points you bring up I'd like to first say that I'm perturbed by how you partly frame the problem as one of men's sexual access to women. You suggest that we need to teach girls under 7 how to be more technically minded, specifically so that male nerds of the future will have a greater pool of girlfriends.
You seem to imply as well that someone female in FLOSS needs to take one for the team and sleep with RMS just so he'll stop making (bitter?) sexist jokes.
That's what I'm hearing as your subtext, anyway. If we can even call it "sub".
Really appalling but unfortunately all too common, for men to feel so entitled to every aspect of women's lives and bodies.
Please try to step back and listen to yourself a minute.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:42 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] You suggest that we need to teach girls under 7 how to be more technically minded, specifically so that male nerds of the future will have a greater pool of girlfriends. Ouch! I think you're being really unfair to twist my words around that way. I suggest that any community which is predominantly of one gender is emotionally unhealthy. To the extent that they or their surrounding society are reinforcing their one-gender status through differences in early childhood education, they should try to solve the problem. But this is not to suggest that your duty as women is to, well, "think of England". Good heavens no. Let's please consider this as getting men and women to go to the same meetings. As I described in my story of the college program with one girl, their solution was to bus us to gender-mixed social events, and not to some less honorable resource.
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Sep 6, 2009 7:45 UTC (Sun) by mdz@debian.org (subscriber, #14112) [Link]
Are you serious, Bruce? Looking for a fight? Primed? Perhaps they were
"asking for it"? This is the language of victim blaming.
And we're expected to cut RMS some slack because he "goes without a
This reads like a checklist of silencing tactics. You may feel an affinity
OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering Posted Sep 22, 2009 16:38 UTC (Tue) by storming (guest, #58723) [Link]
> If anyone had the slightest chance of understanding EMACS virginity to be
> in the slightest way related to sex, and then feeling threatened, it > wasn't because they were a woman. To believe that is insulting women much > worse than anything RMS said. Lots of women handle much worse social > challenges every day. And this is not approaching why there are so few > women in the technologies.
While I wasn't threatened, I did feel it was insulting to women.
The reason I don't find these comments threatening is partially because of all the men (like Lefty) that always stand up and speak out for women.
While I'm one of the 2% of women in free software, I have always felt extremely welcome and supported. On the rare occasions I've encountered behavior that was really not friendly, several of the men present have always checked in to make sure I'm ok and to make sure that I know it's not a universal attitude.
So while I think I'm usually pretty capable of taking care of myself, I really appreciate the feeling of support that I get from the free software community at large. It's part of the reason I've been working with open source software for 10 years.
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