LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus [LWN.net]

LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 10, 2010 5:55 UTC (Wed) by njs (guest, #40338)
In reply to: LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus by DDevine
Parent article: LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

I also think that the main reason there is not many women is simply because Women naturally (in general terms) aren't as interested in technical/practical subjects such as Mechanical Engineering and Computing.

As someone else mentioned, this has been heavily debunked, and the way that you feel totally comfortable just plunking down your "2 cents" in total ignorance of the relevant facts or previous discussion just grates of privilege, which is itself off-putting to those of us who have become sensitized to it. (Mostly that ends up meaning, off-putting to women, since one of the, well, *privileges* of privilege is being able to get by in blissful ignorance of privilege.)

But, anyway. If you look at the numbers for basically any technical/practical/engineering/scientific field, they all have an order of magnitude higher female participation than FOSS does. Therefore, it can't just be lack of interest in technical subjects. Furthermore, if you talk to women in FOSS, they can cite lots of concrete examples of off-putting and sexist behavior.

I believe there is slightly more Women than we realize

If there are, then they hide it very well. Every formal survey, informal survey, head-count at a conference, etc., gives basically the same number: in the 2-5% range. That's lower than, say, construction workers.

I think we also have to be careful that we present Women *equal* status and opportunities not "equal plus extra because you are a woman" because obviously that is sexist towards men. People often forget that you *can* actually be sexist and abusive towards men as well.

Sure. But I'd also like to note that I've seen a hell of a lot more men worrying about this than examples of it actually occurring. Which isn't to say that it never occurs... but let's worry about that when you see a specific initiative that actually makes this error?

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LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 11, 2010 7:38 UTC (Thu) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

I'm not making any claim about your graduating class, so no need to get sarcastic. I'm reporting that every time I've looked up statistics on the labor market, that's what I saw. And yeah, in those statistics 20% was about the lowest number for female participation (I forget for what -- maybe professors of pure math?).

Now, maybe things are different where you are; I've mostly seen US statistics. Feel free to find the local statistics for where you are -- there's surely someone keeping track. That'd be a lot more useful than hearing your memory of your class at your institution in your year. I'd be honestly fascinated if you can find a technical field with, say, less than 20% female participation, and this not attributable to some kind of gender inequality.

LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 11, 2010 17:17 UTC (Thu) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

Sorry, not trying to be overly sarcastic, but rather trying to point out that your claims do not match with my perception of things. When "supposed" statistics do not match with my perception, it is a good time to either look harder around me and/or to question the statistics. I just took a walk around my office and counted 44 men and 4 women. Of all the technical places that I have worked, I "feel" (I know not a good data source) that I have more women coworkers here. So, I will take a harder look (I wasn't joking above,) but when what I see does not match what I am being told, no matter where it is coming from, I am more likely to trust what I see, not what I am told.

Naturally, if a true discrepancy is noted, I will then try to figure out why. Is there a chance that the people telling me bad information are simply gathering their data wrong? Are they counting all the women in support positions at IT companies (there is some evidence online that this is the case). Do these people have an agenda (also very likely)?... So, I will look up more statistics, but may I suggest that you gather some of your own instead of blindly trusting what you look up?

LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 14, 2010 6:39 UTC (Sun) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

Sure, fair enough. But you may want to consider whether looking around your office is the best way you can get information -- obviously any given office may not be a representative sample, and then there's certainly geographic variation -- FOSS is a world-wide thing, your office is in just one place. If you were in nix's office upthread, then you'd see 40% women, and then what? Which of you is right?

But as to your questions -- I'm looking at sites like census.gov or http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/. You don't have to believe what you red in internet comment threads; you can check the source yourself. Certainly if you're worried about their methodology you can read about exactly how they gather their data, but the people compiling these numbers are trained professionals and certainly have no agenda vis-a-vis FOSS. If you're worried about what exactly they're counting -- and you're right, labor market statistics often don't make this clear -- then you can check out the NSF statistics to see, say, the proportion of CS professorships in the US that are held by women, or the proportion of CS graduate students that are women. This isn't the same as counting professional software developers, but certainly it refutes the OP's claim that women aren't in FOSS because they just aren't into technical subjects, and you can be certain that no-one is mixing up professorships and support staff. I do object to your calling me "blindly trusting". Not only is it not true, but those are charged words, that somehow imply that I believe what I believe because of an irrational bias or naivete -- why do you think that? I can't see how anything I've said would suggest that -- especially when you're the one arguing that I should discard data in favor of gathering anecdotes! (And even if I were to prefer anecdotes, my own experience is the same either way; I run into tons of women in technical areas but never in FOSS.)

And finally, can I just point out that even if we work from your own numbers, comparing the 9% women in your office to the 3% in FOSS (the estimate from the EU's FLOSS project)... that may not look like much in absolute terms, but it means that male developers are somehow more than 3 times as likely to get involved in FOSS.

LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 15, 2010 22:48 UTC (Mon) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

"especially when you're the one arguing that I should discard data in favor of gathering anecdotes!"

No, I argued that you should do both and compare them. If you did not, you would be "blindly trusting" one over the other.

But discarding personal observations as anecdotes is a bit elitist, don't you think? Observations are after all a fundamental part of the scientific method. Naturally, while comparing your observations to other's statistics (peer review) is valuable, it is NOT a cornerstone to the scientific method: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 16, 2010 1:22 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

We could debate exactly what the scientific method calls for, the virtues and flaws of anecdotes, etc, but AFAICT at this point it would be irrelevant to the actual topic at hand, and I'd rather not derail the discussion.

It would be irrelevant because none of this changes the fact that no-one seems to be able to find any shred of evidence that women aren't underrepresented in FOSS, no matter what standard we use for "under". Sure, one can quibble about the evidence we do have, but it exists, it comes in lots of different forms, and it all points the same way. I think at this point that if someone wants to say that there's no problem, they really need *some* sort of positive evidence to back that up.

Are you aware of any such evidence?

m am LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 16, 2010 2:51 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

I certainly wasn't trying to derail anything. Your original post made some
very strong statistical claims. I was merely shedding my doubts on those
numbers and suggesting that they have the feel of agenda pushing. You then
quickly dismissed the numbers as irrelevant, but yet conclusive.

m am LibrePlanet 2010 conference to feature Women's Caucus

Posted Mar 16, 2010 4:49 UTC (Tue) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

So then you're not aware of any evidence that my claim (again, that women are particularly underrepresented in FOSS) is wrong?