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25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for WomenPosted Feb 1, 2013 20:06 UTC (Fri) by EdvonSchleck (guest, #89139)In reply to: 25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women by mikapfl Parent article: 25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women
I created an account just to agree to you - I believe reaching out to women to make them feel at home in the FOSS community is hugely important.
In all honesty, I can't see any reason why someone wouldn't applaud to this. Everything that brings more people to FOSS development should be encouraged.
Every time some people organize support for women, somebody shouts: Discrimination! But following their argumentation, it would be discriminating to help your friends out with money, but not everybody else (you are discriminating against them for *not* being your friend), or writing GPL software (you are discriminating against every re-publisher of this software who doesn't want to open source his or her changes). If you do good, it's your call to decide who's to profit. Nobody should hold anyone back from helping other people just because he or she is not helping everybody else as well, as long as everybody else is not harmed by it (and in this case, it has been pointed out clearly that no one is).
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25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 2, 2013 1:01 UTC (Sat) by blujay (guest, #39961) [Link]
> I believe reaching out to women to make them feel at home in the FOSS community is hugely important.
Does setting women apart and treating them differently make them feel "at home?" Or does treating them like an equally-valued member of the family do so?
> In all honesty, I can't see any reason why someone wouldn't applaud to this. Everything that brings more people to FOSS development should be encouraged.
Because it is unfair to men, men who have done nothing wrong and don't deserve to be excluded.
Everything? Examine your assumptions, friend. Numbers are not a panacea.
> But following their argumentation, it would be discriminating to help your friends out with money, but not everybody else (you are discriminating against them for *not* being your friend), or writing GPL software (you are discriminating against every re-publisher of this software who doesn't want to open source his or her changes).
Your logic is wrong. I choose who my friends are, and I choose what license to use. I do not choose my sex. This is not friends helping friends--it's institutionalized discrimination being justified as attempting to right perceived injustices. But two wrongs do not make a right.
> Nobody should hold anyone back from helping other people just because he or she is not helping everybody else as well, as long as everybody else is not harmed by it
What about all the men who are denied the opportunity to participate? Are they harmed? If your answer is no, then by that logic, neither are women harmed who are denied or discouraged from the opportunity to participate. But that's the whole point they're trying to address. It's hypocrisy.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 2, 2013 2:45 UTC (Sat) by duffy (guest, #31787) [Link]
"Does setting women apart and treating them differently make them feel "at home?" Or does treating them like an equally-valued member of the family do so?"
Without programs like this, yes, women in the open source community *are* set apart and treated differently. With programs like this, women are brought in as equals and treated appropriately. You're not helping your case, dude.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 2, 2013 8:37 UTC (Sat) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
". With programs like this, women are brought in as equals and treated appropriately."
The program explicitly discriminate against men... by _requiring_ the applicant to be female.... how is that being 'brought in as equals' ?
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 2, 2013 13:57 UTC (Sat) by duffy (guest, #31787) [Link]
" The program explicitly discriminate against men... by _requiring_ the applicant to be female.... how is that being 'brought in as equals' ?
That is exactly the opposite of that."
The program would be discriminating against men if men had any trouble joining open source projects. Looking at the ratio, they don't. Most certainly the ratio of women in open source projects doesn't match the ratio of women in computer science programs (no, it's not 50/50, but it's not less than 1% either) so yeah, we have a problem, and we're trying to solve it.
Seriously, go back to the MRA hole you came from http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 3, 2013 1:53 UTC (Sun) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
"The program would be discriminating against men if men had any trouble joining open source projects."
No that is irrelevant... just because woman can easily get _a_ golf course membership somewhere, does not means that Augusta is not discriminating against women.
The ratio of selected candidate does not prove anything.
So?
In the past 20 years I've noticed that the proportion of job candidates that are in the field just to pay the bills are growing significantly, being now-a-days a large majority. That does not means they are not good at their job, but that means that if it was not for a pay check they would certainly do something else...
So, the raw juxtaposition of the gender ration among 'computer science program students' and 'open source volunteers' is not very indicative at all. It certainly do not make the case for 'open-source project 'discriminate' against women.
I would also note that, Open source is a rare field of endeavor that 1/ is mostly volunteer based: you don't get hired, you don't get drafted... you just show-up.
all these tend to indicate that open-source communities are actually less likely to discriminate based on gender than the general population.
"Seriously, go back to the MRA hole you came from"
I any case, we are digressing quite a bit from the core objection I have:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YjoSMwVOXQ
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 3, 2013 12:11 UTC (Sun) by alankila (subscriber, #47141) [Link]
I'd suggest you to look at the fundamental inequality of program like this in terms of being a temporary design to jumpstart a more even gender ratio. Having women involved will help other women stay involved, and changes the basic social dynamics that appear to keep women out as things would stand without a program like this.
So it's a temporary measure to fix a problem we necessarily do not know to fix in any other way, and it's evidently working. So chill?
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 3, 2013 14:38 UTC (Sun) by aoeu (guest, #84301) [Link]
My forecast, looking at the current college enrolment sex ratios, is that the GNOME PR team is anticipating at least a few decades of employment before they can announce their program "worked".
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 3, 2013 17:45 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]
It's probably Sunday Lunch Wine Effect, but I couldn't parse your sentence.
PR guys will be substituted by PR women?
I'm at a loss here.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 4, 2013 0:55 UTC (Mon) by duffy (guest, #31787) [Link]
> No that is irrelevant... just because woman can easily get _a_ golf
> course membership somewhere, does not means that Augusta is not > discriminating against women.
I'm seriously missing the reference here, sorry.
> I would suggest you establish the ratio of student of computer science
So you think the *women* who do study computer science do so because of the prospect of making money after graduating, not for genuine interest in the subject? That's really funny given the 'man must be provider' 'caveman say cavewoman stay home go sweep cave ung ung ung' analogies that have been made.
That being said, yeh, I really don't get your point. I studied computer science at the height of the dotcom boom in the US; the majority of my classmates were male (the gender ratio was more like 10-15% female than < 1% in my program), and the vast majority of women I knew in the program were genuinely interested in the subject, I would say at a much greater rate than the men in the program.
The thing is, if you're interested in something only for the money, and it turns out to be an unpleasant experience (you're one of 10 women in the lecture hall and get stared at like some kind of zoo animal), you've not got much motivation to stay. If you're genuinely interested in a subject, you're much more likely to stick it through regardless of the BS you have to put up. This is why I think a higher proportion of the women in my CS program had that genuine interest than the men.
Although this is all conjecture based on anecdotal evidence, of course.
> all these tend to indicate that open-source communities are actually less likely to discriminate based on gender than the general population.
You may have convinced yourself of this quite well, but my personal experience as well as the experience of many of my female colleagues begs to differ. Do you think we're lying?
> "Seriously, go back to the MRA hole you came from"
I didn't call you a name. I told you to go home.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 4, 2013 3:33 UTC (Mon) by shmget (subscriber, #58347) [Link]
"I'm seriously missing the reference here, sorry. "
My mistake, I thought that the reference would have been well known.
"So you think the *women* who do study computer science do so because of the prospect of making money after graduating,"
No, I'm saying that among people that do so for that reason, my personal experience is that there is a lower gender gap.
"That's really funny given the 'man must be provider' 'caveman say cavewoman stay home go sweep cave ung ung ung' analogies that have been made."
I have never made such statements nor ever held such views.
"You may have convinced yourself of this quite well, but my personal experience as well as the experience of many of my female colleagues begs to differ. Do you think we're lying?"
Are you saying that Open Source Communities discriminate _more_ than the general population against women ?
"Although this is all conjecture based on anecdotal evidence, of course."
"I didn't call you a name. I told you to go home."
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 4, 2013 5:13 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
" Are you saying that Open Source Communities discriminate _more_ than the general population against women ?"
Seems so. Compared to the general population, we have even lower % of participation from women and the amount of vitriolic attacks against women seem to be rather high including groping etc in open source conference, death threats via email and so on. More public exposure doesn't account for all of that.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 5, 2013 15:15 UTC (Tue) by duffy (guest, #31787) [Link]
> "You may have convinced yourself of this quite well, but my personal
> experience as well as the experience of many of my female colleagues begs > to differ. Do you think we're lying?"
> Are you saying that Open Source Communities discriminate _more_ than the
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. The male:female ratio in the industry is much better than in open source. The male:female ratio in my computer science program and many others is much better than in open source.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 5, 2013 15:44 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Seconded. When I worked in the proprietary software industry, about 40% of my fellow developers were women. Find a free software company with similar figures...
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 5, 2013 17:06 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
I was at a Perl conference last year and one of the training companies had a short presentation on this very thing, with similar numbers. Their training classes for Perl were around 40/60 like you've seen in industry but attendance to conferences and participation upstream was more like 5/95. They were trying to advertise and get more people so that conference participation more closely reflected the reality of the community.
I don't think that many people understand how much of an outsider, how uncomfortable and awkward it is to be the one who is obviously different (gender, race, etc.), how that discourages participation and how encouraging people to be role models can make an environment friendlier and encourage participation.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 4, 2013 17:35 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] all these tend to indicate that open-source communities are actually less likely to discriminate based on gender than the general population. I don't agree. Open-source developers often tend to be opinionated and vocal. While I think these are good things, they sometimes morph into the closely-related bad cousins of arrogance and aggressiveness and this can turn off a lot of women. It turns off a lot of men, too, but I think we are more socially conditioned to ignore or fight back against aggression than women are. Also, have you read the horror stories like The dark side of open source conferences? That article was quite shocking (to me, at any rate) and I have no reason to disbelieve it. It seems the open-source community isn't as liberal and open-minded as you might think, especially when some of its members get some alcohol into their systems.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 2, 2013 16:36 UTC (Sat) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
You organise a 100 metre race. The first 4 people to cross the line get a prize. So far, so fair. But it turns out that someone's attached half the participants to the start line with bungee rope. It wasn't you, so you're not discriminating against them, but they're going to have to be much better than the others in order to win.
Running a program that doesn't explicitly discriminate against women doesn't mean that they have an equal chance of success. External factors such as stereotyping, a lack of good mentorship and past experiences of overt sexism in the technology industry result in women being significantly less likely to apply in the first place. Those factors are self-reinforcing - they exist because of there being a low number of women in open source, and they perpetuate the situation where there's a low number of women in open source.
In an ideal world people wouldn't be sexist and there'd be no problem here, but this isn't an ideal world and the only way we've found to reduce sexism is to artificially restore the balance by giving certain advantages to women to make up for the inherent disadvantage that they suffer. If you don't like this solution, work on a better one. Code talks, etc.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 3, 2013 14:30 UTC (Sun) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]
Let's put this in terms we can all understand.
A bug exists. We're arguing about whether we should implement a workaround or force a fix at the problem source.
As good engineers some are arguing that the workaround is stupid and the problem should be patched at its source.
As good engineers some are arguing that the problem source is an intractable vendor whose source code we don't have access to, and as such it's better to implement a workaround then just leave our users with the problem.
Nobody here is being evil, we just disagree about where to patch the problem.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 3, 2013 18:21 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Well, not exactly. Some are arguing that there isn't a problem. Others are arguing that there's a better way to solve the problem, but aren't actually doing any of that work. And some have come up with an approach that the former groups don't like, but which is so far the only approach that's achieved anything. We can discount the first group, but if the second group wants to be taken seriously then they should commit to demonstrating a better solution.
25 Women in 10 Free Software Organizations for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women Posted Feb 3, 2013 22:24 UTC (Sun) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
The program is not treating women differently. They are helped the same way as in other programs, e.g. Google Summer of Code, etc.
Obviously what it does is focus in that women are under represented in Free Software. As a result the women might get treated differently. Such behaviour is not tolerated though in GNOME.
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