To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 30, 2007 0:12 UTC (Sun) by ikm (guest, #493)
In reply to: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet) by tuxchick
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Actually, I never saw that hostile behavior myself -- quite the contrary, a girl trying to be involved was always welcomed with applause, and a girl actually involved in the community was typically regarded as a queen of that community. This was a Russian-only experience, anyway, so maybe this thing everyone is talking here about is US-specific or whatever. I never understood the elitism problem, as in all the situations I saw all the "leet" guys were rightly treated like jerks -- no one liked that attitude, really.

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Different approach, different result

Posted Sep 30, 2007 12:37 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

It's easy to explain.

In Russia woman does not expect that anyone will change the whole system "to make it more user-friendly for women". She comes as foreigner who just want to "fit it". And everyone knows that it's not easy, it requires courage and bravery to do so. That is something to be admired. And while woman can complain when she's confronted with sexism and porn ("guys, this is too much - can you remove this picture?") she knows it's "male world" and she can only ask for so much. She's an immigrant in a foreign country and she knows that she can ask for help but she can not ask for a change of laws. Of course this means people will try to help: their positions are not threatened and women usually don't ask for too much.

In US woman expect the "equal footing" from the start. She demands to remove all discriminating elements as prerequisite ("this is just a list of the things that make women feel unwelcome" => there will be more demands in the future). Because it's "just wrong". The idea that it may be wrong but it's "law of the land" is not even considered. In short: she acts as an invader. She's not even "in the community" yet she already demands to change the laws of the community. Of course it leads to vitriol and hate. What's to admire in an occupant ?