Bogus ? Think again. [LWN.net]

Bogus ? Think again.

Posted Sep 30, 2007 0:34 UTC (Sun) by tuxchick (guest, #42009)
In reply to: Bogus ? Think again. by khim
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Khim, I misread your comment- you were referring to some specific
incidents. Sorry I ranted at you! You are right that trying to make
someone fit into a role they're not interested is doomed to failure.

As far as FOSS goes, I'll settle for getting rid of the barriers that
already exist for women who are interested in contributing. I don't care
if it's 50/50 or 90/10 or whatever. I don't want roses and ponies. I just
want to do my thing and not get hassled by jerks and trolls, and not get
hassled by folks who think that being part of FOSS means tolerating jerks
and trolls.

to post comments

Bogus ? Think again.

Posted Oct 1, 2007 16:30 UTC (Mon) by N0NB (guest, #3407) [Link]

Having been involved with F/OSS for the better part of a decade, I think that having to deal with jerks and trolls is not a gender specific issue. The sucessful person in this field forges ahead regardless of their antics.

Perhaps we need to examine why many women find this so off-putting as to allow the trolls and jerks to dictate what they do while many men seem to be able to shrug the jerks and trolls off and continue their work on a project. This, I suspect, is a fundamental difference between the genders.

Is it that jerks and trolls don't exist in other fields of endeavor that women gravitate to? I doubt it. Most likely it is because the F/OSS community is so open and public that the jerks and trolls voices are amplified and women in general have no interest in these kinds of public confrontations.

That's one aspect of the "problem". Another could be that many men are interested in what goes on inside the "box", while many women are interested in how they can use and benefit from the "box" ("box" being a device or software, etc.). So, it may well be that men and women approach a technology with a different sort of curiosity and the "problem" is no more complicated than that.