Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ? [LWN.net]

Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ?

Posted Sep 30, 2007 7:18 UTC (Sun) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501)
In reply to: Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ? by tuxchick
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Strangely enough, the article we all comment to points to several conflicting "solutions".

The comment you posted to tries to sort things out. But asking hard questions is not Politically Correct. So you just dismiss his arguments. Or personal motives. Anybody who doesn't agree with you is an enemy who must be shot down?

This has been very unpleasant discussion, and personally led me to think that there's a big bunch of raving feminists I shouldn't even spend my time reading.

to post comments

Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ?

Posted Sep 30, 2007 9:37 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

Well, I've found a good few unpleasant misogynists by reading the same
threads.

The phrase `raving feminist' itself is pretty revealing. There *are* some
people who could be described as `raving feminists' --- reverse sexism,
basically, `men are worthless' and such tripe --- but I've seen none on
this thread, and they're so rare they can generally be discounted.

All the posters to this thread have been saying is that it would be nice
if we didn't drive women away, and let's find out what we're doing to do
that, and by the way being vicious and sexist is unpleasant and let's
stop. In response to this a bunch of people have acted like we're coming
in and spraying them with scary girl cooties OH NOES --- the `dolls and
ponies' comment was particularly disgustingly stereotyped.

If I was female, this thread would probably drive me away on its own.

Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ?

Posted Sep 30, 2007 15:23 UTC (Sun) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (1 responses)

There were some interesting comments. But they were generally lost in the noise.

The problem is that some people are so afraid of hurting any women and thus (oh no!) scaring them away, that they will not let us discuss the facts.

You cannot even mention that a certain prominent female developer started its development life as a man (the name, mind you, was chosen, probably mistakefully, as example in the article) without a bunch of people with good intentions coming to hush you.

There's also a matter of tradeoff that nobody seems to mention: what is the price of those steps?

Suppose that the current "community" has 5% women and 95% men (just making up those number, just like 53.74% of the statistics thrown in in this discussion). Now suppose that your steps manage to double the number of women in the field. But because of the changes they bring, tenth of the men no longer like to contribute.

Do the math: you got a decrese of 5% of the population. Not very successful.

Now of course those are numbers I have made up. And I know that no one wants to chace off men from the field. But you have to be careful with that. Are you?

And I'm not impressed with the "50%" figure: there are two important causes that greatly decrease the proportion of women in free software projects, and will not be addressed simply by being nicer to women:

1. The percepcion of this subject. A matter of education. Face it: there are very few girls in math. Thus even if this is to change, it is a matter of decades.

2. The role of women in the family. This is gradually changing, but slowly. And certainly has an effect on something that requires much devotion of time.

Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ?

Posted Sep 30, 2007 18:00 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Just one point here (I'm too tired to handle the lot but this jumped out
at me): the role of women in the family is surely not relevant in most
Western societies. Across most of Europe the average age of childbirth is
nearing thirty (perhaps even above it) and there are a goodly number of
good free software hackers still in their teens. A large proportion are in
their twenties, far more than the *total* number of female free software
hackers.

So, no, whatever the explanation is, that's not it.