Proprietary developers are in different position [LWN.net]

Proprietary developers are in different position

Posted Sep 30, 2007 14:33 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Ok. If the issue is "problems faced by women in FOSS" then where is the list ? by nix
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Don't know about your employer but in my case I was forced to study "code of conduct" rules and signed paper which signifies that I've read and accepted them - and I can be fired if I'll violate them. There was sizable chunk about "how not to offend female co-workers". I've not seen anything too restrictive from my viewpoint (I do not use soft porno pictures in my presentations, for example), but I can easily imagine guys who'll hate these rules, but will accept them: employer is employer, who pays sets the rules. But now these same rules are pushed in FOSS world - and I see why it does not fly: "LinuxChix is not my employer and not my mom, why should it set the rules for me ?"

When you can give better answer to this question than "we deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect just as any human being" - you'll be ready to set the rules. Because right now most "jerks" are offering you the same amount of "courtesy and respect" they offer "just as any human being": none. Their peers are accepting it, why can not you ?

P.S. It all looks like a story with topless bar: when feminist organizations started to complain male waiters were also deprived of the top... Here we have something similar: the same principles applied to male and female work differently so it's hard to achieve discrimination-less position...

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Proprietary developers are in different position

Posted Sep 30, 2007 15:12 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Your employer is a lot more... excessive about it than I am. (Perhaps one
advantage of working in the UK is that employers assume common courtesy
rather than slamming down what is by the sounds of it a ridiculously
overdone spiked iron fist and mandating it?)

I find it interesting that you consider that treating other human beings
with courtesy and respect is *optional*. I suppose it is, if you don't
mind driving most people away and having them call you nasty things when
you're not there. It's a `should do' on the same level as `remember to
shower regularly': if you don't do it, most people will dislike you. (But
perhaps you don't care about having everyone else dislike you and stay
away from you.)

Your comparison of software development to working in topless bars doesn't
even deserve a response. If you seriously think that the two occupations
are comparable, you're beyond help.

(It's amusing to me that I, a diagnosed autistic who had to *learn* this
stuff over several decades and am still very bad at it, am now having to
explain it to other people. I'm normally the one who makes social faux pas
and has to apologise for them: but perhaps the difference is that I care
if I'm doing so, and try to avoid it. Your words strongly imply that you
think that if you piss off other people through being unnecessarily nasty
to them, it is in some way *their* fault. I hope that attitude doesn't
land you in court or jail someday, is all...)

Anyway, I've had it with this thread.

Finally! Breaktrough...

Posted Sep 30, 2007 17:31 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

My employer is US company. They need this paper for accidents. The "no discrimination" hysteria in US is such that company can be sued if it can not prove that it did everything it could to avoid "unjust discrimination". So if they got the paper and someone called female worker "bitch" and than said "bitch" sued the company - it can show that it's employer's fault: he signed papers so was warned.

As for courtesy and respect - yes, that's the problem. Respect is not a right. It must be earned. And optionality of needless courtesy is often considered a feature among FOSS developers.

And the topless bar story just shows that the same rules when applied in the exact same way to male and female can be acceptable for male and offensive for female. If the situation in FOSS is not like that then my comparison is wrong, of course, but then the question arises: what's the hoopla is all about if rules happily accepted by males are driving females away ?

Proprietary developers are in different position

Posted Sep 30, 2007 22:32 UTC (Sun) by mepr (guest, #4819) [Link] (2 responses)

The person who said something along the lines of "I can't think of examples of females being treated badly for being females, but maybe it's just because they are so few" is on to something.
The people who said that women are socialized out of programming were also largely correct, I think.
There is a woman who became a member of the LUG in my town. Her story is interesting. She never learned to play chess because nobody ever suggested to her that it was a good idea. She never learned to program for the same reason. At the same time, her brother was encouraged in these same things, and went on to be a programmer.
In her early twenties, she tries chess and finds out that she's good at it. Then she tried programming and found out that she's good at that. Within a couple of years she was a Debian developer, and currently maintains a fairly well known Debian package.
Unfortunately, she quit going to lug meetings, because despite repeated, direct comments on the subject by her and others, there were a few of the males in the group that insisted on making highly unwelcome, highly sexualized and demeaning remarks.
What is so difficult to understand that there are very few people willing to put up with such things for very long? I have long held the theory that women avoid working in IT because they would rather work in one of the many fields where they will be treated with a modicum of respect and not live through incessant pissing contests at work.

And that is small model of the story of "women in FOSS", right ?

Posted Sep 30, 2007 23:11 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

She quit going to lug meetings, because despite repeated, direct comments on the subject by her and others, there were a few of the males in the group that insisted on making highly unwelcome, highly sexualized and demeaning remarks.

Yup. And when time come to choose between "one intelligent woman" and "few male jerks" majority choose "few male jerks", right ? If behavior of people does not change and it's not acceptable - they must be removed from the group. That is the question which should be discussed first: are members of community (LUG, LKML, gentoo-dev, etc) ready to kick out few male members to make women fell comfortable and who exactly can be kicked and who will not be kicked - no matter what. Then you can decide if you want to try to "make women feel welcome". It's tough question - but without answering it you'll only get flames and steam...

And that is small model of the story of "women in FOSS", right ?

Posted Oct 1, 2007 21:09 UTC (Mon) by mepr (guest, #4819) [Link]

Yup. And when time come to choose between "one intelligent woman" and "few male jerks" majority choose "few male jerks", right ? If behavior of people does not change and it's not acceptable - they must be removed from the group. You're right, that's essentially what happened.

Given the dynamics of the group, it would be quite difficult to kick out a person for such a thing. The local LUG is largely run as a very informal, loose association. It was difficult in the particular (non-isolated) incident I am thinking of, because one of the people involved was well liked by most of the group, even though most people there were not happy about it.

However, I am glad to say that the kind of behavior we are talking about is not tolerated on the LUG's mailing list. The rare unacceptable comment generally receives a very strong response and we have never had to kick someone off of the list.

BTW, I hope that my comments (and the summation of this thread) don't make it seem that people who care about F/OSS software are bad people. In fact, a great deal of the reason why I have been involved has been the idealistic community spirit shared by many of us, and the unusually high density of principled people and deep thinkers.

In fact, I usually find that people who love F/OSS software are usually wonderful people that have wonderful significant others. Also, I think the majority of us recognized that we are diminished by having too few women around.

However, I wonder if a culture that is perennially stocked with immature males will take a long time to grow up.

Also BTW, WRT groups that promote the involvement of females in F/OSS, they are performing a needed service. It is just the way of things that people need role models and mentorship, and it is also the usual way of things that people need a mentor that is like them. Isn't the wizard/apprentice one of the oldest stories in hackerdom? If it is more likely for that bond to form between people of the same gender, then such groups provide a place to go for women that look in their immediate environment and don't find a same-gender role model.