Yet another male perspective on women in free software [LWN.net]

By Jonathan Corbet
October 3, 2007

O'Reilly has been running a series of articles on women in technology which has an emphasis on encouraging women to enter the field. LWN has, in its usual way, posted pointers to a subset of those articles; most of those pointers have resulted in lengthy conversations among LWN readers. Those readers, true to their usual form, have managed to hold a higher-level discussion than has been seen in other forums. That said, there have been a lot of bits expended on discussions of topics like relative brain sizes, differing approaches to family life, the true femininity of transsexuals, and so on. Your editor, not generally known for being short of opinions, could expound on many of these topics, but that is not going to happen here. Such discussions are not really relevant to the topic at hand.

The relevant discussion, it seems, can be much more simple and straightforward, concentrating on a few basic points:

The participation by women in the free software community is strikingly low. It is not just far below the incidence of women in the wider world; it is also well below the percentage of women found in more traditional technical jobs.
We would be better off if we could attract more women to our community. We are not so rich that we can afford to do without skilled developers, writers, artists, project managers, and so on. We are not so diverse that we can afford to do without a wider variety of points of view.
We, as a community, behave in ways which drive women away. We are also good at repelling people with thin skins, people with different cultural expectations on how professionals talk to each other, and anybody else who does not easily fit in.

There is no need to get drawn into blind alleys about genetic links to mathematical ability or the demands of family life. There is no point in being distracted by strawmen, be they an outspoken feminist that somebody finds particularly obnoxious or the notion that somebody is calling for a quota of 50% female participation. There is no shortage of incredibly smart, talented, and interested women out there who have found our community unwelcoming; that, on its own terms, is a problem.

When comments (not on LWN, happily) respond to this year's kernel summit group photo by comparing the relative merits of the few female developers found there, our community as a whole becomes that much more hostile. When certain Linux publications run overtly demeaning ads, a clear view of how women should participate in free software is being communicated. When sexist idiots drive one of the most humorous and human diaries off the net, we all lose out. When well-intentioned commenters employ terms like "sausage fest," they show that we still clearly miss the point. When women are harassed at Linux events, there is a good chance that they will not come back. And when all of these things (and worse) drive people out of our community, we are all impoverished as a result.

Making things better does not require the establishment of some sort of police force to enforce extensive rules. We do not need to replicate Gentoo's "proctors" experiment. We do not have to establish official codes of conduct, though making it clear that a certain level of polite and respectful behavior is expected cannot hurt. But if we can recognize the problem - that our community's behavior is driving away women and many other potential contributors - without trying to bury it in irrelevant strawman arguments, we will be off to a good start. We are, as a community, good at solving problems once we realize that they need our attention. This one needs our attention.

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