Let's remove the plank from our own eye first. [LWN.net]

Let's remove the plank from our own eye first.

Posted Oct 2, 2007 17:37 UTC (Tue) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026)
In reply to: One interesting statistic by gravious
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

Suppose we write a program that makes some calculation error. Could this be a bug in the compiler or some external library? Yes, but we should suspect our own code first. Only after we're certain that it's correct is it reasonable to consider blaming some other component.

We can't control the choices women make but we can take steps to make our community more welcoming to them. Let's find out what happens if we try.

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Let's remove the plank from our own eye first.

Posted Oct 14, 2007 14:28 UTC (Sun) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] (1 responses)

Sorry... 12 days later...

Sure, regards taking steps - we should reprogram misogynists and deplore advertising that uses curves to sell wares. But shouldn't we be doing that anyway? (By being empathic sheeple I mean.) Are we suggesting that FOSS nerds/geeks are less mindful of women than the average Joe Bloggs. The thing is, we don't know if this _is_ a bug or calculation error in our code. Having said that I am all for following the "get your own house in order before you go trying to spring-clean others" dictum :)

Let's remove the plank from our own eye first.

Posted Oct 14, 2007 20:06 UTC (Sun) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Are we suggesting that FOSS nerds/geeks are less mindful of women than the average Joe Bloggs.

Maybe. Unfortunately, we can be pretty sure something is going on with FOSS in particular, because female participation in FOSS is lower than in practically anything else. There are a higher proportion of female *construction workers* -- by reputation, at least, one of the most male-dominated and misogynistic fields out there -- than there are female FOSS contributors (see).