OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd [LWN.net]

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 27, 2009 23:42 UTC (Mon) by smadu2 (guest, #54943)
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

"So what does it feel like to be a woman in open source? Jono Bacon, at the Community Leadership Summit on the weekend, said addressing the guys in the room that if you want to know what its like to be a woman in open source, go and get your nails done at a salon. He did this a week or so back, and when he walked into the salon he realised he was the only man there, and felt kind of out of place."

How can anyone feel out of place to subscribe to mailing lists, participate in the discussions, and start posting patches etc ? Thats where most if not all stuff happens.

to post comments

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 0:30 UTC (Tue) by chromatic (guest, #26207) [Link] (17 responses)

Some people are shy. Some people don't like confrontation, even implied. Some people wait for others to ask them to participate.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 0:45 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (16 responses)

And if they see other people being flamed to a crisp for tiny (often
imperceptible) infractions, and other signs of terminal testosterone
poisoning, they may choose not to participate.

Not that any free software development lists are remotely like that.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 11:58 UTC (Tue) by ctpm (guest, #35884) [Link] (15 responses)

[chromatic]:
> Some people are shy. Some people don't like confrontation, even
implied. Some people wait for others to ask them to participate.

Sorry, but this is true for *both* women and men. To me, the above
sentences suggest that you think that women are somehow "inferior" or
unable to withstand confrontation.

[nix]:
> And if they see other people being flamed to a crisp for tiny (often
> imperceptible) infractions, and other signs of terminal testosterone
> poisoning, they may choose not to participate.

And again, how does that specifically pertain to women as opposed to
men? So, if I'm a guy and I get flamed to a crisp, well tough luck, now
if I'm a girl, oh nooo, just not acceptable!...
Also, please remember that women can flame as good as men. I've seen my
share of women that can bring a guy/girl to tears in tech or semi-tech
jobs, so when it comes to being unpleasant, both genders are equally
capable.

People, don't you notice a pattern here? Most articles I've seen
referred on LWN about the subject of women equality on free software
projects are actually arguing for the opposite, that is, differentiated
treatment.

The current article is outright *sexist* (despite claiming against it)
and to me, it seemed to suggest that women are somehow handicapped.

An lets look at some gems from the article:

"It's kind of like being handed a box full of random bicycle parts: it
doesn't help when you don't know how they go together and just want to
learn how to ride a bike."

Well, that would be true for anyone trying to join the project, man or
woman. So there is no evident relation.

"I considered getting involved in Debian, but the barriers to entry
seemed high."

Ditto.

What the author of the article needs to understand is that usually a
free software (or any other) project sets out with a goal of a specific
technical complexity. If the project is to succeed, its developers need
to have a certain level of technical skill.
Obviously not every newcomer is at that skill or experience level. Now,
as an inexperienced newcomer, you have to options: you can chose to be
humble, lurk on the lists and try to slowly learn the necessary skills or
you can choose to whine about how you are unskilled and don't learn
anything and that others are unpleasant to you.
Its the same thing as a job interview. Would you find it odd that a
company tries to hire the right person for a job? You either convince
them that you have the potential or you're going to fail the interview;
no amount of whining will save you.

I'm not saying that free projects should be done in a "kill or be
killed" kind of environment but they certainly are about solving
problems, surpassing difficulties and improving ourselves as developers
while withstanding adversity and competition. If you don't have that kind
of attitude as a newcomer, chances are that people won't value you as
much.

So, in fact to me it seems that what this article says is "women are
morons, please cut them some slack". And that certainly doesn't help.

And in conclusion, again quoting from the article:

"Call people on their crap.
If someone's being an asshole, call them on their crap. How do you tell
if someone's being an asshole?"

Yes, I have to call the author of the article on her crap.

Best regards

Cláudio

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 12:16 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (9 responses)

Sorry, but this is true for *both* women and men. To me, the above sentences suggest that you think that women are somehow "inferior" or unable to withstand confrontation.

Obviously I don't think that: but let's have a thought experiment. Room full of women, man speaks up: is he likely to get shouted down, even if what he says is controversial? Now flip the sexes. Is the result the same? Not in my experience.

It is a matter of documented fact that e.g. in single-sex (11+) schools girls do dramatically better than in mixed-sex schools, apparently both because they're not being intimidated by testosterone overload and because the classes are less hectic. For boys the proportions are reversed.

Extrapolating from generalizations about entire sexes to the behaviour of any one member of that sex is fallacious: but it is generally true that in groups men tend to be confrontational with each other, that this behaviour gets more extreme the more unbalanced the gender ratio, and that there are fewer women who enjoy acting like that than men (especially if the women get extra unpleasant attention merely because of their sex, that shy men are spared). This could very well scare away both large numbers of shyer men *and* yet larger numbers of shyer women.

In fact the 'women get an extra burden of attention from unpleasant members of the opposite sex which is not given to men, shy or not' could explain quite a bit of the imbalance without requiring any such generalizations at all. Flip the gender ratios over and it would still work (for other fields, of course, we don't have an excess-of-women problem here).

This is all purest speculation: input from women is needed! Are my speculations wildly off-base?

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 18:02 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (5 responses)

My girlfriend always envies me because I work in a nearly male-only environment. She used to work as a teacher in a primary school, where most fellow teachers were women. She said that's a terrible place to work, because female teachers did nothing, but spreading rumours, bad-mouthing each other (of course, only when the other turned their back to them, etc.), bickering, etc. Think about negative cliches about women - it happened there: for example teachers were shouting at each other in front of the parents of the children. The mood was especially bad around the time they had their period (the periods of females living close together tend to synchronize over time). I heard similar things from my (male) headmaster.

The mood at my workplace is quite different. Of course there are tensions when the deadline is coming, but generally we're helping each other out, because we're working for the same goals (not against each other), there's very little confrontation. In that mostly female-environment it was a constant theme that "why does she get the promotion, why don't I?" and the like, but in the last 10 years I've only found one guy here with a similar mindset. I guess that when females are removed from the environment, there's no point in competing for them. That's the kind of competition that leads to the confrontation you mention.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 23:48 UTC (Tue) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (4 responses)

> She used to work as a teacher in a primary school, where most fellow teachers were women. She said that's a terrible place to work, because female teachers did nothing, but spreading rumours, bad-mouthing each other (of course, only when the other turned their back to them, etc.), bickering, etc. Think about negative cliches about women - it happened there: for example teachers were shouting at each other in front of the parents of the children.

Then think what it means that despite all that, the students still do *better* there than in a mixed-sex school. (Assuming that nix's data are accurate, which I haven't checked myself, but I don't see any reason to doubt. In particular, your anecdote is striking and all, but anyone who looks at an anecdote and a proper study that seem to contradict each other, and chooses to believe the anecdote, is choosing to guide their belief by something other than reason.)

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 1:38 UTC (Wed) by SEMW (guest, #52697) [Link]

>> She used to work as a teacher in a primary school, where most fellow teachers were women.

>Then think what it means that despite all that, the students still do *better* there than in a mixed-sex school.

Don't confuse mixed-sex teaching staff with mixed-sex student body. Primary schools will usually be female-teacher-dominated, whether they're single-sex or mixed; and single-sex schools often don't restrict themselves to teachers of that sex (mine, a boys school, had an approx. 60/40 male/female staff).

That said, I'd still be wary of NAR's anecdotal evidence: primary schools and technology companies are very different places to work, perhaps too different to be able to seperate out gender influences from other factors.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 7:32 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (2 responses)

It's not about student performance (which BTW decreased as the teacher profession became felame-oriented, but that's I think mostly a coincidence), it's about a mostly female work environment. I think I'm not able to properly channel my thoughts into proper English sentences, but I'll try.

If you work in a mostly male environment like me, that we're probably shielded from much of the ugly dealings of females. First of all, there are very few females around, most of these dealings go behind the scenes and what I've heards is that primary motive behind these deailng is to get a (specific) male - when there's an abudance of males (in a mostly male work environment), there's not much competition for them. On the other hand in the above mentioned school certain female teachers would rather claw each other's eyes out to get to know the PE teacher really well.

I have an other female friend who works in a mostly female environment, she said similar things. At her workplace females are badmouthing each other to get into the (male) boss's bed.

I don't know if you'v seen the file Maléna (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213847/). The women in the village are loathing the title character - because she's beautiful. I'd thought that it's just a film and real life is different, but what I've heard from female friends real life actually resembles the film a lot more closely than I'd like. It's not sexist males who try to hinder female advances, but other jelaous females. This is not related to FOSS at all, this is related to a mostly-female environment and to the fact that females are not angel-like creatures, they are just like us, males: humans.

One more comment. On the weekend I've participated in a bicycle race. Nothing extreme, so there were 225 participants. 25 of them were female, that's about 10%. I'm pretty sure that females are not flamed to crisp in a bicycle race (mostly because noone has enough breath to do that :-), still there were lot less females in the race that I see day to day on the streets commuting (that looks like 50%). Participating in a bicycle race is a hobby, just like participating in the FOSS movement. Maybe, just maybe, the real reason for low female participation in FOSS is not due to the unwelcoming environment (which scares away males as well), but due to not trying to participate in the first place? I'm not saying there aren't assholes in the community - there certainly are. But they drive away males just like females, and the reason why few females stay in the community is that fewer are trying at all.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 7:41 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

One thing I forgot: there very well could be cultural differences between an ex-communist Central European country and the U.S.

patriarchy

Posted Jul 29, 2009 8:21 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

Traditional patriarchy is perpetuated by women as well as by men: both in the divide-and-conquer sense where women compete for male favour and in the sense that mothers raise their sons to rule and their daughters to serve; and in the double standard where "boys will be boys" and "sow wild oats" but girls are expected to remain chaste.

That's absolutely normal and expected in a community where power and advantage flows through male veins: to get ahead within the system, you must uphold it.

And yes, I'd say there are huge cultural differences amongst countries, but also "the past is another country". Exceptional individual women have always been able to go far outside traditional boundaries in almost any society. In limited ways (ie. in the law books) some communist countries were for a long time far more progressive than the USA, and but becoming ex-communist those countries have probably also become somewhat ex-progressive. Once again, this is normal and expected.

However there is probably no place in the world where the whole society continues to operate on purely patriarchal principles, nor anywhere sexism has actually been eradicated. The latter is probably not really possible.

The microcosm of the female-dominated workplace in your anecdotes is interesting, but it in no way contradicts the notion that it is men who benefit from historical male privilege and from ongoing sexism along traditional lines. Any place where female subordinates compete sexually for the favour of a male boss (however well-behaved) remains utterly patriarchal.

Womens' spaces exist wherein the privilege is deliberately reversed -- but they are few and far between, and justified on precisely the grounds that male privilege remains strong in society at large.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 14:42 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

let's have a thought experiment. Room full of women, man speaks up: is he likely to get shouted down, even if what he says is controversial? Now flip the sexes. Is the result the same?

Let's have an other thought experiment: room full of men, a woman they all know enters - will anyone tell her "Oh, you have put on some weight, haven't you?". If the room is full of women, my girlfriend is pretty sure that someone will mention those extra kilos.

An other thought experiment: I'm standing at a koncert in the thightly packed arena and a couple of guys are elbowing their way to the first line. I think you'd guess that males would tell those guys off - but in my experience it's always females who tell these kinds of guys off.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 18:03 UTC (Wed) by yatima (guest, #59881) [Link] (1 responses)

"This is all purest speculation: input from women is needed! Are my speculations wildly off-base?"

Not off-base at all. You're right on target.

Incidentally, while studies show that teenage girls do far better in single-sex schools, the same studies show that teenage boys do better in co-educational environments. If this translated over to the real world, what might you expect to see? Men in male-dominated environments decrying the absence of women but not sure what to do about it, while women form female-dominated groups to work on similar projects in a more congenial environment? Oh look, it's open source software.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 20:47 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

That's fascinating and depressing. I hope it doesn't mean there is no
solution :/

your privilege is showing

Posted Jul 28, 2009 12:23 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

Dude, check your privilege.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 21:02 UTC (Tue) by chromatic (guest, #26207) [Link]

To me, the above sentences suggest that you think that women are somehow "inferior" or unable to withstand confrontation.

I believe you're reading too much into what I wrote: I specifically avoided any words which imply gender. I know plenty of men and women who dislike confrontation.

I'd like to see free software projects favor respect over rudeness, hostility, and personal disagreements. I believe that will encourage more participation from many people who currently choose not to participate.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 2:10 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (2 responses)

I just had this conversation -- or it's analogue -- with a black cow-orker.

I'm white and male, and have worked with people of various races and nationalities over my life, but this is really the first time I've worked with black people in what I guess I would call an upper-socioeconomic business environment, closely enough to get to know them fairly well. As I expected, they're little different from me.

But it has made for some interesting conversations on race, and -- Robert Parker's Hawk and his opinions on the topic aside -- I've found that a lot of my assumptions are pretty close on.

The one that's at hand right now has to do with the phrase "you people", or "your people", as black people often get bent up about the use of by white people. I said something that was *not* that as a throwaway the other morning while talking with 2 of our HR ladies, one of whom is about a 60-40 mix, colorwise, and the other, a... Cape Verde Islander? One of those accents that sounds vaguely Jamaican, but isn't.

The door being opened, I later asked one of them about the disconnect between "we don't want you to discriminate against it just because we're a minority" and "say it loud; I'm Black and proud!" She really couldn't find much to say about it.

It really does seem to be that they want it both ways... and it's common amongst groups who are (or perceive themselves as, or are perceived as) minorities in their larger society: Deaf people (with a capital D) have some similar intersocietal behavioral tics. (If you want more on that, Google up "cochlear implant Deaf culture" and be prepared to duck)

So indeed, Claudio, I agree with you: there seems to be some schizophrenia in the group behaviors of minority groups, and it comes out pretty squarely in conversations like this.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 3:36 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

> Deaf people (with a capital D) have some similar intersocietal behavioral tics. (If you want more on that, Google up "cochlear implant Deaf culture" and be prepared to duck)

This is off-topic, but since today seems to be my day to call people on things... I am genuinely offended by this statement. Certainly cochlear implants are a complex issue, but to dismiss a marginalized group's opinions on an often-problematic medical intervention as a "tic"? That's disgusting.

(Perhaps this makes our interchange an example of the "schizophrenia in the group behaviors" of white males; but then again, perhaps not, because members of a unprivileged minority can't get away with half the things you're doing.)

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 30, 2009 1:48 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

I haven't the impression from the (admittedly somewhat cursory) googling around that I did that "often-problematic" was the proper characterization; certainly CI surgery doesn't always provide what the non hearing impaired would call "good hearing", but you're correct in that the analogy with this handicap is probably not all that good.

I have, though looked into the arguments made by the Deaf community on CI surgery (capital D on purpose), and I have to tell you, as what I consider to be a reasonable man (yeah, yeah, don't bother :-) I have to say that someone who can *afford* CI surgery for a child, whose physician tells them that it has an excellent chance of allowing that child to function in the "real world" (where sound is, y'know, pretty common -- like car horns?), and deciding consciously not to allow that *because they want their child to grow up in the Deaf Community -- for me, that's so close to child abuse that you have to talk me down off the ledge...

and I'm about the most liberal 40 year old I know.

Hence my choice of wording; I apologize if you took it personally.

(I'll note here, for what it's worth, my view that if you are not deaf, you're not really *entitled* to be offended by what I said...)

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 3:00 UTC (Tue) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link] (6 responses)

"How can anyone feel out of place to subscribe to mailing lists, participate in the discussions, and start posting patches etc? Thats where most if not all stuff happens."

Many mailing lists and IRC channels have a quite aggressive culture, unwelcoming to newcomers. Others have a culture where sexist comments or "humour" is allowed. Some open source forums have even had people posting death threats against women in open source. See, eg, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/03/debian_death_thre...

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 3:44 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (4 responses)

The flip side, however, is some sort of a thoughts police. If somebody did something stupid, not telling her about it is equally as bad.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 8:02 UTC (Tue) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses)

We are not obliged to pick between death threats or Orwellian thought police. There are other options.

No-one's saying "when you see people being wrong you should pretend that everything is just fine!" You might notice that plenty of people in this discussion are happy to argue their points quite vigorously :-). But it is possible -- sometimes difficult, sometimes taking more time than one necessarily has, I know -- to help someone in a way that is, well, helpful.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 9:27 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (1 responses)

And maybe I do things just for fun. And maybe "a community" is not my primary concern.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 0:58 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

I didn't say anything about communities or your motivations for doing things, so... uh... is this a response and you accidentally left out the part that makes it responsive, or are just changing the subject, or... what?

Also, I'm not sure how to say this: Reading over this thread, the only way I can make *some* kind of sense of what you've written is as saying that aggression and sexism, up to and including death threats, are things you do for fun. I'm pretty sure that's not what you *mean* to say, but... you might want to read things over and think about how to say what you do mean, if that's not it?

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 22:16 UTC (Tue) by smadu2 (guest, #54943) [Link]

exactly! If I do/say something stupid (technically) - I would want people to correct me ... else I see no point for me to be a part of that group ...

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 2:14 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

Yes, one.

Especially if not more than one, you're making an *awfully* large amout of stew from one oyster.

I'll fall back on the statistical noise argument I made earlier: there is almost *no* statistical extrapolation that is likely to be safe to make about "the entire FOSS community" because it is so flippin small.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 15:16 UTC (Wed) by dannyobrien (subscriber, #25583) [Link] (5 responses)

It's very possible to feel out of place (do you remember when you first started posting?): it is entirely possible that it is even more unwelcoming for some people than others.

When I *once* adopted a female-sounding pseudonym in such a space (by accident -- my usual username was taken), I received a threat of violence.

One of the people (not in this discussion, but another of the many on Skud's talk, which was excellent, reasonable and perceptive), has been arguing that women are complaining too much about sexism in open source. I know that this man harassed at least one woman coder on a project -- sending her inappropriate males, groping her in real life. The woman involved won't speak up because to do so will subject her to this kind of barrage of abuse and suspicion online, and she received no back up when she mentioned it to her male colleagues at the time.

Why bother? Why not just go to an environment that is friendlier, and not have to constantly fight within an environment where even criticising is viewed as "whining" about nothing, and whose conversation simply highlights how much people ignore and tolerate behaviour that in other communities would result in censure?

I'm really glad there are now projects that won't put up with this kind of crap in the open source community and wish them the best of luck. As the keynote says, I suspect they are heading for a much larger community of contributors, and will reap the benefits of attracting brilliant individuals who have been systematically derided and excluded in many of our projects until now.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 29, 2009 23:58 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] (2 responses)

> When I *once* adopted a female-sounding pseudonym in such a space (by
> accident -- my usual username was taken), I received a threat of violence.

Sobering. Distressingly sobering. It only takes a single arsehole -- in a private communication -- to make a public, supposedly all-welcoming, space into an extremely hostile, threatening arena. One must feel as though thrown to the lions.

> The woman involved won't speak up because to do so will subject her
> to this kind of barrage of abuse and suspicion online, and she
> received no back up when she mentioned it to her male colleagues
> at the time.

With colleagues like that, who needs stalkers? I'm very disappointed.

It's a pity this anecdote is anonymous. I am very glad that others are not.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Aug 12, 2009 23:27 UTC (Wed) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link] (1 responses)

I've said a lot about this without ever doing this, intentionally or by accident. I think I'll try this sometime as an experiment.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Aug 12, 2009 23:28 UTC (Wed) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link]

I meant adopting a female-sounding pseudonym somewhere, btw.

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 30, 2009 1:50 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (1 responses)

Why *not* go to another project?

Schily scared everyone away from cdrecord, finally, and now we have wodim, and we don't have to deal with it anymore.

Is not the alternative merely enabling?

OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 30, 2009 9:44 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

That would be a more impressive argument if wodim wasn't almost entirely
maintenance-dead.

(Of course, that's because it basically *works*.)