OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

Posted Jul 28, 2009 12:16 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd by ctpm
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

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?

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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 :/