Active discrimination, or feeling oppressed?
Active discrimination, or feeling oppressed?
Posted Jul 29, 2009 1:59 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338)In reply to: Active discrimination, or feeling oppressed? by dlang
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd
Well, sure, that may be a factor. But it's hard to tell, isn't it, while we *know* that there's blatant sexism at play too? And this kind of explanation can itself be harmful: it's not testable; it doesn't suggest any useful course of action; and anyone who's looking for some way to ignore the real, demonstrable problems can (and does) take it as an excuse to throw up their hands and stop thinking. So, yeah, maybe in a perfect world the gender ratio in FOSS ends up being 40/60 or 50/50 or even 30/70, who knows -- but I don't think that should affect what we do here and now.
(And do you really want to point to hotrodding culture as a model for appropriate attitudes toward women?)