Some actual data about the total lack of actual data

Magnanimous of you.

> In all such situations I can think of and in every case you mention, the bias against men is a relatively recent development (ie. a century or less ago, the systemic bias in the comparable situation was against a female protagonist) and it has developed through processes and for reasons which are worth exploring.

I personally would call it backlash, but I'm sure there are other reasons it might occur.

> Now I'm sure sexist injustices against men occur, particularly where issues of child protection are involved. Prejudice and fear are very powerful things.

> So no, men don't have *all* the power, in America or almost anywhere else. But I don't think anyone said that.

Well, you said:

> Men have a natural privilege in any male-dominated environment.

Is not your fundamental argument that USAdian culture is in fact such an environment, generally?

Cause if so: *you* basically said that. I merely crystallized it before responding to it; clearly *I* do not think it's true.

> As to the circular fallacy -- someone won't get called sexist merely for denying he is a sexist, though if some other behaviour on his part plainly *is* sexist, he might get called a sexist *and* a dissembler. If he dominates a discussion with constant protestations he might also get accused of derailing or monopolizing. But no-one would do such a thing on lwn.net.

Wow. Slip a little innuendo in there, too. Nicely played. :-)

> But if someone protests loudly and often in a public place where he hasn't been accused of sexism that no, he's not a sexist, other people might start to wonder if he has been accused of sexism elsewhere, and if so, why.

I was not -- to take the targetting you're not explicitly giving for whatever reason -- "protesting that I was not a sexist"; I was questioning whether there is sufficient clean, normed data to justify a belief that there's actionable sexism in the FOSS community. If you don't believe that there's a lower limit for actionability (and let's let "death threats" go, here, ok; the action there isn't "fix sexism"; it's "arrest someone for aggravated assault" -- death threats have nothing to do with sexism, no matter what the sexes of the people involved), then we're probably done with this conversation, I suspect.

Ask an actuary the value of a human life some time.

> You're only guilty of sexism if what you do causes a disadvantage for women.

Personally, I believe you're guilty of sexism if you believe that people have non-sex-linked characteristics in greater or lesser amounts merely because of their sex; a much broader spectrum.

*Behaviors* are sexist if they advantage or disadvantage a person, and policies and practices, a group, based on (the) sex (of its members).

Clear thought. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

> If you're defending a status quo which has been established (albeit anecdotally, and that is enough) to disadvantage women, yes that's sexist.

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on "and that is enough"; this is a pretty major issue, and I don't believe that anecdotal reports are in fact enough.

===

To answer someone else's question, I've just gone and looked at TFA (which doesn't contain any actual data, and doesn't cite any source which *does* contain any data, and then at the highest ranked (by google) independent reference on the FLOSSPOLS survey, Hanna Wallach's presentation, which - mirabile visu - doesn't have any either.

I finally found the original report at

http://flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_In...

The paper makes several assertions which I'm not sure hold true based on the data they draw them from, but at least here, there's something that looks like it might be data... though, after scanning the paper, I don't actually think that's true, either.

It's difficult to evaulate the assumptions as much as anything else because the authors are not identified as to the credentials they hold for making such assertions; no degrees, no titles, merely a university affiliation. But we'll let that pass for a minute.

Let's see what they actually say:

Among other things: "flaming is accepted as a key means of developing a reputation".

What?

In my 25 years of experience, people who are flaming for the fun of it might fit that description, but actual hackers who you would interpret the writing of as flamage aren't even remotely thinking about its effect on their reputation: they're thinking about *the code, damnit*! You're screwing up the code; don't *do* that.

That was almost certainly the motivation for Linus' comments this week on the tty driver work. As I noted in that thread, Alan Cox is not especially a shrinking violet, and he certainly has enough work invested in the Linux kernel to want to see it continue to succeed.

But if that was Aurora he was chasing off, his behavior would be evidence of Sexism In FOSS? Nah; I don't think so.

Has nothing to *do* with their reputation: most of the hackers with whom I've ever interacted, people like Henry Spencer, Gene Spafford, Steve Bellovin, hell even Linux and Alan, are at best amused if not bemused at the idea that they *have* reputations, at least in my perception of them and their interactions with others.

Their *code*; sure.

And that's just the third of three "I don't understand the people I'm trying to evaluate" comments; the hits just keep on coming.

I'll say it again: show of hands: how many people here *went back to the source material and read it*?

I'll tell you what I *don't* see: I don't see the raw data. I don't see individual questions normed by anything, or separated by anything other than sex, though they clearly collected other data such as level of education. I don't see anything about how the respondents were selected, or confidence intervals or any of that cool stuff.

I will admit that I have not read every word on every page... but raw data tends to stick out pretty prominently as you scroll by.

Social science ain't physics... but it does have its own rules. And the source paper here doesn't seem to be following them as I have come to understand them.

Before y'all start aiming the "sexism" gun at people any further, you might want to make sure it has some bullets in it first.