As part of the group

Posted Jul 30, 2009 11:46 UTC (Thu) by alankila (guest, #47141)
In reply to: As part of the group by Baylink
Parent article: OSCON keynote: Standing out in the crowd

"And that's just prima facie unreasonable. Rules for conduct in a small subculture are set by the subculture to suit its members; it has always been thus, and there's no reason it should not continue."

One of the key points of the so-called non-sexists' side is that we should change the culture anyway. You know, to be more welcoming to women, who do seem to dislike the typical male competitive culture. This culture, which I do respect, seems to be put down with terms like this:

- terminal testosterone poisoning
- testosterone overload

Add to the mix characterizations of FLOSS male developers. One commenter thought that "many of them" suffer from Asperger's syndrome, or perhaps autism.

Here's a thought experiment. Would I be within my rights to demand somewhat more respectful terminology for male attributes, which have, after all, produced quite a lot of cultural artifacts, engineering and scientific marvels along the thousands of years of slow progress of civilization. I'm not saying women should be excluded, but I'm saying that this discussion treats neither men (or women) fairly.

Further food for thought: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

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As part of the group

Posted Jul 31, 2009 3:08 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

It's true, some people dislike the "typical male competitive culture" currently common in FOSS communities. (Though all the references to Asperger's/autism that I've seen have been from people defending the status quo.) As a male, I often find it unpleasant myself, for reasons totally independent of its attitude towards women. I'm also not convinced that this culture is exactly "typical" (with its connotations of "natural, "desireable"); but, say we accept the usual stereotypes for a moment -- did I really suffer through high-school just so I could grow up to become an (online) jock?

But.

To me, that's a different discussion. If women don't want to hang around with men "being men" or whatever, then fine, we could debate whether that indicates a problem or not, but it's not what we're seeing here. Women who try to participate in FLOSS face nasty, active discrimination from a number of directions, and if they point this out they're met with a mix of apathy and violent dismissal. I don't think that's acceptable regardless of a subculture's internal values, I don't think it's at all necessary to "male culture", and I certainly don't think it's an example of a positive male attribute that deserves better terminology. Really, this is a very specific point, and one that I hope we can agree on even if we don't see eye-to-eye on other matters. (Do we agree?)

I know it's not the point you necessarily want to talk about, but I find it difficult to discuss the culture in general when some of the people arguing are just using it as a socially acceptable way to shut down the sexism debate. See where I'm coming from?

As part of the group

Posted Jul 31, 2009 13:22 UTC (Fri) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link]

We agree.

The issue is just very multifaceted, and it's easy to try to fix it in some way that produces a worse result than status quo. That's what worries me about all gender politics, which this discussion is an instance of. I think it's a problem of limited attention: people only see the problem they are trying to fix, not the good stuff that also works, but which will be broken by their fix. So that's where I'm coming from.

Unfortunately I have no useful personal experience about the sort of discrimination you are talking about, and I can't really contribute to that discussion.