OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 26, 2009 3:04 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)
In reply to: OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering by mjg59
Parent article: FSF to host a mini-summit on Women in Free Software

Matt,

I was a rafting guide for Environmental Traveling Companions, a group which took people with many different sorts of disability on white-water rafting trips. There were people with developmental delays, and blind people, and kids with cancer, and paraplegics. My job was to help provide them with a good time and to help get them down the river without getting them killed or hurt. Dealing with their emotional issues was one part of it, but I also had to help the blind folks use the pit toilet and the paraplegics to empty their catheters. There were often multiple guides per boat due to the nature of the clients disabilities. I also helped to assist a blind person through his entire time in college.

And I am myself a survivor of (a different set of) developmental delays. So, I've got the experience.

I'm not at all clear who RMS is supposed to apologize to. The most vocal complainer has been Lefty, who does not appear to be a woman. I know Stormy Peters, one of the people behind the upcoming FSF meeting, and I've not heard her calling for an apology. And I still question that the few women who I have heard (third-hand) claim to be offended really should have been offended.

In RMS' position I might well have chosen not to engage in what would rapidly become a low-road argument, and to instead operate some sort of high-road activity such as we see scheduled.

I have known many critics of RMS, but none who would do a better job in his place, and certainly none who put as much of their lives into it as he does.

to post comments

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 26, 2009 9:29 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (59 responses)

So, just to make things clear, you have no professional experience in dealing with (specifically) Asperger's?

And I still question that the few women who I have heard (third-hand) claim to be offended really should have been offended

I really don't think there's much left to say.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 26, 2009 21:26 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (58 responses)

Did you not read the commnent at all? Yes, I have experience far exceeding yours, including with the developmentaly delayed, which very certainly includes Asperger's.

What was that about your having learned not to be an asshole?

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 26, 2009 22:07 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (57 responses)

What I learned is that there are situations in which I was being an asshole and not realising it. What I'm sorry about are the cases where I offended people without wanting to or without realising the degree to which I was causing offence. But at around the same time, I learned that there are times when the correct thing to do is to be an asshole in order to attempt to demonstrate that someone else is being one. Sometimes appeasement isn't the correct answer.

If you've spent weeks of your life working with people with Asperger's, then I apologise. "There were people with developmental delays" is not obviously referring to Asperger's any more than "I've worked with sick people" obviously implies "I have significant levels of experience working with people with advanced prostate cancer", so it's not inherently surprising that I might misinterpret you. I still think you're utterly mischaracterising the condition. It's certainly the case that some people with Asperger's are unable to recognise that they've caused offence, but this really isn't a direct result of Asperger's. Asperger's and assholery are orthogonal axes. Someone's presence at the positive end of both doesn't imply correlation.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 26, 2009 22:34 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (56 responses)

Well spoken, apology accepted, and I apologize too.

The way I see it is that I have continuing relationships to this day with a few folks who really do fit the diagnosis to the best of my knowledge.

I never did imply that RMS was incapable of apologizing. As someone who speaks in similar situations to those of RMS, I have made any number of jokes about sex or religion that might offend someone, while speaking. I am not interested in encouraging anyone who would subject me, and people like me, to a political-correctness magnifying glass and for that reason I will probably not engage such people at all. Not apologize, and not communicate with them at all.

While I believe that the way we represent ourselves may indeed make women uncomfortable sometimes, I still don't believe that's why there are so few women participating.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 26, 2009 23:09 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (7 responses)

While I believe that the way we represent ourselves may indeed make women uncomfortable sometimes, I still don't believe that's why there are so few women participating

What would it take to get you to believe that? This is a serious question.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 0:01 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (6 responses)

Well, I do not see that the emotional challenges of insensitive male discussion that a woman meets in working with free software are greater in scale than the challenges that woman might meet if she volunteered to work in a hospital or as an intern at a law firm or a congressional page. There are stories about each. And yet, they have significant female participation.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 2:29 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (5 responses)

I think this is where the difference between "I'll put up with their shit because the pay is good, and it cant get *too* bad since there are rules at the office" and "I don't need this from something that I'm doing in my free time that's supposed to be *fun*" comes in.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 4:35 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (4 responses)

Candy-stripers don't get paid. And they do get abused, between male staff who think they're fresh meat and the union folks who think they're scabs. And yet, lots of women do it.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 16:05 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (3 responses)

Candy-stripers still exist? I thought they were a World War II era thing, and nowadays hospitals employ real Registered Nurses.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:14 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (2 responses)

Hospitals employ registered nurses, and many also have volunteers who perform lesser tasks than the registered nurses. Candy-striper is one designation for such people, because of the pink and white striped uniform. They still exist. Often the nurses are unionized, and sometimes there is tension between them and the non-unionized volunteers.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:46 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link] (1 responses)

And presumably the volunteers in a hospital are able to access the same venues for redress of things like harassment as the paid employees are. At least they can in every organization I've ever volunteered with, though none of them have been hospitals.

After all, there's an additional incentive to not lose volunteers, since the organization isn't paying for their labour.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:07 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

And presumably the volunteers in a hospital are able to access the same venues for redress of things like harassment as the paid employees are.

I am not so optimistic that the situation is fair to the little people. The hospital has much higher stakes in dealing with the union than with volunteers. It is a lot easier for the volunteer to walk out than to accuse some "important" doctor and have a long controversy in which she is tarred too - including in the newspaper. And managements all around have tended to prefer to keep such things quiet.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 17:24 UTC (Thu) by james_w (guest, #51167) [Link] (47 responses)

> While I believe that the way we represent ourselves may indeed make women
> uncomfortable sometimes, I still don't believe that's why there are so few
> women participating.

Some evidence that may sway you:

http://opensourcetogo.blogspot.com/2009/07/emailing-richa...

A woman that as a young lady was intimidated by RMS' same routine. Choice quote:

> The sexism on display in his talks and in these comments are the
> precise reason as to why there aren't many women in free software to
> speak up, and the awkward gender ratio and propensity for male nerds to
> shout down any opposition makes it even more difficult to do so.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011418.html

The ever excellent Abi Sutherland on being a woman in a tech environment. Choice quote:

> Frankly, if I were doing this for anything other than pay, Id have
> long since buggered off with a good book. I certainly wouldnt do it
> for the love of the work,

http://carolynresearch.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/bad-mood/

Bemoaning the apparently pervasive attitude that allows sexist comments to be the norm in many situations. Choice quote:

> Its all just a joke, Im sure. But Ive reached a point in my life
> where it just isnt funny to me. I browse through blogs, popular
> journals, and open source forums and mailing lists looking for ideas
> about what kind of research would be useful and interesting to the
> development community. When I run into this sort of thing, my first
> thought is that I dont want to be part of that kind of development
> community. I have every intention of staying in computer science, but
> at those moments, I know why a lot of women leave.

Yes, one person making a sexist remark in a talk doesn't cause all women to leave the community, but put it in to context, with some women encountering almost daily reminders that they are the minority and that not everyone in the community sees them as more than their gender and it adds up. "Jokes", marriage proposals, scantily clad women in technical presentations, assumptions about interests and skills, physical intimidation, marginalisation, and good old-fashioned disrespect all add up to an uninviting environment.

Yes, the problem starts early with societal pressure on women to not get in
to computers, but that just means we should value those that do make it in to our community, not subject them to the above. The "leaky pipe" effect will mean that we continue to have low numbers of female contributors.

If you are interested in other opinions on the topic I suggest you subscribe to the Geek Feminism blog. Even if you disagree about the causes, listening to smart people talk about the issues is worth a try, we might all learn something.

http://geekfeminism.org/

Thanks,

James

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 18:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (46 responses)

Lefty appears to be a man in his 50's. You weren't reading a woman's comments on the "Open Source to Go" blog.

I'll state it clearly:

Women are not so weak that words can keep them from participating in Free Software, amateur radio, and other technical volunteerism.

IMO, you'd be insulting them if you thought so. There must be some other reason keeping them out. I suspect gender-based differences in interest, and do not have a good call on how much of this is nature vs. nurture. There are of course exceptions.

This isn't to say that being less than polite and welcoming of them is acceptable.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:37 UTC (Thu) by johill (subscriber, #25196) [Link]

However, on the converse, I'm sure that many people, regardless of gender, do stop/never start participating in communities that are hostile towards them -- regardless of the reason for the hostility.

If you were randomly but frequently insulted, I'm sure you would also come to the conclusion that that particular community is not worth participating in.

I've come to that conclusion multiple times in the past.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 19:50 UTC (Thu) by james_w (guest, #51167) [Link] (42 responses)

> Lefty appears to be a man in his 50's. You weren't
> reading a woman's comments on the "Open Source to Go"
> blog.

I linked to a comment on his blog, left by someone who
identified themselves as a woman. The owner of the blog
has nothing to do with that.

> Women are not so weak that words can keep them from
> participating in Free Software, amateur radio, and
> other technical volunteerism.

When women tell you that these things keep them from
participating you just ignore that? It appears as though
you are living in an echo chamber.

> This isn't to say that being less than polite and
> welcoming of them is acceptable.

Well, thank you for being so gracious as to acknowledge
that much. Now could you stop telling them that they
don't exist and that what they say is untrue?

Thanks,

James

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:09 UTC (Thu) by lizhenry (guest, #60479) [Link]

LOL, thanks James, you and njs rock. 8-)

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:25 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (40 responses)

Of course I know they are there. All 5 or 6 that we have heard from here, and perhaps 200 across the entire Free Software community. I am not yet accepting that the reason that the other women stay away is that women are too weak to counter the social issues.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:34 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link] (30 responses)

There's a difference between "weakness" and "being unwilling to put up with a constant stream of hostility, othering, and bullshit". One puts the responsibility where it's due. Hint: it's not "weakness".

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:06 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (29 responses)

That's a great observation, it does turn around the way I'm looking at the problem.

But we do have a self-fulfilling prophecy here, don't we? Without you being there to tell the men when they're being intolerable, they probably won't realize they are.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:18 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link] (4 responses)

But Bruce, we're here. And we're telling you what's not ok (RMS's virgin "joke" creepiness, for example). Please start listening :)

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:28 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (3 responses)

You did write RMS and tell him how the joke made you feel, right?

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:18 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link] (1 responses)

Based on his response to criticism in this case and others, I elected to not waste my time.

This is the guy who at Wikimania yesterday asserted in front of a crowd of people that any difference of opinions with him constitutes a personal attack. I'm just not going to bother, sorry :/

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:18 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

He's not very well-equipped to deal with conflict.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Sep 22, 2009 16:20 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link]

I did, twice, much good it did me. I was interested to note that the word "women" didn't appear a single time in either of his responses.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:21 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]

But, uh, I'm going to leave it to the other folks to do the talking, because I have to go teach an introductory Python class to a bunch of women. Woot!

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:24 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link] (20 responses)

Hypatia personally, or any of us?

Here are things that are not acceptable and driving women away:

* Being treated like we're invisible or non-existent
* Assumptions that women just aren't interested in computing/FLOSS/etc
* Belittlement of contributions as not "really" contributions
* Sexist jokes
* Sexually-oriented conference presentations
* Booth babes
* A culture that is generally unwelcoming to newcomers/beginners
* Sexual harrassment online and in person at conferences etc
* Upskirt photos on Planet blog aggregators
* Blowjob-related ads in Linux publications
* Not having our experiences believed
* Being asked to explain things over and over again and STILL not being believed
* Being asked "A/S/L" or having pics demanded of us
* Out-of-band communications of an inappropriate personal nature
* Death threats
* Accusations of reverse sexism when we ask people to avoid the above
* ... and more.

Hope that helps.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:45 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (19 responses)

Booth babes

I resent them too. Vendors trying to lure me in by my gonads.

* Upskirt photos on Planet blog aggregators

Ugh. Go ahead and make noise.

* Blowjob-related ads in Linux publications

Is this "Do you suck at coding", or something else?

* Not having our experiences believed

Oh, I believe you. The folks I don't believe are the troop of men here telling me what you think. Maybe it would be better if some of you stuck with LWN instead of being on some girrls-only list. If you want to be believed, being there counts.

* Being asked to explain things over and over again and STILL not being believed

Unless you're telling me there aren't any early-childhood or nature issues in the mix as well, there is not a lack-of-belief issue here.

* Being asked "A/S/L" or having pics demanded of us

It sounds really raw. I do admit to having been discouraged to find that purportedly female project participants were really men. But I don't want to ask them A/S/L to establish that.

* Out-of-band communications of an inappropriate personal nature

I'm assuming this means on IRC. Really bad.

* Death threats

I get them too. What are these folks objecting to? Just your presence? Are they really project participants? I see some people whose job or obsession is to demotivate us and aren't really project participants.

* Accusations of reverse sexism when we ask people to avoid the above

You are not being sexist with me at all as far as I'm aware. But what do I do when someone is? It can happen, you know, and right now I'm damned if I do, and damned if I do not.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:22 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link] (5 responses)

* Blowjob-related ads in Linux publications
Is this "Do you suck at coding", or something else?

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Linux_Journal_blowjob_ad

* Not having our experiences believed

Maybe it would be better if some of you stuck with LWN instead of being on some girrls-only list. If you want to be believed, being there counts.

I am on one women-only list out of dozens. Do you seriously believe I (we) are active participants in open source without being on mixed mailing lists, websites, twitter/identi.ca, IRC, conferences, LUGs, etc? Strawman.

* Death threats

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Debian_and_LinuxChix_h...

* Accusations of reverse sexism when we ask people to avoid the above
But what do I do when someone is? It can happen, you know, and right now I'm damned if I do, and damned if I do not.

http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/faq-ar...

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:41 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (4 responses)

Well, QSol's out of business, it appears. I won't lament.

Was Mike-whoever-he-is identified as a real member of a Free Software community? The reason I am asking is that I have had people do similar stuff to me, and when I've explored I find that they have no real connection to any project and are more likely someone who is paid to make us look bad.

OK, "reverse-sexism" is bogus, and not the sexism I was concerned with.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:02 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link] (3 responses)

I believe MikeeUSA was an open source developer of some kind; some kind of gaming-related stuff? But it's not really relevant: his death threats are no less scary and offputting.

As for the fact that you (and presumably others) receive death threats, I don't think it's cool or OK that *anyone* threatens anyone's life ever, but I do think men are in a better position to brush it off: there is not such a history of men being killed purely out of misandry. The Debian death threats had an eerie similarity to the Montreal Massacre killer's anti-feminism, and more recently to George Sodini. It is absolutely and realistically scary that men kill women just for being in technical fields and/or believe that feminists are ruining everything. Much as we'd love to ignore it and brush it off, we can't.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:58 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

I agree with you about threats.

While I would not be a victim of misandry, there is a history of similar nutcases targeting ethnic semites. And lots of folks believe we're running everything too.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 1:42 UTC (Fri) by spender (guest, #23067) [Link] (1 responses)

He also seems to be a user of grsecurity. He's annoyingly littered up completely unrelated technical topics with his misogynistic views several times.

-Brad

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 6:18 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]

thanks for that pointer, spender. lead me to find his real name, finally. seems he's a law student in maine.

i <3 your exploit videos, incidentally.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:35 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (3 responses)

>> * Blowjob-related ads in Linux publications

> Is this "Do you suck at coding", or something else?

Linux Journal ran an ad for QSol about how their servers wouldn't "go down on you either" with an image of a woman's heavily-made-up face.

>> * Death threats

> I get them too. What are these folks objecting to? Just your presence?
> Are they really project participants? I see some people whose job or
> obsession is to demotivate us and aren't really project participants.

Some nutjob was going off about how women were destroying Debian and he was going to kill them for it.[0]

>> * Accusations of reverse sexism when we ask people to avoid the
>> above

I've seen a few guys enter the #linuxchix IRC channel recently and tell us that our IRC Etiquette rules[1] are sexist because they're about making men not be men (ie not, as you put it, led around by their gonads). That's just an example of the many times guys say it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to control themselves enough to not hit on every woman they see who can code.

[0] http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Debian_death_threats
[1] http://www.linuxchix.org/irc-etiquette.html

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:54 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (2 responses)

I've seen a few guys enter the #linuxchix IRC channel recently and tell us that our IRC Etiquette rules[1] are sexist because they're about making men not be men (ie not, as you put it, led around by their gonads). That's just an example of the many times guys say it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to control themselves enough to not hit on every woman they see who can code.

They're children. Either real children or emotionally handicapped adults.

I counsel companies on their relationship with the Open Source community. One part is preparing them for childish behavior on mailing lists, and helping them find mediators who will never take umbrage and then say something that makes the company look bad.

There are actually worse groups than Free Software in this regard. If you have to work with cypherpunks and the crowd who go to defcon, be prepared.

Attempting to educate them is all we can do, I guess.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 3:52 UTC (Fri) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (1 responses)

Mmmm yeah DEFCON...Friends asked if I was going to go this year, but knowing my partner wasn't going to be there...no. Young, female, and at a hacker con [that I can't literally run to my apartment from, if necessary] alone? Bad idea.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 6:44 UTC (Fri) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link]

you should come next year. we'll make "maco has a posse" stickers, just like nick's :)

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:41 UTC (Thu) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link] (5 responses)

> * Being asked to explain things over and over again and STILL not being believed

> Unless you're telling me there aren't any early-childhood or nature issues in the mix as well, there is not a lack-of-belief issue here.

There are absolutely early-childhood issues at stake. They are covered extensively in the Unlocking the Clubhouse study. It's really a fantastic read.

As for the nature issues, here are three things to consider:

1) Studies which show a lack of difference tend to not get published. This messes up our understanding of gender issues a heck of a lot. This is feminist science studies 101, in a nutshell.
2) Even given that, there is some interesting research and data that shows that a lot of the perceived math/science gender differences are cultural and experiential, rather than in-born. Here's a fascinating one from the school I'm studying at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071024145626... . There's also interesting data from places like Malaysia where software dev is more like 50/50 men and women.
3) Even if nature does come into play /at all/, its influence is so eclipsed by culture as to be irrelevant. And, well, we can't change nature, so let's focus on the things we can change. Arguing about how much of a role nature plays doesn't really help us get more women involved.

Here's some further reading about the problems with the "nature" argument, which is also called essentialism within the gender studies context: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Essentialism , which links to http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/faq-bu...

Leaky pipes and early childhood interventions

Posted Aug 27, 2009 23:53 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link] (1 responses)

I'd also like to suggest a good search term for discussions about this: "leaky pipe". The analogy is that the process of getting women into open source is like a pipe with leaky points all along the way. All of the leaks need to be stopped up, and stopping any particular leak (whether it is early childhood influences or sexism at tech conferences) will help more deliver more women to the end of the pipe.

Nobody's saying that there aren't other leaks. There absolutely are. But the ones that the open source community can best address are the ones that are specific to the open source community.

If you are interested in eg. encouraging girls in STEM (science/tech/eng/math) education at early ages, there are many other organisatinos working on that. Many of them take donations, or would welcome your volunteer time.

Leaky pipes and early childhood interventions

Posted Aug 28, 2009 0:44 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

The analogy is that the process of getting women into open source is like a pipe with leaky points all along the way.

That frames the issue pretty well.

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 28, 2009 3:06 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses)

> 1) Studies which show a lack of difference tend to not get published.

Just to expand for the benefit of those without a lot of experience in social science: this has two unfortunate consequences.

First, social scientists constantly have to ask themselves whether some pattern they observe in their data is a result of some underlying principle, or just a coincidence. (If you flip a coin 10 times, and got 8 heads, is that because the coin is unfair? If you had 10 men and 10 women perform some task, and 8 of the women did better than the average man, is that because women in general are better at your task?) That's what statistical testing is for. Unfortunately, statistical tests are never perfect -- they won't tell you that getting 10 heads in a row means your coin is unfair, just that if not then that's one *heck* of a coincidence.

But if you keep trying long enough, then eventually you'll get that coincidence. And "science says women are <...>!" gets press, so lots of the time, when someone's running some random study, they'll do a quick check for gender effects, just in case. If 20 people do this, then 19 of them will get nothing, shrug, and forget about it; 1 of them will flip 10 heads in a row and publish a really excited paper! They don't know they're the 20th person to try, after all. (And that's leaving out the effects of confirmation bias, etc.)

Second, once a claim like that is out there in the literature, it's hard to disprove; if you just repeat the study and don't see a difference, then maybe you just did it wrong or something -- it's hard to get that published. (And even if you do, it's not as exciting, so it won't get press coverage, so a heap of people will go on believing that they Know Something About Men and Women that's just wrong.)

The end result is that the literature on gender differences has heaps of confusing nonsense in it. There are real gender differences too, but they're hard to pin down, and after all that nonsense it's hard to imagine that people would have *missed* anything so dramatic as to cause 98.5%/1.5% differences in participation a specific field invented in the last 30 years. Seriously, that'd be Nobel-worthy.

This isn't my area of specialty, but AFAICT, whether you're right or left handed has more of an effect on your general cognition than what you keep in your pants (and your culture matters a lot more than either).

OK, I'll bite. Sides of this issue you might not be considering

Posted Aug 29, 2009 17:05 UTC (Sat) by hypatiadotca (guest, #60478) [Link] (1 responses)

Thanks for expanding on this - it /is/ my area of study (along with my other major in Computer Science) and I kinda glossed over it because of that :)

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Posted Aug 31, 2009 22:21 UTC (Mon) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Yeah, anything to procrastinate on writing this stupid methods section :-)

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Posted Aug 28, 2009 2:40 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses)

> I resent them too. Vendors trying to lure me in by my gonads

But you also realize that there's a difference between the resentment due to someone trying to lure you by your gonads, and resentment due to being told that -- roughly speaking -- those companies didn't consider you a real member of their audience, and implicitly "reminded" that your proper aspiration in life is to use your body to lure others by their gonads?

I hope so; it's just that I've heard a lot of men grumble about booth babes, but if they really *hated* the concept of booth babes the way that they might, then one way or another I'm pretty sure booth babes wouldn't still exist.

> The folks I don't believe are the troop of men here telling me what you think.

Speaking as part of that troop, that's why I've tried to provide logic, data, and links. I'm well aware that I may have gotten things wrong despite that, and if I become aware of any then I'll certainly apologize. Is there anything I've claimed that you still particularly disbelieve?

> I get [death threats] too.

For thinking about this issue, I highly recommend this comment by Kathy Sierra, especially the second half about what's happened since she talked about her threats in public: http://geekfeminism.org/2009/08/17/george-sodini-montreal...

On merit, that comment actually deserves front-page treatment. But I don't know what the consequences of that would be :-(

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Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:16 UTC (Fri) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]

Re: the front page -- yeah, our thoughts exactly. We talked about it and were uncomfortable putting it in the spotlight, all things considered.

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Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:35 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> if [men] really *hated* the concept of booth babes ...
> booth babes wouldn't still exist.

My theory, which I'm pretty confident about, is that this is a general issue of conferences with mostly male attendees, nothing to do with the free software community.

Booth babes continue to exist at conferences because conferences are full of men with no interest in the topic but were sent there by their employer.

When I see booth babes at a free software conference (actually, I've only seen them at "Linux" conferences), then I know that that stall is a reputationless company selling something with no differentiating features. Red flag for "ignore this stall". Most other LWN readers would also ignore that stall at a free software conference, by my theory.

Then there's the separate category of attendees who can't tell the difference between the companies and who aren't interested in the details anyway - that separate category, which has almost nothing to do with us, is the target of booth babes.

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Posted Aug 28, 2009 2:03 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

> Without you being there to tell the men when they're being intolerable, they probably won't realize they are.

Things *may* not be so hopeless: it turns out that telling men when they're being intolerable is actually possible even *without* ovaries.

I joke, but seriously, I don't wait for women to pop up and tell contributors that my community values testing, regular releases, or clean code; why should I make an exception when it comes to human decency? Obviously I'll screw up sometimes or miss things, but 1) women aren't born knowing how to handle this stuff either, 2) if I pick up some of the slack maybe they'll have a chance to actually do the stuff that I can't, instead of fighting fires and pounding their head against walls 24x7.

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Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:22 UTC (Sat) by spzeidler (guest, #60508) [Link]

do you need a woman to actually _tell_ you that someone is a sexist idiot if said sexist idiot, upon learning by accident that a participant in a open source themed chat is female, tells said female that females can't do open source and kicks her out? Do you expect the woman to come crawling in again (possibly on her belly apologizing for being her sex) when noone of the other attendants of the chat feels like telling the guy doing the kick he was being an idiot and to stop that?
I'll tell you my reaction. They can stew in their own bugs for all eternity for all I care, I'm not going to touch -that- project with a ten foot pole again.

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Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:42 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link] (1 responses)

Bruce, there are over 300 women on the LinuxChix grrls-only mailing list alone. I've met over 100 myself, and although I am fairly well travelled and know many women in FLOSS I do not know nearly all of them -- as evidenced by the fact that I only know a few of the people on the LinuxChix list! There are approximately 50 women just working on Dreamwidth and the OTW's Archive. Over 200 women responded to the Perl Survey I ran in 2007, again, mostly not overlapping with those I know from elsewhere.

Pull your head out of the sand.

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Posted Aug 27, 2009 22:13 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Thanks for the data, I am really not trying to have a head in sand. My point was that there are too few women participating. That is equally true if there are 2000 rather than 200. It seems that things would be different if there were 20,000 and more different with 200,000. I am still trying to understand why, so few are participating, and I thank you for the assistance with articles.

Desiring respectful treatment isn't about weak vs. strong...

Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:45 UTC (Thu) by miss-electra (guest, #60481) [Link] (1 responses)

Why should I have to fight for respect and recognition that is accorded to others simply by their BEING PRESENT? Why should I have to demonstrate "strength" enough to stand up to some bullshit hazing to be part of a community I want to contribute time, energy, and knowledge to?

Knowledge and time and effort are as much currency as money is. So why is it okay for me to say "I refuse to spend money on someone who acts disrespectfully towards me" and that doesn't cast me (or any woman) as weak...but if I make the same statement about my time/knowledge/effort then it's "weakness"?

Desiring respectful treatment isn't about weak vs. strong...

Posted Sep 4, 2009 6:49 UTC (Fri) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

Why should I have to fight for respect and recognition that is accorded to others simply by their BEING PRESENT?

Clearly you shouldnt. However you *might* be overestimating the respect others are getting. I wasnt there and I dont know, but I have seen that happen for sure - in many groups (not specific to free software but online conversation in general) there is a hazing process that may be informal and undocumented but is very real. I have seen females in such situation get very offended and storm out, appearing to believe they were singled out for disrespect when in fact each and every guy in the room had gone through the same crap earlier. Now I'm not justifying it and I am NOT saying that was what happened with you - I am just saying it's a possibility. I do know from experience that females *are* routinely singled out for special treatment on the internet, for multiple reasons many of which have been mentioned, it's not right or good but it's a fact. This quite naturally and predictably results in females being generally more likely to take offense based on mistakes as well, or to perceive disrespect even when it is not intended. This is not intended as a criticism at all - it's natural and understandable and predictable, and I think ultimately only improvement in communication can address it.

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Posted Aug 27, 2009 20:48 UTC (Thu) by Skud (guest, #59840) [Link]

Also FYI, women in this thread: me, maco, hypatia, yatima, cesy, itgrrl, lizhenry, myrtti, zrusilla, selena, talbutt == 11, plus many more mentioned and linked to.

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Posted Aug 27, 2009 21:37 UTC (Thu) by dannyobrien (subscriber, #25583) [Link] (2 responses)

There is some irony that the person asserting that "weakness" is the only possible reason that people feel they can no longer work with a community turns out to be Bruce "I resign! Again!" Perens.

Arguments against this irony from Bruce himself will be rejected as anecdotal. To be valid, I need to hear from everyone else before I can understand what his arguments are.

(If Bruce even exists, which I doubt.)

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Posted Aug 28, 2009 12:51 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (1 responses)

> "weakness" is the only possible reason that people feel they can no longer work with a community

He argued that weakness is *not* the reason for women leaving. i.e women are not weak.

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Posted Aug 29, 2009 11:36 UTC (Sat) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Yes, and he originally concluded from this that woman were not leaving, because only weak people would leave. Danny's point looks accurate to me.

(I can't believe we're *actually* describing Bruce's arguments to each other in this subthread.)

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Posted Aug 29, 2009 1:29 UTC (Sat) by niv (guest, #8656) [Link]

Ah, the old "I haven't heard from any or many women" gem. Oldie, but a goodie.

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Posted Sep 6, 2009 7:58 UTC (Sun) by mdz@debian.org (guest, #14112) [Link]

Really? Women are "weak" for being moved by language?

Why should the pervasive language of patriarchy be any less influential in
excluding people from free software, than the "words" of the GNU Manifesto,
or the Open Source Definition, or the Debian Social Contract, which motivate
many people to participate?

Language is a conduit for ideas and feelings. It's how we communicate with
each other, including telling people who is welcome and who is not.

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Posted Sep 22, 2009 17:15 UTC (Tue) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link]

Sigh. It would serve you well to actually read what's being cited before you respond to it, Bruce. It's a bad habit of yours, just like "responding" to people in person before they've actually finished what they were saying.

That aside, since you seem to doubt the comments in my blog posting, I'd direct you to Celeste Lyn Paul's identi.ca feed, and Chani Armitage's blog.

Celeste asks (while RMS was giving the keynote in question), "Do men really think RMSs virgin joke at #gcds was not sexist? Very disappointed in FLOSS comm chatter about this."

In the comments to the posting, Chani writes, "talking about relieving women of their virginity casts women in a submissive role, with men in a dominant role, and brings up thoughts of oppression and (indirectly) rape. (yes, thinking about a roomful of guys thinking about taking womens virginity does eventually lead me to wondering how many of them would take it by force.) it becomes less about the non-sexual meaning of virgin and more about all the crazy ideas societies have had about virgin women. and thinking about that stuff would make any woman uncomfortable."

Apparently you know a lot better than these women who were present at RMS' GCDS keynote, Bruce. Maybe they're just being "sickly nonlinear" here.