SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Feb 26, 2010 12:32 UTC (Fri) by golding (guest, #32795)
Parent article: SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

I would have thought it more useful to have an ideal where the gender, or
any other difference, doesn't impact upon the effect. i.e. Who cares whether
a female or male wrote it, as long as it is good code?

How many male coders will be missing because the focus is on more female
attendance? Discrimination is still discrimination, whether pro or anti!

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SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Feb 26, 2010 13:23 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (6 responses)

Yes, that's right, people are proposing to discriminate against male coders
and exclude them from free software development.

You're simply arguing against bovine fæcal material of your own invention.

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Feb 27, 2010 1:48 UTC (Sat) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link] (5 responses)

I don't know anything about the original poster, but she/he may have actual bad experiences with well-intentioned but clumsy pushes to attract "underrepresented groups" that backfired in various ways. How about instead of assuming golding just wants to selfishly keep the community from moving forward, we ask for ideas on how this should be done effectively? Or even counter-examples of ways not to do it...

There are elements of popular "female" culture that are not a great fit for a developer community. For instance, suppose there were a big movement to change Free SW culture to attract the fashion-plate crowd, it really could be a big turnoff for lots of current community members (me, for one). That's a far cry from being welcoming to females who show up interested in technology and willing to learn about it from geeks in t-shirts and jeans...

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 5, 2010 12:54 UTC (Fri) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] (4 responses)

Geeks in T-shirts and jeans (as if that was something bad)... and showing softporn... Sorry, girls, when you are so easily offended, it shows that many of you are actual misandrists, and you do nothing about it. Accept that genders come with differences (and the way sexual desires are expressed is one of the more obvious gender difference), and don't try to gender mainstream them. Come on, sexism isn't limited to males only, and when I hear girls talking about geeks, a lot of sexism comes along. This of course starts with talk about improper clothing, or personal hygiene, continues with alleged anti-social behavior, and certainly culminates in accusing of sexual harassment for every possible occasion. As long as such hatred exists on the other side, it is very difficult to overcome.

If you have enough women together, it is very easy to find some with improper clothing, insufficient personal hygiene, and social deficits, as well. This is normal standard distribution of statistics. Using these examples and making conclusions to a larger community is prejudice.

I'm fine that misogynism is now considered inappropriate behavior. However, we can't get much further if we allow open misandrism. And the general hostile perception of geeks by women is open misandrism - while a lot worse behavior is usually tolerated with traditional "high value" professions such as in finance or medicine. Or so to speak: We geeks aren't as well dressed as marketing - but we don't take our customers to the brothel.

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 5, 2010 22:47 UTC (Fri) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link] (3 responses)

>> suppose there were a big movement to change Free SW culture to attract the fashion-plate crowd, it really could be a big turnoff for lots of current community members (me, for one)
> Geeks in T-shirts and jeans (as if that was something bad)...

Sorry if you felt sterotyped by my example, but it was a complete misinterpretation!

My example stated that we should not be pressured into being "fashion conscious" in order to attract women who are into pop culture. Feel free to scold me for doubting that a group of people who have been trained to obsess over clothes are worthy recruits for a community more interested in creative problem-solving, but don't accuse me of picking on geeks. The last statement was meant as a contrast; there are also women who are more interested in learning than getting hung up on what people are wearing, and you can welcome them without discriminating against current members.

Try reading my comment again, in the full context of the thread. I'll summarize what I got from it.

golding: don't get hung up on female attendance, just be open to all coders independent of gender

paulj: golding is paranoid about having females getting favored over him; that's a non-issue in the real world

speedster1: maybe golding is not paranoid; some efforts to "balance attendance" really could be detrimental to the existing community, *insert hypothetical example of doin' it wrong*, so try to be sensible

forthy: everyone picks on geeks for being bad dressers and lacking in hygiene, and in general it's popular among girls to be man-haters nowadays

speedster1: Hello, hello??? I'm NOT picking on geeks for being bad dressers or lacking in hygiene; I AM one. Be nice to women like Sarah Mei who are interested in technology, but don't bend over backwards to attract women who spend hours primping every day and think what Vogue has to say is important. It probably wouldn't work anyways.

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 6, 2010 0:04 UTC (Sat) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link]

Could you two *please* keep the oh-so-exciting discussion about your hygiene or lack thereof to yourself?

Killfile support would really be worthy raising the price of subscription...

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 6, 2010 2:26 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

"Be nice to women like Sarah Mei who are interested in technology,"

WTF? No one is asking you to "be nice to women". No one is asking you to go out of your way to do anything, or put yourself to any trouble. The only thing you're asked to do, nay you MUST do, is just treat people *normally* and not be an arse.

Also, this quote of yours is mild WTF material, though I believe you mean well:

"That's a far cry from being welcoming to females who show up interested in technology and willing to learn about it from geeks in t-shirts and jeans..."

Can you spot the subconscious, but not very subtle, chauvinism in this comment of yours?

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 6, 2010 7:37 UTC (Sat) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

I suspect we'd get along fine if we met in person...

Obviously you are not all gung-ho about affirmative-action type of social engineering, which can backfire in various ways. So I really don't see where we even disagree on this topic.

"Be nice to women like Sarah Mei who are interested in technology,"

That doesn't sound like an unreasonable goal to me. I aim to be friendly to all who show up at my LUG. People generally seem to like it. Probably that fits somewhere into your definition of "treating people normally".

"That's a far cry from being welcoming to females who show up interested in technology and willing to learn about it from geeks in t-shirts and jeans..."

This is not patronizing if taken in context. Consider that the topic of this article was about attracting females who are not currently part of the community. So their first role would be that of learner. If Valerie Aurora were in town, I'd try to talk her into doing a presentation. If I asked the organic avocado farmer in my LUG to do a presentation on anything Linux-related, she'd turn me down in about 0 seconds flat.

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Feb 27, 2010 14:03 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

Male developers who are discriminated against by not having their sexism
catered for in excluding women should be treated in *exactly* the same way
as would white developers who felt discriminated against because there
were too many damn $RACIAL_MINORITY_OF_CHOICE around.

There are essentially none of the latter in the free software community,
and I'd hope we all see this as a good thing. It's no different from the
former, except that the 'minority' you here propose to exclude to save the
feelings of the poor delicate misogynists comprises half the human race.

(I hope/suspect this was devil's advocacy on your part.)

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 5, 2010 14:25 UTC (Fri) by sarahmei (guest, #64104) [Link]

You are quite right, and someone asked about this during the Q&A. I would love to help with that problem. I decided to address the lack of women because I have great contacts in that area. My contacts aren't as good among communities that I'm not personally a part of.

But, now that we've been open about our goal to increase women's participation, we've made some contacts with members of other communities. We're now planning a workshop (for all genders) in Spanish, which we hope will draw in some of the Hispanic developers in SF.