Does it bother any of you...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Jun 03, 2009 12:50 PM EDT |
Does it bother any of you that there is still a perceived need for articles like this? I remember articles a decade ago about the under representation of women in FOSS and in Linux in general. The numbers are much better today but it's still an issue. Why? Here we have an article explaining to women how to get involved. Why do we still need it? Somehow, for all the talk of inclusion, the net effect is that women and minorities in the U.S. still aren't a big part of the Open Source community. I do agree with Ms. McPherson that the list of women on the Geek Feminism Wiki is just a small subset of all those that participate or contribute to Open Source development. |
| bigg Jun 03, 2009 1:05 PM EDT |
Well, let's see. This story is posted. Go back a few weeks and there was this story posted: http://www.h-online.com/open/Rails-community-derailed-over-p... That can't help, and it was hardly an isolated incident. More generally, FOSS has a somewhat 'unique' standard of conduct. Put the question a different way. Out of the whole population of men, why are so few involved with FOSS? IMO you need a special personality to be willing to get involved (not just as a user or an occasional bug reporter, but truly involved). Men are more willing to put up with the culture but it's not particularly inviting for anyone. Good luck, but FOSS was designed by and for men (a small subset of men actually) and I don't see matters ever changing on this front. |
| herzeleid Jun 03, 2009 1:10 PM EDT |
Well, the "Women in FOSS" track at SCALE this year was quite interesting. On the one hand, it's a shame that this sort of consciousness raising event would still be needed, but as long as that is the case, it certainly wouldn't hurt to provide greater exposure for these sorts of revolutionary ideas. |
| jdixon Jun 03, 2009 1:29 PM EDT |
> ...but it's still an issue. Why? Mostly because women has always been underrepresented in technological fields. When I graduated from college with a BSEE degree (in 1980), out of a class of 50+ students there were two women. That's changed somewhat over the years, but it takes time for something like that to work it's way through the system. Now, the actions of many people within the existing system don't help things, but they're minor in the face of the larger demograhpic trends. Women simply weren't entering computer related fields until fairly recently (the numbers have been going up for last 15 years or so, as far as I can tell). They are now, and you'll see things changing over the next 20 years. Those changes have already started, or things like this discussion wouldn't be taking place. |
| tuxchick Jun 03, 2009 1:44 PM EDT |
The numbers aren't a whole lot better today, Caitlyn. Problems like this have to be addressed on a number of fronts, going all the way back into childhood. A lot of girls are still steered away from science and technology. It takes a very strong personality to persist in going a different direction than what your parents and teachers want for you. People who enter traditional gendered professions, nursing and tech being two examples, don't consciously realize how much support they had to get there, and how many doors opened for them simply because of their genders. I'm not sure if articles like this are helpful. My own preference any more is not to jump up and down yelling "Look!! Girls!! See, right there!" but to increase the visibility of women in tech as much as I can by showcasing their achievements. Stormy Peters did this, Caitlyn Martin wrote that, Juliet Kemp uber geek shares this great howto, and so on. I'll always remember Oprah talking about the first time she saw the Supremes on Ed Sullivan-- "Colored people! On TV!" It was a life-changing moment, and it wasn't some scholarly discussion, but just the Supremes doing their thing. |
| caitlyn Jun 03, 2009 1:52 PM EDT |
jdixon: I don't disagree with anything you've written. Having said that I do believe women are MUCH better represented in IT as a whole (24% according to recent statistics) than in Open Source. I suspect in FOSS we've improved from the 1% number quoted a decade ago but we're probably in single digits. @bigg: Blatant sexism in the field has existed as long as I've been in IT, which is approaching 30 years now. Is it worse in the Open Source community? I'm honestly not sure. Quoting:Good luck, but FOSS was designed by and for men That sounds like justifying the sexism to me. I thought Linux, for example, is an OS that can be used by anyone and is gender neutral. How are Firefox or Apache or any other major FOSS project designed specifically for men? Sorry, I just don't see it. Quoting: I don't see matters ever changing on this front. It is changing, albeit slowly. Things are better than they were 10 years ago. Education within the community is helping and that is pretty much what some of the OSBR articles I've posted over the last few days do. None of them focus on gender issues per se. Several of them focus on inclusiveness and bringing all sorts of people into the community. I see Ms. McPherson's article as helpful. I see the article on conferences by Selena Deckelmann as helpful: http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/888/858 I also see the article highlight Cathy Malmrose of ZaReason, listing other women who contribute, and interviewing Belinda Lopez as especially helpful: http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/888/858 It highlights the very significant contributions women are already making. |
| caitlyn Jun 03, 2009 1:55 PM EDT |
tuxchick: We were posting at the same time. (Great minds think alike?) I'd add "Carla Schroder wrote that" to your list :) Actually what you are advocating is exactly what the last article I linked sets out to do. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 03, 2009 3:21 PM EDT |
Quoting:Having said that I do believe women are MUCH better represented in IT as a whole (24% according to recent statistics) than in Open Source. I think those figures have multiple causes. First, FOSS is younger than the rest of IT. It took IT many years to grow the number of women and I think FOSS needs time too. Second, I think there is some skewed measuring going on. Like the article also mentions, many of the women work in the non-coding parts of FOSS. As IT as a whole grew and matured over the years, the number of "softer" jobs (so to speak) also grew. IT used to be all geeks. 90% "hard" IT and 10% "soft" IT. Nowadays that's more like 50%-50%. FOSS hasn't seen much of that kind of growth yet. It's mostly still "hard" IT. If you want to compare IT as a whole with FOSS then you need to take into account this split between "hard" and "soft". Note that I really don't like the terms "hard" and "soft" here, but I can't come up with any better term at the moment :-/ |
| bigg Jun 03, 2009 4:37 PM EDT |
> That sounds like justifying the sexism to me. It may sound like it is justifying sexism, but it isn't. The point I was attempting to make (whether or not I was successful) is that FOSS is done the way men would do something, and as such may not be as appealing to most women. I'm guessing that if the pioneers of FOSS (pretty much all men) had instead been women, it might be a more reasonable place today. Not being a woman, I could be wrong, but I just don't see all the flamewars and weird competitions and blunt criticism and petty arguments like we saw with PCLinuxOS, etc. A somewhat similar thing happened with video games when the Wii came on the market. Traditionally video games were designed to appeal to men. The Wii was different, and women find it appealing. I view it as more than just sexism, although that is certainly a childish problem that I wish would go away as well. |
| caitlyn Jun 03, 2009 4:57 PM EDT |
@bigg: First off, I wasn't accusing you personally of sexism. If that's what I communicated I apologize. I don't really disagree with you in general. I do feel that there is a lot of sexism in FOSS, much of it unintentional, but some of it blatant and deliberate. Oh, and yes, for many women IT in general and FOSS in particular is not at all welcoming. Fortunately, when we're talking about employment situations it varies greatly from company to company and even department to department. I'm what Sander would call a "hard IT" professional and when I worked at Lockheed-Martin the split between men and women doing what I do was 60/40. We also had a great deal of ethnic and racial diversity. It was also a place where the quality of people they hired was exceptional, the team dynamic and interactions was outstanding, and in general there was a lot of mutual respect for peers and management alike. I don't know what formula they used to achieve this. Mostly I chock it up to excellent management where I worked combined with a commitment to diversity. I think the split between "hard" and "soft" that Sander refers to is artificial and, in many ways, a result of lingering sexist attitudes. Oh, and no, Sander, I am NOT accusing you of sexism either. I'm just saying the whole perception of roles within IT and gender as it exists today is skewed and artificial. I will also say that during a robust economy with a thriving IT industry many of the barriers to women and minorities come down to a great degree. Nobody can afford to turn away quality people with the right skills in those conditions. We saw that in the '90s and that was when many women and minorities did successfully enter IT, at least here in the U.S. Between the dot com bubble bursting, 9/11, ongoing offshoring and outsourcing, and now a severe recession it is women, minorities and older workers who find themselves excluded again. Much of this isn't even conscious. Companies and hiring managers can choose between multiple qualified candidates in this market. One factor that suddenly gets more consideration is who "fits in" to the team. Generally on a team of young white men the answer is going to be more young white men as those are the people who are going to have the same outlook and attitudes. It's the old "birds of a feather..." thing. It's human nature. Discrimination happens even though nobody consciously decided to discriminate against anyone. Even if you demonstrated a pattern that appeared sexist or racist or exclusionary in any way some of the people doing the excluding or discriminating would probably be shocked to learn of it. The net result, though, is that among a large pool of qualified candidates the ones who have the hardest time placing themselves are minorities, women and older workers. Education and making people aware of the issues can help to some degree but human nature doesn't change quickly. Oh, and yes, of course, we still have racists and misogynists out there who will exclude people based on their prejudices too. Go prove that is why you weren't hired in this market. It can't be done. I don't have any good answers. Economies are cyclical. Eventually market conditions will help start reversing some of the more disturbing trends. Society is gradually becoming more tolerant and generational shifts will help as well. In the meanwhile... well, you know. I realize I've taken this way beyond gender but I feel the same issues come into play with all sorts of discrimination and all sorts of barriers to entry in IT and FOSS. |
| tracyanne Jun 03, 2009 5:02 PM EDT |
Quoting:A lot of girls are still steered away from science and technology. It takes a very strong personality to persist in going a different direction than what your parents and teachers want for you. At high school I was told I wasn't smart enough to do science, I chose to do Physics and Chemistry in my second year at high school (when you get to choose your subjects), this was back in the 60s. I persisted |
| hkwint Jun 03, 2009 9:00 PM EDT |
The Dutch 'Technical Weekpaper' (Technisch Nieuwsblad) has covered this item many times with respect to women in nature-sciences (many times) and ICT in special (one article). Conclusions were: 1) Parents are almost the most important factor; pushing their daughters to do medicine / pharmacy / biology instead of physics/math/chemistry; programming certainly belongs to the second and not the first 'direction'. To enable more girls in IT, work their parents; is the current credo. 2) Girls in the age of 8-18 should see more 'role models'. Recently there were some pilots over here, which are successful it seems. They should also see they're not the only females within certain studies. 3) Girls have prejudices when it comes to technical professions. Therefore, it would be best if they could visit people with a certain profession and join them for one day seeing what they are doing. This has been combined with point 2 in a pilot in my country: Young girls visiting an female engineer at some engineering-consultancy firm to see what she's doing. They finally see engineering is as much about communication than it is about calculations etc. Worked very good, it seems. Moreover, it's more attractive to work for a bank than to become an engineer; though I wonder if much of them failing bankers were female. Bankers and 'financial beagles' earn more, and are less responsible. Some architect - earning less then lots of bankers - was sued after people died because he made an error in calculations. When was the last time a banker was sued because they made errors in their calculations? Solution would be: Talk to the parents, highlight role models, take away prejudices by means of education and showing the profession can be fun, improve wages; reduce responsibility (the latter goes mainly for the ones drawing chemical plants; buildings etc; they as a natural person can be sued if people die). |
| jezuch Jun 04, 2009 2:11 AM EDT |
Quoting:Girls in the age of 8-18 should see more 'role models'. That reminds me of one NerdTV episode: http://www.modernfeed.com/episode/NERD_TV/60668/ At one point she says that she wants to be a role model for girls but not in the way of "I want Anina's hair", but to inspire geekiness in them. Quoting:They finally see engineering is as much about communication than it is about calculations etc. Ah, if calculation is what women fear, well, therein lies the rub. It kinda proves the theory that women's natural habitat is doing communication and interpersonal stuff, not engineering per se... On the other hand it very likely is just negative conditioning and parents are to be blamed indeed. |
| jacog Jun 04, 2009 4:33 AM EDT |
>> but FOSS was designed by and for men How does one go about designing software for men?? |
| jdixon Jun 04, 2009 6:35 AM EDT |
> How does one go about designing software for men?? http://dindinx.net/hotbabe/download.php would be a good example. |
| caitlyn Jun 04, 2009 1:47 PM EDT |
@jdixon: So... you're saying "software for me" is software tha objectifies or demeans women. If I had said that on a tech forun I'd have had my head handed to me. |
| jdixon Jun 04, 2009 2:01 PM EDT |
> you're saying "software for me" is software tha objectifies or demeans women. I'm just saying that the software I gave as an example is software that was designed for men. You don't expect it to appeal to women do you? |
| caitlyn Jun 04, 2009 2:26 PM EDT |
@jdixon: No, I don't. It's a good example of a wider problem in the industry. While most men treat their female colleagues as professionals there is still a relatively small but ever present group of men in the field who have sexist attitudes. When they express those attitudes too many men who don't consider themselves sexist at all will merely laugh or at the very least will ignore the issue. They are, whether they realize it or not, part of the problem. They are enabling the very attitudes that make some workplaces and some projects hostile to women. Women can't solve the problem. Some ignore it, some fight it, and some leave the field or choose never to enter in the first place. The solution has to come from men who simply decide not to tolerate inappropriate behavior from their male colleagues. |
| jdixon Jun 04, 2009 7:40 PM EDT |
> It's a good example of a wider problem in the industry. Exactly. Which is why I used it. There are lots of more subtle examples, but this one is rather obvious to anyone. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 04, 2009 8:20 PM EDT |
Quoting:http://dindinx.net/hotbabe/download.php would be a good example. Eh, no. That's a terrible example. Yes, that's software designed for men but it has nothing to do with proving the point that FOSS is designed for (and by) men. Designing is something you do. Explicitly. The problem with FOSS and IT is not the explicit things. It's the implicit things that "happen" or "slip in". It's not the design, it's the people! |
| caitlyn Jun 04, 2009 8:46 PM EDT |
Sander: You are correct that people are the problem, not code. However the app that jdixon linked amply illustrates the attitude that is so problematic and makes the FOSS community seem hostile to women. Also, as I said before, there are many men who wouldn't write something like that, who won't make sexist comments, who won't overtly be part of the problem, but will utterly fail to see why that app is wrong or else tell any woman who dares complain about it to be "thick skinned" or to ignore it. The enablers in the FOSS community are a huge problem as well. |
| tuxchick Jun 04, 2009 10:27 PM EDT |
Subtle is the word all right, and trying to communicate that to people who can't see beyond their own experiences is an uphill job. The Kathy Sierra deal is a great example-- all the harassment and idiotic comments she endured for months was no big deal, just ignore it, don't get so upset over dumb comments, blah blah. But when the death threats came that was finally over the magical line where even the most dismissive men started to take it seriously. Wooptedoo, thanks for nothing. Most of the time it's not death threats or getting beat up. It's being treated as types-- we are Women and therefore categorized according to our value relative to men: potential playtoy, slut, mother, or not worth noticing. It's constant sexual pressure which isn't about sex, romance, or attraction-- it's a dominance game. It's all kinds of little daily crappy things that reinforce one big truth: that a majority of men still have the attitude that they have the god-given right to be bosses over women, and that we are put on this planet to take whatever they dish out. And yes, I mean majority. I am old and mean and comfortable with getting in the faces of those who need it. I would prefer that people not be asshats in the first place. If I live to be a thousand maybe I will see that happen. |
| jdixon Jun 04, 2009 11:01 PM EDT |
> ...but it has nothing to do with proving the point that FOSS is designed for (and by) men. I disagree. It is an example of exactly that. In a system with women involved in the process, such a program would never have been developed, simply because those involved would have realized that it would offend a portion of the developers. Note that I don't personally find the program offensive, and not all women do, but that's beside the point. I recognize that many women will. > If I live to be a thousand maybe I will see that happen. Not likely, TC. And I don't mean you living to a thousand. People haven't changed all that much in the past several thousand years, and there's no sign they will in the next thousand. Societies may change, but people are still people, and the same old problems simply take on new forms. :( |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 05, 2009 2:59 AM EDT |
Quoting:In a system with women involved in the process, such a program would never have been developed, simply because those involved would have realized that it would offend a portion of the developers. What system? Hotbabe is developed by a single programmer and hosted on a personal website. There's no community there. As Ken Starks has often pointed out, there is no single FOSS community. No single system. Just a large hodgepodge thousands of overlapping communities that surround the various projects. Now, if hotbabe was developed in/by a community were women were also participating (e.g. by the Debian community for instance) then you would have a point. But this is a single application from a single developer with no community. |
| jacog Jun 05, 2009 5:33 AM EDT |
The app linked above (can't even say the name it's so tacky), was created for men (which of course is also going on the rather incorrect assumption that everyone is heterosexual). What I was hinting at is that your operating system, mail client, web browser, solitaire game etc. are gender-neutral... so how can one comment that all this stuff was designed for men, even if they were designed by men. That's it guys.... we're forking Firefox and making GUY BROWSER v1. :) |
| tuxtom Jun 05, 2009 5:44 AM EDT |
Boys will be boys. |
| jacog Jun 05, 2009 6:29 AM EDT |
What the heck does that even mean? |
| bigg Jun 05, 2009 6:34 AM EDT |
For the record, when I made my original comment, it was about the culture in which software is developed, not the output. |
| tuxtom Jun 05, 2009 10:45 AM EDT |
A computer doesn't care what gender you are....neither does a bathroom. Tear down the signs. |
| gus3 Jun 05, 2009 10:55 AM EDT |
There aren't other people inside a computer. There are other people in a bathroom. Then again, if that's the case, who am I talking to? |
| bigg Jun 05, 2009 10:55 AM EDT |
It's bad enough that I have to share bathrooms with half the population. Now you want to make me share with everyone. Darn bathrooms would be twice as crowded. |
| hkwint Jun 05, 2009 12:12 PM EDT |
Quoting:It's bad enough that I have to share bathrooms with half the population. Sharing is good; people share a lot these days. Music, movies; even their Windows worms! If the one owning copyright to those worms joined MPAA and started making copyright-violation claims to the ones illegally downloading these worms, I'd sure they'd be rich! |
| bigg Jun 05, 2009 12:54 PM EDT |
Don't give them any ideas. The RIAA might try something like that as a way to enhance their revenues. |
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