I am a strong believer that there is no use talking about doing something, if you do not do anything about it. This just creates a heap of noise which achieves nothing, and that is a waste of time and energy — energy which could be much better spent.
This mode of thinking led to me writing an open letter last Tuesday and in this letter, I said things that I believed needed to be said. In doing so, I touched on a subject that many wish I had not. I wrote about gender imbalance in the Open Source community.
The letter was not only an awareness campaign and call for help, it was also a social experiment to see how people would respond to such a situation.
Several hundred replies later, I have absolutely no regret about having done this. Instead, the responses I received, and witnessed others receiving, have affirmed that which I already knew to be true and affirmed my dedication to the cause.
Of the responses received, there was a mix of positive and negative. The positive ones assured me that I was doing the right thing. The negative ones proved that I was by demonstrating the very behaviours I was campaigning against — the very behaviours that repel our potential users. I thank every single person for their response.
I would like to share with you two responses which sum up the above quite nicely.
From the Linux Australia mailing list:
[...]
Ah, where to start. Perhaps with the display of demeaning images
in a presentation at an event sponsored by Linux Australia. Perhaps
with Stallman rubbing his crotch at a public lecture at the University
of Adelaide. Perhaps with sexist and rude comments towards my 17
year old daughter helping out at an InstallFest.And that’s picking out the merely totally outrageous. Not even
considering the day-to-day behaviours that might turn off participation
in Linux by women. And top of that list is e-mail behaviour,
on lists like this one.A recent example: a women posts an open letter asking for a
better standard of behaviour, as she feels that some current
behaviours are repulsive to women and do not advance the cause
of Linux. And rather than reflecting upon this, people argue
the point, neatly illustrating the hostile-to-women behaviour.
Hmmm.[...]
From the Ubuntu Sounder list:
[...]
Women: “Community, we would like to bring to your attention the fact
that we have been experiencing counterproductive attitudes toward women
in the community. For this reason, please try be considerate and aware
of how you interact with the women you encounter.”Men: “Prove it.”
[...]
These snippets were in response to the flammatory responses my letter received.
Thank you Glen and Micah, for understanding.
These guys understand that responding to expressed concerns with responses of a dismissive nature such as:
- ‘Grow a thicker skin, it is just joking around’,
- ‘This is bull. It does not happen, because I don’t do it and I’ve never witnessed or experienced it’,
- ‘How dare you ask me not to behave like this, it is my right as a man to proposition women or show questionable content if I so want’, and
- ‘So what? It happens everywhere so get used it or go away’
Is often far more destructive and repulsive than the offending actions themselves.
Responses like these do not make people feel welcomed or included. They do not inspire into the recipients any feeling of humanity whatsoever. Furthermore, in a community such as Ubuntu that has a Code of Conduct, these responses just simply do not fly because they are neither respectful or considerate to the people expressing concerns.
Sadly, I received responses similar to all those in that list, and more. Thank you to everyone who sent a response like this — you proved my point in its entirety. If a person seeking assistance was to join #ubuntu, mail ubuntu-users@ or post to ubuntuforums, only to be treated like the above, they would give up and walk away and their problem would not be fixed. That is a user lost. That is a contributor lost.
If you were to enter a bar for the first time, only to be assaulted and/or insulted, you too would probably turn and leave. This is no different. First impressions do count. Places like IRC channels, forums, mailing lists and planets are common first impression material. What people see in these places affects their understanding of projects like Ubuntu.
If I was to rewind back 22 months to when I began to use Ubuntu, and think about how I would have reacted, if I had have been one of the unlucky ones to have the counterproductive behaviours I have spoken of in the past week be my first impression of the community (and yes, this includes things like Stephan’s post). I can 100% honestly say I would have missed out on the best 22 months of my life.
I came for the security of linux and the abundance of free software. I stayed for the community.
Everyone should have the chance to feel this way.
“Urgh. What the hell is wrong with men?
I’m a man and I’m sad to be a part of this stupid group…”
@Daniel
Trust me bud, we’re not too happy about having you in the group with us… But I’m sure you get lots of affirming pats on the head for acknowledging your shame.
@everyone else
Ok, so I’m still lost on how what Melissa did was so wrong. She approached Stephen and said “Hey, I find that inappropriate and here’s why.” He was free to agree, disagree, or completely disregard. How then is what she did such a “Bad Thing?”
And how is it that people telling her that what she did was inappropriate are not displaying the exact same intolerant behavior?
@50 Mman, there are two problems with what Melissa did; firstly and most simply, I and (it appears) a good number of other people think she’s wrong, and that her ideas will damage the community. I don’t mind her raising them, or arguing for them, but that doesn’t mean that I/we shouldn’t argue against them.
The second (and IMHO more minor) point is that Melissa didn’t just say “I find that inappropriate and here’s why.”, she said she would ban from IRC channels anyone linking the post, and threatened to complain to the Community Council. That is intolerant and unacceptable behaviour, not because it expresses her opinion, but because it attempts to enforce it.
@Alf
“1. Will the Ubuntu community change to please you ?”
I would hope that the future of the Ubuntu community is one of a much higher rate of diversity than there already is. Creating awareness of the inequities is part of that.
2. Will you accept the Ubuntu Community and be a part of it ?
I already am a part of it. I wish I could say the same for more women.
“As a guy (a completely unknown guy), unfortunately I can’t do so much except supporting women who use open source, and speaking to ones who don’t.”
Actually, it’s the people who are not the target of the offensive behaviour who are most able to correct it. Just getting the attention of the offensive person and saying something like “don’t say that” is extremely helpful.
If you can use a phrase that’s your language’s equivalent of ‘hey, not cool’, it’s even better. (‘not cool’ carries connotations of unfashionable and undesirable.)
On another topic:
“she said she would ban from IRC channels anyone linking the post, and threatened to complain to the Community Council. That is intolerant and unacceptable behaviour, not because it expresses her opinion, but because it attempts to enforce it.”
Oh my god! She’s threatened to complain to the Community Council!
Run for the hills!
…. hang on.
Haven’t I just been told (in comments on this very thread) that the Ubuntu community has avenues of complaint for the very purpose of handling things people find offensive?
And now I’m being told that complaining (to a place which may or may not be ‘right’ place, but which could direct me to it) is “intolerant and unacceptable behaviour”.
Which is it? Is it appropriate to file a complaint when one is offended, or is it inappropriate, intolerant and unacceptable to do so?
“Ok, so I’m still lost on how what Melissa did was so wrong. She approached Stephen and said “Hey, I find that inappropriate and here’s why.” He was free to agree, disagree, or completely disregard. How then is what she did such a “Bad Thing”?”
Actually, that’s another thing men often say women should do when they think something is inappropriate. ‘Just talk to the person who’s annoyed you’. It’s been said in the comments about Melissa’s previous article.
So once again, I put on my Ditzy Face and say ‘um, guys? I’m being told both things here. What should I do?’ (bats eyelashes, makes Bambi-eyes)
Of course, I don’t know most of the details behind what happened between Stephen and Melissa. What I do know is that Stephen posted something Not Safe For Work, with inadequate warning.
Around the bits of the ‘net I hang out in, a simple ‘not worksafe’ warning is usual, and the potentially NSFW content is behind a link or otherwise requires an ACTIVE attempt to see it.
Sometimes (and I do prefer this) some idea of why it’s not worksafe is included. Examples might be ‘(sexual content follows)’, or ‘(graphic images of medical procedures)’, or ‘(extols the virtues of smoking)’.
This technique is applied stuff that’s to NSFWork, NSFChildren, and NSF-anyone-who-is-culturally-hypersensitive.
I’m told the exact ‘warning’ Stephen had was:
“Most people won’t talk about it, because they’re shy. Most people don’t like to talk about it, just because they’re to niminy-piminy. But, you all know, I’m not most people, so I’ll blog about it”
Well. This easily applies to a whole bunch of stuff which is work-safe, is child-safe, and is safe for Nuns and people in Fundamentalist $Insert-Choice-Of-Religion-Here places. Death, for instance. Evolution-vs-Creation. Taxes, though that’s a stretch. Icky medical procedures. Emacs (if you’re a Vi person). Vi (if you’re an Emacs person).
In my opinion, Stephen gave inadequate warning.
I think Melissa had grounds to be upset, and definitely had a right to complain.
I would be interested in seeing a survey asking female software developers why they are not taking part in the FLOSS community. I seriously doubt “I’ll be discriminated against” will be high up the list.
This is of course speculation, but I’m fairly sure the difference in sex ratio between proprietary and open source software is as natural as women talking to their friends about feelings a lot, and men enjoying physical activities with their friends: simply part of the difference between the two sexes, which are both natural and perfectly healthy.
@Jonas in #56
Prepare to be surprised.
http://flosspols.org/deliverables/D16HTML/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.htm is a report done up by researchers at the University of Cambridge.
I draw your attention in particular to the results in Figure 3, to the question of “Regarding the FLOSS community as a whole, have you ever observed discriminatory behaviour against women? “.
Food for thought.
#57
I’ve seen that, and I’m not terribly impressed. Just reading the first couple of paragraphs made me want to stab my eyes out, and it just went downhill from there, to be honest.
The whole thing seems to set out with the mission of “there are not enough women in FLOSS, let’s ask questions to make it seem that it’s because of discrimination”. Again, I’m not saying that discrimination never happens or anything, but I don’t think that dragging that particular paper out all the time is particularly helpful. There’s something about it that rubs me the wrong way, and it’s not just because of the conclusions they reach.
More to the point, that question you directed me at does nothing to explain, or even hint at why women who are not in FLOSS, aren’t, since the people in the survey are already in the community.
#58
Jonas, I linked to that one particular question because you so specifically mentioned discrimination. In that question, the female respondents had mostly witnessed discrimination against women; the men had mostly not.
Obviously “discrimination” is an ambiguous term, but even then, do you think that that wide majority within the female respondents who said “yes” are all wrong? And have you maybe considered that the male respondents who answered in their respective majority (that is, “no”).
I think it’s a bit of a “counting blue cars” paradox at work. You don’t see how many blue cars (or FOSS participants with problematic behaviors towards women) there are out there until you start thinking of blue cars (or the question of why there are so few women in FOSS, or computer science in general, or the hard sciences in even-more-general).
But hey, you seem happy with the idea that women have some innate difference which makes us not want to participate in FOSS. I’ll go back to setting up Asterisk and not knock you out of that particular little essentialist vision.
‘I would be interested in seeing a survey asking female software developers why they are not taking part in the FLOSS community. I seriously doubt “I’ll be discriminated against” will be high up the list.’
Personal answer:
1. I don’t have much time and energy to spare, due to health issues.
2. I don’t want to waste what time and energy I do have being discriminated against, so I do stuff where the signal:noise ratio is higher. (IE: where there’s less discrimination.)
So there you go. It’s #2.
I have a dear friend who’s a major advocate in the local area, and one of the things she does is give talks in high schools about how much she enjoys programming. We were talking about this very issue yesterday.
The #1 question she gets from teenage girls is ‘is it worth all the teasing, bad jokes and being hit on?’
That’s programming in general. That’s the reputation the industry in general has acquired. Nice job, huh? Most of those girls go into other geekspheres. Civil engineering. Aerospace. Higher math.
If you don’t trust the survey, you’ll have to go with anecdotal evidence, so there’s some.
Or, I guess, you could do your own survey. Enjoy trying to find women who have dropped out, or mostly dropped out, of FOSS.
@Jenn
Who defines what is Not Safe For Work?
I don’t wish to be difficult. This has clearly got emotions running high.
But seriously, do a quick Google for, say, iGasm. You’ll see a great, great many news sites talk about the iGasm/Apple argument and use the same image that Stephan did without any warning that it is NSFW, even when they do give the warning for other things that they deem unsuitable.
Of course, you will also find sites that DO warn that it is NSFW (I genuinely found far fewer of these when I looked).
So clearly this particular point is not so cut and dry.
Justyn
I’ll start by saying that I _REALLY_ want what is best for the Free Software community, which means getting the top 10% of all people no matter their irrelevant characteristics involved. I don’t believe that there is any notable difference between the abilities and (blank slate) mindsets of males and females when it comes to software in general and Free Software in particular.
People are still using the word discrimination, where I feel there are much more appropriate terms.
The reason I am harping on about this is because it makes it hard for people who would otherwise be supportive to agree with you – they don’t see any discrimination, because they define it differently than you do. It is such a loaded term, it alienates everyone who might otherwise change their behavior. Some examples from this thread:
The gay guy from the lug suffered from people being insensitive to his feelings, not caring that he (rightly or wrongly) really didn’t like the word being used in a derogatory fashion. I doubt the people were actually discriminating themselves, but you might be able to say they were creating an environment that discriminated against insecure homosexuals.
All the people being hit on are possibly being afflicted with offensive behavior – this level of offending is usually relatively minor though, and is what people are saying “Grow a thicker skin” to. That being said, if someone makes a habit of making inappropriate comments, something really does need to be done about it.
Bad jokes are par for the course in my opinion – along with other “Unfamily” content they are in a very separate category. If they are being made against a specific person however, there is probably something to be looked at there.
Jonas talking about girls being less likely to be interested in OSS is IMO an example of a prejudice. I think that there might something in what he said, however it is definitely an environmental issue rather than an inbuilt thing. (My opinions on this are very complicated, but I really want to blame 13YO girls for the low number of female geeks. Must be some repressed memories (-;)
Just so you know, in this case I think Melissa acted as she thought she should (and she has apologized for laying the sexism card down on /sh) I believe that she is wrong about the igasm post. I think this is more to do with being a …. Aussie … than anything else. I think /sh probably has felt persecuted for ages by some people, and he probably was getting really sick of it so that the straw (CC threat) finally broke the camels back.
In future, I’d encourage people to state which hat they are posting about an offensive posting anti-sexist or family-friendly or whatever – don’t just lay down things in black and white – it’s what’s screwed up America (Oh, I didn’t just say that…. ouch). You really need the full support of EVERYONE to stamp out discrimination, and lumping bad jokes in with kicking people from IRC channels based on gender is NOT the right way to go about things.
“Who defines what is Not Safe For Work?”
That is a tricky one, and the best I can say is ‘the poster uses their best judgement, and should politely accept any politely-given comments from readers whose environments require a stricter rule’.
Everything I know about the Stephen/Melissa debacle, save for being told what Stephen’s warning was, has come from this page – so unless I’m asked for further clarifications about the meta-issue I raised, I’ll drop it at that point. :)
Garth,
Thank you for the thoughtful discussion.
Yes, ‘discrimination’, like ‘harassment’, has become an overloaded term. Unfortunately, while you say there are many more appropriate terms, I’m not aware of any other single term which covers the wide variety of problem behaviours.
I completely agree that we need everyone’s support to stamp out discriminating behaviours.
I am absolutely delighted that you agree that ‘girls just aren’t as interested in computers’ is an insufficient answer. I’m amused – and pleased – that you think of it as a prejudice. I think it is.
(I don’t know if I could explain why I’m amused – I think it’s the cognitive dissonance that amuses me: I myself am prejudiced. I assume that people who consider ‘being hit on’ as a minor annoyance are likely to also state ‘girls just aren’t interested’.)
I disagree with your implication that ‘bad jokes’ are harmless. Or that ‘being hit on’ is a minor annoyance.
Humour has two problems:
Firstly, there are people who think it perfectly appropriate to make jokes which are highly inappropriate. An example is a professor of mine who made a joke, in the middle of a first-year lecture, in which he implied that a first-year IT student (who had just clarified a point in the lecture) was a whore.
He was spoken to about it, by his superiors, but never understood why it was inappropriate.
I have encountered many people (of both genders) like him, who just don’t understand, and perhaps choose not to understand, why some things are not suitable jokes. Or why some jokes are fine in the pub, but not in front of a lecture room full of students.
Secondly, there are many people who use humour as a defence. They’ll say something they know is inappropriate, and when people are upset, they’ll say ‘but it was just a joke’.
Then they’ll add insult to injury, if the offended person refuses to accept the transparent ‘joke’ defence, by claiming the offended person has ‘no sense of humour’.
I suspect that some readers aren’t going to understand why being called a whore in front of her peers is upsetting to a woman. (Note that in this case, she was a barely adult woman, and probably didn’t have the defences a 40 year old might.)
I don’t know how to explain it without writing a full essay, if not a novel. It has a lot to do with the double standard, and the madonna/whore or virgin/whore dichotomy – and if you don’t know if those apply in your culture, ask yourself if ‘stud’ or ‘playa’ are compliments, and ‘slut’ or ‘ho’ are insults.
(Note: if your reaction is ‘slut shouldn’t be an insult’, I agree with you – ‘slut’ and ‘stud’ should be as synonymous as ‘waiter’ and ‘waitress’. But ‘should’ doesn’t apply – ‘is’ is what matters to a person’s subconscious mind.)
(Note 2: if you don’t know why ‘slut’ is an insult when ‘stud’ is a compliment, or what the sexual double standard is, or what the madonna/whore or virgin/whore dichotomy are – um – well, I just failed to find a single place to look online. I know a good book on the subject, but a book with the title
‘Slut!’ is probably not going to make everyone comfortable.)
Anyway, short form is: telling women to grow a thicker skin when they’re being belittled, or being reminded that they’re different (do you hit on your male colleagues in the middle of a meeting? No?), is just like telling the skinny kid with glasses and no muscles to grow a thicker skin when he’s being hurt in gym class.
Did the skinny kid with glasses want to go and get harassed? Of course not. Do you think women want to go somewhere where they can expect to be harassed?
Jenn @54 – structures like the Community Council should only be brought into play as a last resort, and only in the event of behaviour which is judged unacceptable by general consensus of the whole community. This is clearly not such a case.
Further, the threat of IRC channel banning was not contingent on any decision by the council, Melissa simply assumed that because she believed there was a problem that she should feel able to force that belief on others, ignoring the fact that a lot of people disagree.
Really, it all comes down to whether or not you think that Stephen’s original post was ‘inappropriate’, ‘NSFW’, etc. Melissa (and others) seem to think that simply because /they/ think it was, it was, and that is simply not true.
i think another point which needs to be made is, that offending people in a non personal way as done by /sh is very often a good thing. For example I’m pretty sure Galileo Galilei offended many people in the medieval society when he stated the fact that Earth is orbiting the sun and not the other way around, I also think that OpenSource philosophy might offend people at Microsoft but does this make OpenSource any worse or facts less true.
There siply things which need to be said or done which might offend people, whcih in the end is a good thing as people will then start to think about whether they simply ignored evidence or whether they had a biased point of view.
I also think that telling the Ammerican/Aussie society is niminy-piminy and that they need to open their mind is is just as important as telling the Muslim world that Women must have equal rights. After all it’s jus the same thing, and sorry to tell you this truth but christian fundamentalism is just as bad or even worse than muslim fundamentalism and telling people that a sex toy is offending and not safe for children is christian fundamentalism or prudety.
In my eyes this also has a great deal to do with the way women are seen in different societies, and I think that in a society where a sex toys build to give pleasure to women is seen as something which should not be talked about in the open there will also be support for men beating their wifes when they aren’t in the mood to have sex.
As a side node I also think that simply saying that there are no differences in the way women and men think when brought up in the same way is wrong. If you look at the medical effect of testosterone/estrogen you will find that there simply must be differences and ignoring them would be against nature, the point however one must understand is that these differences are not in the relation of better or worse but just different and that one gets the best results when understanding and using these differences. Let me give an example involing software development. Given the job of designing a UI or keeping a cummunity productive and help people to understand the users needs is something I am sure more women can do in a good way than man (there are definitely exceptions to this rule but statistically it’s probably correct none the less)
Someone’s sex should never enter into Linux discussions. Politics has a lot more to do with Linux (anti-trust, patents, codex) then sex ever will.
I think the sad thing is that Extreme sub-cultures attract people who can’t deal well with our mainstream culture. Another way to say this is that extreme Linux guys are often extremal lonely guys.
TUX is asexual!
@jenn #54 Well, I think you are right, but I’d use other words if I saw somebody heavily making fun of a girl (computers do not matter here, I think). I wouldn’t say “no cool”, I’d say “that’s very stupid”… we are in 2007, not in 1957.
But the point, I think, is not that. I have never seen a woman being harassed or discriminated when she was using a pc. Of course, if that happened, I’d say the obvious “that’s stupid”… that’s not a problem. I simply have never seen a woman (except for my godmother) using open source programs on her own initiative. Most women here in Italy are simply not interested about computer itself… they just want to use it. I don’t think it is a prejudice: I DO BELIEVE THEY SHOULD BE MORE INTERESTED ABOUT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, chips are a pervasive part of our life. It’s just what I see.
I hope things will change quickly, and kind, polite letters like Melissa’s help a lot. But I don’t think the main reason for the less participation is masculism (I don’t know it is the right word, but I hope you understand what I mean): UNFORTUNATELY stupid jokes and discrimination against women are everywhere, so they cannot be significant to explain why there are relatively few girls in the Open Source community. I think masculism should be removed also (and above all!!) from the Open Source community, but I think that even if we removed it right now, we wouldn’t have so many women trying to approach Open Source afterwards, because masculism is not the main reason why they prefer to learn Medicine (percentage at my faculty is 55-60%), Foreign Languages or Biology and really a few choose to study Computer Sciences or Mathematics. So, what’s the reason? I don’t have THE answer, but possibly (and Jenn won’t agree on this, I think), women just don’t like playing with computers, they prefer more social-related subjects (genetic inheritance? social conditioning? dunno… perhaps it’d need a 300 pages essay to list all possible causes, and I am not a sociologist). Anyway, I believe masculism has little to do with women’s scarce interest about Information Technology.
I know I cannot proof my sentence, of course… it’s just what I think, if somebody has another explanation I’ll be glad to discuss about it.
“but possibly (and Jenn won’t agree on this, I think), women just don’t like playing with computers, they prefer more social-related subjects (genetic inheritance? social conditioning”
… and I have repeatedly said that there are women who DO want to play with computers, and who are NOT part of the Open Source community because of the hassle. I know many of these women. I am one of these women.
I don’t doubt that there are many women who don’t play with computers. (There are also many men who don’t.) I’m interested in the ‘social conditioning’ aspect of why some women don’t play with computers, but regardless of why they don’t – the women who don’t like computers are not the women Melissa or I are currently talking about.
That’s a separate problem, and one which many people are working on.
Now, what I want to know is this:
Why do people who think that ‘the problem is that women don’t want to play with computers’ so rarely address the problems reported by the women who DO want to play with computers?
It feels as if you’re trying to say ‘those other women don’t want to, so you aren’t welcome either and we’ll ignore the problems you tell us you’re having’.
I give you the benefit of the doubt. I assume that that isn’t what you mean.
So what do you mean?
Give us some tips how to help women enjoy their time with the OpenSource community so we can change something, so let’s get the problems enumerated and then let us get down to the dirty work of solving problems because solving problems is exactly the job Software people do on a daily basis, and the first part in solving a problem is isolating what causes it, under which conditions it happens and to find out how to debug it in further detail.
We could setupt a Wiki for example maybe with some FAQ for Men and Women and maybe also some polls to further narrow down the problems.
@Jenn
So so kind you gave me “the benefit of the doubt.” :-D
Well Jenn, please sorry if I have somehow offended you, but also please don’t be such aggressive… I don’t think I was so with you.
OF COURSE I THINK THAT YOU AND ALL WOMEN SHOULD BE MADE FEEL MORE WELCOME IN THE COMMUNITY! I think women see things from another point of view, and do things with a different touch: the result coming from a mixed team is often better than the one coming from a men-only or a women-only one.
What I mean:
1) I’ve understood that some women feel harassed in the Open Source community. That IS a BIG problem, we should THINK about it. Letters like Melissa’s (I’m saying this for the 3rd time) are VERY helpful, because make people THINK.
2) We must do something to fix that problem. Saying to guys “that is stupid and immature” is a good starting point in my opinion. Saying to girls who want to be involved in Open Source “Go on, what you are doing is good – tell your girlfriends to join” is another good thing. I think that both negative and positive reinforcements are useful.
3) Anyhow I believe that harassment is not the main reason why girls do not choose to join the Open Source community – at least in Italy! It’s just a matter of numbers I think: in Italy less girls study or are interested about Computer Sciences respect to guys => less girls can get involved in the OS community. The reason why few girls study or are interested about CS are far too many to be listed here in my opinion, but (at least in Italy) I don’t think that hassle is the main reason. OF COURSE, HASSLE IS A PROBLEM AND WHAT I’M SAYING IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO IGNORE IT – WE MUST MAKE WOMEN FEEL MORE WELCOME. You say that you feel it as the only reason, and that you know women who think the same. I’m truly sorry about it, and I think we should work to fix it, starting from now. But, as I said…
4) …I don’t think that if hassle vanished today, tomorrow there would be lots of girls joining the OS community. The girls I know do not think that joining the OS community is bad because they will be harassed. They just think they have better things to do than being geeks.
The reason? Dunno (no sociologist here!!), but maybe girls education matters…
5) …today if girls want to feel sophistically intellectual (exactly like men do), they discuss about Sartre or Socrates. If they want to feel useful or important (exactly like men do), they study Medicine. In the early 1900s it would have been impossible – a she-philosopher would have been mocked by most men&women, and a few patients would have trusted a she-doctor. Nowadays in my medicine faculty girls are around 60% (in my 4th year they are 70%). I think it was obtained also thanks to families and teachers encouraging little girls who wanted to become a doctor, and letting them free to choose.
That’s why I am confident that a different education will help future generations learn that being a geekess is “as cool as being a doctor”. And more geekesses => more probable Open Source geekesses.
Reason #4 and #5 are irrelevant because the various barriers (social, access to education, etc.) you mention are true of *all* women in IT. We already know that the numbers of women involved in open source is *drastically* lower than the numbers involved in proprietary software. So we need to look inwards as a community of open source developers and ask hard questions about what we’re doing that’s actively or passively excluding women.
As for a FAQ, there’s a very good one written at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/
“Well Jenn, please sorry if I have somehow offended you, but also please don’t be such aggressive… I don’t think I was so with you.”
I’m sorry, I don’t see where I expressed offence, nor where I was aggressive. I’m frustrated, and that may have come through, however.
“OF COURSE I THINK THAT YOU AND ALL WOMEN SHOULD BE MADE FEEL MORE WELCOME IN THE COMMUNITY!”
Women: ‘we are feeling hassled and unwelcome in $Community’
Men: ‘other women just don’t like $Community’s-Interest’
… that doesn’t even address the problem. It doesn’t say ‘hey, you are welcome’. It just sidesteps the whole issue.
We’re feeling unwelcome. We say so. The most common response is ‘other women aren’t even interested’. I’m sorry, but there’s no ‘of course’ in this situation. If we felt welcome but had a problem, there might be an ‘of course’. But we don’t feel welcome. To us, it’s not a case of ‘of course’.
“1) I’ve understood that some women feel harassed in the Open Source community. That IS a BIG problem, we should THINK about it.”
We’ve been thinking about it. I, personally, have been on the periphery of Open Source since Minix. Melissa gave a partial solution. I appreciate that individuals need to think about it, but can our requests and suggestions for action be taken seriously, please?
The thrust of Melissa’s original article was ‘if this problem matters to you, please do this action’.
“2) We must do something to fix that problem.”
Thank you! Yes! This is what we needed.
“3) Anyhow I believe that harassment is not the main reason why girls do not choose to join the Open Source community – at least in Italy!”
And I’m saying ‘we know that. We’re working on that sort of problem. But in the meantime, please address this OTHER problem.’
“You say that you feel it as the only reason, and that you know women who think the same.”
No. I say that this (dealing with the hassle) is a currently existing problem with a solution which is very simple, especially in comparison with the other problems.
“4) …I don’t think that if hassle vanished today, tomorrow there would be lots of girls joining the OS community. The girls I know do not think that joining the OS community is bad because they will be harassed. They just think they have better things to do than being geeks.”
There are women, including teenagers, who are geeks and choose to go into geek fields. Some of them avoid IT and go into other geek fields because of IT’s reputation for hassle and harassment. Some of them avoid IT for other reasons.
There are many, MANY people in the world working on the other reasons. Only the IT industry can work on the problem of IT hassle/harassment – noone else can. Please work on the bit only you can solve. If you’re truly interested in working on the rest, here’s a starting place where you can learn the current state of research and action Feminism 101.
(it’s still under development. If you have questions which are not yet answered there, feel free to propose a new FAQ for answering.)
“5) …today if girls want to feel sophistically intellectual (exactly like men do), they discuss about Sartre or Socrates. If they want to feel useful or important (exactly like men do), they study Medicine. In the early 1900s it would have been impossible”
I’m pleased to meet someone who knows some of the basics of feminism. However:
“That’s why I am confident that a different education will help future generations learn that being a geekess is “as cool as being a doctor”.”
In my year when I went through university, we had about an eighth of the year female. In discussing IT feminism with IT geekgrrls going through university, it seems we’ve declined in numbers – many are the only girl in their year.
As you yourself pointed out, that’s not happening in most other fields. Something’s going wrong in the progress of equality in our field. We’re trying to address it. Please help us.
@webchick
It’s a great how-to! I think somebody should make it an ubuntu-wiki page, with a direct link from the code of conduct page (http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct)… I have an exam next week so I don’t think I can make the task myself right now, but after the exam I’m available. Of course, if somebody else (a native would surely do it better!) wants to make it in the meantime, it’d be great.
BUT:
1) “We already know that the numbers of women involved in open source is *drastically* lower than the numbers involved in proprietary software”
Melissa wrote it in her first letter… but are you sure that hassle is the main reason? Hassle is everywhere unfortunately… and I am not sure that in the open source community there is more hassle than in other fields. Obviously that is not an excuse to ignore it. As I said, we must do something. And I think that how-to you posted is a good starting point.
2) There are different cultures: the anglo-saxon society is different from the Italian or Indian or Iraqi one. Don’t mean worst or better, just different. Some women find it as a hassle and some others don’t… Ubuntu is addressed to all men and women I think: so, what could we do to internationalise the how-to?
@jenn
I: “OF COURSE I THINK THAT YOU AND ALL WOMEN SHOULD BE MADE FEEL MORE WELCOME IN THE COMMUNITY!”
you: “I’m sorry, but there’s no ‘of course’ in this situation. If we felt welcome but had a problem, there might be an ‘of course’. But we don’t feel welcome. To us, it’s not a case of ‘of course’.”
Maybe it’s just the language: I’m not a native. I mean that I thought it was clear that I do think women should feel more welcome in the community… otherwise I would have just ignored Melissa’s address and I wouldn’t be writing to you now :-D
your synthesis
“Women: ‘we are feeling hassled and unwelcome in $Community’
Men: ‘other women just don’t like $Community’s-Interest’”
my synthesis
Women: ‘we are feeling hassled and unwelcome in $Community; hassle is the reason why most women choose not to join the $Community’
Elias: ‘I think we must do something to fix the problem to make women feel more welcome: webchick’s how-to is a good starting point. But I don’t think that a $Community without hassle would suddenly make more women choose to join the $Community’
“There are women, including teenagers, who are geeks and choose to go into geek fields. Some of them avoid IT and go into other geek fields because of IT’s reputation for hassle and harassment. Some of them avoid IT for other reasons.”
Well, I just think that the ones who choose to avoid IT because of IT reputation for hassle are less than the ones who avoid IT for other reasons. That’s the whole point I was talking about. Some of the other reasons are listed in the how-to (2.3. Women are discouraged from an early age, 2.4. Computing perceived as non-social, 2.5. Lack of female role models, etc) and are far more relevant in my opinion.
“Melissa wrote it in her first letter… but are you sure that hassle is the main reason?”
I challenge you to find anywhere in the comments to these two articles where any of the women have said it’s the main reason.
I (and others) have said, and continue to say, that it is A reason. One of many. It’s just the one that Melissa happened to address, and one of the easiest to solve – provided the majority in any given community are willing to solve it.
“what could we do to internationalise the how-to?”
Contributions to that howto have some from a wide variety of cultures. The USA, Canada, the UK and Australia, of course. But also Brazil, South Africa, the Indian subcontinent and region, and parts of Asia.
It is open to comment and modification, and is periodically revisited in Linuxchix. Others are welcome to make suggestions as well.
“I mean that I thought it was clear that I do think women should feel more welcome in the community… otherwise I would have just ignored Melissa’s address and I wouldn’t be writing to you now”
Okay. You would be surprised, and probably shocked and dismayed, at the frequency with which females who stand up for themselves are pushed and kicked out of communities. There are two types of people who respond to articles like this one – and the other type are people who are here to hurt us. And they love to masquerade as people who are on our side, just to waste our time and make their pseudo-triumph the sweeter (for them, of course).
“your synthesis/my synthesis” (content snipped for brevity)
If you look only at comment 67, which is what I was basing my synthesis on, much of the material in your synthesis had not been presented.
I know some men think women can read their minds, but I was away the day they taught telepathy.
However:
“But I don’t think that a $Community without hassle would suddenly make more women choose to join the $Community”
That STILL ignores the point of the women who are reporting that we stay outside the $Community, looking in, because of the hassle.
Your synthesis still ignores the main point I’m trying to make. Am I really being that unclear?
“Well, I just think that the ones who choose to avoid IT because of IT reputation for hassle are less than the ones who avoid IT for other reasons. That’s the whole point I was talking about.”
How many times do I have to tell you I agree with that point?
I’ve even told you where you can go to help with the process of solving those many other problems you’re worried about.
Can we please move on?
Please?
1) ” “your synthesis/my synthesis” (content snipped for brevity)
If you look only at comment 67, which is what I was basing my synthesis on, much of the material in your synthesis had not been presented.
I know some men think women can read their minds, but I was away the day they taught telepathy.”
If you look only at comment 67, I was just saying that hassle is a BIG problem, but not the biggest (you also agree on that, right?). I’m sorry that my opinion could have made you feel I didn’t want women feel welcome. That’s not what I think: I have already explained my point of view and I said that I am available to help make the how-to more visible.
(By the way, don’t you think that your sentence “I know some men think women can read their minds, but I was away the day they taught telepathy.” is a bit sexist against men? Not joking.. seriously)
2) OK, I agree it’s better to move on. So, what could we do to make the tutorial become a ubuntuwiki page? That’s just my proposal, I’d like to know others’ opinion.
elias, your argument seems to be that since harassment isn’t the biggest barrier to women getting involved in open source, that we should instead direct our focus toward larger social/educational issues which are barriers to women getting involved in technology/computers.
But see, it doesn’t really matter if harassment is THE number one problem or not. Maybe it’s #2, maybe it’s #47. The point is, it’s definitely A problem, and one consistently cited by women as something they have to deal with on a daily basis in the open source world. That means it’s a problem we should all (men and women alike) focus on actively doing something about.
And the good news is that we can; each one of us individually has the power to influence the amount of harassment women have to deal with in our open source communities, where we *don’t* have the ability individually to fix international educational systems, the way women are portrayed in the media, etc. That therefore pushes the harassment issue way up to the top of the list, as far as I’m concerned.
What are some things we can do?
1. Don’t tolerate “poisonous people” in your community. It doesn’t matter how good of a coder someone is; if he routinely is telling sexist, racist, and/or homophobic jokes/insults, I can *guarantee* that he is driving away more contributors (both men *and* women) than he’s worth.
2. When you see people making stupid comments on mailing lists, forums, or IRC, call them out on it. *Especially* if you’re a guy.
3. Be more sensitive to the way you and your colleagues interact with one another. You might know that you’re joking around, but think of how new potential contributors not “in the know” will view your behaviour… especially months/years down the line (remember that electronic communication can be archived indefinitely).
4. Go out of your way to be friendly and welcoming to people. Make your project an inviting place, not an exclusive one.
5. See the HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux document. :)
@webchick
I agree, but we should make what you said more visible… an ubuntu wiki?! Nik #69 had already thought about it, before me. Anyone interested? Nik? Whoever? I think it would be a clear signal to all Ubuntu community.
@elias
you mean like https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuForAll that I started a week or so ago?
@melissa
yes, a project like yours is what I meant. If you think I could be somehow useful, please count me in after Friday 8th.
This discussion has been really informative for me, and I hope it gives you guys from Ubuntu-women some ideas for how to educate people in the future. To help you with this, here is my feelings about bad jokes etc. I don’t really want a reply, as I understand completely your point of view, but it will take me a couple of years to turn my brain around. A word you could use is sexism – this is useful because it encompasses a whole variety of things. If you see any truly discriminatory behavior, I hope that that person is given the hiding they deserve.
I personally think that bad jokes etc are normally said not because people want to hurt someone, but because people think they are funny. Because of this, I feel that people should learn to just shrug off non-personal remarks. I understand why you think this isn’t the right position (after all , mental pain can be much bigger than physical pain), but I’ll take a while to come around (I tend to look at the good in everything – when people say something mean, I tend to believe they don’t actually mean it. In my experience, this is mostly true). In a perfect world, all that would matter is your ability and that you are nice to those around you. Good luck with all this stuff, and I hope that one of you works out a good method to encourage women in open source. If you do, you might wish to get involved with helping other minorities.
Elias: Hypothetically pretend that women and men have a math IQ difference on average of 5. I’ve never seen numbers, but I imagine that in a modern western society a difference of even 2 would be commented on and cited everywhere. I think that the percentiles for IQ are something like 90 to 110 for the middle 50%. this means that a difference of 5 on average gives something like the upper 25% (the ones we care about) for girls having an IQ of at least 109 and guys at least 111 — a minuscule difference. If real numbers were put in, the difference would be much much smaller. If geekiness depended on mathsIQ (probably does only loosely), it is hard to imagine a non-societal reason for the 13% girls we see in university IT courses. What I have written here hopefully gives an indication why I think it is prejudiced to assume that we are naturally going to see way less girls in OSS.
I wasn’t able to comment at the time, but I have to say this: the whole Stephan-Gate was a sham.
I feel Stephan was treated in a completely unfair way, and this entire “holier than thou” approach to sex, from adult, intelligent, 21st Century human beings is just ludicrous.
While finding something offensive or not is idiosyncratic, Melissa, your approach to Stephan in that now infamous IRC chat was below what is “humanity towards others”.
In the end, if Stephan, unfortunately, left, you should have the decency to do the same. I find it way more offensive the way you approached Stephan than his, naïve above all things, mention to the iGasm.
And just to end this (I acknowledge it) harsh comment, I’ll just have to state that this is not a persecutory comment, I’m not a friend of Stephan’s, I’ve never talked/chatted with any of you two, but you Melissa, disappointed me terribly, because I had nourished a certain fondness of you, by reading your Planet posts. You seemed, above all, a nice person.
Above Stephan’s unfortunate post, what you wrote to Stephan, the way you decided to approach him regarding the matter? THAT tarnished Ubuntu, given your position.
“…the whole Stephan-Gate was a sham.”
You just lost my respect already. $event-gate is the lamest way to say ‘controversy’. evah.
“I feel Stephan was treated in a completely unfair way”
People expressed their displeasure at the post to him in PM – He ignored them, then claimed people did not try to talk to him. People mentioned it to him – He laughed at them and called them names (‘niminy-piminy’), and wonders why more people didn’t speak up. What else was there to do? Ignore the offensive post just because he was ignoring. Sure. Let us ignore every problem in the world and hope they all magically go away. Guess what. The world does not work like that.
Heck, he pre-emptively called anyone who didn’t like the topic this insult, already aware he was doing something that was going to offend people – by his own admission. He is not naive by any stretch.
Stephan left in a blatant tantrum to try and incite the scalp comment that you have made here. Congratulations – you’ve been played.
You see, Stephan’s reaction has been more the problem than the post or my confronting him. Stephan’s reaction has been a tarnish to HIS reputation, not to that of Ubuntu.