An Open Letter to the Open Source Community

[Tristan Wibberley]

On Tue, 2007-05-22 at 09:20 +0100, Pete Ryland wrote:
> On 22/05/07, Mikhail Gusarov <dottedmag at dottedmag.net> wrote:
> >
> > Twas brillig at 15:16:18 22.05.2007 UTC+10 when Melissa Draper did gyre and gimble:
> >
> >  MD> As a Woman and an Open Source contributor, I see a number of behaviours
> >  MD> within the Open Source community that are quite counterproductive to the
> >  MD> community. Many of these behaviours often go unnoticed, and this is a
> >  MD> shame.
> >
> > Please provide any facts (URLs to logs, e-mails, whatever) to prove your
> > claims. Both your mail and report contain only feelings, not the facts. While
> > feelings are very important, they do not create basis for fruitful discussion.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> 
> Sheesh.  First hit on Google for "linux women" provides this:
> 
> http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/x28.html#AEN41
> 
> Pete
> 

That howto itself is sexist. The first comment it points out as being an
attack on women claims that it diagnoses the problem as an
"over-stressed female" when actually it doesn't. It neither diagnoses
the problem nor says the female is "over"-stressed. The message points
out how strong a woman can be in a manner that indicates the poster is
respectful of that strength (in the same manner as the phrase "hell hath
no fury like a woman scorned" which many women seem to like). A woman
could have said the same thing and it would not have been taken as
sexist but rather a simple boast - which shows that the howto author
thinks other women are weak and that she is one of the few strong ones
who must protect the others and interpreted the comment in that context.

The only reason gender was even highlighted here is due to the
scarceness of female community members.

If you put a hand-full of men into a chat-room full of a diverse
selection of single women he'll be bombarded with suggestive comments
just as women are in a chat-room (or mailing list) full of a diverse
selection of single men.

The problem is not that men think of women in a way that women do not
think of men, causing them to act in a sexist way (although there are of
course some of those). The problem is that men and women do not converse
in the same way and due to the disparity in population in these forums
women end up taking more sexual pressure and gender-related banter than
feels right and comfortable. If the populations were more "natural" that
pressure wouldn't be there and it would go both ways in equal measure
just as in every other walk of life where it is normally regarded as a
bit of fun by both sexes. Hell, in the absence of women men make
comments to each other that are far more suggestive than anything they
would say to a woman - for example "while you're down there" is my
personal favourite.

IMHO, the problem is only in the ratio of men to women. The "women's
clubs" like ubuntu-women are therefore only slightly useful in changing
the proportion as they provide somewhere where women outnumber the men
rather than a balance (although due to the nature of the forum any men
there will be unlikely to receive much of the attention I mentioned
above).

I think the best thing that can be done to achieve more balance is to
try to get forum's set up that by their topic will be populated in a
balanced way, and move development into those forums. That is going to
be difficult to do - but it must be done because the current female
population feels the way they are spoken about is unfair and the current
male population feels it is a normal "bit of fun". The only solution is
to get everybody thinking it is a "bit of fun" like they normally do by
having it go both ways in equal measure like it has done in every
non-geek social group I've been in.

It would also help if the men would get away from their computers one
day in six and get laid so their capability for sexual thoughts is
diverted to other forums.

-- 
Tristan Wibberley

These are not my employers opinions but my own. They are derived from
personal experience at school, in pubs, and at university.