An Open Letter to the Open Source Community

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Tue, May 22, 2007 at 04:30:19PM -0400, Robert Carr wrote:
> In most cultures I am familiar with (and definitely in the US) women are
> just less encouraged to be self motivated and interested in subjects as an
> enjoyable intellectual pursuit than males, there is just not the same
> motivation to "dream big", not to mention the pressure to be mainstream.
> So, when you start to filter the population by both females who have
> worked through the stereotype/pressure not go to in to computing, and who
> have worked through the other pressures that discourage them from being
> involved in something like open source (and then possibly you lose a few
> due to discrimination in the community...), the numbers get pretty small.

It's certainly true that there are other factors at work, many of which are
beyond our direct control, both individually and as a community.  However,
the effects of discrimination are more complex than this model suggests.  We
don't simply filter sequentially; people in each of these stages are
influenced by the system as a whole.  For example, the interests of children
are influenced by older role models in what may become their chosen
profession.  True luminaries in a field inspire vast numbers of people to
follow them, decades later.

The fact that someone has encountered obstacles earlier in their path to
open source is good reason to offer them support, not to dismiss the
problem.  We may not be able to change everything ourselves, but we must
take responsibility for the things we can.

-- 
 - mdz