[UbuntuWomen] An idea on how to get women from the list involved

[Sarah Hobbs]

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Tricia Bowen wrote:
> As a woman trying to get involved in the Ubuntu project, it would be helpful
> to see some job requests posted to the list and to hear what projects the
> ubuntu-women (and men) members contribute towards. Jobs request would be
> specific, like "Wanted: Graphic Designer for Child's Play", or "Wanted:
> Programmer php/mysql". This would reduce the digging around time and the
> feeling that to contribute to a project you would have to break into a group
> of men and get to know them in order to find out what was needed on the
> project.

I would think this gets back to the "limited time" problem.  There is
limited time for someone to spend on Ubuntu, and time for outreach would
normally be spent improving the documentation, where you could see what
needed to be done from reading the documentation.  MOTU, for eg, already
does this to a degree, with the posts on planet ubuntu - do the women
require a separate posting for this?  That being said, having people who
mirror interesting opportunities from planet ubuntu to this mailing list
might be useful.

> It could be that you don't have to break into a group of men to commit to a
> project, but as a newbie that's how I picture it. I'm sure that's how most
> women see the process and shrug the shoulders in a "I don't have the time
> for this." A job ad reduces that whole breaking down walls aspect and
> transform you into a simple job applicant. If you get the job then you are
> able to get involved and gain a better sense of how the internal process
> works. Then maybe in turn you can carve out a job to bring another person on
> board.

I don't see it as you having to break into a group of men.  I see it as
you having to break into a group of people.  Yes, this can be quite hard
- - in the development community, for eg, you have to find people to
sponsor your new packages, or your patches in, and the speed of this
will depend, in part, on how good your work is.  I don't see it
depending on who you are.

My other problem with all of this is the idea that women need to be
constantly driven by external things - like needing to be told what to
work on.  This doesn't work - whether you're a male or a female.  At the
end of the day, you have to have the motivation to do what you want to
do, and be able to read and process information, else you'll never
succeed in your chosen field.

That being said, having initial sessions figuring out what
women/men/green aliens/ white people/ black people / brown people /
purple people /etc would like to work on, and what resources they should
look at to do so, and where to ask for help is very useful.

Also, the whole "job" idea suggests that there is a figure at the top,
giving out orders.  There isn't.  There are panels of people (and there
is sabdfl) who make global decisions in their respective domains - but
don't tell you what to do for day-to-day stuff (although there are
written technical instructions about how to do things).  It appears that
a lot of people, both male and female, believe this to be the case.  One
of the very useful things ubuntu women could do is to expose this lie to
new contributors, to ease the "culture shock" of contributing to free
software.  Perhaps that is one of the keys - to ease the culture shock,
so that people are unlikely to back away, and go "this is too hard for
me.  I can't do this".

I haven't addressed the entire issue of harassment - it's been covered
extensively already.  Yes, it sucks.  Yes, it should go away.
Fortunately, some areas are better than others.

Hobbsee
(the first female core dev, MOTU, etc)
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