[UbuntuWomen] Hi, I'm the new kid | Can technology be "more female"?

[Caroline Ford]

I think there is a male bonding thing which involves hostility to the  
outsiders whether they be non geeks, end users or women. Casual sexism  
turned into abuse when I stood up for myself.

We have a code of conduct but I'm not aware of anyone ever being  
'done' for breaches of it with reference to minorities. Freedom of  
speech arguments always seem to win out. We must be on the side of the  
hated political correctness!

I was encouraged by my parents and got my first computer aged 9.  
However I don't have a degree in comp sci and wouldn't dream of  
working in IT. I can compare the culture with the one I work in  
(public health care) and can see the barriers, the attacks on your  
confidence and the extra effort needed.

Open source is a hobby. I do bits when I have time. I got involved in  
children's open source software as the atmosphere and community was  
better. My theory is thst people who make children's software  
generally have the people skills to have partners and children.

Caroline

Sent from a mobile device.

On 26 Apr 2009, at 12:19, Elizabeth Krumbach <lyz at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 10:21 AM, julia friesel
> <julia.friesel at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> I am also currently working on a paper on women in free software,  
>> exploring
>> why it is that technology is such a male domain and why it can be so
>> difficult for women to enter it (or why most of them don't want to  
>> in the
>> first place), and what the implications of all this are for the  
>> digital
>> architectures we will continue to live in. So any thoughts on that  
>> subject
>> are highly appreciated :)
>
> Welcome Julia. Here are some links that you may find particularly  
> useful:
>
> Some collected links, some on standard sexism and feminism, but others
> on behavior within open source projects:
> http://wiki.ubuntu-women.org/ChallengingSexism
>
> A bit dated by now (I see more women in open source than I did when
> this was released, anyway), FLOSSpols has shown that the number of
> women in IT in general hovered around 28% in proprietary software and
> 2.4% in open source: http://flosspols.org/
>
> "Unlocking the Clubhouse" is a fantastic book about the issue (and not
> too long). Put together by folks at Carnegie Mellon University they
> outline what they believe to be the problem, possible solutions and
> actual initiatives they've embarked upon:
> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/index.html
>
> All links aside, the following were the major hurdles I found myself
> overcoming to stay very heavily involved in tech:
>
> 1. Lack of female role models in the industry and community. I joined
> LinuxChix and that all changed, but I had a lot of trouble when I felt
> alone as a woman in IT, it made me question whether I belonged very
> often.
>
> 2. Lack of encouragement. For whatever reason in the US there is a
> tendency not to encourage females in technical pursuits as much as our
> male counterparts (this does look to be changing some, in part due to
> pushes like Carnegie Mellon and projects like girlsgotech.org). This
> lack of encouragement often leads to women getting heavily involved
> only when they discover the joy of tech stuff for themselves - if they
> do at all! And this is often at college-age, where they learn
> something from a male counterpart who has been involved since his
> early teens. I'd say a majority of women I work with regularly in IT
> weren't hard core techies until their 20s.
>
> 3. Sexism and threats. It has been argued that part of the "IT
> culture" is about proving worth, teasing, and general being hard on
> each other, so if women can't take the heat - they should find another
> industry to be part of instead of trying to change the good ole boys
> club that has worked for so long. But it's much more than that for
> women, I can deal with teasing and having to prove my worth to my
> peers - I have a harder time with aggressive sexism and sometimes
> violent threats launched against women involved in tech (see the Kathy
> Sierra issue of 2 years ago and the death threats sent to members of
> Debian Women).
>
> Hope this helps :)
>
> -- 
> Elizabeth Krumbach // Lyz // pleia2
> http://www.princessleia.com
>
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