[clug] Open Source Software's Dirty Little Secret

[Eyal Lebedinsky]

Jacinta,

It is refreshing to read a post that stays on topic and does not degrade into
a personal level. I was almost resigned to drop off this discussion after
reading some of the recent postings.

Jacinta Richardson wrote:
> Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
> 
>> I want to mention another aspect of the FOSS community that is known but
>> maybe not highlighted. Some the those male-geek groups are actually
>> intentionally for men (boys, whatever). This is the equivalent of other
>> kinds of male bonding activities, and in this context women are excluded,
>> and rightly so
> 
> So you're saying that some... what?  user groups?  conferences?  FOSS projects?

No, just groups. The usual gender-bonding phase of growing up.

> are deliberately formed to encourage male bonding and that that's is a good and
> right thing?  I don't think anyone would argue against it being reasonable for
> you to get together with a group of your male buddies and go and do something
> just for you men.  Even if you did so while you were all gathered together at a
> conference, so long as you weren't interrupting other conference events I doubt
> anyone would care.

I am talking about groups that get together on their own, not as part of a wider
gathering. It is common to see mostly male tinkering centred "clubs", often as
teens but also of adults. Women have their own "clubs" but AFAIK these are less
often along the same lines of interest. I am talking about mostly friends with
common interest where same gender bonding plays a significant role.

> However if you're saying that it's rightly so that you could gather together a
> group of men - where your criteria wasn't that they were your mates, but was
> instead that they all worked together on project X - and held an event for these
> men for the purposes of male bonding, I'd disagree.  I'd say that was
> exclusionary and discriminatory.  It would be saying that any women who worked
> on project X didn't matter; although soon enough you probably wouldn't have any
> women working on project X any more anyway.

No, this is not what I am saying.

> I can only assume that you made your point badly as I can't see any reasonable
> interpretation of it.
> 
> But to address your larger point.  FOSS is not gender blind and it is not a
> meritocracy.  It's made of people and people have all sorts of inherent biases
> and make all sorts of unreasonable judgements without realising it.  Peter
> Sheahan did some research on global workforce trends especially to find best
> practice in increasing the numbers of women in senior roles in business.  In
> particular he studied businesses who had explicitly aimed to increase the
> numbers of women in those senior roles and who had buy in all the way up.  He found:
> 
> 	As a general rule senior managers overestimate their “open mindedness”
> 	and ability to make non-sexist judgements. It turns out that [they] are
> 	half as open minded and inclusive in their behaviour as they think they
> 	are.
> 
> 	Even when women’s networking groups exist, they are often excluded from
> 	the informal networks that count. That is, the networks where the most
> 	important decisions get made.
> 
> 	Quotas work. As “insulting” as the need for a quota may be for many
> 	women, to get results we must forcefully break the biases which keep the
> 	status quo entrenched.
> 
> 	Facilitating much more intimate networks to form between aspiring women
> 	and senior managers (especially men) is far more powerful than formal
> 	women’s networks.
> 
> http://blogs.theage.com.au/small-business/futureproof/2009/08/28/sexistbastards.html?page=fullpage

I do not like quotas as they often reflect a political agenda rather than
a true need. Same as I do not like dictatorship even if it sometimes 'work'.

Imposing quotas should be done with great care, and with the clear expectation
that it is temporary and the problem it addresses will remain 'fixed' once
the quota is removed (i.e. the existing bias addressed is gone). And even
then it flies in the face of performance related evaluation and as such
carries its own negative effect (for both groups).

> I think the first finding is key.  As a general rule many of us overestimate our
> open mindedness and ability to make non-sexist judgements.  We, too, are
> probably half as open minded and inclusive in our behaviour as we think we are.
> 
> To make a difference we need to be more open minded and inclusive.
> Additionally, it'd probably help to arrange a more formal mentor ship program
> for many projects.  Many men benefit from informal mentor ships from friends
> they know in person or make on-line; a more formal program would help those
> coming in without such initial contacts.
> 
> For those wondering why you should care about how many women are involved on
> FOSS let's go back to that research for one final point:
> 
> 	And what makes this most shocking is that ALL of the credible research
> 	shows that companies with greater diversity (namely women) in senior
> 	roles outperform the market by as much as 33%.

I consider 'senior role' important here. The discussion on the list is more about
bare-metal hard-core technically-minded people that have an interest in Linux.
Naturally, clug has a far wider audience as it caters to all FOSS developers
as well as users, be it casual or dedicated. But technical tinkering still
plays a major role judging by the subjects often discussed.

> or
> 
> 	According to Catalyst research in the US, companies with women on their
> 	boards are financially stronger by 35 per cent while a 2008 McKinsey &
> 	Company study said US women on executive teams contributed to a 48 per
> 	cent higher EBIT result than the industry norm

Again 'executive'. It is now an agree fact that women do a very good job
in management positions, often better that men that come from a technical
background.

> http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/executive-women/women-on-boards-addressing-the-gender-imbalance-20090903-f9pj.html?page=fullpage
> 
> FOSS isn't business, but if increasing the diversity of senior roles can make a
> company run that much better, is it so far-fetched to believe that increasing
> the number of women in your project can make it both more productive and enjoyable?

I agree that FOSS should encourage women to take part in senior roles
where they already have a proven inclination and a track record.

However, I still see little evidence that women are equally interested in
participating in the purely technical roles. I am not talking about their
ability, but about their interest.

If they really are not interested then one should not 'encourage' them
against their will or feel guilty by their absence.

The core question remains: are women as inclined as men to get involved
in the kind of technical endeavour that FOSS is? And the same can be
asked about the workforce. I am not talking about non-technical or
management roles.

 From my reading on the subject, once I get past the opinion based
discussion, it is emerging that there are clear innate differences
that affect many aspects or our personality and this directly affects
our interests and thus our choice of occupation.

Society imposes expectations on top of this which has its own
influence, some very strong (e.g. the general treatment of women as
inferior in many religions and societies to this day) but this does
not imply that the differences are 100% nurture.

My experience when hiring for our R&D team is that I see very few women
applying. I also hire for our Bangalore office where I cannot even tell
the gender of the applicant (from the name or otherwise) and by the time
I go through the short-list on the phone I find very, very few women on
the line. Even counting only the resumes from grads (not yet spoiled by
the corporate machinery or the work environment) men are the large
majority.

I need to emphasize that our advertised positions are clearly described
as very technical (product centric) and not like the bulk of the IT
business (which is project oriented).

If this is an indication of women's interest then it is not surprising
that they are absent from participation is similar roles in FOSS. If you
believe, that left alone, men and women will have equal participation
then by the time they hit clug or FOSS it is probably too late to 'fix'
the situation. But we should not aggravate it.

However I still disagree that clug, specifically, is discouraging to
women, or to newcomers is general, and I still want to hear how we are
doing this. The people on the list may be the wrong ones to ask as they
were not yet discouraged, but if anyone knows someone (any gender) that
has a story to tell on this subject then it will be very interesting to
hear.

Granted, it is always difficult to be the newcomer, but it should not
be so much as to be discouraging.

Maybe we should just move the discussion off 'clug' and stay on FOSS
which is a far wider field? I surely need to go out now and enjoy this
sunny day.

> All the best,
> 
> 	J

cheers

-- 
Eyal Lebedinsky	(eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)