[clug] Open Source Software's Dirty Little Secret

[Adam Thomas]

2009/9/10 Eyal Lebedinsky <eyal at eyal.emu.id.au>:
> I'll bite then, Jessica,
>
> If I read this correctly then you are suggesting that somehow men and women
> bring something else to the party. I thought that an earlier thread
> attempted
> to establish that there is equality of skills that should lead to equality
> of participation (and lamented it not being so, mainly blaming men).

No one is trying to argue that everyone has equal skills. The point
is, gender is not something that gives you an advantage or
disadvantage in gaining or using the skills needed to contribute to
the community.

>
> I actually agree with you. Men and women, as a generalization, do have
> differences (beyond the obvious) which often make them pick different
> fields of interest, different roles and different passions. But YMMV.

I don't think its the physicality of the gender differences that
causes this phenomenon. I believe it is largely due to the way society
treats the different genders.

>
> What do I want women to bring to FOSS? Same as from anyone else: whatever
> you enjoy and are good at. Play to your strengths.
>
> Do I want more women participating? No I don't. They will if they want
> and will stay away if they don't. FOSS is not different than any other
> social situation where equal participation is rarely found.

I don't want to encourage women participating in FOSS more than I want
encourage men participating in FOSS. I just want more people
participating in FOSS. I will promote FOSS to whom ever will listen,
regardless of their physicality or background.

There is still a large number of existing FOSS community members who
discourage women from joining or continuing to participate in the
community. I doubt there are many people actively attempting to
discourage women from participating but more often than not manage to
do so by accident.  Some handle this well by apologising and moving
on, others handle it poorly and end up putting more fuel on the fire.

What I want, is for the community to not discourage anyone from
participating in FOSS. It has been identified that there is a
significant amount of discouragement felt by women. They are the
greasy wheel getting the grease. If we can educate those who
discourage women, hopefully we can also educate those who discourage
other minorities.

>
> cheers
>        Eyal
>
> Jessica Fryer wrote:
>>
>> Well that's thet textbook answer but are you really looking for more of
>> the
>> exact same?
>>
>> Are there any areas where a woman's influence might reverse a negative
>> trend, for example?
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Adam Thomas <adam.lloyd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The advantage would be a bigger community with more contributers and
>>> users. More skills and more ideas.
>>>
>>> I'd like you to do what ever it is you want to contribute. If you want
>>> to contribute code then contribute code! If there are other things
>>> that you want to contribute then do them too or instead of. Women
>>> should be able to make exactly the same contributions as men. That's
>>> what equality is about.
>
> --
> Eyal Lebedinsky (eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)
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