[clug] Open Source Software's Dirty Little Secret

[Eyal Lebedinsky]

Michael,

I do not accept that my "way of thinking is a kind of discrimination". I talk
about facts, not opinion. Women *are* different, regardless of how guilty anyone
feels about this. If I used this difference to justify decisions where the
difference is irrelevant then I will be discriminating (in the bad sense).
And I don't do that.

All are welcome to participate, yet if I take clug as one sample I can tell you
that I saw no change in participation for, say, the last 15 years (or more?)
and I never saw any indication that women were discouraged. All are always
welcome regardless of gender, but also regardless of age, experience or any
other measure you care to add.

So, please tell me explicitly how women are discouraged from participation
in clug (by actions of the participants) and I am ready to address it. This
should be a much more productive discussion.

cheers
	Eyal

Michael Cohen wrote:
> Eyal,
>    The problem of women participation is FOSS is only one example of
> women participation in lots of other areas of academic achievement -
> and this has been looked at in detail in recent years.
> 
> See for example:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat
> and lots of links following from there.
> 
> Sometimes the mere expectation that women are not good at FOSS or that
> participation level should be low or that its an obvious thing due to
> physiological differences or whatever is a form of discrimination.
> Discrimination does not need to be overt. There is absolutely no basis
> to claim that women are less capable due to biological  differences as
> this has been shown many times to be wrong (in fact some studies find
> females perform better than males in many academic areas including
> maths).
> 
> We dont want to tell you what to think, but just for your interest,
> your way of thinking is the kind of discrimination earlier posters
> have referred to.
> 
> Michael.
[trim]

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