[clug] Open Source Software's Dirty Little Secret

[Paul Wayper]

On 11/09/09 09:48, Eyal Lebedinsky wrote:
> 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.

Eyal,

I saw you look around the room at a CLUG meeting - the one that Tridge talked 
about the VFAT patent workarounds - and say "are there any girls here?  Oh, 
there aren't, then I don't have to watch my language."  If it wasn't that 
precise phrase then please correct me, but there is absolutely no doubt in my 
head that you were being deliberately antagonistic against any women that 
showed up (you certainly looked happier when your search failed) and to anyone 
who might take offence at your behaviour.

If you need to see any behaviour that women were not going to be treated as 
equals, then look in a mirror.

How many people went and talked with Dr Denise Bates, who attended the last 
Beginners LUG?  Did all the guys there chat with her just as they would with 
any one of their friends?  Or was it just me that went up to her and said hi?

> 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.

You're wanting 'explicit' examples so you can then nitpick and deny that 
they're 'real'.  If you can't look at the general forms of behaviour and 
recognise non-welcoming signals, then it's because you've got blinkers on. 
There are more than enough explicit examples that every woman that I've ever 
talked to in the IT industry and in FOSS has ever cared to share with me - 
none of them need to be reiterated in endless detail to you personally.

Jessica, let me amplify what Adam said - we all bring different ideas and 
abilities to every project.  Even if there was another me sitting beside me as 
I code he'd still be able to say "remember that semicolon" and "what happens 
if you can't open the file" and so forth.  Or, better still, he'd be on the 
other computer hacking on another piece of code to double our output.

And more than that - as Francis said, if all you do is to be encouraging to 
the next woman that turns up, then that'd be reversing a negative trend all by 
itself.  And if it means that people choose their words more carefully, or 
don't say some crudity that will offend me as well, then that's all to the good.

Have fun,

Paul