![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mjg59John Scalzi recently wrote a piece on straight white male privilege. If you haven't read it already, go and do so. No rush. I'll wait.
So. Some facts:
(If you disagree with any of these then that's absolutely your right. You're wrong, but that's ok. But please do me a favour and stop reading here. Otherwise you'll just get angry and then you'll write something ill-tempered and still wrong in the comments and then I'll have to delete it and why not just save everybody the time and effort and go and eat ice cream or something instead)
I know I've said this before, but inappropriate and marginalising behaviour is rife in our community, and at all levels of our community. There's the time an open source evangelist just flat out told a woman that her experiences didn't match his so she must be an outlier. There's the time a leading kernel developer said that most rape statistics were basically made up. There's the time that I said the most useful thing Debian could do with its money would be to buy prostitutes for its developers, simultaneously sexualising the discussion, implying that Debian developers were all straight men and casting sex workers as property. These aren't the exceptions. It's endemic. Almost all of us have been part of the problem, and in doing so we've contributed to an environment that has at best driven away capable contributors. You probably don't want to know what it's done at worst.
But what people have done in the past isn't important. What's important is how we behave in the future. If you're not angry about social injustice like this then you're doing it wrong. If you're reading this then there's a pretty high probability that you're a white male. So, it's great that you're angry. You should be! As a straight white male born into a fairly well-off family, a native English speaker in an English speaking country, I have plenty of time to be angry before going back to my nice apartment and living my almost entirely discrimination-free life. So if it makes me angry, I have absolutely no way of comprehending how angry it must make the people who actually have to live with this shit on a daily basis.
(Were tampon mouse able to form and express coherent thoughts, tampon mouse would not put up with this shit)
The point isn't to be smugly self aware of our own shortcomings and the shortcomings of others. The point is to actually do something about it. If you're not already devoting some amount of your resources to improving fairness in the world, then why not? It doesn't have to be about women in technology - if you're already donating to charity or helping out at schools or engaging in local politics or any of the countless other ways an individual can help make the world a better place, large or small, then keep on doing that. But do consider that many of us have done things in the past that contributed to the alienation of an astounding number of potential community members, and if you can then please do do something to make up for it. It might be donating to groups like The Ada Initiative. It might be mentoring students for projects like the GNOME Outreach Program for Women, or working to create similar programs. Even just making our communities less toxic by pointing out unacceptable behaviour when you see it makes a huge difference.
But most importantly, be aware that it was people like me who were responsible for this problem in the first place and people like me who need to take responsibility for solving it. We can't demand the victims do that for us.
So. Some facts:
- Women are underrepresented in free software development
- Those women who are involved in free software development are overwhelmingly more likely to have been subject to sexual harassment, belittling commentary or just plain ignored because of their gender
- When asked, women tend to believe that these two facts are fairly strongly related
(If you disagree with any of these then that's absolutely your right. You're wrong, but that's ok. But please do me a favour and stop reading here. Otherwise you'll just get angry and then you'll write something ill-tempered and still wrong in the comments and then I'll have to delete it and why not just save everybody the time and effort and go and eat ice cream or something instead)
I know I've said this before, but inappropriate and marginalising behaviour is rife in our community, and at all levels of our community. There's the time an open source evangelist just flat out told a woman that her experiences didn't match his so she must be an outlier. There's the time a leading kernel developer said that most rape statistics were basically made up. There's the time that I said the most useful thing Debian could do with its money would be to buy prostitutes for its developers, simultaneously sexualising the discussion, implying that Debian developers were all straight men and casting sex workers as property. These aren't the exceptions. It's endemic. Almost all of us have been part of the problem, and in doing so we've contributed to an environment that has at best driven away capable contributors. You probably don't want to know what it's done at worst.
But what people have done in the past isn't important. What's important is how we behave in the future. If you're not angry about social injustice like this then you're doing it wrong. If you're reading this then there's a pretty high probability that you're a white male. So, it's great that you're angry. You should be! As a straight white male born into a fairly well-off family, a native English speaker in an English speaking country, I have plenty of time to be angry before going back to my nice apartment and living my almost entirely discrimination-free life. So if it makes me angry, I have absolutely no way of comprehending how angry it must make the people who actually have to live with this shit on a daily basis.
(Were tampon mouse able to form and express coherent thoughts, tampon mouse would not put up with this shit)
The point isn't to be smugly self aware of our own shortcomings and the shortcomings of others. The point is to actually do something about it. If you're not already devoting some amount of your resources to improving fairness in the world, then why not? It doesn't have to be about women in technology - if you're already donating to charity or helping out at schools or engaging in local politics or any of the countless other ways an individual can help make the world a better place, large or small, then keep on doing that. But do consider that many of us have done things in the past that contributed to the alienation of an astounding number of potential community members, and if you can then please do do something to make up for it. It might be donating to groups like The Ada Initiative. It might be mentoring students for projects like the GNOME Outreach Program for Women, or working to create similar programs. Even just making our communities less toxic by pointing out unacceptable behaviour when you see it makes a huge difference.
But most importantly, be aware that it was people like me who were responsible for this problem in the first place and people like me who need to take responsibility for solving it. We can't demand the victims do that for us.
Thanks
Date: 2012-05-22 03:04 am (UTC)I know the fedora women group is defunct, but Ubuntu women, Gnome women, Linux Chix and Arch women are still going strong. (maybe you know some women who might be interested in reviving it?)
I helped found Arch Women and you guys are welcome to come work with us. :) I won't mind if women who use other distros come hang out in the IRC chat/website either.
http://archwomen.org
-meskarune (Dolores)
Arch & Ubuntu
Date: 2012-05-22 03:17 am (UTC)Re: Arch & Ubuntu
Date: 2012-05-22 03:32 am (UTC)-meskarune (Dolores)
Re: Thanks
Date: 2012-05-22 03:39 am (UTC)Are there any specific benefits to having a women's group in Arch that you've found make it particularly valuable? We have seen an uptick in women getting involved through more general mentorship programs (like the Fedora Design Team bounties) so I do wonder whether or not the gender specificity is an effective part of the equation.
I really like the Debian Women's group and I believe it's the oldest and strongest - the reason I like it is because the participants have a specific goal: becoming a Debian Developer. I did model the Fedora Design Team bounties vaguely after this - when you complete the bounty you're granted membership in the design team account group (as well as mailed swag. :) ) Does Arch women have any kind of goal-based thing like this or if not how do you folks operate?
Looking forward to sharing info -
~Máirín Duffy (duffy at fedoraproject dot org if you want to take the discussion offline)
Re: Thanks
Date: 2012-05-22 04:33 am (UTC)We've got a shared news feed in the works at http://news.archwomen.org and I'm working on a calendar and events feed as well http://phpicalendar.archwomen.org (those haven't been integrated into the main site just yet)
On our blog we try to link resources to programs that teach women how to program and write scripts, as well as linux tutorials. (rails girls, pyladies, ladies learning code, dev chix, etc)
I would also love to organize meet-ups with other Linux women users, to Linux cons and tech events. Its more fun and safer to go to those events with a group of other women.
There were apparently a ton of women Arch users who kept their gender hidden, and "came out" so to speak after Arch Women was formed. (I was actually pleasantly surprised to meet them all) When I first started using Arch Linux 6 years ago, I didn't know any other women who did, and now being able to network in an easy way and teach more women how to use Arch has just been amazing.
I'd love to have ya'll come hang out in our IRC channel or even join the mailing list, comment on the site, etc. I think one reason why women's contributions to FOSS projects is so small is because of the segregation into xyz software/linux distrobution -- its easy to feel like you are the only one. But we all often use the same software packages and even if one community has few women, others might have a ton who could offer support and encouragement. I really think that networking with other Linux projects will help increase exposure to women role models and possible mentors.
There are a lot of plans and ideas for Arch Women right now. We still haven't exactly figured everything out yet, (I'm sure thats obvious lol) but I do really think its been worth it so far.
I believe fedora women used to have a website and IRC channel, but I haven't heard much of anything from them in years.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Women
-meskarune (dolores)