Hi all,

I think that Dennis K raised a good point, which I'd like to clarify.

As far as we know, the gap between women in open source development and closed-source development is something like 1.5% (some estimate 5%) versus 28%, which everyone would agree is concerningly low.  Even if it were 10% versus 28% it would still be huge gap.

Whatever they're doing in the proprietary software development, we can't deny that it's working for them.

But 28% is nowhere near parity, and it raises the question of whether 50/50 is a realistic goal.  There are huge differences in participation rates in other professions -- teaching, nursing, engineering, mathematics.  Even if this difference *is* due to culturally embedded attitudes, well, we live in this culture and that's our reality.  We can't change society at large.

However, we can effect change in our own movement, and as Dennis K is right to point out, focusing on the number of women in our movement can itself be sexist.  As Val Henson rightly says, "Do treat women as normal people."  Well, normal people are not recruited to make up the numbers.

Far more importantly than how many women there are in open source is how happy the women in open source are.  Even if 28% women is the very highest participation rate we can get, given the society we live, our goal should be that the women in open source get to feel safe and included in our movement. 

Alex Garber


On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 14:02, Dennis K <dennisk@netspace.net.au> wrote:
On 01/15/2012 01:15 PM, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
On 15/01/12 12:42, Dennis K wrote:
I never said there was no sexism at all. Obviously, such things like
sexism and racism, do exist. I did say however, that even if they
didn't really exist in certain areas, there is a vested interest in
combating it, as some people professionally do this. No one will act in
a manner which renders their profession, or field of study obsolete or
unneeded. People will also construct problems in a way which makes them
the arbitrators of solutions. Everyone does this.

Dennis, I have no doubt your comments are well intentioned. Thanks for
sharing your thoughts, but please tread carefully.

Regardless of what you mean, generalisations can easily derail the
discussion. Especially over email where we lack tone of voice and body
language.

Regards,
Ben

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I understand it's a sensitive issue.  In a nutshell, I'm saying that individuals who themselves aren't discriminatory fall into the trap of acting in a discriminatory manner when they define correct behaviour and correct outcomes by another's standard other than their own.  This can undermine their efforts to encourage certain people to participate.






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