Fedora Welcomes Women to FOSS

nman64 writes "The Fedora Project, the project behind the Fedora Core Linux distribution, has introduced Fedora Women, a program to reach out to women who are interested in using and contributing to Fedora Core. This follows in the footsteps of LinuxChix, Debian Women, and Ubuntu Women and is part of a larger trend to support women in the FOSS world. At present, women are believed to make up only about 1.5% of the FOSS community. Is that finally set to change?"

My only thoughts on this...

This thread is useless without pics.

Re:My only thoughts on this...

This thread is useless without pics.

First post. First joke. And in six words you sum up every stereotype of the Geek.

Re:My only thoughts on this...

Nobody would dare to make sexist jokes about male programmers!

I hear them all the time. They usually go in the opposite direction, about how they're all losers that can't get laid.

The best way to get women to is to point out that if they get involved with FOSS, they WILL get laid with no effort, no matter how repulsive they are, just due to the odds.

Little confused about the membership requirements

Why exactly do they need a set of nude photos?

Artificial

Why do you encourage or even force them? Let them decide naturally what they want to do. Women don't force use men to breast-feed either. Respect people's natural inclinations and interests.

Re:Artificial

In general, I hate this kind of thing. My university had a Women's Officer[1], but no male equivalent. When one of the candidates approached me at election time, I was told 'women make up 52% of the population, and we need to protect this minority.' In general, my feeling is that I don't want anyone doing things because there is an outreach program for them; if you're not going to do something because it's what you enjoy, then please don't bother. If women, or men, want to develop F/OSS then that's great. If they don't, then encouraging them to do so for the wrong reason really won't help.

This is a special case, however. A community being less than 2% female is more than natural self-selection. I suspect that a number of women have tried to get involved, but been repulsed by the community. Look at this Slashdot article; the first post was a comment asking for pictures. Now, as someone who has been around Slashdot for a while, I can be fairly sure that this was meant in jest, but this is exactly the kind of thing that would make a woman interested in joining the community leave.

There are, secretly, at least two women[1] who post on Slashdot. If you look at any thread where they make a reference to their gender, even indirectly, then you will see a huge number of 'wow, look! A girl!' posts. These are often followed by a load of accusatory posts ('you only hang out here because you have low self-esteem and you want to be fawned over by geeks'). It's small wonder that most of the female population of Slashdot tries hard not to draw attention to the fact.

This kind of program is not intended to encourage women to participate in the geek community, so much as to prevent the ones who want to become involved from running away. This, I think, is a sensible objective.

[1] Or FBI agents; it's difficult to tell on the Internet sometimes.

Re:Artificial

Let them decide naturally what they want to do.

Axiom 1: People do what they want to do.
Axiom 2: It would help to have more people doing X.
Corollaries of Axiom 2: (i) It would help to have more women doing X. (ii) It would help to have more men doing X. (iii) It would help to have more people from $ethnic_community doing X.
From these, it follows (among other things): It would help if more women wanted to do X. In other words, it would help if women were encouraged to do X.
Encouragement is never bad. If you (or enough people) feel that it would be good/useful to encourage men too, go ahead.

Also, have you ever considered that "natural" inclinations may depend not only on biological/genetic/evolutionary factors but also on societal/psychological/community factors? Since we can't change the former, we try to change the latter and see if it makes a difference. Every group that decides it wants more women (or $ethnic_community, or whatever) is free to encourage more women (or ...) to join it. Have you considered that the reason there are very few women in field X might precisely be that it is considered "unnatural" for them to have inclinations towards it, and that if this perception were changed, more women might be naturally inclined towards it? Maybe we would also have more male nurses and more male teachers and more girls interested in mechanics and sports and ..., if there wasn't much societal prejudice? (I do not make any pronouncement on whether this would be a good thing or not, to avoid the sort of replies that this would otherwise inevitably get.)


(In summary, maybe "natural" isn't so natural after all? Also, somewhat offtopic, see this [j-walk.com] and then this [snopes.com] for something that would be "natural" once but seems very out-of-place today ;) )

Looking around a CS Engineering class

Man, this crap is old. One can hardly wonder why there are so few women around. Try reading [bofh.org.uk] what some [ibiblio.org] women [mills.edu] have to say about their experiences in computing. But don't expect too many to out themselves here. And don't point out that Spertus's paper is old and things have changed. This thread just demonstrated that it hasn't.

It's not right to care.

There are in fact a number of female kernel developers. They tend to go by their initials rather than revealing their first names. There is no bias if people can't even tell.

Not that it should matter! If they like being developers, cool. If not, oh well.

There is also Andrea, who is male. It's an Italian thing, OK?

Great

That's a really nice insensitive. I would sure wish that more women were involved in computing, and actually interested by it. Almost 80% of the woman I met use the computer just for chatting to their friends through instant messenging.

Having a woman's touch on a software would be really great. I sure hope this project is a success and brings some great woman into OSS.

This probably isn't set to change significantly

Having been in university for about 4 years, from observation, the number of women in CIS classes is usually about 2/50, 4%. (Except for the first year CIS classes that are mandatory for science students). Officially, the CIS department here is concerned since only 3.7% of the people graduating from the CIS program are women. Of the women in the department I know, (and I know most of them, it's not hard to when there are so few) there's only one of them that might be interested in working on an open source program. And these numbers come from a university that overall has one of the highest percentage of women enrolled in Canada (University of Guelph). It's almost all female in this university, when men are required for surveys CIS classes are specially targetted for participants.

Given these figures, I really doubt that any shortage of women is due to sexism in FOSS projects... From what I can see, most people working in FOSS projects are generally fairly liberal anyways and accepting of women.

Josh

I'd like to think so

I'd like to think that more women will become involved with FOSS, although I'm not sure how exactly that will happen. There is still a huge gap in the numbers of men and women in CS programs, and there are other cultural factors, especially in the teenage years, that pressure females to not engage in "nerdy" activities like programming (which is seen to be asocial, even though FOSS development is quite social).

On a more contraversial note, it seems to me that a lot of FOSS is driven by a very... male... obsessiveness. It is the experience of myself and my collegues that female programmers tend not to be "computer geeks," in the sense that when 5:00 rolls around, they are done programming for the day - no hobby coding, no /.ing, nothing. That does not mean it's true of all females, but even if a majority of female programmers are like this (which it seems to be), that's a huge chunk out of an already tiny share. Combine this with the fact that working women are still (somehow) expected by their husbands to do more of the housework and childcare... yeah I'm not so optimistic.

Of course I, for one, would welcome our new female FOSS overlords, but I think that's probably a long way off.

Re:I'd like to think so

This may not catch every woman in FOSS, but it provides them with a community. And if this is run by men, it is probably doomed. Then again, anonymity is something that women might value even more than men, for any reasons you can think of. And you're spot-on about FOSS progress coming from the obsessive streak in many men.

There are some intangible benefits to contributing to FOSS which might attract some women, like developing a better resume or making professional connections. However, I don't think women will contribute under much of the rationale that men do: scratch an itch, bragging rights, altruism, or even stick-it-to-the-M$.

These programs won't have a major effect on the percentage of women contributing to FOSS. (Is there even a good way of measuring that?) If men wanted to attract women to contribute, they would advertise. There are a lot of businesswomen in marketing. QED

No, it's not about to change

The underlying assumption of programs such as this is that women are too insecure or too intimidated to do something they want to do unless somebody sets up a program to cajole thing into feeling comfortable. That's nuts. Women do whatever they happen to enjoy -- as individuals -- and men do the same. Some people just can't get over the fact that vastly more men than women want to develop software (or create hardware or whatever). Why is this so threatening to them? Because it goes against their deep-seated belief that everyone is born identical and it's only culture that makes us want different things. That's bull and it's always been bull. Men and women are different in some key ways -- on AVERAGE. There are some very brilliant women who care deeply about IT work, but the vast majority don't. That's not going to change, even for the ones who are plenty bright enough to do it.

If you think you need to set up programs to beg certain segments of the population that other people do because it's fun and exciting and rewarding to them, you're out of touch with reality about what makes people tick. Let the people who WANT to do technical work do it, whether they're men, women, black, white, pink or purple. It's about individual choice, not about counting numbers of certain groups.

David

Re:No, it's not about to change

And yet, after KDE set up a site for women (by women), there was an increase in the number of women who participated. It is possible that it was due to the growth in KDE, but ....

One last thing, Read the earlier postings. I think that if were a women, that I might get tired of the attitudes that are demonstrated here.

So implicitely

Women are less skilled, less talented and thus should be helped and encouraged to participate in FOSS...
But if they are maybe it's not a good idea to do thay...
And if they're not then why the need for affirmative action?

Every discrimination is stupid.

Why ?

I don't understand why we should PUSH to get women into FOSS or anywhere else in the world of IT. Not that I care... I mean, they are welcome but, isn't this the kind of thing you do just because you want to ? I never saw an urge to get boys interested in Barbie, did you ? Do we really NEED women that much in here ?

This is news?

Women are working on stuff? Holy cow!

Am I the only one sick of this kind of 'news'?
This just in: two more female workers signed up for oil drilling, bringing the total population of female oil drillers to 4, of the total population of 20,000
Why does it matter what sex they are? The reason this is 'news' is because people want to hear stories about how women are being treated equally in the workplace. Women's rights are always easy news. You say, "Women have lagged behind men in [insert job] but are catching up thanks to [insert bullshit here]" and you sell newspapers/ad-space/FreeIPodsAndViagra.

If you single out women for working in a specific job for no reason other than 'they're women' you aren't treating them as equals to men. You're treating them like freaks, like a sideshow.

...and for FOSS women over 50 there is

For FOSS women over 50, there is always the Red Hat Soceity [redhatsociety.com]. (That's the Cheery Red Tomatoes for you Simpsons fans) Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Seriously though, shouldn't Fedora contact them? At the very least they can cross promote each other.

Interesting... Is this necessary?

Why are they actively reaching out to women? They don't actively reach out to men (specifically). If women want to do it, they will come. If they don't, they won't. They are wasting their time, because nobody new will help because of this reaching out campaign. Not being sexist, but most women probably don't think that cutting code is cool, and care too much about society. Us nerds don't care if other people call us recluse, geeks, nerds, whatever. We know we make a difference. I guess women don't feel that way, and need to be acknowledged.

Damn. I just re-read that post and it sounded incredibly rude. Well, I don't mean to be, so sorry if I offend anyone. I can't think of a better way to say it.

Disclaimer: IANAP (psychiatrist)

Really

the guys just want a date

Is that finally set to change?

Yes, I think it would coincide with the year of the Linux desktop

No it won't

At present, women are believed to make up only about 1.5% of the FOSS community. Is that finally set to change?

As long as you keep creating special "women" foundations, this isn't going to change. Women are people just like us, why can't they be in the current foundations along men treated equally?

You don't see a "Fedora Men" foundation.

This is stupid.

Face it, women are less attracted to IT than men, just like men are less attracted to fashion decoration than women.

Women are more social

celardore is basically right. Women tend toward more social careers. Of course there are exceptions and there are women who choose fields which are more male-oriented by their nature (construction, military service) just as there are men who choose jobs traditionally held by women.

Unlike some other fields, women aren't being kept out of programming through any sort of imposed discrimination. Anyone can learn to program and anyone who writes good code can participate, especially in FOSS. I've known female coders for more than 20 years, from the COBOL whiz when I was a sysop at the Department of $US_DEPT to a few people in my department at $MegaCorp today. Yes, they're a minority, but only out of choice. No one is telling women not to code. Code doesn't have genitalia. As long as it works who gives a rat's ass whether code was written by a man or a woman or even by Hugo the Incredible Coding Marmoset?

FFS...

Only Debian seems to be on the right track here. The pages needs to be excessively pink! However even debian lacks the ponies. And possibly red hearts and roses...
Because we all know that's what attracts women! *_*

Communication patterns

The numbers aren't going to change easily. Not as long as the FOSS world is dominated by men (and yes, this is where the snake bites its own tail).

One example: my university classes used to overlap with those of CIS students a lot, and what I heard from the few female students there was that they found it hard to communicate with the men at times and often didn't really want to. Simply take a look at /. - very male communication patterns, enough to make it tricky at times to know whether to be insulted or not or whether to take something the way it is written or with a grain of salt. Women will often think more and also interpret communications in very different ways at times. So when being into FOSS means 1) getting into a stereotypically male area of interest and b) interacting with almost only men who on occasion seem to speak another language, I have to applaud those 1.5% for sheer guts.

The true incentive for women

OMG!!!!its ponies!

I once asked....

I asked a work collegue 'why most women don't have hobbies?' She gave an answer I have heard many times - 'Woman don't need hobbies, we can create with our bodies. Men have hobbies to make up for their inability to give birth.' Then I stated 'But then why do any women have hobbies at all?' The answer stunned me 'Because they are barren, old, or gay.' So apparently, Open Source runs on testosterone. Never think women are more enlightened than men - they just disguise their stupidity better. ;-)

Here we go again...

Here we go again, for yet another round of "I'm a guy, and I don't understand why this is needed" responses to one of these articles. Yeah, you're all right, the reason there aren't many women programmers is that women don't want to program or aren't suited to it. They also don't want higher education, and they don't want to work outside the home, and they don't want to vote, and they don't want to drive. And yes, they'd all love to post pictures of their boobies for you, if they only knew how to work these funny machines.

"Is that finally set to change?"

Is that finally set to change?

Certainly not because Fedora thought it's time they jumped into the line. Generally I guess the number (around 2 percent) is just about right. Although during my university years, that is from ~4 to 9 years back, in IT this number at us was much higher, you can hardly meet women actually working for their living in the field.

While I also - like others above - don't really think such "separation" of women related to linux is generally good, it might help some newbies to get involved by alleviating the fear that there are no other women involved, and that's good. Other than that, I'd guess it's pretty useless. But hopefully a girl will come around and tell us otherwise.

the sims2

I now of one way to get a lot more female linux users... being able to play the Sims2. My gf will switch from xp the same day that happens (without knowing about it for the first few months).

You guys don't get it

I'm looking at the comments so far and they seem to be broken up into two groups:

• "We need naked pics" jokes (like this [slashdot.org], this [slashdot.org], and this); and
• "Women aren't in tech because they choose not be in tech" as exemplified by this [slashdot.org].

Hasn't anyone ever thought that these two viewpoints might be related? That maybe the reason more women don't go into tech is cultural - not in the "women are more interested in nail polish than hard drives"-sort of way, but in the sense that they sick and tired of dealing with all the "oohh, titties!" comments that we men think is good natured humor, but gets old with women? Maybe, just maybe, if women (or minorities or the handicapped, etc) can be provided with a supportive environment, we'll find that women are interested in tech. Maybe we'll even find that some women can be really good at it.

Let me put it another way. Everyone once in a while, a sports-related story pops up on Slashdot, and the comments inevitably drift toward stories of posters who have been pushed around by jocks in high school, so they now have a dim view of sports. Like us men making "titties" jokes, jocks would consider their messing with geeks to be good-natured humor. Imagine for a second that your exposure to sports came in a supportive environment (think affirmative action for geeks)- is it possible that this might have resulted in a more positive outlook towards athletics (especially sports like American football and basketball that involves a high degree of strategy as well as athletic talent)?

It's not a matter of discrimination or taking something away from men. It's all about providing a supportive environment so that women can concentrate on the matter at hand, rather than dealing with all the 'good natured' 'non-PC' crap that men throw at them.

what's really needed is DorkElimination

Which would wipe out half of FOSS in one fell swoop. But the ranks would quickly be re-filled with normal people with actual technical and social skills. What to do with all those leftover dorks? Not to worry, they'll have more time to do what they really want, which is spend more time posting asinine comments on Digg and Slashdot.

Maybe?

Maybe women stay away from "nerds" on the internet for the fear of being hounded to death by people who have never seen a woman online before.

typical conversation
*Christine has entered the channel
randomperson > OMG!!! R joo @ girl????
randomperson 2 > OMG!!!!111 GIRLS!!!
Christine > ah yeah.
randomperson3 > OMG [e-mail] send nude pics!!111
randomperson > Y@ s3nd nudie pics plz.
*Christine has left the channel

Impact

The impact of women on FOSS is tangible already. Every 28 days my FC5 installation gets cranky and won't let me log on.... some message appears that says "You don't love me anymore!!!!" and then the screen goes black. On alternate days it let's me logon, but in order to keep it speedy I have to buy it a diamond.

Already a female-oriented distribution.

There has been a female-oriented distribution forever.

Check it out [lesbian.mine.nu]

T-Shirt

Now I can finally wear my chicks dig unix t-shirt and get all the babes.....

how is that 1.5% determined, anyway?

Unless someone indicates otherwise, on the internet, we are all gender-anonymous. There could possibly be more women involved in F/OSS than is assumed (none?). The default assumption here, anyway, is that everyone involved is male. Somehow every comment I post with any sort of gender reference is replied to with the assumption that I am male. Last time I checked, I was fairly certain that I was a woman.

Personally, I am detracted from Women-specific IT/programming/OSS/etc groups, if only for the fact that because they exclude men, it is allready a guaranteed smaller base for information. That just does not make sense. There are other factors making me wary of such groups, but after much thought on it, I have not been able to come up with a specific description of what bothers me about it. Most likely it's allready been ingrained in my head that things designated toward women are somehow of a lesser status, or dumbed-down.

Anyway, us women are amongst you, maybe you just have to stop assuming that we are guys.

Only driving the wedge deeper

I made this point on the fedora forums a few months back when someone made a point of acknowledging some internal women's day or something such thing. By pointing out the differences you only further remind everyone that we are indeed different for pointless reasons.

Not until more than 1.5% of them

Comprise graduating Computer Science and Software Engineering classes from universities.

Get over it

Well, reading the first 182 comments posted here it's pretty clear why women still need dedicated users'/developers' groups. The stereotype humor appears to be alive and well:

- ponies
- pink
- periods
- pedicures

As a woman in IT, I have actually found the majority of men in IT either don't care about women in IT or else are actively interested in broadening diversity in the field. (Mind you, that applies not only to gender but to ethnicity and other criteria as well.) Then there's that minority, the stereotype bitter socially retarded geeks with chips on their shoulders, doomed to eternally relive some perceived rejection from a woman or girl that dates back to elementary school...

To those (whose postings I found so typical of their group) I say, what do you care if there are specialized programs targeted towards women? You are the majority participants, are you really that threatened if a bunch of girlies with sub-par technical skills (as you like to describe them) sit around, do their nails, doodle ponies and contribute to FOSS? I am flabbergasted to imagine how such an activity would have any impact on you whatsoever.

If you are really concerned that the quality of FOSS will somehow decline, may I remind you of the peer review system. Even supposing any of the women's groups were to promote something that was of no use to the larger user/developer base, it would be critically reviewed and sent back for revision or else shot down completely. My point is that it shouldn't be an issue how people arrive at solutions; let them gather, support each other, brainstorm and develop in the forums that suit them best.

Users/developers form specialized groups all the time, whether it be because of their gender, location, belief system or what have you. The news here is not so much the groups -- it's whether the percentage of women in FOSS may be higher than is popularly understood. All the hogwash about women not being interested in IT, not having the innate skills etc. aside, we're here and we're working away on the same projects men do. This may come as a horrible shock, but there are women who excel in the field.

Personally I'm all for it. Let there be women's groups, gay groups, blue collar groups, Hindi groups, what have you. Let people work and network in whatever ways increase the brain trust. It's the results that count.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT "PUSHING WOMEN INTO FOSS"

RTFWiki. The Fedora Women [fedoraproject.org] page on the Fedora Wiki says:

A large portion of the Fedora userbase is made up of women. They are often under-represented within the community, with many people not even realizing how big a share of the community they are. The Fedora Women program aims to improve that representation and to provide a forum for the women of the Fedora Community.

Note the "is made up of women". That's not talking about getting women to use Fedora. It's talking about women already using Fedora.

It also says:

Lady contributors to the Fedora Project can add their wiki homepages to the CategoryWomen category. The CategoryWomen page can be used to locate them, along with other Fedora Women pages.

Note the "contributors". It's not talking about pushing women into contributing. It's talking about women who are already contributing.

It also says:

Women who are interested in working with the Fedora Project can work with Fedora Women to get started. They can also work through the Fedora Mentors project to get assistance for every step. For more information about working with the Fedora Project, see these resources:

Note the "who are interested in working with the Fedora Project". It's not talking about pushing women into getting interested in Fedora. It's talking about women who are already interested in contributing.

So this is not the project to get the girls away from their cooking and sewing, haranguing them into instead developing driver patches even though they'd rather be knitting baby booties, that all too many of the responses seem to be treating it as.

Minority reporting

Nothing keeps a minority group in the minority quite like identifying and classifying.

So while we're at it, let's have "Fedora Blacks," "Fedora Orientals," or maybe just lump them together and call them "Fedora Coloreds?"

I don't think it's a good idea, frankly, and for all the same reason that racial identification might seem inappropriate.

(And on a side note regarding political incorrectness, why is the NAACP still called NAACP!? "They" don't want to be called "Colored People" even though 'of color' was the popular term, so why keep the same organizational name?!... I don't get it.)

Silly question

But, why is it so important for women to be using Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian or FOSS in general? I'm all for helping people find nice, free alternatives to , but maybe it's not necessary to push Linux on every unsuspecting, dis-interested user, regardless of their denomination...

Or did I just miss the entire motto of Slashdot?

Fedora Women

I don't think that any effort to get a particular group of people interested in Linux is going to do anything. I mean a women's not going to help Fedora just because there is a group for their sex. If a women wants to help any Linux distro she would do it on her own.

Women are smarter...

Maybe most women are just smart enough not to want to contribute to the nightmare that is Redhat, Fedora, etc. I certainly wouldn't, and I'm just a dumb guy. I dreaded every job that required me to administer Redhat machines, and usually was successful in convincing higher ups how much they could increase my productivity by switching to Debian. I only wish more people could see this, yet it seems may Redhat users are still unaware of the advantages. To them, dealing with dependencies is still just a way of life in Linux, which is absurd. I think women are usually more practical about such things and can see them as part of the larger picture.

dont' bring feminism into FOSS

Why media does create so much fuss around male-female issues? If they don't want to be a part of it, let it be so. I don't want them to be a part of this just because they are women. Please, keep computing and FOSS away from crappy feminism.

Affirmative Action, alive and well

I'm going to get flamed to hell for this.

I'm sick of women being given special consideration in the tech field.

I believe in a meritocracy - if you have the skills and the knowledge,
fucking prove it. Step up to the plate. Get involved. I know *I* don't
give a fucking care if you're red, white, black, female, handicapped,
just as long as you can do the fucking job set in front of you. Yet here
we have 'special groups' to encourage more women to come out and play -
what, are they afraid to come get their hands dirty and need some sort
of support group before they have the confidence to chip in?

It's the kind of thing that pisses me off about the online gaming clans
of 'all women' teams. Christ, you're anonymous, and can pretend to be
whomever you choose to be, yet you fall back to some safe little sphere
where you're 'all women' and can bond in your little gaming world. Way to
take some risk and get involved.

And here's where I really burn: From my anecdotal evidence, all the women
I've run into in the tech field have been, for the most part, silly girls
who got where they were because they were hand-held by drooling nerds
trying to score some female nerd BOOTAY and never had to fucking do anything /for themselves/.

"Oh, having problem with that system upgrade? Let me help, (and maybe I'll
get in your pants!!)".

I find special groups for women secular, isolated, and counter-productive
when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world.

But hey, if women out there want to join their "special" club instead of
getting their hands dirty in the massive /already existing/ community,
then whatever. Hold hands, and sing songs of trial and problems and how
unfair the rest of the world treats you.

Hostile females...

And the first time I ask why this crap even exists I get a hostile response [kicks-ass.org]. So yeah, girls seem to agree, they're totally inept at getting themselves into anything. Just like the Debian developers say.

If more women were into Linux...

Ubuntu wouldn't be BROWN. The penguin would sport a dinner jacket, bow tie and cuff links. Standard distributions wouldn't come with more than three games - Tetris, Solitaire and Mine. Everything would just be - classier!

Re:why

I was with you up until that "real world" statement. Many aspects of the nerd world are far truer realizations of the "real world" than their pop cultured feeding tube counterpart.

Re:why

Some assole is going to come around and say that you're trolling ignore them. Because you're right on point.

Re:why

Maybe if people didn't have your bias it wouldn't be so difficult for women in sports and mechanics, say, to have such a hard time to be accepted.

So true - I mean look at Danica Patrick, in a sport that includes engineering, and how she's been shunned and marginalized because she's a woman.

Re:disparity by geography and ethnicity

The pay in engineering jobs smacks most others around - if you are from a poor Russian or Chinese family and they have scraped together money for training or university, is anybody sane going to do an arts degree? No - because there are few well paying jobs that don't require hard/unusual skills. Better to train in some engineering/science subject where there are shortages.

The idea that women are just not interested in technology because of genetics seems silly to me. There's little evidence genetics can have such a precise effect. It's just the culture - why do not many men want to be nurses? Well they don't want other guys to think they're gay, it's a very feminine sort of environment. You know in primary schools in the UK they are desperately trying to attract men. Sometimes jobs just snowball like that and it's really hard to fix. But it's not likely to be genetic.

Re:why

Why on Earth is this needed? I'm all for equal opportunities and everything, but does further segregation of the sexes help any cause? Some things are always going to be *generally* one sex or the other. For example, men like mechanics and sports. Women like ponies and getting their nails done. Obviously not hard and fast examples.

I agree with your question of why. While I don't think the generalizations are solid, the big question I see is why this needs to change? What's the obsession with balancing out sexes and races in activities? Does it truly matter if women aren't as interesting in FOSS development? Is something broken because they aren't as represented? Is a woman going to use linux different than a man? Of course not.

It's far more important to woo people with diverse goals.

• Graphics Developers
• Cartographers
• Mathematicians
• CADD Engineers
• Computer Gaming
• Multimedia

Is there some industry here which is toppled by women and thus not represented in FOSS development?

I say let people do what they are happy doing.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." -Crowley

Re:disparity by geography and ethnicity

Socialization undoubtedly accounts for some of it, but I'm not sure there's not a genetic basis as well.

Sure. That says more about you than it does about genetics or gender differences.

Re:Obligatory

It's the upgrade to man. Less terse, so presumably a bit like info but hopefully a good deal easier to use. I always get lost using info.

From TFA

"An EC funded study (2006) summarized in the Flosspols report, indicates that about 1.5% of FLOSS community members were female, compared with 28% in proprietary software."

Re:They only made TWO changes!

A pink desktop background and the cigarette lighter has been replaced by a lipstick holder.

The pink desktop background, of course, replacing the wallpaper with a warrior woman wearing chain-mail armor carefully designed to protect her crotch and the nipples on her 44DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD breasts.

Re:stop the hostilities

I have no concrete ideas how to go about this but feel very strongly about this issue. Any suggestions?

Yeah, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

I've made way too many posts on this article, but the general point is that it's way more important in the long run for women to stop being so offended over any mention of sex than it is for men to stop saying anything offensive. Seriously. It's their problem, not ours.

In fact, that's a way more feminist position to say that women shouldn't be so offended by off-color remarks than saying an overwhelmingly male community (FOSS) should coddle women to make them feel better.

In my field, at work, there are just as many women as men around. I generally don't associate with the women, for the sole reason that I already have a girlfriend, and it's boring talking to other women because they get so offended by my off-color remarks that every guy at work finds hilarious.

In short, the problem isn't that there aren't enough women in whatever. The problem is that women don't appreciate a good fart joke when they hear one.

Re:disparity by geography and ethnicity

I think most people in technical fields notice that a much greater percentage of PEOPLE from Asia and Eastern Europe seem to be interested in science and engineering.

I'm in chemistry. The male/female ratio for american students is more equal than the american/foreign ratio. From what i've seen, US culture has a definite negative attitude towards these fields for BOTH males and females (only "losers" do them). You don't see a lot of Asians and Europeans taking bullshit liberal arts majors. Their cultures actually respect achievement, people aren't immediately dismissed as losers for displaying intelligence.

Re:why

I'd suggest you to read a bit about gender studies before assuming sexes are naturally inclined to something. Men like engineering, sports and such, and woman like pink, ponies and getting their nails done mostly because of a process known as socialization, not due to either sex's nature.

Re:why

-1 You're An Unfunny Douchebag

(Posting anonymously because I'm moderating. Yes, I modded you down, too.)