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> "It's have been quicker to write, 'internships are open to everyone but white, heterosexual men,' but that would have been too honest." Agreed. But I don't

> "It's have been quicker to write, 'internships are open to everyone but white, heterosexual men,' but that would have been too honest." Agreed. But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. So to my eyes we need biased, opposed initiatives like this one, or PyLadies. Does it remove available funding for Paul? (In other words, are the total available OSS funds the result of a zero-sum game)? I don't think so: some support the goals of Outreachy and contribute to it, some like Mozilla just contribute to what's in their field. These programs are about OSS fundings but I wouldn't categorize them as part of the same set.

ashark 10y ago
> But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. Serious question: was this kind of stuff necessary for the huge increases over the decades in the percentage of lawyers and doctors who are women? If not, then it seems it's possible (if not necessarily desirable) to let "natural" forces do their work for achieving gender balance, and least for careers requiring well-educated individuals that provide high compensation and confer high status (those are both higher status than developers in most circles, by far). But maybe there were lots of women-only medical conferences or something at some point. Maybe there still are, I really don't know. (I did a quick DDG search for this issue in law and medicine, but turned up nothing relevant aside from graphs demonstrating the shift)
- ronjouch 10y ago
  I don't know either. Thoughts/questions: - Can we compare the case of legal/medical to software? Especially, have the legal/medical fields been so unbalanced as software is right now? (Not implying it was, honestly asking). And if it was, as you ask yourself, what mechanisms helped bringing balance? - Regarding the specific case of sexism in software, early research suggests that the unbalance may have emerged in the 1970s as "the idea that computers are for boys became a narrative", maybe due to ads: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... . Admitting this idea, what about now? Yes, unlike in the 1970s, software is part of everyone's daily lives. However, the "computers (and STEM) are for boys" myth isn't dead.
  - ashark 10y ago
    The effect there was pretty rapid. Did it somehow take hold far more strongly than the earlier narrative (whatever that may have been)? It seems like the marketing has become quite a bit less dude-centric, yet the trend continues in spite of everything. One would hope a similarly sudden shift the other direction could be effected, but that doesn't appear to be happening. Oddly enough, the two most obvious big drops on that graph appear to correspond pretty closely with drops in the total share of university students majoring in CS[1]. What significance that has, if any, I do not know. [1] http://core0.staticworld.net/images/idge/imported/article/itw/2014/05/14/npr_cs_degrees-600x400_0-100522183-orig.jpg http://core0.staticworld.net/images/idge/imported/article/it...
adrusi 10y ago
I really don't know what I think about wtbob's comment, but it's awful that it got flagkilled. Are the total available OSS funds the result of a zero-sum game? I think at face-value it isn't zero-sum. I think this question can be restated as "If advocacy groups became convinced that this kind of discrimination is unproductive, would they spend their money on supporting open source, or on promoting minority groups in a different way?". I think it's pretty clear that the answer is the latter. But you can also step back and ask whether the advocacy groups would have less funding if these programs came to be considered ineffective, and I think they would, since people would lose trust in them. I'm sure a lot of that money would go toward some other kind of minority advocacy groups, but I'm also sure that many sources of funding are actually specifically interested in promoting open source (otherwise it would be more productive for them to support minorities in employment, not open source internships). I think it's reasonable to say some of that money might make its way to people like Paul. This is terribly speculative, but it is to say that if you accept that discriminatory programs like outreachy are not productive, there's merit to the claim that they deprive heroes like Paul of funding.

ashark 10y ago

> But I don't think it's despicable. Our field needs diversity, and in a dominated ecosystem you don't get diversity by just letting natural forces do their job, because the ecosystem is already dominated/biased. Serious question: was this kind of stuff necessary for the huge increases over the decades in the percentage of lawyers and doctors who are women? If not, then it seems it's possible (if not necessarily desirable) to let "natural" forces do their work for achieving gender balance, and least for careers requiring well-educated individuals that provide high compensation and confer high status (those are both higher status than developers in most circles, by far). But maybe there were lots of women-only medical conferences or something at some point. Maybe there still are, I really don't know. (I did a quick DDG search for this issue in law and medicine, but turned up nothing relevant aside from graphs demonstrating the shift)

ronjouch 10y ago
I don't know either. Thoughts/questions: - Can we compare the case of legal/medical to software? Especially, have the legal/medical fields been so unbalanced as software is right now? (Not implying it was, honestly asking). And if it was, as you ask yourself, what mechanisms helped bringing balance? - Regarding the specific case of sexism in software, early research suggests that the unbalance may have emerged in the 1970s as "the idea that computers are for boys became a narrative", maybe due to ads: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-... . Admitting this idea, what about now? Yes, unlike in the 1970s, software is part of everyone's daily lives. However, the "computers (and STEM) are for boys" myth isn't dead.
- ashark 10y ago
  The effect there was pretty rapid. Did it somehow take hold far more strongly than the earlier narrative (whatever that may have been)? It seems like the marketing has become quite a bit less dude-centric, yet the trend continues in spite of everything. One would hope a similarly sudden shift the other direction could be effected, but that doesn't appear to be happening. Oddly enough, the two most obvious big drops on that graph appear to correspond pretty closely with drops in the total share of university students majoring in CS[1]. What significance that has, if any, I do not know. [1] http://core0.staticworld.net/images/idge/imported/article/itw/2014/05/14/npr_cs_degrees-600x400_0-100522183-orig.jpg http://core0.staticworld.net/images/idge/imported/article/it...

adrusi 10y ago

I really don't know what I think about wtbob's comment, but it's awful that it got flagkilled. Are the total available OSS funds the result of a zero-sum game? I think at face-value it isn't zero-sum. I think this question can be restated as "If advocacy groups became convinced that this kind of discrimination is unproductive, would they spend their money on supporting open source, or on promoting minority groups in a different way?". I think it's pretty clear that the answer is the latter. But you can also step back and ask whether the advocacy groups would have less funding if these programs came to be considered ineffective, and I think they would, since people would lose trust in them. I'm sure a lot of that money would go toward some other kind of minority advocacy groups, but I'm also sure that many sources of funding are actually specifically interested in promoting open source (otherwise it would be more productive for them to support minorities in employment, not open source internships). I think it's reasonable to say some of that money might make its way to people like Paul. This is terribly speculative, but it is to say that if you accept that discriminatory programs like outreachy are not productive, there's merit to the claim that they deprive heroes like Paul of funding.