> In general, the social stuff around these movements is very masculine, and often socially regressive. This makes it hard for women to care about these movemen

> In general, the social stuff around these movements is very masculine, and often socially regressive. This makes it hard for women to care about these movements. You are describing "techbro" culture, but the FLOSS hacker culture which RMS/ESR subscribe to has always been quite different. Hackers' social beliefs are far from unified, but it would not be wrong to describe them as resolutely anti-authoritarian. And their pioneering use of networked communication channels (sometimes even doing away with easily-visible real names, and preferring pseudonymous handles) has definitely helped foster an attitude of gender-equity. Of course, hackers - like anyone else, really - have had to deal with the fact that very few women are in technical professions in the first place. But it would be quite wrong to place the blame for this underlying social fact on the FLOSS community itself!