4 ms·

"Still, uptake is slow, the on-ramp steep" So at ThinkUp she does all these things, and still hardly any women contributors. Maybe something is wrong with her

by Tichy 16y ago

"Still, uptake is slow, the on-ramp steep" So at ThinkUp she does all these things, and still hardly any women contributors. Maybe something is wrong with her theory? It also doesn't explain why women need special treatment - isn't it in fact rather demeaning to claim they do?

earl 16y ago
Only if, in your opinion, special treatment is equivalent to the community not acting like misogynistic assholes, or at least tolerating such behavior. Similarly, gay people will tend not to feel welcome at homophobic places, black people will tend not to feel welcome at racist places, etc.
- Tichy 16y ago
  So all Open Source developers are misogynistic assholes? Seems very unlikely to me.
sp332 16y ago
It also doesn't explain why women need special treatment - isn't it in fact rather demeaning to claim they do? Actually she says the opposite: The tech industry is by and large a boys' club, and that's a shame, because homogenous teams turn out one-dimensional products. That may or may not be a fair assessment of the "tech industry", but her point is that the industry is treating men specially. She wants the same treatment for women as for men, which means either treating women better or not catering so hard to men. Of course, she brings up one other thing: most people in tech may be men, but there just are not very many people in tech. The environment is hostile in more ways then simple sexism. edited for correctness
- Tichy 16y ago
  She doesn't actually present any examples of special treatment that is denied to women, though. Or did I miss that? Being a man in the industry, I don't feel treated very special at all. For example it seems normal that every coder thinks other people's code is crap.
  - sp332 16y ago
    She doesn't mention any specifically in this article, but she does mention the "boys worshiping tech toys" style of tech blogging. I can think of the usual complaining about steak and strippers, booth babes etc. But her point is pretty broad, so I don't think citing specific examples would really fit with the scope of the article. edit: typo
    - Tichy 16y ago
      So women are excluded from IT because magazines like to write about tech toys? I don't get it. Strippers and booth babes are equally offensive to men and women (not sure what is with steak).
      - sp332 16y ago
        Booth babes might be offensive, but I don't think they're equally offensive to men and women. Women can feel threatened or devalued in that kind of environment.
        HedgeMage 16y ago
        Really? They just make me laugh at how stupid and easily manipulated some men can be, and glad I've managed to surround myself with men who aren't.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        sp332 16y ago
        Well, just some women. I don't think it's a rational thing. As far as I know, they don't really think anyone is going to hurt them, it's just a gut reaction. It might be fair to say that they should get over such irrational fears. But it's just as fair to say we don't need to put anyone through that for something so gratuitous.
saranagati 16y ago
i think what's wrong with her theory (and any theory involving it being harder for women in the tech industry) is that there isn't any sort of favoritism towards men. Software developers [especially] are very hyper critical and will often make snide remarks about someone while trying to help them in order to entertain themselves so that they don't get distracted while trying to help/communicate with someone. The "recipient" being a woman (therefor largely in the minority) is the low hanging fruit for snide comments. If the women were men, they would also receive a snide comment. The other problem is that in relation to how many developers actually exist, there are very very few that garner any respect just for being who they are. With the ratio's the way they are that means there are virtually no women in these spots. That could make it appear that us male developers only give any respect to other men which isn't the case (well it's at least not a true cause/effect). Anyways I've seen quite a few of these articles/blurbs but have never seen any actual examples of real sexism. Also I tend to have bias against any article that claims to be pro-feminism.
- anildash 16y ago
  "Anyways I've seen quite a few of these articles/blurbs but have never seen any actual examples of real sexism. Also I tend to have bias against any article that claims to be pro-feminism." Uh, you're saying that, as a male, you haven't seen any sexism, so that means a woman who has experienced sexism is incorrect? Okay, I say you've never been treated unfairly in your life, because I've never seen it happen. Your own experience is insufficient evidence, so don't bother to offer counterarguments. To be clear, your blanket condescending dismissal if someone's own firsthand report of an experience is actually a perfect example of exactly the sort of sexism we're trying to confront.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    "Uh, you're saying that, as a male, you haven't seen any sexism, so that means a woman who has experienced sexism is incorrect?" He didn't say that, nowhere in the thread or the article is a woman who claims she has experienced sexism, so he isn't replying to such a claim.
  - saranagati 16y ago
vitovito 16y ago
In my original post, which Trapani cites, someone asks me this same question. So [women] have to be spoonfed? What makes them so goddamn important if they haven’t proven they’re willing to contribute? I have actually tutored many people before, but if they don’t express an interest to learn and willingness to contribute I am not going to waste my time on them. The problem isn't that women need special treatment to be accepted. The problem is that open source projects are not accepting of anyone who isn't a male programmer. That is, open source projects are sexist, because their members are sexist. They explicitly treat women worse than men. They also explicitly treat non-programmers worse than programmers. What's worse is they think they are too smart to be sexist or unwelcoming, so that behavior goes unchecked. A normal community would include instructive socialization. From my original article, "Hi, welcome to the community, here's a housewarming present, here's how things work, we could really use some help over here and I'd love to show you how to work on it, but anything you want to do, feel free and I'll be here to answer and questions and walk you through every process until you feel comfortable." This is the process that ThinkUp espouses, which almost all other open source projects lack.
- Tichy 16y ago
  I find it hard to believe that your generalization holds for all of the thousands of Open Source projects, or even for the majority of them. I mean that they treat women worse than men. Got any pointers to studies, references that make you think so? As for no hand-holding, this would equally harm men and women. Sure, hand-holding would be nice, but what if it isn't really in the budget? And what if women would START open source projects? Then they could decide on all those aspects. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to start an OS project. So we should see high rates of women starting OS projects, compared to women joining existing OS projects?
- sovande 16y ago
  > The problem is that open source projects are not accepting of anyone who isn't a male programmer. Your are so out of touch with real life. Contributors to an open source project are usually identified with an email and communicate online. No one cares if you are a woman, a man or a green alien. Open source is a meritocrasy and what matters is what you contribute.

by Tichy 16y ago

earl 16y ago

Only if, in your opinion, special treatment is equivalent to the community not acting like misogynistic assholes, or at least tolerating such behavior. Similarly, gay people will tend not to feel welcome at homophobic places, black people will tend not to feel welcome at racist places, etc.

Tichy 16y ago
So all Open Source developers are misogynistic assholes? Seems very unlikely to me.

sp332 16y ago

It also doesn't explain why women need special treatment - isn't it in fact rather demeaning to claim they do? Actually she says the opposite: The tech industry is by and large a boys' club, and that's a shame, because homogenous teams turn out one-dimensional products. That may or may not be a fair assessment of the "tech industry", but her point is that the industry is treating men specially. She wants the same treatment for women as for men, which means either treating women better or not catering so hard to men. Of course, she brings up one other thing: most people in tech may be men, but there just are not very many people in tech. The environment is hostile in more ways then simple sexism. edited for correctness

Tichy 16y ago
She doesn't actually present any examples of special treatment that is denied to women, though. Or did I miss that? Being a man in the industry, I don't feel treated very special at all. For example it seems normal that every coder thinks other people's code is crap.
- sp332 16y ago
  She doesn't mention any specifically in this article, but she does mention the "boys worshiping tech toys" style of tech blogging. I can think of the usual complaining about steak and strippers, booth babes etc. But her point is pretty broad, so I don't think citing specific examples would really fit with the scope of the article. edit: typo
  - Tichy 16y ago
    So women are excluded from IT because magazines like to write about tech toys? I don't get it. Strippers and booth babes are equally offensive to men and women (not sure what is with steak).
    - sp332 16y ago
      Booth babes might be offensive, but I don't think they're equally offensive to men and women. Women can feel threatened or devalued in that kind of environment.
      - HedgeMage 16y ago
        Really? They just make me laugh at how stupid and easily manipulated some men can be, and glad I've managed to surround myself with men who aren't.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
        sp332 16y ago
        Well, just some women. I don't think it's a rational thing. As far as I know, they don't really think anyone is going to hurt them, it's just a gut reaction. It might be fair to say that they should get over such irrational fears. But it's just as fair to say we don't need to put anyone through that for something so gratuitous.

saranagati 16y ago

i think what's wrong with her theory (and any theory involving it being harder for women in the tech industry) is that there isn't any sort of favoritism towards men. Software developers [especially] are very hyper critical and will often make snide remarks about someone while trying to help them in order to entertain themselves so that they don't get distracted while trying to help/communicate with someone. The "recipient" being a woman (therefor largely in the minority) is the low hanging fruit for snide comments. If the women were men, they would also receive a snide comment. The other problem is that in relation to how many developers actually exist, there are very very few that garner any respect just for being who they are. With the ratio's the way they are that means there are virtually no women in these spots. That could make it appear that us male developers only give any respect to other men which isn't the case (well it's at least not a true cause/effect). Anyways I've seen quite a few of these articles/blurbs but have never seen any actual examples of real sexism. Also I tend to have bias against any article that claims to be pro-feminism.

anildash 16y ago
"Anyways I've seen quite a few of these articles/blurbs but have never seen any actual examples of real sexism. Also I tend to have bias against any article that claims to be pro-feminism." Uh, you're saying that, as a male, you haven't seen any sexism, so that means a woman who has experienced sexism is incorrect? Okay, I say you've never been treated unfairly in your life, because I've never seen it happen. Your own experience is insufficient evidence, so don't bother to offer counterarguments. To be clear, your blanket condescending dismissal if someone's own firsthand report of an experience is actually a perfect example of exactly the sort of sexism we're trying to confront.
- Tichy 16y ago
  "Uh, you're saying that, as a male, you haven't seen any sexism, so that means a woman who has experienced sexism is incorrect?" He didn't say that, nowhere in the thread or the article is a woman who claims she has experienced sexism, so he isn't replying to such a claim.
- saranagati 16y ago

vitovito 16y ago

In my original post, which Trapani cites, someone asks me this same question. So [women] have to be spoonfed? What makes them so goddamn important if they haven’t proven they’re willing to contribute? I have actually tutored many people before, but if they don’t express an interest to learn and willingness to contribute I am not going to waste my time on them. The problem isn't that women need special treatment to be accepted. The problem is that open source projects are not accepting of anyone who isn't a male programmer. That is, open source projects are sexist, because their members are sexist. They explicitly treat women worse than men. They also explicitly treat non-programmers worse than programmers. What's worse is they think they are too smart to be sexist or unwelcoming, so that behavior goes unchecked. A normal community would include instructive socialization. From my original article, "Hi, welcome to the community, here's a housewarming present, here's how things work, we could really use some help over here and I'd love to show you how to work on it, but anything you want to do, feel free and I'll be here to answer and questions and walk you through every process until you feel comfortable." This is the process that ThinkUp espouses, which almost all other open source projects lack.

Tichy 16y ago
I find it hard to believe that your generalization holds for all of the thousands of Open Source projects, or even for the majority of them. I mean that they treat women worse than men. Got any pointers to studies, references that make you think so? As for no hand-holding, this would equally harm men and women. Sure, hand-holding would be nice, but what if it isn't really in the budget? And what if women would START open source projects? Then they could decide on all those aspects. You don't have to ask anybody for permission to start an OS project. So we should see high rates of women starting OS projects, compared to women joining existing OS projects?
sovande 16y ago
> The problem is that open source projects are not accepting of anyone who isn't a male programmer. Your are so out of touch with real life. Contributors to an open source project are usually identified with an email and communicate online. No one cares if you are a woman, a man or a green alien. Open source is a meritocrasy and what matters is what you contribute.