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You can look at the pipeline of programmers and you will see a demographic pretty similar to open source. The usual story here is that this is also due to discr

You can look at the pipeline of programmers and you will see a demographic pretty similar to open source. The usual story here is that this is also due to discrimination, which isn't based on evidence and should be dismissed without further comment. I do think there are factors, large ones even, that keep some women out of tech and they aren't sourced in biology. None of these are adressed by the suggestions in the article. I think the largest expression of sexism actually comes from people that suggest "solutions" like this. Using stereotypes now to make it clear in how I see positions like these. They wouldn't ever go into a nail saloon, complain about legal security or their behavior and cite it as the reason why they have difficulties hiring males. But it is with males that you insinuate discrimination. That sounds very well like prejudice to me and I also think the referenced studies came to prederterminded conclusion and are of little scientific value. Most open source projects don't contain nudes, but some actually do. I don't think this is a problem. To think this is the reason women are kept out of the industry is nonsensical to me. I am missing even the hint of truth here.

eesmith 5y ago
> You can look at the pipeline of programmers and you will see a demographic pretty similar to open source. Source please? Last I heard of, that was not the case. As https://www.wired.com/2017/06/diversity-open-source-even-worse-tech-overall/ https://www.wired.com/2017/06/diversity-open-source-even-wor... contexualizes about the research published at https://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/ https://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/ : ] GitHub, the world's leading repository of open-source code, surveyed 5,500 open source users and developers from around the world on a range of topics. It also asked for demographic information. And it was informative. Of that randomly selected cohort, a full 95 percent of respondents were male. Only three percent identified as female and one percent as non-binary. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 22.6 percent of professional computer programmers are female. About 16 percent of respondents said they belonged to ethnic or national groups that are in the minority in the country they live in. Black, Asian, and Latino programmers account for a total of about 34 percent of programmers in the US, according to the bureau. This is one of the studies referenced in the paper. To be fair, these numbers (world-wide participation vs. US labor representation) are not directly comparable. But since a large number of FOSS developers come from the US, there would need to be a huge number of non-US male software developers to shift the demographics meaningfully. Other counter-examples: > Several surveys have found that existing FOSS communities are very homogenous populations and made up of mostly men. There are significantly fewer women participating in FOSS when compared to the percentage of women in computing in general. - https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/x633f347t?locale=en https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_o... > Although organizations are taking actions to increase gender diversity, the percentage of women in OSS projects are in average lower than 10%. Only 7.5% of the contributions to public code from the last 50 years were authored by women [6]. Women represent only 5.2% of the contributors to the Apache Software Foundation [7], 9.9% in Linux kernel [8],and 10% of OpenStack contributors [9], three of the largest and most well-known OSS communities. Indeed, women represent only 9% of GitHub users [10]. - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.08763.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.08763.pdf and here's the US statistics, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm : Computer programmers: 417k employed, 21.1% women Software developers: 1,883k employed, 19.4% women Software quality assurance analysts and testers: 82K employed, 25.1% women I don't know what '"solutions"' you are talking about. I don't understand your nail salon analogy. I don't know which referenced studies you refer to. I don't know why you are sure they are wrong, when your doubt could be an expression of your own prejudice. And you're the one who brought up "naked people". The point wasn't that NSFW images keep women out of FOSS, it was an example of how FOSS project participation CANNOT be viewed as "self-selection" because, as fivelessminutes correctly points out "a lot of contributors (eg, ones logging in on a work pc)" would be in workplace environments which prohibit certain types of imagery, like "sexy women", which was the term I used. To turn that into "the reason women are kept out of the industry" is completely misreading my comments.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  In my country there are about 5% women in computer science. We had 5 women and 115 men in my bachelor degree, 1 and 15 in my master degree. Other European countries look quite similar. The 18% of the US is actually quite high in comparison, although that number is also declining. Not sure about the difference computer programmers and software developer, that is probably a topic of definitions of US labor statistics. Women aren't discriminated against joining CS, they just decide themselves against it. The discrimination explanation does not hold up under scrutiny. But furthermore, it is quite easy to explain the OSS numbers on Github. It is pretty much exactly mirrors in the CS pipeline. You are also a bad patron for those few women that are in OSS. Because the demanded formalities aren't meant to reduce discrimination, it is about big tech "embracing" OSS in my opinion. That is based on observations vastly nearer to reality than the discrimination story. So, wtf is wrong with the author? And even IF numbers would be different between pipeline and OSS participation, it doesn't allow for the conclusion that were drawn. They are made up in my opinion.
  - eesmith 5y ago
    Where is your evidence that "You can look at the pipeline of programmers and you will see a demographic pretty similar to open source"? You described your country's employment statistics, although without evidence. You haven't listed the breakdown of gender representation in your country's OSS participation, so there's nothing to compare. And "Europe" is rather diverse region. As counter-evidence, I point you to https://blog.honeypot.io/women-in-tech-germany/ https://blog.honeypot.io/women-in-tech-germany/ which claims women make up 16.58% of IT in Germany, and that percentage is lower than 15 other European countries. To be sure, I can't vouch for the quality of that research, but so far you have presented none. > they just decide themselves against it Again, where is your evidence. I have already in this thread listed reasons for why women (who have more pressure to be unpaid care givers) and the working poor (which in the US is correlated with minority status) may have LESS choice than average, so saying "just decide themselves" ignores the factors which go into that decision. > "It is pretty much exactly mirrors in the CS pipeline." Evidence please. Since the citations I gave show otherwise. > it doesn't allow for the conclusion that were drawn Which specific conclusions do you disagree with and what evidence do you have besides your personal observations and biases?

eesmith 5y ago

> You can look at the pipeline of programmers and you will see a demographic pretty similar to open source. Source please? Last I heard of, that was not the case. As https://www.wired.com/2017/06/diversity-open-source-even-worse-tech-overall/ https://www.wired.com/2017/06/diversity-open-source-even-wor... contexualizes about the research published at https://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/ https://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/ : ] GitHub, the world's leading repository of open-source code, surveyed 5,500 open source users and developers from around the world on a range of topics. It also asked for demographic information. And it was informative. Of that randomly selected cohort, a full 95 percent of respondents were male. Only three percent identified as female and one percent as non-binary. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 22.6 percent of professional computer programmers are female. About 16 percent of respondents said they belonged to ethnic or national groups that are in the minority in the country they live in. Black, Asian, and Latino programmers account for a total of about 34 percent of programmers in the US, according to the bureau. This is one of the studies referenced in the paper. To be fair, these numbers (world-wide participation vs. US labor representation) are not directly comparable. But since a large number of FOSS developers come from the US, there would need to be a huge number of non-US male software developers to shift the demographics meaningfully. Other counter-examples: > Several surveys have found that existing FOSS communities are very homogenous populations and made up of mostly men. There are significantly fewer women participating in FOSS when compared to the percentage of women in computing in general. - https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/x633f347t?locale=en https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_o... > Although organizations are taking actions to increase gender diversity, the percentage of women in OSS projects are in average lower than 10%. Only 7.5% of the contributions to public code from the last 50 years were authored by women [6]. Women represent only 5.2% of the contributors to the Apache Software Foundation [7], 9.9% in Linux kernel [8],and 10% of OpenStack contributors [9], three of the largest and most well-known OSS communities. Indeed, women represent only 9% of GitHub users [10]. - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.08763.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.08763.pdf and here's the US statistics, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm : Computer programmers: 417k employed, 21.1% women Software developers: 1,883k employed, 19.4% women Software quality assurance analysts and testers: 82K employed, 25.1% women I don't know what '"solutions"' you are talking about. I don't understand your nail salon analogy. I don't know which referenced studies you refer to. I don't know why you are sure they are wrong, when your doubt could be an expression of your own prejudice. And you're the one who brought up "naked people". The point wasn't that NSFW images keep women out of FOSS, it was an example of how FOSS project participation CANNOT be viewed as "self-selection" because, as fivelessminutes correctly points out "a lot of contributors (eg, ones logging in on a work pc)" would be in workplace environments which prohibit certain types of imagery, like "sexy women", which was the term I used. To turn that into "the reason women are kept out of the industry" is completely misreading my comments.

raxxorrax 5y ago
In my country there are about 5% women in computer science. We had 5 women and 115 men in my bachelor degree, 1 and 15 in my master degree. Other European countries look quite similar. The 18% of the US is actually quite high in comparison, although that number is also declining. Not sure about the difference computer programmers and software developer, that is probably a topic of definitions of US labor statistics. Women aren't discriminated against joining CS, they just decide themselves against it. The discrimination explanation does not hold up under scrutiny. But furthermore, it is quite easy to explain the OSS numbers on Github. It is pretty much exactly mirrors in the CS pipeline. You are also a bad patron for those few women that are in OSS. Because the demanded formalities aren't meant to reduce discrimination, it is about big tech "embracing" OSS in my opinion. That is based on observations vastly nearer to reality than the discrimination story. So, wtf is wrong with the author? And even IF numbers would be different between pipeline and OSS participation, it doesn't allow for the conclusion that were drawn. They are made up in my opinion.
- eesmith 5y ago
  Where is your evidence that "You can look at the pipeline of programmers and you will see a demographic pretty similar to open source"? You described your country's employment statistics, although without evidence. You haven't listed the breakdown of gender representation in your country's OSS participation, so there's nothing to compare. And "Europe" is rather diverse region. As counter-evidence, I point you to https://blog.honeypot.io/women-in-tech-germany/ https://blog.honeypot.io/women-in-tech-germany/ which claims women make up 16.58% of IT in Germany, and that percentage is lower than 15 other European countries. To be sure, I can't vouch for the quality of that research, but so far you have presented none. > they just decide themselves against it Again, where is your evidence. I have already in this thread listed reasons for why women (who have more pressure to be unpaid care givers) and the working poor (which in the US is correlated with minority status) may have LESS choice than average, so saying "just decide themselves" ignores the factors which go into that decision. > "It is pretty much exactly mirrors in the CS pipeline." Evidence please. Since the citations I gave show otherwise. > it doesn't allow for the conclusion that were drawn Which specific conclusions do you disagree with and what evidence do you have besides your personal observations and biases?