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Peter you and i are going to have to sit down and catch a meal at railsconf, so i can figure out why you've become so curmudgeonly over the past couple months :

Peter you and i are going to have to sit down and catch a meal at railsconf, so i can figure out why you've become so curmudgeonly over the past couple months :p Rubyists are -not- all that liberal, just like most programming communities are not all that liberal. There are a lot of very outspoken liberals, however, there are just as many conservatives (and i use this in the American liberal/conservative distinction) out there to argue with. ===================================== Frankly i find your sentiment dispiriting and unhelpful. Discussions like these are indicative of a problem. I vociferously agree that we need action more than words, but simply disregarding the discussion, and there by the problem, sounds like willful denial to me. Fundamentally it comes down to this. If ruby is supposedly more egalitarian and accessible than other programming languages (which is something we tell ourselves as Rubyists), why are there -fewer- women than in many other technical fields? Why are we doing such an awful job of recruiting and retaining people so that our gender ratio is at freaking least >5% women? Pragmatically, the question that needs to be answered is what can you or i (or any individual rubyist) do to alleviate this problem? What are the pitfalls and impediments to attempting to help? If nobody talks about the issue it's hard to see how we can make any progress. If you don't like the tone the conversation has taken, try and spin it off into something that is more constructive.

petercooper 18y ago
Curmudgeonly: An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions. These traits are more common in people who keep perpetuating the gender debate. People who show resentment for how communities naturally behave and who stubbornly think a demographic quota has to be met for the world to be a friendly and fair place. I'm of the live-and-let-live mentality. I resent no-one and I'm only stubborn about people doing what the heck they want as long as it harms no-one else. If people want to continue complaining about gender equality, whether Ruby is "slow" or not, whether Rails sucks or not, whether Kevin Federline's album is really the worst ever, or any such thing, I have no personal issue with that, but I felt, at least, it was finally worth noting that these discussions have all taken place 101 times before and that they're not making a scrap of difference. I'm impartial, apathetic, and weary of seeing good people get mired in these arguments. Being curmudgeonly would demand I actually care about the essence of those same arguments.
- knowtheory 18y ago
  /me laughs Peter, i really mean this good-naturedly, your responses want nothing for lack of consistency. The distinction i would make here between Kevin Federline's artistic merit, and equality in the work place is that one matters, and the other does not (sorry K-Fed :P ). You can claim that any discussion of gender equality shares the same futility as arguing over cultural minutiae, however that does not mean they are equally trivial. Nor, do past results indicate future performance. I'd like to stress that i agree with you, that the previous discussions have not resulted in much change, and that conversations should gear towards the constructive. But, engagement is the only way forward on the issue. Ignoring it will not make it go away, and will not make it better. =================================== Just to be absolutely clear the "I'm impartial, apathetic, and weary of seeing good people get mired in these arguments." is the curmudgeonly bit ;) People care about this subject, so telling them that it's futile and not to discuss it is sort of a dampener, innit.
jamesbritt 18y ago
"I vociferously agree that we need action more than words, but simply disregarding the discussion, and there by the problem, sounds like willful denial to me." I think Peter's point was that the action needed has to come from those who want to play a larger role in their respective Ruby community. What's needed are more code and talk proposals, not blog posts. One poster referred to women being excluded, which is an interesting claim. I've never heard another Rubyist make a comment to suggest that anyone should be excluded from any Ruby activity. If anything, the people I know are on active lookout for anyone interested in Ruby. One way to have more women at Ruby events is for more women to write more notable code and step up to give notable presentations. If anyone thinks this is already going on, and women are being deliberately put aside in favor of men, I would love to see some evidence for this. I was part of the advisory group for the recent Mt. West RubyConf, and out of the 50 or so talks proposed, I don't think a single one was from a woman. So, who needs to step up to make things change?
- earl 18y ago
  James: seriously, listen to yourself. Maybe nobody explicitly says, "Tits or GTFO" but that presentation said the exact same thing in visual form. As did the conference organizers and audience that apparently had no problem with it.
  - knowtheory 18y ago
    Earl, go read through the comments on the ultrasaurus thread, two of the conference organizers posted there. Their comments are worth reading.
  - jamesbritt 18y ago
    That's one presentation. It's is far from being representative of what is seen or said at Ruby conferences generally. It's bullshit to point at this one occurrence, ignore 99% of what else goes on, and suggest there's a culture of deliberate exclusion in Rubyland. 8 years of active Ruby involvement tells me otherwise. Maybe it's true for the NYC crowd, I don't know. They'll be the ones to explain (or not) how this talk came about. But to me it's an aberration. Also, the discussion that's going tells me there are many Rubyists who have a problem with this sort of presentation (though exactly what that problem is seems to vary). It seems more to be part of a virulent strain of annoying juvenility that pops up in numerous tech corners.

petercooper 18y ago

Curmudgeonly: An ill-tempered person full of resentment and stubborn notions. These traits are more common in people who keep perpetuating the gender debate. People who show resentment for how communities naturally behave and who stubbornly think a demographic quota has to be met for the world to be a friendly and fair place. I'm of the live-and-let-live mentality. I resent no-one and I'm only stubborn about people doing what the heck they want as long as it harms no-one else. If people want to continue complaining about gender equality, whether Ruby is "slow" or not, whether Rails sucks or not, whether Kevin Federline's album is really the worst ever, or any such thing, I have no personal issue with that, but I felt, at least, it was finally worth noting that these discussions have all taken place 101 times before and that they're not making a scrap of difference. I'm impartial, apathetic, and weary of seeing good people get mired in these arguments. Being curmudgeonly would demand I actually care about the essence of those same arguments.

knowtheory 18y ago
/me laughs Peter, i really mean this good-naturedly, your responses want nothing for lack of consistency. The distinction i would make here between Kevin Federline's artistic merit, and equality in the work place is that one matters, and the other does not (sorry K-Fed :P ). You can claim that any discussion of gender equality shares the same futility as arguing over cultural minutiae, however that does not mean they are equally trivial. Nor, do past results indicate future performance. I'd like to stress that i agree with you, that the previous discussions have not resulted in much change, and that conversations should gear towards the constructive. But, engagement is the only way forward on the issue. Ignoring it will not make it go away, and will not make it better. =================================== Just to be absolutely clear the "I'm impartial, apathetic, and weary of seeing good people get mired in these arguments." is the curmudgeonly bit ;) People care about this subject, so telling them that it's futile and not to discuss it is sort of a dampener, innit.

jamesbritt 18y ago

"I vociferously agree that we need action more than words, but simply disregarding the discussion, and there by the problem, sounds like willful denial to me." I think Peter's point was that the action needed has to come from those who want to play a larger role in their respective Ruby community. What's needed are more code and talk proposals, not blog posts. One poster referred to women being excluded, which is an interesting claim. I've never heard another Rubyist make a comment to suggest that anyone should be excluded from any Ruby activity. If anything, the people I know are on active lookout for anyone interested in Ruby. One way to have more women at Ruby events is for more women to write more notable code and step up to give notable presentations. If anyone thinks this is already going on, and women are being deliberately put aside in favor of men, I would love to see some evidence for this. I was part of the advisory group for the recent Mt. West RubyConf, and out of the 50 or so talks proposed, I don't think a single one was from a woman. So, who needs to step up to make things change?

earl 18y ago
James: seriously, listen to yourself. Maybe nobody explicitly says, "Tits or GTFO" but that presentation said the exact same thing in visual form. As did the conference organizers and audience that apparently had no problem with it.
- knowtheory 18y ago
  Earl, go read through the comments on the ultrasaurus thread, two of the conference organizers posted there. Their comments are worth reading.
- jamesbritt 18y ago
  That's one presentation. It's is far from being representative of what is seen or said at Ruby conferences generally. It's bullshit to point at this one occurrence, ignore 99% of what else goes on, and suggest there's a culture of deliberate exclusion in Rubyland. 8 years of active Ruby involvement tells me otherwise. Maybe it's true for the NYC crowd, I don't know. They'll be the ones to explain (or not) how this talk came about. But to me it's an aberration. Also, the discussion that's going tells me there are many Rubyists who have a problem with this sort of presentation (though exactly what that problem is seems to vary). It seems more to be part of a virulent strain of annoying juvenility that pops up in numerous tech corners.