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It would be amazing to see a site that pairs experienced developers (especially women developers) with less- experienced women to sherpa them into contribut

by bgar 13y ago

It would be amazing to see a site that pairs experienced developers (especially women developers) with less- experienced women to sherpa them into contributing to open source. Is there really a need to give women special treatment or help when it comes to open source development? Wouldn't that reinforce the (unbased) idea that there's a disparity between genders in tech? Or is there?

hackula1 13y ago
I would say this is a great idea for the same reason having more minority male english teachers in minority schools is a great idea. For whatever historical reasons, certain groups are underrepresented. This snowballs when youth try to get a foothold into the field, since they see no one like them succeeding. Is it logical to have more confidence (a huge indicator of success in just about anything) when the teacher looks like you? Probably not, but that does not stop it from being effective.
- bgar 13y ago
  Yeah, I guess in a way having a mentor from the same minority/background helps be more confident, especially if there aren't many like you in a field.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    I think of it as social hacking. There are plenty of people in the world (not all of them men) who think that women should not be in education, should only be child carers, should not talk over men, etc, so if you just take the approach that you personally will be completely unbiased, then while you are not adding to that problem, you are also not doing much to assuage it. Neutrality is all very well, but it often takes a lot more than neutrality to get somewhere if a lot of society is pushing back the other way from where you would like to get to.
mbrock 13y ago
I don't have a strong opinion about this particular thing, but it seems like a decent idea. But let me speak more generally. Sometimes it seems like some people have a very "logical" way of looking at ideas. It's like every idea is interpreted according to some metaphysical schema and judged by whether or not it's conceptually harmonious and untainted. In this case, the schema is "equality," which ironically means that any concrete idea that addresses disparity is prematurely judged as faulty or tainted. It's stunningly obvious that the open source community is dominated by males, even if it's not more so than the programming community at large. This is a matter of statistics, it's not complicated. This paper http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXI-4/article3.pdf http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXI-4/article3.pdf cites a figure of 1.5% OSS developers being women, which doesn't seem entirely implausible. This simple statistical fact should mean that some women who do want to pursue an interest or career doing open source work might indeed have use for the kind of thing we're discussing. So why not? There IS a disparity between genders in tech. This is so obvious. Why on earth would you call this an unbased idea? That there is a disparity doesn't mean that there is an "essential" or "necessary" disparity. It just means that at this point in human history, women are extremely underrepresented in this particular section. In that situation, it seems more than appropriate to set up various measures to support diverse engagement.
- bgar 13y ago
  You're right about there being many less women population-wise, but I wonder what the cause is, and if there is a more direct way of addressing the problem. Your reply made me reconsider my statement.
Dewie 13y ago
People say that they want more diversity in tech. Perhaps ironically many also go to great lengths with proudly proclaiming how nerdy they are, and building a whole subculture that is heavily associated with fields like programming, science, etc. If they want more women in order to get more diversity in the field, why are they so deeply entrenched in and identify so strongly with a specific subculture? Is the goal really to have a diverse array of people in the field? Or is it to get yet another "I'm such a nerd!", only with different genitals?

by bgar 13y ago

hackula1 13y ago

I would say this is a great idea for the same reason having more minority male english teachers in minority schools is a great idea. For whatever historical reasons, certain groups are underrepresented. This snowballs when youth try to get a foothold into the field, since they see no one like them succeeding. Is it logical to have more confidence (a huge indicator of success in just about anything) when the teacher looks like you? Probably not, but that does not stop it from being effective.

bgar 13y ago
Yeah, I guess in a way having a mentor from the same minority/background helps be more confident, especially if there aren't many like you in a field.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  I think of it as social hacking. There are plenty of people in the world (not all of them men) who think that women should not be in education, should only be child carers, should not talk over men, etc, so if you just take the approach that you personally will be completely unbiased, then while you are not adding to that problem, you are also not doing much to assuage it. Neutrality is all very well, but it often takes a lot more than neutrality to get somewhere if a lot of society is pushing back the other way from where you would like to get to.

mbrock 13y ago

I don't have a strong opinion about this particular thing, but it seems like a decent idea. But let me speak more generally. Sometimes it seems like some people have a very "logical" way of looking at ideas. It's like every idea is interpreted according to some metaphysical schema and judged by whether or not it's conceptually harmonious and untainted. In this case, the schema is "equality," which ironically means that any concrete idea that addresses disparity is prematurely judged as faulty or tainted. It's stunningly obvious that the open source community is dominated by males, even if it's not more so than the programming community at large. This is a matter of statistics, it's not complicated. This paper http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXI-4/article3.pdf http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXI-4/article3.pdf cites a figure of 1.5% OSS developers being women, which doesn't seem entirely implausible. This simple statistical fact should mean that some women who do want to pursue an interest or career doing open source work might indeed have use for the kind of thing we're discussing. So why not? There IS a disparity between genders in tech. This is so obvious. Why on earth would you call this an unbased idea? That there is a disparity doesn't mean that there is an "essential" or "necessary" disparity. It just means that at this point in human history, women are extremely underrepresented in this particular section. In that situation, it seems more than appropriate to set up various measures to support diverse engagement.

bgar 13y ago
You're right about there being many less women population-wise, but I wonder what the cause is, and if there is a more direct way of addressing the problem. Your reply made me reconsider my statement.

Dewie 13y ago

People say that they want more diversity in tech. Perhaps ironically many also go to great lengths with proudly proclaiming how nerdy they are, and building a whole subculture that is heavily associated with fields like programming, science, etc. If they want more women in order to get more diversity in the field, why are they so deeply entrenched in and identify so strongly with a specific subculture? Is the goal really to have a diverse array of people in the field? Or is it to get yet another "I'm such a nerd!", only with different genitals?