Chris Ball: Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"

Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"

Chris Ball — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 07:34:00 +0100

About a month ago, Free Software Magazine published an article that looks into the reasons behind the dearth of women joining free software communities, and makes concrete suggestions about what to change to improve the situation. While I think the article was well-intentioned, I also think it was confused, and promotes recommendations that buy into many of the sexist stereotypes that we should be trying to combat. I haven't noticed any negative responses to the article, so I decided I should write one.

It's an odd situation for me to challenging another man's writing as sexist. It can be hard for women to challenge sexism owing to accusations of overreaction, and on the other hand it can be hard for men to do the same owing to a perceived lack of standing in saying what's offensive to women; I don't have a defence for this, other than that I showed drafts of this post to a few women in technology and will invite more to leave comments with their own thoughts after I post. Here's what I found objectionable about the article, going through some of its bullet point list of recommendations:

Use forums instead of mailing lists

This suggestion doesn't make sense to me. I agree with the author (and the many people who have said this before him) that women are turned off by an ultra-aggressive alpha geek style of conversation, but the solution isn't to "use forums", it's to stop using and encouraging these destructive behaviors. We might retitle the suggestion to "When considering flaming someone, don't." If you need an example of how moving to a web forum doesn't make the slightest bit of difference to how respectful a conversation is, consider the average comments in a Slashdot thread.

A point the author doesn't make — but which I find compelling — is that it's not just women who are turned off by aggressive conversation modes, it's anyone who doesn't want to take part in the alpha geek mentality. By making an environment that is more welcoming to women, we make an environment that is more welcoming to everyone except a loud subset that we're currently optimizing for.

Avatars create a face-to-face-like feeling that encourages "more human" behavior

Advocating avatars because they're "more human"? Are we talking about women or children here? Women read more books than men. Women are perfectly capable of and comfortable with engaging in purely written communication, most likely moreso than men. This insinuation of a childish need for needing cartoons to create a "face-to-face-like feeling" seems extremely insulting.

When possible, wikis instead of version control archives

I'd love it if I could find more solid reasoning behind this than "wikis are friendly and version control is complicated and women like friendly things and don't know how to do complicated things so we should use a wiki for version control even though that doesn't make any sense", but I'm not seeing it in the article. Ugh.

When possible, high level languages

Ditto. For example, the FLOSSPOLS report contains a study that compares the programming ability of men and women taking college programming courses. It finds that women perceived their programming ability to be far lower than men perceived their ability, yet programming examinations showed ability levels to be equal between men and women at the end of the course. The problem isn't that women aren't smart enough for low-level languages, it's that we boast about how great we are at coding so much that we manage to convince women that they must not be as smart as us.

Replace pecking-orders with affirmation processes (thank you's)

"Women are more likely to want to discuss or seek approval for their changes, owing largely to confidence issues" is not a respectful thing to say. Who doesn't have confidence issues when joining a new group of people and submitting their first proposal or patch? We'd do well to thank our volunteers better regardless of their gender.

Oh, wow, I just noticed the photo of the sewing machine:

"Programming, like sewing, is largely a "tacit" skill, which is best learned by doing and by watching others."

Yes, because a comparison to sewing, which is apparently something the author thinks women seem to learn how to do really well, is totally appropriate. Good job. Full marks.

I think I just ran out of words. Please don't listen to the recommendations in this document. It actually uses good sources, even while it draws insulting conclusions from them, and the sources are worth reading. If you had to choose one thing to read about the (very real) reasons behind there being fewer women in free software, I'd recommend the FLOSSPOLS report, which is a large-scale academic study of the reasons women don't contribute more to free software projects, and is truly enlightening.

So, now that I've complained about the recommendations given, what would a replacement set of recommendations be? As well as the formal recommendations given in FLOSSPOLS, Val Henson's HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux contains a perfectly good set of advice. Note that one of the recommendations is (3.13) "Don't assume that all women like cooking, sewing, and babies". Note that this article attempts to make learning how to participate in a free software project more like learning how to sew.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by tiagofassoni@gmail.com

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:46:47 +0000

Actually, the thing about using a simple language to attract more women is totally misunderstood. It should be: 'Use a simple language to attract more PEOPLE'

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Anon

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:07:39 +0100

It would have been better if the article was "How to attract women WITH your free software project".

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Máirín Duffy

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:20:13 +0100

@Anon, oh aggression on mailing lists is NOT an invented problem. I've been called horrible things and attacked on several mailing lists.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Clare

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:16:06 +0100

Chris, thanks for your blog post and the links to various resources. Even if a set of rules can be established and enforced, some men (usually bad apples) can find other ways unconsciously discourage women from participating free software projects. It becomes necessary to get down to the root of the problem.

I have anecdotes about women in computing, but worry writing on this topic would flare up offensive conversation in the comments.

By the way, will there be events (or similar) like GNOME's WSOP06 encouraging women in the FLOSS community? Give me a shout if you need help organizing!

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Donnie Berkholz

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:40:33 +0100

I disagree with your point about avatars. Although cartoonish ones may be childish as you say, using people's actual faces increases the level of connectedness. The more personal an interaction is, the harder it is to be a complete asshole.

Just looking at even a picture of someone's face makes it harder to be an insulting jerk than looking only at some text.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Madeleine

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:59:49 +0100

Anon's just being a troll, ignore him. I can tell you that Chris isn't being a "holy boy", I think I would have noticed that by now (our third anniversary is coming up). Anon does have some cute fantasies about girls taming boys, I've honestly never considered the genre of mailing list erotica before now. ;-)

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Anon

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:06:46 +0100

@Máirín Duffy: That doesn't mean that you need to take the solution for womans-in-opensource hostage for the purpose of fixing what some perceive as a problem (mailing lists with hostilities) but which is something that is not actually even near what the problem is.

I don't see a lot of hostility on the mailing lists (especially not on the mailing lists that matter, since those are not populated by the average idiots). I think it's an invented and imaginary problem. The people who are aggressive in behavior are already being asked to be more polite on each and every mailing list where I'm active.

I think the "Look! I'm holy" boys just want to show to the precious soft and fragile girls (which is how they think girls ought to be, because then they can serve as strong protecting boys) how good knights they are.

Girls don't always need strong protectionist boys.

These people feeling like "holy boys" is not sufficient for me to make such a major decision for woman-in-opensource.

Let woman be woman and let men be men.

Sure there are things wrong with our specie's nature. But nonetheless have we managed, as a species, to survive just fine. It's not the financial market. There's absolutely no need to regulate this too much.

The current mechanisms for countering aggressive behavior is working just fine.

No need to add some sort of policing and then start whining to people that it's because of the poor girls, think about the poor girls!!, that somebody who used a specific word will be banned and punished from contributing.

Because that's what those holy boys end up advocating if you don't stop them. For their own benefit. Of course.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Ben

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 04:57:01 +0100

if a woman OR man can't deal with a mailing list instead of a forum or vice versa they are too stupid to be programming anyway.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Máirín Duffy

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:51:07 +0100

Anon, it's not special protection. It helps both men and women to have a friendlier community.

I've seen a lot of ugliness on mailing lists that was totally unnecessary. Alpha males (and alpha females) might not have so much fear about diving into that kind of sludge, but I guarantee we are turning away both extremely talented women and men by allowing mailing lists to reach that level of hostility.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Anon

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:00:49 +0100

I'm okay with the idea of "equal consideration".

I'm not okay with the idea that woman need special protection and that guys need to stop any of their specific behavior.

It doesn't surprise me that it's always the "I'm holy, look at me" guys who keep pointing to this imaginary necessity "to protect them against imaginary evil" if we want to attract girls.

I do believe that if more girls would enter those discussions, that the guys would adapt their behavior to a more polite one. Guys do that to impress girls (although they will say they don't, that's the reason indeed).

I don't think guys need to start behaving because otherwise girls wouldn't join. I even think girls would join for the reason of wanting to tame the aggressive behavior that a lot of guys seem to have. Girls are good at this and being successful in doing that would give them a reason to continue being part of the group (it gives their presence a reason).

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Madeleine

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:47:28 +0100

Anon, Chris is totally asleep ignoring me type this next to him, and has been in that state since I got home (came in on a red eye). (Your post and others before it have appeared in that time period.) As you hopefully figured out already, any lag was purely automated. You can also infer from this statement that I would disagree with any assessment of him as being sexist or thinking women incapable.

One thing that I think is good to remember in any conversation (one impressed on me by Peter Singer's argument for animal rights) is that one should seek "equal consideration", not "equal treatment". For example, making birth control illegal is "equal treatment", but it obviously does not impact the two sexes equally and therefore is not "equal consideration".

Although I wouldn't expect to change Anon's mind, I leave it here for others to think about.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Anon

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:19:10 +0100

Aha, you restored #25, then ignore #26

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Anon

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:03:42 +0100

Ah, ic. You remove posts of people that don't agree with you.

Okay ... this means your relevance sinks to below zero.

But go ahead.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Anon

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:59:22 +0100

I don't agree with all of Chris's conclusions.

For example as a response to "Use forums instead of mailing lists" he thinks that woman have a profound dislike for aggressive or destructive behavior. And that this is turning them off. Aggressive or destructive behavior turns most people off, both female and male. To say that it mostly turns woman off is sexism for me already. As if there's a mental difference that spells out that girls can't cope with such situations yet boys can.

I'm sure both girls and boys can cope. On average they probably cope differently (sure). I'm also sure that there are a lot of very feminine boys and very masculine girls about this subject.

He seems to be saying that woman are some kind of special precious soft and vulnerable animals that need some sort of special protection offered by the good boys against the bad despicable assholes who are aggressive and destructive.

Chris however forgets that woman have developed perfectly fine mechanisms to defend themselves against these people already. To assume that woman need special protection, the kind of special protection that boys don't need, is for me sexism. They don't need special protection.

Women can have quite competitive, aggressive and destructive behavior too by the way. A lot woman are insanely good at psychologically destructive behavior. Is Chris telling us that boys now need special protection against a lot of women's behavior?

I don't think anybody needs any special protection here. Boys and girls have lived together for ages just fine. Both genders have evolutionary developed tools and mechanisms to deal with the characteristics of the other gender.

I think that involving woman in aggressive destructive communication that some guys do on discussion forums will have a cooling effect. Just like how woman very often 'cool down' their boyfriends when a fight would otherwise be about to happen. Women are good at this, it's their expertise.

I'm pretty sure a girl feels good after she cooled down two boys who are having a conflict.

Protecting them against this is creating an unnatural habitat where they can't exercise this. This means that you make them less useful than that they could be for the group.

Making girls useless is what I call sexism.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Guy

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:03:15 +0100

I agree with Steve... I don't care. I'm interested in the code and I really don't care where it comes from.

Also I'd note, if I turn up at a group with a current dominating ethos, it's regarded as good manners for me to fit in with the norms, values and mores of that group. If that's a largely female dominated group then that's what I will be fitting in with.

Programming is largely male dominated, and the ethos of groups formed around this tend to reflect that... so?

Try and treat people decently. Male or female.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Klaire

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:08:28 +0100

I recently started going to college and I've become quite depressed about the ways people are reacting to the CS classes. Twice as many women dropped out of my current class than men.

Women in my classes say outside of class, "I can't do this, I'm too stupid to be a programmer." I've been programming as a hobby for a few years, and I tell them that's it's probably not them, it's just a hard thing to learn. It's difficult to learn in a linear way because concepts affect other concepts, but you can only learn one thing at a time. It just takes work.

Meanwhile, there are a handful of boys who seem to think that they are The Shit even though they don't know what they are talking about. They challenge the teacher, act smug, and everything that comes out of their mouths is wrong, wrong, wrong. If I wasn't so annoyed I'd be embarrassed for them.

For some reason women seem to be under the impression that they're fighting a losing battle, and these boys think that they're prodigies. In the end, the confused women get their assignments done more often than these overly confident boys (who complain profusely about how unfair the assignments are).

I don't know why this is, but I really hope women don't feel so low about themselves in all subjects.

I also cannot understand those who do not think that diversity matters. Programming is primarily problem solving. There are still big problems that haven't been solved. I can't understand why you wouldn't care about diversity of thought, method, experience, background, and genetics, anything and everything to perhaps have someone come up with a great new idea. It takes all kinds.

Joe, I really hope I never have an interview with someone like you.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by aaron

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:02:10 +0100

this article was mentioned evey so often, but i didn't read it at first. when i finally did, i thought it was a gag, as well. thanks for responding to it.

it says something about the culture that it was considered good advice as long as it has.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Máirín Duffy

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:15:21 +0100

Linn, lolcats is a "girly joy"? ORLY?

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Máirín Duffy

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:11:14 +0100

As a female who has worked in the FOSS community for a while now I would like to thank you for this response to that article. I remember when I first was sent links to it, I shared it with some of my colleagues as a gag. :) The sewing picture and caption were, I agree, extremely obnoxious.

I also agree very strongly that folks tend to be way too offensive on mailing lists, to the point that I've unsubscribed from many of the lists I used to be on and have gotten it down to a core. People are allowed to behave shamelessly on the lists. Moving to a forum I doubt would help (I've been in some pretty heated forum conversations as well), because both require moderation that just isn't happening.

The avatars suggestion is just ridiculous. Although, I suppose, we do have hackergotchis on the various planet, and I think they help provide a sense of community, but I don't see how that has anything in particular to do with women.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Sara Chipps

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 20:54:34 +0100

The origional article is infuriating. If I had more than 10 minutes to type there would be a long rant here. I will come back I'm sure.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Thomas Thurman

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:10:39 +0100

Oleg, Fradgers, Varen, and anyone else who says this issue is irrelevant are missing the point entirely, and need to sit down and think about what privilege they have which lets them ignore the problem. It's not in the end important, given a piece of code, what gender its writer identified as. There is no girl code and there is no boy code. But what IS important is that the majority of code is written by people who identify as male, and this is something we need to figure out an answer to, if only because if men are (even unconsciously) excluding women we are losing the potential contributions of over half the population.

Fighting sexism isn't about pretending gender doesn't matter, because whether it should or not, patriarchy goes on existing in the real world. Fighting sexism is about fighting patriarchy.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Steve

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:14:35 +0100

Why does it matter if women contribute to open source? I advocate looking at the code not the person. That's the only truly non-sexist way to go about things; ignoring gender entirely.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by varen

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:40:53 +0100

who cares what gender writes the code?

no user goes "ooh this part was written by a girl so i'm cutting it a little slack functionality wise.. " no-one.

issue irrelevant.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Firinel

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:57:16 +0100

I also wanted to express my gratitude to the OP, Chris Ball, who successfully does several important things:

addresses the issue
recognises the potential problems when women address the issue themselves
manages to state his opinions without sounding like a know-it-all, and leaves room for discussion and differing opinions.

Kudos, Chris.

"Response to "Ten easy ways to attract women to your free software project"" by Firinel

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:51:49 +0100

Off of the top of my head, I can think of a few things that men could do to encourage more women enter free software.

Men, such as a few above, could stop telling women that sexism isn't a problem. I think we'll notice before you do when that happens.
Stop holding "conversations" that are little more than diatribes, as if you already know everything and couldn't possibly be convinced or swayed or are even willing to consider another's point. (For example of this sort of tone, please see above 'Joe'.) This is something everyone could benefit from, not just women, but my experience has shown that this sort of thing is generally more accepted by men in the field, despite that as a general rule women get talked down to like this by men more than other men do.
Examine why sentences such as "Hey I'm not saying women are dumb, because that would be foolish, but ..." are, uhm, problematic. Insulting, may be another good choice if 'problematic' isn't to your liking. Also 'sexist'. (See my first point.)
Stop talking down to girls like this, not just in the field, but in general. Women are generally socialised from the very beginning in a way which will make them less inclined to enter a field even more rife with that sort of attitude. Stereotypes of women continue to be generally the case because people expect them, and (sometimes un)intentionally perpetuate them. I, and my partners, did not assume just because she was born with a particular biological make-up that our daughter was more or less inclined to any particular set of traits. We simply got to know who she actually was as she grew, and encouraged her in the areas she showed natural talent and a general interest in. She's not a stereotype, she's a human; we attempted to treat her as such.

She likes maths, particularly of the engineering variety, and she's keen on "blowing sh*t up for science". She also happens to be a very warm and nurturing person who seems to also have decent leadership qualities.