Gender, sexism, imbalance, etc

[Igal Koshevoy]

I'd like to bring to your attention a recent situation that came up at a
nearby Ruby conference, as well as some of the enlightening and
disappointing follow-up comments.

I'd be interested in hearing you suggestions, be in public or private,
about these matters and what I personally can do or what we as a larger
group can do to make things better.

Here are the relevant links:
http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-at-gogaruco/
http://dyepot-teapot.com/2009/04/25/dear-fellow-rubyists/
http://dyepot-teapot.com/2009/04/26/so-now-what/

Thank you.

-igal

[camo]

Looking over the actual slideshow, I was somewhat disgusted. While I
am comfortable discussing sexuality, this slideshow was actually about
how women are sexual objects and are specifically for men's pleasure.
I saw about half of the slides and knew where it was going, since I
couldn't watch it anymore without getting irritated. (Incidentally it
had way too many slides. Hasn't this guy heard of transitions?)

As fo you Igal, you're a pretty kind guy. The tech community in
general still has leftover ideas of sexism, and I suspect that part of
it is improper socialisation. If a programmer doesn't know how to act
or engage women as human beings without fetishizing every interaction,
it makes the actual coding work that much harder.

Part of the problem is the idea that women programmers have to find
men/the greater community instead of the community seeking out women.
As Audrey pointed out, it's not that difficult. Women programmers are
online blogging, tweeting, or making commits to repositories. Another
problem is that women are expected to contribute to existing projects,
which is fine unless all the Ruby projects out there are not
interesting to you. I find myself in this dilemma and instead am
starting to write the Sifter aggregator for the Econix project. I only
want to work on things I care about, which I'm sure is true for most
of us. Perhaps the projects that are on the radar in the Ruby
community are not as interesting to some women.

Another problem is that women in the US are socialised away from
science, math, and technology. I see many young girls in my family as
consumers of technology, but no one encourages them to be active
participants. I only know of one program in Portland that does this,
but there should be more. Young women in this country, especially
young women of color, are not empowered enough, and if the community
feels strongly enough about it, we can do something about it.

Cameron

[Igal Koshevoy]

Some of you may be interested in reading through the thread on this topic at pdxruby: http://is.gd/veos

cam wrote:
> I suspect that part of it is improper socialisation. If a programmer
> doesn't know how to act or engage women as human beings without
> fetishizing every interaction, it makes the actual coding work that
> much harder.

Agreed, and there's also a lack of socialization. In 15 years in tech, I've worked professionally with hundreds of men, but only 5 women. While a few men are jerks, I think most are well-meaning and simply not sure how to behave in what they find an unfamiliar, potentially loaded situation. I feel that many of these socialization problems begin to disappear as individual developers begin working more closely with a more diverse group of people, participating in user groups and community projects, attending events, etc.

> Part of the problem is the idea that women programmers have to find
> men/the greater community instead of the community seeking out women.
>  As Audrey pointed out, it's not that difficult. Women programmers
> are online blogging, tweeting, or making commits to repositories.

This seems more difficult to me, because it almost feels like we've connected with all the local women that are willing to participate. Of those that have decided to attend events and participate in our projects, many showed enthusiasm and have become more involved. I feel we've done a reasonably good job engaging those women that stepped forward by attending events or participating in projects, but I get the feeling that many aren't reading these lists or going to our events, and I don't now how to reach out to them. Thoughts?

> Another problem is that women are expected to contribute to existing
> projects,

Can you provide some examples of how women are specifically discouraged from creating their own projects?

> I find myself in this dilemma and instead am starting to write the
> Sifter aggregator for the Econix project. I only want to work on
> things I care about, which I'm sure is true for most of us. Perhaps
> the projects that are on the radar in the Ruby community are not as
> interesting to some women.

I'm trying hard to make events and projects that are so exciting that even YOU would want to participate in them <cheesy grin> (Calagator, Open Source Bridge, for instance). However, I'm glad that you've begun work on your own project that you find more meaningful. Hopefully at some point you'll publish a more complete description of what Econix is and what it does.

> Another problem is that women in the US are socialised away from
> science, math, and technology. I see many young girls in my family as
>  consumers of technology, but no one encourages them to be active
> participants.

I believe this is a big cause of the imbalance, but how can we affect family socialization?

> I only know of one program in Portland that does this, but there
> should be more.

Can you tell us more about this program?

> Young women in this country, especially young women of color, are not
> empowered enough, and if the community feels strongly enough about
> it, we can do something about it.

I feel strongly and others feel strongly. However, we're individuals whose "power" is largely based on how excited we're able to get others about our projects, events and such. I don't have much time, money, or traditional authority, so I'm limited by the scope of what I can realistically do.

We have many worthwhile local projects that are in desperate need of volunteers willing to do anything from offering a few hours of simple work to taking on long-term positions of empowered leadership.

If you feel you can get -- for example -- other young women of color to at least hear us out, we'll be glad to find a way to help them participate or at least discuss strategies for creating their own groups based on our experiences.

Maybe we need an OutreachCamp or something where the various OSS, non-profit and community projects try to describe in greater depth what kind of help they can use, what kind of support they can provide, and try to connect with those outside the regulars of our tech community.

Sorry for throwing so many questions back. I sincerely appreciate your willingness to discuss this.

-igal

[camo]

We're break-break-breakin' it down! I suspect I should also hop over
to the thread on the Ruby list as well.

On Apr 28, 6:46 pm, Igal Koshevoy <i...@pragmaticraft.com> wrote:

> Agreed, and there's also a lack of socialization. In 15 years in tech,
> I've worked professionally with hundreds of men, but only 5 women. While
> a few men are jerks, I think most are well-meaning and simply not sure
> how to behave in what they find an unfamiliar, potentially loaded
> situation. I feel that many of these socialization problems begin to
> disappear as individual developers begin working more closely with a
> more diverse group of people, participating in user groups and community
> projects, attending events, etc.

Oh, totally. I suspect some of the jerk behavior (as people sometimes
behave counter to their personality) comes from not knowing what to do
and picking an extreme to act from. Some of the socialisation problem
can also be alleviated from outside programming, but that's something
that the guy needs to want to do.

>
> > Part of the problem is the idea that women programmers have to find
> > men/the greater community instead of the community seeking out women.
> >  As Audrey pointed out, it's not that difficult. Women programmers
> > are online blogging, tweeting, or making commits to repositories.
>
> This seems more difficult to me, because it almost feels like we've
> connected with all the local women that are willing to participate. Of
> those that have decided to attend events and participate in our
> projects, many showed enthusiasm and have become more involved. I feel
> we've done a reasonably good job engaging those women that stepped
> forward by attending events or participating in projects, but I get the
> feeling that many aren't reading these lists or going to our events, and
> I don't now how to reach out to them. Thoughts?

I was thinking more non-Portland in this case, but there are still
women in Portland who are techies that haven't been reached out to...
I'm not sure either but I know it involves meeting new people outside
our social networks.

>
> > Another problem is that women are expected to contribute to existing
> > projects,
>
> Can you provide some examples of how women are specifically discouraged
> from creating their own projects?

Hm, I don't know if I can come up with really general examples since
most of the women I know of are not involved in tech at all.

> I'm trying hard to make events and projects that are so exciting that
> even YOU would want to participate in them <cheesy grin> (Calagator,
> Open Source Bridge, for instance). However, I'm glad that you've begun
> work on your own project that you find more meaningful. Hopefully at
> some point you'll publish a more complete description of what Econix is
> and what it does.

I was going to host an instance of Calagator for the bike community on
Anselm Hook's server. Have you seen the Shift calendar? It's terrible.
Nonprofits also want an instance too. It makes me want my own server.
Besides that, my little plate is getting pretty full. There is stuff
about Econix floating around on GitHub but I'm trying to write a demo
of the aggregator before I put out more information.

> > Another problem is that women in the US are socialised away from
> > science, math, and technology. I see many young girls in my family as
> >  consumers of technology, but no one encourages them to be active
> > participants.
>
> I believe this is a big cause of the imbalance, but how can we affect
> family socialization?

That's a $64,000 that I can't possibly answer. It's the kind of thing
people do research on and start nonprofits to alleviate. Bleh. Well, I
suppose if you have female children around you, encourage them to be
little scientists by asking questions about things. It may irritate
their parents a bit but then you can send the children to the library
or on a walk.

>
> > I only know of one program in Portland that does this, but there
> > should be more.
>
> Can you tell us more about this program?

It's called Portland YouthBuilders... I don't know much about them but
they do have a website:
http://www.pybpdx.org/

> If you feel you can get -- for example -- other young women of color to
> at least hear us out, we'll be glad to find a way to help them
> participate or at least discuss strategies for creating their own groups
> based on our experiences.

I don't know the dynamics of the Portland community well enough to do
much outreach. I think I live in the right neighborhood currently for
this kind of thing, but I don't even know who to go to or the history
of this town well enough.

>
> Maybe we need an OutreachCamp or something where the various OSS,
> non-profit and community projects try to describe in greater depth what
> kind of help they can use, what kind of support they can provide, and
> try to connect with those outside the regulars of our tech community.

One obvious step to take is to talk to teachers in the community and
ask what they need. We could do an afterschool outreach thing for
Latchkey kids or something. It will take a bit of brainstorming.

Cameron

[Daniel Johnson]

> I was going to host an instance of Calagator for the bike community on
> Anselm Hook's server. Have you seen the Shift calendar? It's terrible.
> Nonprofits also want an instance too. It makes me want my own server.

I think the UI for looking at shift calendar events needs a little
love, but the interface for adding/editing events is one of the best I
have ever seen. That was a primary design goal of the system. To
make it really really really easy to add, and update events so that
they would get added. Type in a venue name, and it will search for
matches, and add in all the info so you don't have to look it up, or
type it in at all. Trimet, and bike travel directions are added to
get there even. It doesn't however get events from anyone else's
calendar, so lots of events are missed.

It also has lots of little odd, but very important features such as
XML output in a format that the Portland Mercury can use for printing.

I feel like I'm being defensive. The guy who wrote it was hardly seen
for months as he spent most of his evenings, and weekends creating it
as a volunteer effort. He is open to suggestions for improvements.

[Igal Koshevoy]

Join us for the "Women + Tech == Yay!" session at BarCampPortland 3,
this Saturday at noon in CubeSpace. I hope this session will provide a
more casual, in person way to discuss this important topic and work
towards a solution. There's been a very positive response from people
throughtout the Ruby and Rails community and specific projects to try
to build on that, so this would be a great opportunity to talk about
moving forward.

-igal

http://calagator.org/events/1250456642
http://barcamp.org/BarCampPortland
http://2009.barcampportland.com/

[Igal Koshevoy]

camo wrote:
> I was going to host an instance of Calagator for the bike community on
> Anselm Hook's server. Have you seen the Shift calendar? It's terrible.
>

You mean the <http://www.shift2bikes.org/> site? What in particular is
so terrible about that calendar that you'd want to create your own? I'm
asking both from the sake of trying to avoid repeating whatever annoyed
you about Shift in Calagator, but also because your feedback could be
sent back to Shift for improvement. At a quick glance, it seemed like a
nice site with lots of good content.

> Nonprofits also want an instance too.

We're literally giving the software away for free -- they're welcome to
run it. :)

-igal