EU Funds New FLOSS Survey on Skills, Employment

rishab writes "The EU-funded FLOSSPOLS project is carrying out a survey of developers worldwide. This is a follow-up to the original FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) survey in 2002, which was one of the first and most comprehensive surveys of developers - who they are, how they work and why they do it. The new survey aims to provide an update, include new developers, and answer some of the questions that were raised by the first one. In particular, how do developer communities help in learning skills and generating employment, and why is the level of participation by women so low?"

Comments

For some odd reason..

[SocialEngineer]

For some odd reason I read "FLOSSPOLS" as "FLOSS PLS". Subliminal messages perhaps?

Re:For some odd reason..

[Ohreally_factor]

I wonder how they will pick the five dentists that will participate in the survey. Are they going to get the same guys from the trident survey?

Re:For some odd reason..

[Anonymous Coward]

What a coincidence! I read "FLOSS PLS" as "FLOSSPOLS".

Re:Women

[chris09876]

Aptitude isn't the right word. There are plenty of smart women out there. I think part of the problem is the isolation that comes with sitting infront of a computer when you're developing. On average, I'd say women are more social than men. ...they're less likely to want to spend hours alone sitting infront of a computer. They'd rather be working on teams where there's lots of social interaction.

Not for them is it?

[Xarius]

why is the level of participation by women so low?

Why is the level of participation of men in, say, nursery school(kindergarten for the Americans), so low?

Men are good at certain things, Women are good at certain things. Regardless of "Equal Oppurtunities" etc. Men and Women are fundamentally different, see that's why there are different words for them. :P

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... some experts at places ranging from Harvard to UCLA med school seem to agree with you.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Xarius]

Heh, flamebait? I'm pretty sure I was stating the obvious, but there we go.

Re:Not for them is it?

[JesusCigarettes]

Men are good at certain things, Women are good at certain things. Regardless of "Equal Oppurtunities" etc. Men and Women are fundamentally different, see that's why there are different words for them. :P

Come now. Let's not get caught up in "Well, this is just the way things are, and there's no reason to change" nonsense. According to your argument, the lack of women doctors and CEOs in the 1950s was because men and women are 'inherently different', right? Except that there actually was systematic oppression of women in place to prevent them from succeeding in high-paying professions.

It may be true that, in general, men are more likely than women to write software. That doesn't mean that the way things are *now* is a perfect representation of how likely women are compared to men. When you grow up believing that only nerdy, quirky women are involved in math and science (as they are often portrayed in movies, etc.) and you want to fit in, you'll avoid those fields even if you really *would* be good at math or science. Likewise, as a male growing up seeing stereotypes of male hairdressers as gay, it's easy to write off being a hairdresser to avoid being typecast as gay.

Are men and women different? Sure. Men have penises and testicles, and women have vaginas. They're *generally* hormonally different, and *generally* have tendencies toward certain things. That doesn't mean it's useless to examine what factors cause those tendencies, or that it's a good thing that we have self-reinforcing gender stereotypes. Examine behavior rationally - fuck this homebrew "common sense" unscientific bullshit.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The concept of equality, it seems, is endanger in the minds of some by reading comments on the natural differences between men and women aside from reproduction. You, however, are correct as the differences are not limited to only that scope-as the Harvard professor who was similarly defamed for similar comment, the functions most efficiently completed by the brains of males and females are not the same. The aptitudes that generate based on individual differences are varied, yes, but they are to a significant degree determined by those skills that benefit from the increased speed for consideration of the functions they involve. Joyful employment in all careers is dependent in part on the degree of that proficiency, and the joy derived from work itself determines who stays and who leaves those roles. There are fewer women in the digital programing field, so there will be fewer women in the hobby fields associated if appeal of those hobbies is uniform, and only personal preference decides participation or not.

Re:Not for them is it?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

The users of the OSTG sites are 97% male. Slashdot demographics are probably very similar.

With such an overwhelmingly male audience, you're not going to get a serious discussion on gender equity here unfortunately.

It's a bit of an echo chamber in here.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Monkelectric]

Are men and women different? Sure. Men have penises and testicles, and women have vaginas. They're *generally* hormonally different, and *generally* have tendencies toward certain things. That doesn't mean it's useless to examine what factors cause those tendencies, or that it's a good thing that we have self-reinforcing gender stereotypes. Examine behavior rationally - fuck this homebrew "common sense" unscientific bullshit.

And this is where you shoot yourself in the foot. Those same hormones that cause sex differentiation cause structural differences in the brain as well. Now im not saying women cant be programmers -- ive met some damn good ones -- but they are less predisposed to technical work -- and pretending something else is true because you want it to be is intellectually dishonest.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Xarius]

"According to my logic?"

I said no such thing. We pretty much have a society, now, where women and men *cannot* be discriminated against when going for jobs and whatnot.

Women simply aren't attracted to computer jobs, for whatever reasons I don't care. Why do we need to attract women to these jobs? To balance some fictional scale until women and men have equal 50% representation in every imaginable job?

If a woman seriously wants a job in computing, then there is no reason whatsoever that she cannot get one.

Stereotypes are almost always based on fact, it's where they come from. From what I can tell, most male hairdressers come across as 'camp', not necessarily gay. Most of them simply are.

Side note:
As for "homebrew common sense", what other type do you recommend? "Government issued common sense" or perhaps "Privately Leased common sense".

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The users of the OSTG sites are 97% male. Slashdot demographics are probably very similar..

also known in entertainment circles as a "sausage party"

Re:Not for them is it?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

and pretending something else is true because you want it to be is intellectually dishonest.

And at the same time, you must also look at the social factors behind why women and men do different things. It's not all hormones.

When toy company creates a Barbie doll with unrealistic boobs that says "I hate math", it does have some influence on how young children perceive gender.

I know you don't think it's all hormones, but I thought I would just clear this up :)

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We pretty much have a society, now, where women and men *cannot* be discriminated against when going for jobs and whatnot.

Where the fuck do you come from? I see discrimination in the job realm all the time...

Job discrimination is very hard to prove, and most people are too timid to bring about a lawsuit.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Jemm]

"why is the level of participation by women so low?"

The most obvious reason why women may be discouraged from writing software is the attitude they face from a predominantly male group.

Have you ever wandered into one of those D&D gaming stores just to see what the fuss is all about. In general, these places make you feel about as welcome as George Bush in Canada. Well that is basically the reception women get from any technical gathering.

Seriously, who wouldn't walk away from that.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Jzanu]

Such then is the situation. The individuals who gather in many areas in the institutions training for these matters happen to be males, but the primary characteristic is that they for the majority do not care what others think, and wish to work for a collective or at least community benefit. These individuals then, act as they choose to. They are dominant in the area, and there are other areas of occupations and of hobbies-so, for those who do not wish to adapt to those behaviors-do not enter those hobbies. That is the situation, and the reality.

Re:Not for them is it?

[oliverthered]

nonsense, just because I call someone black doesn't mean I'm being raciest.

There's a distinct right-brain left-brain difference between men and Women, this makes it easier for Woman to process languages and Men to process visual abstractions like programming.

This show up as:
9 time more men are affected with Dyslexia than women.

Gay men read maps like women

Male-Female Brain Differences.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably because your the one doing it.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Yaztromo]

Men are good at certain things, Women are good at certain things. Regardless of "Equal Oppurtunities" etc. Men and Women are fundamentally different, see that's why there are different words for them. :P

It is because of this attitude, gental readers, that we don't have more women involved in computer programmming in general, and FLOSS in specific.

Yaz.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, rather that women are not, for reasons either related to institutions or to skill, are not attracted to jobs in the digital programming or do not desire to remain in jobs in that area if they are not pleasant-as everyone would if they have free choice in the matter. The comment you quote is true, and the implication is not the misogynistic attitude you infer but one of objective reference to fact-the brains of males and females as determined by hormones function differently and thus generate aptitudes for different occupations and hobbies associated or not associated with occupations. It is, at the most, daft to take the view you have-the realities of it are not so. Not every single occupation is equally attractive or suited to individuals regardless of training to act as imperative to undertake that training regardless of gender. If social or institutional dispositions are the cause, what has been done has achieved success with its current structures-what is the decisive advantage to prompt change except for the sake of change itself or to restore falsely devalued ideas equality when they were not damaged initially?

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Social factors are valid consideration, such can not be disputed by anyone; however, the idea that societal impositions may even aspire to play a role even approaching that of physical reality (chemical and structural differences aiding certain types of thought are the central factors that guide individual's development of aptitudes-especially with regard to the exceptions of ignorant gender-based roles) is pure foolishness.

Re:Not for them is it?

[ScrappyTheObscure]

Being a woman and a programmer I have paid a fair amount of attention to the question of why I'm so rare in the field.

I really believe that the US's answers to this question are all youth-culture socially ingrained. The educational system doesn't have any way of providing anything like the roll models or mentoring or enough ways of reaching any really smart kid with aptitude who is socialized out of much of anything.

That's a gender-neutral way of saying US youth culture would have to change in order to alter this here. Enough other limiting factors have been removed, I think that's the last one and the biggest.

I have Indian coworkers who tell me that when they went to university, 1/3 of the slots in the science programs were reserved for women, 2/3 for men. The women, in their experience, may not look like they're going to be dominant, but are usually contenders for the very best grades.

I take that as (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that a much larger # of women could participate in computing and succeed if only they were not receiving some sort of short circuit early that kills interest.

Anyhow, ok, I'll grant women are different from men, but that doesn't mean the industry doesn't need to find a way to draw them in. We're just as smart as men and different is GOOD.

Or when was the last time you worked in a seriously multicultural office? Different world views and thought patterns make for constructive and healthy workplaces.

Re:Not for them is it?

[deacent]

As a woman who codes and went to an engineering university, I can testify that to that there are social factors that do dissuade girls and young women from going into technical fields. For one thing, there are few scientifically-inclined female role models. I don't know about you, but when I think of a female scientist stereotype, I have this vision of a cold, austere looking woman, which doesn't even remotely describe me or any of my female peers.

While growing up, I had adults and peers alike (not all of them, of course) treat me as if I'm some sort of freak for showing an interest in computers. Others would treat me like I was some sort of idiot who was incapable of doing the assigned work myself. When you're trying to fit in, it's easier to find a new interest than to endure those attitudes. It took several tries with my guidance councelor to get her to put together my records to submit to the college I went to because she kept questioning if I really wanted to do this. Not exactly a morale booster.

When I got to college, the male to female ratio was 6 : 1. Not only was there the minority of guys who hit on every girl they came into contact with (a few strayed over into sexual harassment), but there were very few girls who could sympathize with you.

If you are assertive, you're labeled a bitch. When you go for jobs, there are people who think, "Well, she's going to want to start a family soon, so I'd better not go with her; she's going to be undependable", without having any evidence of her dependability.

No, can't see why any young woman would have a problem going into a science field with those conditions. Any attempt to make science seem "girl-friendly" is doomed as long as the situtations that I mention are common enough. It's a cheap marketing ploy at best.

Having said all of that, I am a strong believer of matching the person to the position. I don't care if your advantage comes from your natural talent, physical build, education, experience, personality, etc. but, it had better be an honest match. You lose a lot when you confuse your assumptions with reality.

Re:Not for them is it?

[deltacephei]

Just a note of random empirical evidence from recent teaching experience. The course was for undergrads learning functional programming, after 1 to 3 courses of C++ or Java. There were definitely some top notch female students that had no problem whatsoever wrapping their brains around recursion. These were not library types - way cute and way smart - and often topped most of the males in the class. There was little observable difference between the top female and male students.

Re:Not for them is it?

[AmericanInKiev]

How about turning the question.

Generally, if you're a keyboard monkey - no one cares much about how you look.

A nice appearance on the other hand often means a person can earn more money for less work.

Those "cushy" jobs are generally not worrying about pointer math and proper object destruction.

So "nice looking people" migh be tempted away from computer jobs.

Now consider this:

As long as women WANT to "marry UP" and can get away with it (and who wouldn't) they will always find themselves in relationships which work better if the male is the workaholic.

Consequently Women can trade on their looks - while men more often must trade on their bread-winning.

The picture would change if women were equally predisposed to marry down.

don't hold your breath.

AIK

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, as a woman who enjoys writing software, I prefer to work as a part of a team with feedback and interaction and such. An awful lot of FOSS development is by isolated people, or people separated by humongous distances and different time zones. Even when people collaborate, they are often doing isolated tasks to the main source code and checking in their changes all alone. This works if you're the sort of self-motivating, self-challenging person that FOSS development relies upon (and such people are largely men). But what about us gals who prefer a more social side to software development? Seems like the only place I'd remotely succeed would be in a big software house as part of a large team. Not coding alone in the dead of night on a pet project.

Just my view.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We got some real abusive mods out there now. The system is broken.

Re:Not for them is it?

[iminplaya]

Actually studies are showing that brain structure/chemistry IS affected by your eviroment. This is why blind people have more sensitive hearing or touch for example. Both genetics and enviroment are very important factors in our developement. The brain is very malleable, and your surrounding play a big part of the "shape" it takes.

Re:Not for them is it?

[peasleer]

Men have penises and testicles, and women have vaginas.

You forgot breasts.

On that note, I learned everything I need to know in kindergarten :)

Re:Not for them is it?

[ErikZ]

Sorry, but it takes a screwed up woman to look at a childs toy and compare herself physically to it. How many women have had to deal with the horrible fact that they have nipples? Barbie doesn't have them!

Feminists are grasping at straws.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Little girls are taught from a very early age that the most important thing in life is to be beautiful and desirable, to the exclusion of just about everything else. Little girls are not publicly rewarded for their mathematical abilities and rarely encouraged to develop them. It takes a lot of courage to swim against this tide, believe me, I am a female software engineer and I know. Yes, the social influences--not our hormones--are keeping women from enjoying careers in math, science, and technology.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not disputed so much as the idea that its force of influence can be validly compared with the force derived from, in this case, your specific biology is-you have nevertheless continued and succeeded over where many of your peers have failed over what you describe as effectively an obstacle to your advancement, in this I would say that your individual abilities are what have set you with the capacities for it despite the difference you have from the male brain that, due to the overwhelming majority of males in similar careers to your own, seems to imbue males with an advantage and thus greater disposition towards that type of work and by extension to the hobbies associated with work on an open source project. I mean also to comment that the institutions on which OS is based and has succeeded with effectively so far are more easily adapted to by the male than the female due to the differences created by the different body chemistries and brain structures.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reference the reply to the other post of your level in this sub-thread, to repeat it would be redundant.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Jane Hackworth]

Now im not saying women cant be programmers -- ive met some damn good ones -- but they are less predisposed to technical work -- What does "predisposed" mean? Before technology, there was no "technological work." Are you saying there was some evolutionary pressure, during the few thousand years that humans have had culture, for males to develop more technological ability than females? If not, where would this predisposition come from? I also want to point out that "technological work" is a relative term. For example, when typewriters first came out, they were "new technology" and most typists were male. But when typewriters became standard secretarial equipment, typing was "women's work."

Re:Not for them is it?

[Jzanu]

Aptitude due to efficiency of the function of the thoughts required for performance of particular work as derived from the biology of the male causes a greater advantage to be had than that of the female whose individual biology must provide for the same advantage or account for and allow equal or superior capacity. The male, due to the preponderance of the gender in that type of work, has an advantage-and as this advantage has continued through the period of equalisation between the genders, it is either biological or at the most extended institutional-but those institutions have been successful and definitive advantage is, due to those recorded successes, required to prompt efforts to change it-change for its own sake is not adequate or it would have already been accomplished.

Re:Not for them is it?

[peachpuff]

"Those same hormones that cause sex differentiation cause structural differences in the brain as well. . . they are less predisposed to technical work -- and pretending something else is true because you want it to be is intellectually dishonest."

What are the structural differences, and what makes you think they affect "technical work"? There are other explanations for the small number of women, why should anyone buy yours?

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Different user responding. There are significant differences, recollection of mention at some point in the past in I believe a comment made by a user here in regard to the Harvard professor recently defamed for attempt at objective approach to determine actual causes of gender inequalities in courses and research at the time, still close to that same time, on the larger interconnection of the female brain between hemispheres that increased perception of females at the cost of increased time for decisions, etc. in the popular science-type summary of research. Similar article but not the mentioned for inability to locate it: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/03102 2062408.htm and preponderance of males in the fields tending toward that hobby suggests some default advantage in the skills composing what are aptitudes for those roles-jobs. If institutional-as it may be-change must be shown in advance to give advantage to firms and projects with successes by the current systems to prompt the requisite changes-change for its own sake is not enough or it would have already been accomplished in the gender opportunity equalisation movement.

Re:Not for them is it?

[dmayle]

When you go for jobs, there are people who think, "Well, she's going to want to start a family soon, so I'd better not go with her; she's going to be undependable"

This is why paternity leave is so vital to even out the marketplace. If companies have to pay for (and accept) the loss of their male employees in just the same way, it puts them on an equal footing. I live in France, where they have this in place, and I think it's a wonderful thing.

Also, with regards to gender "roles": In the companies I worked for in the U.S., there was nary a woman to be seen in I.T. or dev, but where I work now (I know, anecdotal evidence isn't proof), there are women in all sections of the company. My good friend's wife just finished re-education for I.T. and is now working for the local university.

I know France is a popular target in the U.S., but this is something they're definitely doing right...

Re:Not for them is it?

[GrouchoMarx]

It may be true that, in general, men are more likely than women to write software. That doesn't mean that the way things are *now* is a perfect representation of how likely women are compared to men.

Nor does it prove that "the way things are now" is not a reasonable representation. Neither side can "prove" that the actual ratio is or isn't where it "should" be (for some arbitrary definition of "should"). However, claiming that it "should" be 50/50 for everything is, you seem to agree, inane and ignorant.

Focus on the problem, not the symptom. When people aren't driven in or out of a profession due to gender discrimination, the ratio of men to women in that profession will naturally achieve the level it "should" naturally have. What will that ratio be? Hell if I know, and neither do you. But once we've eliminated gender discrimination (both against AND FOR, including the ridiculous idea that both genders are identical), it will tend toward that point on its own.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mjm1231]

This is the age old nature versus nurture question, isn't it? It might be worth noting that studies of identical twins raised seperately show that personality is equally affected by both. So the idea that societal influence is equal to physical (biological) influence has a little more weight than "pure foolishness".

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

Are men and women different? Sure. Men have penises and testicles, and women have vaginas. They're *generally* hormonally different, and *generally* have tendencies toward certain things.

Neither men nor woman are a homogeneous group. Even if X has mostly men interested in it that dosn't mean that it isn't perfectly normal for women to also be interested in it.

That doesn't mean it's useless to examine what factors cause those tendencies, or that it's a good thing that we have self-reinforcing gender stereotypes.

Such stereotypes may or may not have a biological basis. It's even possible for them to be contrary to biology. In many cases gender stereotypes are not consistent across cultures or history.

Examine behavior rationally

Not likely to happen with something which is so highly politicised. Especially with the kind of hypocrits who like to claim "men and women are equally capable of doing good things, but men are far more capable of doing bad/criminal things" or something to that effect.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

And this is where you shoot yourself in the foot. Those same hormones that cause sex differentiation cause structural differences in the brain as well.

This should be quite simple to test. Have someone identify if a set of MRI's come from a man's or a woman's brain.
Where this theory runs into problems is that function, even structure, of mammalian brains is also affected by environment. e.g. it's been shown that the left brain/right brain split differs between Japanese and Europeans.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mjm1231]

So any advantage that any other group currently has should be maintained because, if it wasn't better that way, it wouldn't be that way? This is completely nonsensical. I guess capitalism is pointless then, since there is no point in competing for market share... if you were any good, you'd have it already.

Your explanation also brilliantly fails to explain the changeover in typewriter usage.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

Sorry, but it takes a screwed up woman to look at a childs toy and compare herself physically to it.

Actually the original poster was talking about the influence of such toys on young children.
There's also the effect of adults precieving young children differently depending on if they think a child is a boy or a girl.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mjm1231]

Computer programming requires a greater mix of mathematical and language skills (perhaps unless you are working purely with machine language?) than mathematics alone. Therefore, based purely on the differences you describe, one would expect to find the female:male ratio higher among computer programmers than among mathematicians.

This is not the case.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

What does "predisposed" mean? Before technology, there was no "technological work." Are you saying there was some evolutionary pressure, during the few thousand years that humans have had culture, for males to develop more technological ability than females?

What method is available to show if a piece of flint was knapped by a man or a woman? Or for that matter any piece of prehistoric technology.
Note that gender roles and stereotypes tend to be most common in industrial societies. But are rarely completly rigid anyway.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

When you go for jobs, there are people who think, "Well, she's going to want to start a family soon, so I'd better not go with her; she's going to be undependable", without having any evidence of her dependability.

Quite likely an employer would get in trouble if the asked that question directly. Possibly from they experience that is a real risk...

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

This is why paternity leave is so vital to even out the marketplace. If companies have to pay for (and accept) the loss of their male employees in just the same way, it puts them on an equal footing.

Note that it does have to be an level of leave. Including issues like who pays. Even with this there is still the issue of Stay at Home parents even which parent does a school call first with a sick or injured child.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

As long as women WANT to "marry UP" and can get away with it (and who wouldn't) they will always find themselves in relationships which work better if the male is the workaholic.

This also has the effect of meaning that average figures for men's earnings will tend to be greater than average figures of women's earnings. Which is something about which a lot of fuss is made.
It is also possible that the average amount of money available for a woman to spend is greater than the average amount of money available for a man to spend...

Re:Not for them is it?

[mpe]

But once we've eliminated gender discrimination (both against AND FOR, including the ridiculous idea that both genders are identical), it will tend toward that point on its own.

That isn't likely to happen for quite a while. Gender discrimination is complex, different discriminations interact with each other, things such as "peer-backed" discrimination tend to be ignored and there are plenty of advocates of all sorts of discrimination...

Re:Not for them is it?

[mattyrobinson69]

The 'we need 50% representation' attitude coming from feminists is completely morally wrong (sexist against men), if women dont want to do IT, dont pressure them.

A great example of (ficticious) affermative action (a result from PC pressure groups such as feminists) is here (BOFH from theregister.co.uk)

Re:Not for them is it?

[brunogirin]

RTFA. The introduction to the poll says they want to understand why "there are far fewer women in FLOSS development than in software development as a whole" (emphasis mine). So it's got nothing to do with being good at certain things or not. It suggests that there is something specific about FLOSS development which means that women get less involved than men, compared to generic development. And that's what they want to find out.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mattyrobinson69]

Would i be correct in guessing there were more not-top male students than not-top female students?

The very blunt way of putting this (i wish i could think of a better word because its not what i mean): Women good at IT are freaks

Re:Not for them is it?

[Chemicalscum]

The situation is worse for engineering subjects than it is for the natural science . The field I did my Master's degree in (the crystallography of biological macromolecules) there are many prominent women and it is an area that requires computational competance and the ability to code. My research supervisor, a woman, later became the leading expert on massively parrallel computation for the molecular dynamics of macromolecules in Britain. She now holds the prestigous position of director of a government research council. One of the greatest mathematicians of the last century - Emmy Noether was a woman. All thoughout the numerate sciences more and more woment are coming in to leading positions.

It is only when the subject gets labelled engineering that this is not true. Engineeirng schools seem to be the place where male yahoo's predominate. In the natural sciences there seem to be be less of this kind of student and the men are more civilized - I was one.

Re:Not for them is it?

[sgtrock]

Huh? If any prospective employer ever indicated that I couldn't take time off to take care of my kids I'd have my resume back out so fast the paper would be smoking. This should NOT be a gender issue. This is a parental issue. Thank Ghu Minnesota has a law that allows both parents to take 6 weeks unpaid leave after the birth of a child. That first 12 weeks makes all the difference for the kids.

Re:Not for them is it?

[v01d]

As a woman who codes and went to an engineering university, I can testify that to that there are social factors that do dissuade girls and young women from going into technical fields. For one thing, there are few scientifically-inclined female role models. I don't know about you, but when I think of a female scientist stereotype, I have this vision of a cold, austere looking woman, which doesn't even remotely describe me or any of my female peers.

I'm shocked every time I hear this crap. Role model? Who the fuck needs a role model? I can't do homework because I don't have a role model?

Others would treat me like I was some sort of idiot who was incapable of doing the assigned work myself.

Through college I was always harassed by idiots who couldn't do their work. The guys pretended like we were friends, the girls flirted. Were you capable of doing the work by yourself?

If you are assertive, you're labeled a bitch.

Most women who call themselves assertive are bitches. Most men who call themselves assertive are assholes. I've met plenty of assertive men and women who were fine, but as soon as some one calls them self assertive they're probably making excuses.

When you go for jobs, there are people who think, "Well, she's going to want to start a family soon, so I'd better not go with her; she's going to be undependable", without having any evidence of her dependability.

Possibly, but I doubt you read their minds or they told you this. Married men tend to make more than single men and are hired more quickly, wheres the public outcry from single men? I'd think slashdot would be a good place for it to start.

You aren't terribly special, if you could become a coder other woman could to. Given enough time, if there are a significant number of women who struggle through and become coders things will get easier. If there aren't many women who struggle to become coders, I'd say there's some sort of predisposition involved.

Re:Not for them is it?

[deacent]

Quite likely an employer would get in trouble if the asked that question directly. Possibly from they experience that is a real risk..

It is a risk that any young worker may not be dependable due to family commitments. When a woman has a child, obviously she will absolutely need to take a minimum of several weeks off to recuperate and focus on her newborn, but that tends to be a relatively short-term problem for the company. I think it's stupid to assume that once she is back at work, she's not going to be able to perform her duties as well as she had been able to before unless she's been allowing the job to consume all parts of her life which is unreasonable of any employer to expect of any employee.

I've seen too many co-workers and wives of co-workers layed off just as they are about to take (or during) materinty leave. A lot of times, these women aren't interested in a court battle at that point in their lives because they need to focus their energy and money on the family.

Re:Not for them is it?

[oliverthered]

Computer programming requires no language skills what so ever, or maybe you under estimate language skills are.

Computer programming is essentially mathematics and as with mathematics after a while programming becomes a reflex action of writing out visualisation of algorithms and processes that exist inside you head. It is a visual process (all be it an imaginary one).

Language on the other hand has a large about of feed back and emotional content, when I'm talking to you or sending or replying to a message I have to work out what you are thinking, what you emotional response will be etc....

Now I try to judge how you will react to any user interfaces I write, but I do it in a purely mechanical way, when I write a user interface I'm programming you, not having a conversation. Chances are my user interfaces are colder and more functional than ones designed by a woman.

It's hardly surprising that only a few percent of FOSS participants are Woman when:

Most of the communication is in a 'technical' form, not an emotional form.

Everyone always complains that OS UI's are designed to techies and not for real people(written by technical Men for technical Men)

Mathematics uses symbols and letters just like programming or physics, but doesn't make it language based. Why I program I see the code and execute it in my head.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

With such an overwhelmingly male audience, you're not going to get a serious discussion on gender equity here unfortunately.

So you're claiming that men can't have serious discussions of gender equity? Odd, my gender psych classes in college were about 50% male, and I don't recall them failing where the women did well. I would stay blanket statements such as the one above are the sort of things making unbiased discussion difficult.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think cases where children have had sex changes and been brought up as being the oposite gender show this perfectly well.

Re:Not for them is it?

[mjm1231]

Unless you are going to argue that mathematics is less mathematical than computer programming, at the very least, the ratio should be the same.

It still isn't.

Re:Not for them is it?

[verus vorago]

''A nice appearance on the other hand often means a person can earn more money for less work.

Those "cushy" jobs are generally not worrying about pointer math and proper object destruction.''

So Java coders are better looking than C coders?? :-)

Re:Not for them is it?

[oliverthered]

I fail to see your reasoning.

Computer programming can be more like computer programming than mathematics. Programming is based more on virtual models than many types of mathematics, so it's possible even more visual, and when you add the OSS component you remove even more soft communications skills.

Mathematics doesn't have to be the pinical of things that Women aren't good at thinking about, so why should the women OSS -> women mathamaticians ration be at the very least the same?

Re:Not for them is it?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

50% male, and I don't recall them failing where the women did well

50% male / 50% female would be a better environment for debate. 50% is very different then 97%.

Re:Not for them is it?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

The Barbie is just one example.

You cannot ignore the social factors behind a child's mental development. I'm certain that you played with toys when you were a kid, and that those toys have had been influential in your development as a person.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Jzanu]

You so greatly misinterpret the meaning of my comments as to seem intentionally modifying them to suit your motivations. I am commenting on institutions-an institution does not change due to whim, it changes due to demonstrated or at least high probability of gaining an advantage in what it does. I am not giving support to such ideologies as those you imply, it describes the reality of the situation for those who, unlike yourself who have evidently studied it and at best misinterpreted accidentally or at worst misinterpreted intentionally my comments, would read this without that knowledge; the point further is that such advantage must be demonstrated so that it acts as prompt and motivation for a change bringing advantage otherwise the institutions will ignore it as change costs, and unless repaid by some means that acts as deterrent over all else. On typing-the comment did not intend to answer that question, only to describe the realities of the situation to contribute to following discussions on explanatory ideas.

Re:Not for them is it?

[Sj0]

To be fair, there are societal influences on both sides -- People want their children to grow up to be athletes, doctors or lawyers, not wrench jockeys, mathematicians, or engineers!

Re:Not for them is it?

[Sj0]

While growing up, I had adults and peers alike (not all of them, of course) treat me as if I'm some sort of freak for showing an interest in computers.


Welcome to life. :P

Re:Not for them is it?

[Sj0]

Engineeirng schools seem to be the place where male yahoo's[sic] predominate.

I find your characterization both sexist and offensive as a practitioner of the aforementioned trade. Your characterization of engineers as "yahoo's"[sic] is mean spirited and in my experience with over 400 Electrical Engineering students from two schools in two seperate provinces, wildly inaccurate.

Re:Not for them is it?

[GrouchoMarx]

That isn't likely to happen for quite a while. Gender discrimination is complex, different discriminations interact with each other, things such as "peer-backed" discrimination tend to be ignored and there are plenty of advocates of all sorts of discrimination...

True, it's not easy. And many may find it hard to cope with this, but it's not a problem that can be handled on an institutional level. You have to first address the problem yourself, within yourself. When YOU are judging a person not on the basis of their gender (or color of their skin, or sexual preference, or whatever) but on the quality of their character and their demonstrated abilities, then you start demanding the same from those around you. If that means calling someone on it who doesn't want to be called on it, that's their problem. Eventually some will rise to your level, and become allies.

No, we won't end up with a 50/50 split in the end, probably on anything. But if everyone has taken the strength to purge themselves of of unfair bias (and maintains only fair bias, such as "if you can't do the work, I won't hire you", which is perfectly legitimate), then we'll all be healthier for it and the ratio will be wherever it "belongs".

The solution to problems in society is honorable people. Honorable people are made honorable by their own actions, not by institutions.

Re:Not for them is it?

[AmericanInKiev]

And us Script Kiddies are regular pageant models

AIK

Re:Not for them is it?

[deacent]

I'm shocked every time I hear this crap. Role model? Who the fuck needs a role model? I can't do homework because I don't have a role model?

Of course you don't need to have a role model to do homework. Maybe role model was a bad choice of words. The point is, girls are often given the impression that if they go into science, they'll end up as humorless, ugly, old maids.

Through college I was always harassed by idiots who couldn't do their work. The guys pretended like we were friends, the girls flirted. Were you capable of doing the work by yourself?

Yes, I was and I still am. I don't like to take help from anyone. Probably a personality flaw. But I really hate being patronized. I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when they offer help, but sometimes, it's very obvious that they think you just can't do it. I don't know. Maybe it's just a sad attempt at a pick up.

Worst anecdote I can think of happened to my sister. She had a high school physics teacher who used to routinely tell the girls that he didn't expect them to be able to do the work.

I've literally had situations where I put forth an idea, it's dismissed without discussion, and a guy involved in the discussion within a minute puts forth the exact same idea, sometimes using the exact same words, and he gets the credit. It sucks, but that's life.

Most women who call themselves assertive are bitches. Most men who call themselves assertive are assholes. I've met plenty of assertive men and women who were fine, but as soon as some one calls them self assertive they're probably making excuses.

I tend to regard myself as passive most of the time, yet I've been called a bitch just for voicing an opinion in turn in an open forum.

Possibly, but I doubt you read their minds or they told you this.

No, but I've overheard conversations that weren't meant for my ears. It happens.

Married men tend to make more than single men and are hired more quickly, wheres the public outcry from single men? I'd think slashdot would be a good place for it to start.

I would guess that married men also tend to be older and more likely to have more work experience. I have no statistics so I don't know if that is a reasonable explanation or if you were comparing men of similar ages.

You aren't terribly special, if you could become a coder other woman could to. Given enough time, if there are a significant number of women who struggle through and become coders things will get easier. If there aren't many women who struggle to become coders, I'd say there's some sort of predisposition involved.

While I don't regard myself as better, I am apparently unusual or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I'm where I am because I've never done well at fitting in and I'm too stubborn to walk away from something I enjoy so much. I wasn't looking for sympathy. I was simply pointing out that a career in science has some real disincentives to women. Until those factors become much less significant, it's impossible to draw any rational conclusions about whether there is a genetic component to it.

Re:Not for them is it?

[jaelle]

I am a woman that loved programming, computers and electronics for pretty much my entire life. Try to get a job doing those things. The only companies that will 'take a chance' on 'nonstandard' employees are those that are desperate...usually meaning on the verge of failure.

I just got a job that uses the full extent of my skills for the first time in my life..at the age of 50! I'm in heaven...but it's been a very long, rough road. Men don't hire women for tech jobs if they can find men to do the job instead. Pure and simple.

And that's *all* it is.

Re:Not for them is it?

[jaelle]

We pretty much have a society, now, where women and men *cannot* be discriminated against when going for jobs and whatnot.

Not true..they can and do discriminate. They just hide it better. I have tons of technical training, yet just went for nearly 3 years without finding a steady job. All the men I know in the same fields with much less training found jobs. Explain that, you sexist jerk.

Women are attracted to computer jobs, but the prospects of getting hired for them are extremely poor.

All they have to do to discriminate is not hire you. There's really no way to prove anything. I have been in technical fields for my entire life. It's what I love to do. I know other women who wanted to, but were driven into other fields because they could find no company that would let them in. Over the years, I accumulated skills in many different technical fields by working for peanuts for failing companies that couldn't find male techs that would work that cheap. I've finally found a company in desperate need of a jack-of-all-trades that couldn't find a male that had those skills and is able to pay what they're worth. But it's too bad I had to wait until I was 50 to get it.

Retirement is gonna suck.

FLOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

For the Love O god Someone Shower! Then you'll get the women.

Re:Women

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the aptitude to work long hours for nothing so that corporations can get their software for free? Probably not, women aren't that stupid.

new floss study...

[mzwaterski]

Haven't we known about the benefits of FLOSSing for a long time? Man, talk about irrelavent studies...

Just Maybe...

[ATH500]

Maybe men are most likely to go look at some fetish porn on the internet after each 5 hours of work so they're more on the computer.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Hmmm

[Neil Blender]

Do other countries think it's funny to put [United States] in alphabetical order in a country drop down list instead of index 1 where it belongs no matter what?

Re:Hmmm

[bryan986]

It annoys the hell out of me when I see Afghanistan at #1 in the list, when we all know the United States is #1

Re:Hmmm

[rokzy]

yes we think it's hilarious. we often screen videos of dumb Americans bouncing on the down arrow key at the weekly meetings of the "No USAians" club.

so far none of them have realised you can press the 'U' key.

the funniest ones are where they get all the way to countries beginning with the letter 'H', stopping to read and think about each one, before finally realising it's alphabetical and they can just scroll until countries beginning with 'U' appear.

when you guys finally figure out our plot, we'll start putting the USA in random places.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Washingtonian this is how I feel when I have to select a "state" from a drop down. Is it going to be under Washington DC, DC, District of Columbia? Hell, half the time they forget us all together. Well at least I'm not from Paris, Texas.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

When you press 'U' it brings up Uganda, smart guy. By the way, where do you guys hold your meetings? We want to ensure your next elections are ... free and open. Yes, that's it. Free and open.

TELL ME

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

> When you press 'U' it brings up Uganda, smart guy.

Try pressing it a couple more times. This is why you guys always fail - if something goes wrong you'd sooner drop a bomb than try again.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

hell, just type United states

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only assume it's done because.

1: Americans don't know that other countries exist.
2: The Ameican government doesn't want Americans to know that other countries exist.
3: Americans don't know the alphabet.
4: Americans can't spell.
5: Americans can't read.
6: Anyone that can't read, spell, doesn't know the alphabet or any geography might as well be an American.

Re:Hmmm

[ikkonoishi]

Well I outwitted your nefarious scheme. I put an entry in my usercontent.css to always make the name United States show up in its God given colors of red, white, and blue. With blink tags!

Re:Hmmm

[YU Nicks NE Way]

When I type united states, the box bounces around, ending up setting my country to Denmark (something weird happens when I hit the spacebar), and states gets typed into my last name.

Would it work better if I used that new browser FrieFaux instead of IE?

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

U key ?

They invented that fucking U key so go find something else ..

Re:Hmmm

[Ed Avis]

Yes, why can't they list them by numeric country code as used for telephone calls, where the USA is 1? In fact we should just rename all countries to numbers instead, for example Nigeria would be 234 (not 419, sadly).

Re:Hmmm

[famebait]

It's our little revenge for all those boneheaded forms where, even after you specify a small european country from a list provided, it still requires state to be filled in, and that post code and phone numbers are in US format.

Re:Hmmm

[mattyrobinson69]

BLINK TAGS! judas! kill the judas that uses non standard markup.

(unless you mean the css equivalent of <blink>)

Re:Hmmm

[ikkonoishi]

Well it would have to be the css version of it since its done in the css.

It was a joke actually. You can't do it with the usercontent because the DOM node doesn't give the text in the option as an exposed value.

Re:Hmmm

[mattyrobinson69]

ah, duh!

Your still a judas for *mentioning* the blink tag on /.

Re:Hmmm

[tlhIngan]

Yes, why can't they list them by numeric country code as used for telephone calls, where the USA is 1? In fact we should just rename all countries to numbers instead, for example Nigeria would be 234 (not 419, sadly).

Ah, but then Canada would come first (yay!), since its country code *also* happens to be 1 (the only differentiator is area code...). And since logically most lists which have the same value in a list get sub-sorted alphabetically.

A pretty good overview

[Anonymous Coward]

The pdf from the 2002 survey provides a pretty good overview of the open source world and its place in the greater scheme of things. There are no great suprises but if you need something succinct to prepare a presentation for your phb, it's a pretty good place to start.

Women do contribute

[varmittang]

After a long day of programming, there is nothing better than a woman putting her arms around you to give you the strength to keep going. We don't just do it for ourselves. We do it for others, that can't do it for themselves.

Re:Women do contribute

[Anonymous Coward]

Heeee

I can do it for myself !

Well, at least I have to ...

Re:Women do contribute

[Jedi Alec]

and the best part is that while doing so she softly whispers in your ear "you missed a closing bracket there honey".

Re:Women do contribute

[Anonymous Coward]

and the best part is that while doing so she softly whispers in your ear "you missed a closing bracket there honey".

and then you wake up and realise you are at work and holding your managers waist and drooling on him. And he's like "ummm, in addition to that closing bracket, we are going to have to ask you to move down into the basement. Is this your red stapler?"

Re:Women do contribute

[mattyrobinson69]

My GF cant code to save her life (she's going into animal care), but if ive been spending hours and hours trying to debug something i get her to read it (tell her the basics of the language, explain what it basically does function by function).

She wouldn't spot stuff like "thats supposed to be a pointer to an int, not an int" but every time ive had her read my code she says "your missing a semicolon" or "you didn't close the bracket from that if statement".

45 questions. ... eek!

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Well, I started to take the survey... I was at question 11 when I realized that there are 45 questions to answer ... holy shit. Not sure I have time to answer all of these ...

It's Hard TO Comment On The Survey

[John Hasler]

...When I can't get past the first page.

The thing is broken.

Re:It's Hard TO Comment On The Survey

[temojen]

I just did the survey while everyone else was trying to get "frist psot".

Re:It's Hard TO Comment On The Survey

[Anonymous Coward]

Click on the the box that says Afghanistan, and press U four times in a row.

Re:It's Hard TO Comment On The Survey

[ImaLamer]

Its page worse than FLOSS;

And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss

Re:Women

[basilpronoun]

The proportion of men to women on the team which writes the highly reliable software for the space shuttle is roughly 50/50. http://www.fastcompany.com/online/06/writestuff.ht ml
Results count for more than studies.

Seven Years

[bstadil]

Let's see if the EU can beat the Americans and report back before 2012.

my first reaction

[ChipMonk]

Tell them to take a flying leap off a cliff. The EU is moving to destroy FLOSS with their innovation-stifling software patents. The only thing I'm willing to tell them about my use of FLOSS is, "You can't pirate what's given away for free."

Re:my first reaction

[MochaMan]

Out of curiosity, where are you from? I'm just hoping it's not the US, or your comment is destined for a +5 Funny.

That said; I agree with your stance on software patents. Canada, where I'm from, thankfully doesn't yet have them (knock on wood) and Japan, where I live, has them but under the restriction that the invention to be patented must be "a creation of technical ideas utilizing a law of nature", which is probably about as fair as patents for non-software devices/processes.

The Lack of Women

[Jameth]

The lack of women in the computer programming field really is one of those oddities. The 2002 survey says 1.1% of FLOSS developers are female. That's less than the portion of women in construction. The construction field definitely has discrimination against women and extremely commonly has a hostile work environment.

By contrast, there's no clear reason why women shouldn't be in CS. The most likely possibility is still that it's a cultural norm, but that doesn't exactly explain why more women would be involved in construction than in CS. It might be a hostile climate, but I would be surprised if the male coders are more aggressive and sexually biased than the average guys on a construction crew. It's really quite a strange situation.

- http://www.theallineed.com/women/05031804.htm
"Currently, women workers make up nearly 10 percent of the construction industry or more than 900,000 nationally"

Re:The Lack of Women

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wondering if anyone has got any numbers for EE. Because where I'm studying, EE has even less women than CS/CE. Out of 90-100 students there are _1_ girl.

Re:The Lack of Women

[Anonymous Coward]

we had an EE course as school (13-16 years old), Girls were about 25% of the class.

It seems women like the techie stuff when there younger (my sister trained as a car mechanic), but when they get older they drop it (my sister is now a magician)

Re:The Lack of Women

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not strange. Go interact with some females sometime. They are overwhelmingly not interested in this kind of stuff. Men and women are different. Welcome to reality.

Re:The Lack of Women

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

"Currently, women workers make up nearly 10 percent of the construction industry or more than 900,000 nationally"

Worked in new home construction from 12 to about 18, never once saw a woman framer, plumber, electrition, roofer, sider, landscaper....

Architect... check. The company that we got plans from did have a few women on staff, one or maybe two in design positions.

Also, we did use a cabinent crew that had a woman in it.

Soooo, 2 or three out of a thousand? Two thousand? Something like that.

Those stats are BS. I'd guess we are talking sign-holders, secretaries, accountants-in-the-construction-office-that-don't- think-of-themselves-as-accountants-because-they-do n't-have-a-degree, etc.

The stats should be expressed more like '[...] 40% of x, a construction related field'.

Two 'FWYs':
1: I am not expressing an opinion as to whether or not this is a good or a bad thing.
2: I worked in Portland Oregon, which is pretty much going to be the place you are most likely to find a woman in a sterotypically male field. Except logging.

PS
FYI #3: Logging comment was a joke. If you are from Portland you laughed, admit it.

Re:The Lack of Women

[Anonymous Coward]

Abuse from men is not the only reason. The way I see it is that girls themselves have many idéas how a girl should be. Its like a bad circle which is spiraling towards importance of popularity and beauty. Girls can treat other girls with computer intrests in a very bad way.

I think that the biggest threat against girls in engineering is the girls themselves. The image of beeing nerd and/or engineer must be changed.

Re:The Lack of Women

[Jameth]

I've seen those stats several places, so I'm fairly sure there is so truth to them. In general, from what I recall of an NPR interview a couple years back, it's all heavily skewed by a minority of the construction companies, so you could still easily be in construction and not notice. There are a few companies that fire quite a lot of women. Also, there are a couple companies (they mentioned two in the interview, so at least a couple) that are all women construction companies.

In general, although the only source I could find by using "I'm Feeling Lucky" on Google wasn't the most reliable, I do have reason to believe those statistics despite your personal experience to the contrary.

Re:The Lack of Women

[mattyrobinson69]

If by construction you mean physical jobs, thats because women have generally smaller, weaker bodies than men (scientific fact - find an average girl who can beat me (average bloke) at anything strength related)

I suppose women in CS being less than woman in construction is odd, but maybe there are biological reasons to which feminists/'the PC crowd' refuse to accept.

Math is hard!

[otis wildflower]

Seriously, I wish IT wasn't such a sausage fest, but when the dominant cohort is so into such 'offensive-to-females' stuff as Python, HHG, Scifi/Fantasy in general, and poor hygiene, it's unfortunately no surprise that it is.

I have met four females in my lifetime that didn't hate Python (the troupe, not necessarily the language). I am related to two of them. Conversely, I have no interest in unicorns, clothing designers or shiny bits of carbon.

ps: just in case you're a complete dink and take the Subject seriously, MEGO when it comes to anything over mild algebra (such as determining tips or doing exchange rate estimates in my head). At this point, most of the work you'd do in the real world is semiotic rather than arithmetic (or, often, even algorithmic). Or, for me, it involves ripping things out of things and putting them into other things. (or, lately, for me it involves shooting tons of Waffen-SS and trying to flank Panzers with my Shermans)

Re:Math is hard!

[Anonymous Coward]

But unicorns are fantasy!

So long as we don't try to even things out

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I'm completely against gender discrimination.

I am also completely against changinf science or engineering to give it more "girl appeal". Doing so will stop science/engineering being what it is.The worst possible scenario is some sort of state intervention that applies quotas (eg. 40% of your proggrammers gotta be female to get a tax cut).

Analogy: 90%+ of cosmetics are bought by females for their own use.. Imagine if the state said that they had to sell at least 40% of their cosmetics to men. It would destroy the cosmetic industry.

Open Source has always been about a level playing field - let's keep it that way.

women are sick...

[Anonymous Coward]

of getting hit on by open source developers. There are only so many times you can hear a guy ask, "Is your body released under GNU/GPL?"

Re:women are sick...

[Gzip Christ]

There are only so many times you can hear a guy ask, "Is your body released under GNU/GPL?"

Hey, we just want to know which girls are easy to fork.

Lame Survey

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an extremely lame survey.

I filled it out using my alternate persona: an impatient well-paid female Scandinavian sexaholic with a PhD in computer science. She doesn't have time to fill out most of the questions, just the fun ones. I encourage you to follow in my svelte lissome footsteps.

You can skip questions by hitting continue to go to the next page even though you have not filled out all the questions on the current page.

Re:Women

[Saeger]

I've always read that the ratio of introverts (mostly geeks) to extroverts in society was about 1 in 10. I assumed this was cross-gender, so maybe there's another reason at work, such as cultural attitudes about certain kinds of work. Aren't more Indian chicks into coding?

Re:Women

[Col. Bloodnok]

Plus, is the fact that there aren't many female OSS developers, or female developers in general, really anything like a problem?

I mean, I don't stay awake at night worrying why men aren't better represented in advertising, nursing, admin, HR, child care, midwifery, marketing and all the other careers which are (mainly) dominated by women.

Also consider the following: A women applies for a programming job and a man applies for a pre-school child care job. Which application is treated with the most prejudice and suspicion? And Why?

Re:Women

[r00t]

Yeah, that's government work. It's even NASA.
(direct or contract, it doesn't matter)

You can bet they have plenty of vietnam vetrans,
homosexuals and transwhatevers, paralysed people,
etc. It's NASA, OK? They have quotas to meet.

Re:Women

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, how many of those poisitions were required to be filled by minories to win the NASA contract?

Hints for next survey

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time they create a survey they should consider that most of the people answering it are probably pretty busy and don't have time to answer hundreds of questions. I had to leave about half the questions blank cause I just don't have that much time to devote to it.

Why is this an issue??

[psykocrime]

I don't see any studies coming out asking "Why is the percentage of women so low amongst asphalt pouring crews" or anything like that. I also don't see any studies asking whey more men aren't going into nursing.

Why do we seem to have this societal obsession with getting more women into computer science / engineering, etc? Maybe, just maybe, it's the case that most women just don't *want* to be computer scientists or engineers. I mean, do we have hoardes of women protesting that they tried to get into this field and were discriminated against on a sexual basis (hint: no)?

The opportunities are there for women who *do* want to do this kind of stuff. So tell me again why this "issue" keeps coming up time and time again??

Re:Why is this an issue??

[John Hasler]

> I don't see any studies coming out asking "Why is
> the percentage of women so low amongst asphalt
> pouring crews" or anything like that. I also
> don't see any studies asking whey more men aren't
> going into nursing.

You aren't looking very hard.

Re:Why is this an issue??

[Lendrick]

Ironcally, this comment on my page is showing up immediately below the comment with this link here:

http://www.theallineed.com/women/05031804.htm

People *are* asking.

Re:Why is this an issue??

[Anonymous Coward]

If you didn't see a whole lot of women in your personal life, you'd be pretty mad you weren't seeing them at work either right?

Re:Why is this an issue??

[mpe]

I don't see any studies coming out asking "Why is the percentage of women so low amongst asphalt pouring crews" or anything like that. I also don't see any studies asking whey more men aren't going into nursing.

A lot of the time the people selecting the criteria involved have their own sets of biases. You are equally unlikely to see claims about women being "under-represented" in the prison population or men being "under-represented" in the "stay at home spouse" population.

Why do we seem to have this societal obsession with getting more women into computer science / engineering, etc?

Probably because these are fairly safe (unlike construction) and fairly high status positions.

Maybe, just maybe, it's the case that most women just don't *want* to be computer scientists or engineers. I mean, do we have hoardes of women protesting that they tried to get into this field and were discriminated against on a sexual basis (hint: no)?

Logic dosn't work very well here. The response to that argument is likely to be the Patriarchy Conspiracy Theory(TM)...

The opportunities are there for women who *do* want to do this kind of stuff. So tell me again why this "issue" keeps coming up time and time again??

Because it suits a political adgenda.

Re:Why is this an issue??

[bluGill]

Its confusion. I've worked with a couple women in the computer field, and I found them on average equal to the average man in the field. I haven't done a statistical study, but I tend to believe that by any statistical measure they are equal. That is they are as likely to be better than me as any other man is, and as likely to be worse than me as any other man would be.

I've worked construction. It is a fact that the women I worked with did not have the physical strength to do the job like I could. When there was thinking involved, or only a small amount of strength was required, they did just as well as anyone. When massive strength was called for they did not have it. (think lifting a wall)

Statistically women are more likely to be found in construction - a trade where genetics works against them, than computers - a trade where they are fully equal to their peers. I cannot explain it.

Re:Why is this an issue??

[olau]

Why, are you asking why?

Because we want more babes at work, of course!

Re:Why is this an issue??

[psykocrime]

You aren't looking very hard.

That is correct. This topic isn't something I've really made a point to invest a lot of time into studying.

That said, do you have some info you'd like to share with us? Are there really studies questioning why more women aren't pouring asphalt and more men aren't nurses?

Aaarggh, replying to myself, bad form I know...

[psykocrime]

But I left out the context of what I was replying to:

why is the level of participation by women so low?

Re:Aaarggh, replying to myself, bad form I know...

[psykocrime]

Great, now I can't even seem to reply to the correct message. Either I'm drunk or it's way past bedtime (or both). I give up. :-(

Re:Women

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I read your link but didn't see any mention of the statistic you were quoting. There was mention of a single meeting where the atendees were about evenly divided by gender, but this said nothing about the entire team.
Could you quote exactly the passage which gives the statistic you are referring to?

It does NOT matter

[Tablizer]

Who cares? Why push Women into tech? What will it get anyone? Money? Encourage them to go into business and sales if that is the goal. That is more stable and safer from offshoring.

Re:Women

[10000000000000000000]

Now, how many of those poisitions were required to be filled by minories to win the NASA contract?

why, do you wish to use the same ratio in order to achieve 99.9% perfect code?

'cause that's a good idea.

Re:Women

[ErikZ]

Face it. CS sucks if you have any goals or desires in life that don't involve parking your butt in front of a computer all day.

The women I know of that do, tend to be anti-social.

Why Fewer Women

[matria]

As a grandmother, who's been pretty much on my own for learning how to program, and wasn't allowed to have a computer "to waste time and money on" until my husband decided that HE could use one, I can tell you immediately why there are fewer women in FOSS development.

Most FOSS projects start as an after-work (or school), spare-time project. Most women work, and even working women are expected to handle housework, shopping, and child care after work. Where is the spare time left for anything else?

Re:Why Fewer Women

[atokata]

Having been raised by three generations of hardworking women, this is totally correct. We geeks can have nothing by high-minded ideals, but the fact of the matter is that software developement requires a huge investment of time. You want to talk about cultural bias? Why is it that there's a general expectation of women to take care of things men deem themselves too important to trifle with? How many male programmers are able to write code, do laundry, fix perhaps more than one meal, tend to young children, vacuum, dust, clean the kitchen, clean the bathroom, code some more, and then hit an at least forty hour work week?

Frankly, I think we can all see who the real tougher sex is.

Re:Why Fewer Women

[bluGill]

And men are not expected to help with housework, shopping and child care after work? that is a very messed up household.

When I think of a scientist

[Anonymous Coward]

as a mle, I either see Professor Heinz Wolf or a weedy wimp with spectacles. Neither describe myself or my peers.

Some stereotypes are actually cariactures.

Re:WooHoo! Bunfight!

[nickco3]

A woman needs a man like dried-up, bitter, twisted, stinking fish needs a bicycle.

Not for them is it?-Something in my eye.

[Anonymous Coward]

"With such an overwhelmingly male audience, you're not going to get a serious discussion on gender equity here unfortunately."

But the "hot grits" discussion will be cruising right along.

Women-FOSS Loss.

[Anonymous Coward]

"They'd rather be working on teams where there's lots of social interaction."

Well there goes the one advantage the bazaar had over the cathedral.

DentDot or Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but wonder what the development of better dental floss has to do with Slashdot.

Or is Slashdot getting ready to move towards becoming a dental hygiene portal?

Given that FLOSS is both stupid (as in redundant, misleading, ignorant) and disgusting, it seems the people conducting the survey have no idea of the topic they pretend to be researching.

I will definitely not participate to legitimize such useless burning of EC funds.

Re:Women

[ojQj]

While it's true that there is a widely spread perception that programming is a lonely job, I've found in my career that communication is very important in programming. It's probably not true for all programming tasks, but gathering requirements, dividing the work into 1 person pieces, coordinating the work on those pieces, testing, and bug-fixing all require communication. A day doesn't go by that I don't sit down with someone together to do a little problem-solving.

So you may be right that a lot of smart young ladies base a decision not to go into programming on a belief that it's isolating, but if so then their concerns are misplaced.

Speaking as a woman in computer science, there is one thing that's lonely about programming though: not enough other women! I've definitely found that women and men communicate in different styles. I enjoy both styles, but find that something is missing in my life if I only get to take part in one of them. If other women see this like me, then we may be talking about a self-perpetuating cycle here.

I'll tell you why.

[gr8_phk]

My nephew was always given interesting building toys and computer games like Sim City/Sim this/Sim that. He was encouraged to tinker. He also took piano lessons. My neice is given Barbie dolls and Dora stuff. She loves to have the dolls engage each other in conversation. She takes dance class. One is very likely to become some form of computer geek or engineer. The other is very likely to do something a little more socially involved.

The stereotypes start with mom and dad the day they choose pink or blue.