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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?"
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.
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."
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"
"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".
C17H21NO4
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
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
"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.
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?
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??
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
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
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."