Getting Young Women Interested In Open Source

I'm male but... by gestalt_n_pepper · 2014-02-04 11:02 · Score: 3, Funny

I too would like a strong role model for someone using it to make money. Anybody? Anybody?

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Re:I'm male but... by duckintheface · 2014-02-04 11:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

The OP talked about women. The title moves that to "young" women. So as you seek to remove gender bias you add age bias? How about getting everyone interested in open source. And if there are obstacles that apply only to young women, then you can focus just on them.

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Re:I'm male but... by ackthpt · 2014-02-04 11:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

Grace Hopper, USN Admiral - Creator of COBOL. If she wasn't a geek, nobody is. And she was coding before Open Source, Closed Source were a twinkle in RMS eye.

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Re:I'm male but... by The+Mighty+Buzzard · 2014-02-04 11:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

Or we could, you know, let people who find open source find it interesting and leave those who don't alone. It beats trying to brainwash children into your own personal vision of how society should be.

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Re:I'm male but... by Ravaldy · 2014-02-04 11:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

It always amazes me how we attempts to entice a gender to gain interest into something they generally aren't interested in. Women's brains are wired differently than mens.
I'm sure the car industry attempted to entice more women into working tech jobs but it just didn't work out. Most women I know end up in social service positions such as teaching, nursing, health and retail. I'm not saying women can't, I'm just saying there's a minority of women that like the industry and it's not lack of trying.
Re:I'm male but... by hhw · 2014-02-04 11:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

This. Instead of pushing young people towards a certain path, and converting highschools and earlier into trade schools, why not just give them the best, all-rounded education possible and allow them to decide for themselves what they want to do? That's not to say we shouldn't teach them the value of more practical, stable professions vs less marketable ones, but they should ultimately still make that decisions for themselves rather than be goaded into a particular direction.

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Re:I'm male but... by Jakeula · 2014-02-04 11:57 · Score: 2

I agree, we cannot force women into any work force. What I want to understand from this article is why are we looking at such a specific road of tech? We all know that tech is lacking women, so duh Open Source is no better. Lets focus on figuring out why women arent in tech, then if they don't end up in Open Source with some ratio, then we can look at it. I see no way that Open Source specifically will help this situation. I mean I know we all like to think Open Source is the end all, but this is just ridiculous.
Re:I'm male but... by Seumas · 2014-02-04 11:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

I see this statement made all the time, about getting girls in grade school interested in science and technology. Oh, but they aren't interested, because of all that theoretically sexual harassment and sexism they're going to face twenty years into their future!
Right. Riiiiiight. The same age group that believes being a farmer-astronaut-rockstar-veterinarian is disinterested in science and technology careers, because of an issue they're not even familiar with yet and won't be relevant to them for a decade or two.
Re:I'm male but... by Velex · 2014-02-04 12:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

Replying instead of modding.
Try working in a nearly all female working environment. You will receive sexual harassment and be held accountable for the actions of others because you were assigned the same gender some other person was at birth. You'll hear all the same old jokes that "all men" are the butt of on a near daily basis, and you'll get as tired of them as feminists are of jokes about women drivers.
It took me a long time to learn to not act on the feeling of disgust that overcomes me when a woman is flirting with me and to also communicate to my co-workers that it was not acceptable to expect me to return the flirting.
Sexism and acting as a chauvenist pig are not things that are unique to any particular gender and are not things that being assigned the female gender at birth prevents one from engaging in.

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Re:I'm male but... by fractoid · 2014-02-04 12:16 · Score: 2

Why not try to get more young men into scrapbooking? There are very few men at all in scrapbooking.

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Re:I'm male but... by Oligonicella · 2014-02-04 12:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

The sexism and harassment that is so common in tech is what turns women off to working in this field.
If you actually believe that, you do not understand people, much less women.
Re:I'm male but... by ShanghaiBill · 2014-02-04 13:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is the problem. Right here. The sexism and harassment that is so common in tech is what turns women off to working in this field.
Except that is complete nonsense. Engineering is one of the least sexist professions. Have you even been around salesmen? Yet women have no problem working in the sales dept. Read up on the amount of harassment women endured to work in law firms, or police departments. I have never seen or heard of anything like that in a tech company.
Where I work we have had dozens of complaints about sexual harassment in sales, shipping, even accounting. But never once in engineering.
Re:I'm male but... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-04 13:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've actually worked in nursing and child care, as a man. I got out because they put up with things that, as a man, I had no interest in putting up with.
It works both ways.
Re:I'm male but... by turtledawn · 2014-02-04 13:05 · Score: 2

I offer my sympathy as a woman who's tried to call out her female coworkers on this very subject. The lack of introspection - indeed, the refusal to consider the need for introspection - is appalling. And damned those ladies can get vicious. :-(

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Re:I'm male but... by WillAffleckUW · 2014-02-04 13:47 · Score: 2

Most of the first programmers were women. They're fairly old now.
They wrote tight efficient code that had a lower error rate and worked better than a lot of what you see nowadays.

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Re:I'm male but... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-04 13:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Where I work we have had dozens of complaints about sexual harassment in sales, shipping, even accounting. But never once in engineering.
Don't you know? Absence of evidence of sexual harassment is evidence of covered-up sexual harassment.
Re:I'm male but... by Darinbob · 2014-02-04 14:18 · Score: 2

I agree there. Sales can be rough. The sorts of people who are good at sales tend to be extroverts, loud, excited, etc. Men and women.
Engineering over all is pretty tame and professional, but this doesn't necessarily cover all computer professionals. I have seen engineers with behavior that I felt crossed the line (though others might say I was a prude and should just look the other way or stop being a downer, etc).
As for "open source" we're not talking necessarily talking about professionals, these are activities that often happen outside the office in someone's free time with no HR rulebook keeping order. So at work I will always see some fraction of women in engineering and computing, but in the open source world if you go down the list of names on an open source mailing list chances are it will have extremely few female names.
I also think the problem is not necessarily the rude jokes and boorish behavior, but the subtle signals sent out that women aren't as good in the field, or aren't interested in it.
Re:I'm male but... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-04 14:20 · Score: 5, Funny

For me it was the other way around. I was interested in the "Getting young women" part, but he lost me at "open source".
Re:I'm male but... by phantomfive · 2014-02-04 14:22 · Score: 5, Informative

Supporting your point, the nurses I've known face sexual harassment far beyond anything female programmers endure. But there are still plenty of female nurses.

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Re:I'm male but... by Darinbob · 2014-02-04 14:35 · Score: 2

But you don't hate public speaking because of your gender, instead it's something about you personally. In my three decades of working with computers, engineering, and computer science academics, I have always worked with women. That is, women doing actual programming and testing and research and math and so on, not just women in the nearby departments. CS undergrad I think I saw maybe a third of the engineering students were women, and in CS itself maybe a quarter, but that was back in the 80s.
There is a bit of a mentor/comfort issue I think. CS departments that have more female professsors tend to attract more female students. Medical device industry jobs I've been in had quite a lot of women in it doing engineering and programming at all levels, whereas communication industry experience of men tended to have fewer. IT groups I've been in tended to be mixed too, but I have not worked in any modern ones which from my view from the outside seem male centric.
So part of me seems to suspect that having women in a department or field attracts other women. This may be due to networking effects, more women to recruit other women for example, or because it makes candidates feel more comfortable applying or accepting the job. For schools I think having women on the staff showing up in the course catalog has some benefits to recruiting female students.
Re:I'm male but... by boristdog · 2014-02-04 15:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

Back in my youth I was the young, single, male computer support guy in a large gov't office that was about 80% females. About 50% of those were single divorcees. I was harassed...well, hit on constantly, a lot, and I began to see why females don't like working in a place with a similar reversed gender ratio.
Though I did go on a lot of dates.
And ended up married...To a young temp who is now a divorcee working in a different state office. Wow, I just realized that.
Re:I'm male but... by TapeCutter · 2014-02-04 17:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

When I was a kid in the 60's we had specific "library classes" where we learnt how to research an arbitrary topic using a library. This class has been largely replaced by the "computer class", in both cases the important lessons are about "how to research", the specific tools you use in school will likely be largely forgotten by society when you're an adult. Dewey decimal anyone?

Modern life demands a certain level of computer literacy, public schools should provide that and offer a path to more advanced levels. Faimiliarity with the "big four" (word processors, spreadsheets, databases, browsers) comes under basic computer literacy in my book.

As a degree qulified software developer with 20+yrs in the industry I say with all sincerity that if you know how to use formulas in a spreadsheet, then you already know "how to code", like playing a piano the rest is mostly style and practice.

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Re:I'm male but... by epyT-R · 2014-02-04 17:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

There are innate behavioral differences in the genders that have neurological roots.. It's obvious even in very early childhood. Any child psychologist can tell you this. It's only the cultural marxists who think everything is a 'social construct' that can and should be monkeyed with. There is a continuum where these traits overlap, so there are some men and some women who prefer traits of the opposing gender, but they are a small percentage of the population...and yes, they're welcome to pursue whatever they want.
In the same way a bible thumping baptist father cannot beat the gay out of his son, political correctness cannot beat the feminine out of women, or the masculine out of men.. Well they can to some degree, but not without serious long term consequences to society.
Re:I'm male but... by Jiro · 2014-02-04 17:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

Better than that, many religions are *blatantly* sexist, and yet more women go to church than men.
Re:I'm male but... by epyT-R · 2014-02-04 17:46 · Score: 2

Right, but it's not ok to destroy the interest one group has in these things just to increase the interest of another, especially under the guise of 'equality'. 2 out of 3 college grads are women, now, so perhaps we should be asking "Were are all the men?"
Re:I'm male but... by crath · 2014-02-05 03:07 · Score: 2

You are confusing ability with interest. No matter how much ability someone has, if the activity doesn't interest them then they will not pursue it. This whole get woman involved in tech thing has become very tired. /. needs to stop posting these articles.
Re:I'm male but... by Grishnakh · 2014-02-05 03:55 · Score: 2

The problem here is that there's nothing masculine about developing software. Many early programmers were female (did you forget Ada Lovelace?).
There's other reasons women aren't interested in open-source software. I suspect it's because they tend to be more practical than men, and go into careers for the money and stability rather than passion for the subject. Women usually have more well-rounded lives than men, and are more social. These are not traits that are conducive to doing unpaid software development. This doesn't mean that working on open-source is a bad idea; many of these male developers get into it really early in their careers (usually back in school), get involved in an important project, then manage to turn that into career. Just look at how Linus did it, or various other open-source pioneers; they don't work for free, but they did when they started. Someone like that sacrificed their social lives during their college years to get where they are now. That's something that's just more likely with men than with women.
Don't forget, men have much longer timespans than women where they're dateable. Women basically need to find a partner by their late 20s, or early 30s at the latest, or they're probably going to end up being single. They can only have kids up until they're around 40 reliably. Men, on the other hand, can easily wait until their 30s to start seriously dating, and in fact many men find that they have far more dating success in their 30s and even 40s than they did in their teens and 20s. So it's a lot easier for a man to skip out on dating in their 20s, focus on work, and then start looking for a wife in his 30s. (And he can marry a women who's 10 years younger than him easily too, don't forget.) That's exactly what Linus did.
Re:I'm male but... by Grishnakh · 2014-02-05 04:06 · Score: 2

I disagree. It's not deadlines that are the problem, it's the complete inability to do quality engineering. Look at how long it took to develop planes like the B-52 bomber (still in service now, though it was developed in the 40s), the A-10, the SR-71, the F-4, F-14, F-16, etc. Now, look at how long it took to develop the F-22 or the F-35. The F-35 is still under development! It's been over a decade! And they're still finding big problems with the F-22, which took forever to develop. Back in the old days, it didn't take a decade to develop an airplane, and they didn't have the luxury of computerized tools, CAD, etc.; they had to do it all with paper, pencils, and slide rules, and they did it in a few years. And still they managed to develop better, more reliable, and far less expensive planes than our latest ones.

Hire them at companies without experience by WillAffleckUW · 2014-02-04 11:03 · Score: 2

To be quite frank, a lot of the reason why you don't get many young women in STEM - and Open Source projects - is you insist they have lots of experience.

Open Source used to be mostly rolled out by students and people between jobs, but nowadays a lot of Open Source coders have full time jobs at various tech firms.

Those tech firms tend not to hire women with non-tech degrees and without extensive experience.

There's your problem.

Originally, you only needed some form of 2 year or 4 year degree, of any type, not tech, to get hired. And experience came on the job.

Fix that.

Then you'll get young women doing Open Source coding.

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by AlphaWolf_HK · 2014-02-04 11:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think that a lot of them, mainly by happenstance, just aren't interested in that kind of job. It's like asking why most men aren't interested in interior design.
Men and women have differently wired brains, more news at 11.
Anyways why is it such a "social problem" that they aren't interested? And I don't think that forcing them to be interested is a good idea either. That is like introducing programs to make more white people interested in hip-hop.

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by WillAffleckUW · 2014-02-04 11:21 · Score: 2

Not true. I happen to know at least one young women who has been trying to get into programming, and what I said are the most common complaints she has about the whole process.
(yes, she has a Bachelor of Science, just not in STEM, and she has work experience but not in programming, and she is a native English speaker born in America)

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by geekoid · 2014-02-04 11:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

"Men and women have differently wired brains, more news at 11."
That. Is. False. Stop propagating that myth. Young girls get told that lie, then believe it and don't go into STEM becasue "they aren't wired for it"
"Anyways why is it such a "social problem" that they aren't interested? "
That's not the problem, the problem is there are directed away from it, usually by idiots saying things like "Men and women have differently wired brains"

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by Curunir_wolf · 2014-02-04 11:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

yes, she has a Bachelor of Science, just not in STEM, and she has work experience but not in programming.
So that would be quite a risk for anyone to hire her to do any coding - gender and age has nothing to do with it. You have to start either with internships or be able to show some successes in open source projects. And you still have to be willing to start out making less than you do working in whatever field you currently have experience in.

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by sqrt(2) · 2014-02-04 11:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

So she's not very qualified relative to the other applicants. She's no worse off than a man with the same qualifications. When the labor supply is so much larger than demand, employers just keep raising the bar. If we were struggling to find programmers, things would be different. This push to make more and more people into programmers is only going to worsen the situation for people seeking their first job, and will depress wages for the people who do get hired. ...it's almost like that's the point.

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by Seumas · 2014-02-04 12:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

"Men and women have differently wired brains, more news at 11."
That. Is. False. Stop propagating that myth. Young girls get told that lie, then believe it and don't go into STEM becasue "they aren't wired for it"
"Anyways why is it such a "social problem" that they aren't interested? "
That's not the problem, the problem is there are directed away from it, usually by idiots saying things like "Men and women have differently wired brains"
You don't know it to be false anymore than the commentors know it to be true. Especially considering studies that assert there are differences in, if not behavior, possible wiring of brains between the sexes. That isn't to say they are conclusively "wired differently", but it's bullshit for you to dismiss it as "propagating a myth".
http://www.scientificamerican....
How about the myth you seem to be propagating? That somehow men and women only populate the fields of interests and careers they do, because of big meanies imposing sexist and genderist constructs upon them during their formative years? That the only reason little johnny wants to be a kung-foo-astronaut-scientist-president at the age of ten is because the sexist society which surrounds him does not allow him to want to be a movie-star-princess-ballerina-nurse-stay-at-home-dad. That left to their own devices and interests, the distribution of genders would be perfectly even across the spectrum. This might be a fair assertion, were it not for real world experience. I mean, in a vacuum, where we look upon humanity as if we were some alien life-form visiting this unfamiliar species.
Also, could you introduce me to these parents and siblings and family and friends and teachers and rest of society who are going around telling young women that they can't be interested in science or engineering or programming? Especially in this day and age? I have yet to really meet any of these people, but they must be absolutely everywhere -- like closet racists or something -- since they apparently have such a monumental impact on the world.
Re:Hire them at companies without experience by Oligonicella · 2014-02-04 12:35 · Score: 2

No. It. Isn't. Study some biology instead of SocSci. Brains are more than circuitry, they are also hormonal baths. Different hormones.
Re:Hire them at companies without experience by khellendros1984 · 2014-02-04 13:04 · Score: 2

"The bar" at my employer for an entry-level development position is basically: CS or related degree and the ability to write simple algorithms (like binary tree traversal) in C++, C#, or Java. We're struggling to find programmers when we want them.

Maybe other parts of the country have a more saturated market; Southern California seems to have more developer openings than people to fill them.

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by Billly+Gates · 2014-02-04 14:35 · Score: 2

Shit have you seriously been in a relationship with one before?
I do not say this to make you look bad, but damn is it obvious in that kind of situation. They do not think like we do at all PERIOD. It is now politically incorrect to say this but it is the truth based on real scientific studies.
It does not mean women are inferior or that I am somehow and sexist asshole on the contrary. Womens minds have more neurons and less brain cells. Womens minds use both hemispheres more (with the exception of lesbians which mimic men a little more) and likewise gay men's minds use both hemispheres more as well. Women s verbal and communication are totally different as a result. Not inferior or superior just different.
They are more intuned with the different spots in their brains then men are and can pick stuff up easier. Likewise men are more action oriented in thought and process and goals than communicative and group oriented like women are. This is a fact of neuroscience.
Your gf or wife will pick things up. Notice on why things are the way they are. Use guilt and get you to come to a conclusion with something in an argument rather than just blurt it out like a man does.
Does it mean women can't do math or do computer stuff? NO. It means we are different and look at things in different angles.

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by narcc · 2014-02-04 15:06 · Score: 2

I hate to break it to you, but boys and girls brains are different. It's undeniable. I recommend that you just get over it and learn to live in reality with the rest of us. Closing your eyes, plugging your ears, and shouting "we're all exactly the same" isn't helpful.
I should also let you know that girl's bodies are different too as you'll probably never discover that fact for yourself.

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Re:Hire them at companies without experience by bluegutang · 2014-02-04 20:25 · Score: 2

I've met too many women who were good at science growing up. And were strongly encourage to work in STEM. And once they started working, they realized that they HATED it. Not enough interaction with people, mostly. So they ended up switching to careers like teaching or physical therapy.
I think people should be encourage to enter whatever career THEY prefer. Not whatever career best furthers someone's vision for restructuring society.

If there's one role model I want for my daughter, by rwa2 · 2014-02-04 11:03 · Score: 2

It's Nixie Pixel:
http://www.nixiepixel.com/

She's very articulate, and the technical depth is there, if you can keep yourself from getting distracted.

Or... by E++99 · 2014-02-04 11:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

...we could just let people do whatever the fuck they want to do.

from a woman dev (yeah I'm posting anon) by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-04 11:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

As an actual woman programmer, I gotta tell you, most of the guys I encounter react really weird to me at first. There's the assumption that I must be an idiot (I'm not) or I can't POSSIBLY know how do this (I do) and of course all the off-color jokes (which I happen to find funny). Basically the environment isn't always friendly to young women. I've worked plenty of places as the only woman. One of my first jobs, the sales guy came up behind me, stared, and said it was "SO COOL to see a chic crank out code!" Um, creepy.

I do it because I like it, and I have learned to just laugh off most of this stuff as harmless cluelessness. But it does create this barrier to entry.

Re:from a woman dev (yeah I'm posting anon) by ezdiy · 2014-02-04 12:19 · Score: 2

Tech fields are meritocracy at its best, yet most "nerdy" women underestimate the concept, take a shortcut: "look, look, I've got boobs.". And are like "hurr durr, sexism." in turn. If you want credit, simply omit the fact you're a female for a while, and try to garner it on merit alone. The after-shock "A 'mere' girl did $THING?" effect is priceless and will earn you an actual respect/street cred.

C&H explains it well

PROTIP to deal with sexism IRL: Start a rumour you used to be a man until recently. Tranny homophobia can be actually pretty useful.

Re:Girls misuse tech talks to get into relationshi by Ralph+Spoilsport · 2014-02-04 11:19 · Score: 2

Are you like, retarded or something? Considering all the built in sexism and misdirected unevolved sexuality of so many computer geeks, and that being an *operant norm* for women nearly everywhere, and your experience has women coming onto you, therefore they don't get your time?

I think you're daft.

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Re:How do we get more women involved in tech? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-04 11:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Probably because it's unhealthy for tech to exclude 52% of the population based on gender. And before you say it's women's choices that keep them out of tech, remember that when everyone around you tells you that you can't do something, typically you choose not to do it.

There are massive numbers of women who are geniuses, and who could revolutionize tech, but because the industry, and society as a whole thinks that STEM is a man's job, we don't get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

We want more women in tech because it's good for tech.

The Life We live by sqrt(2) · 2014-02-04 11:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

Spending 8+ hours a day isolated at a computer, forgoing human contact to spend most of your free time researching and learning, interacting with machines and electronics at the lowest and least intuitive levels, willing to be on call almost 24/7--takes a certain constellation of personality traits. For whatever reason, these traits skew male; not entirely, but heavily. You can debate about whether this is cultural, environmental, genetic, or some combination. Open for discussion is even the question if we should be concerned at all. You don't hear the same kind of panic about the lack of men in early education or nursing.

There are probably as many women in tech as want to be there. What's really stopping them other than themselves and their own preferences?

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Re:The Life We live by scamper_22 · 2014-02-04 11:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think preference is a big part of it.
However, this does not mean systemic issues cannot be a factor. There are a lot of things about STEM that are not inherent to STEM or anyone being interested in STEM.
1. Be willing to be on call 24/7... why should this be the case? Maybe this should change.
2. Spend free time researching and learning? Really... I need this for my job? No I don't and companies can train people.
3. Forgoing human contact? There is no reason for this again. Many tech jobs heavily involve communication be it for product planning, support, design meetings... ...
I would dare say these are issues for many men as well.
Many more woman have become doctors as well for example. It has been documented they don't work as hard or as crazy as their male counterparts.
http://www.schoolofpublicpolic...
But is that a problem? Sure, they can and probably are paid less. Yet, they still serve patients very well.
I'm sure there are many young men as well who would want to be a less overworked doctor as well.
There is nothing intrinsic about being a doctor that involves working crazy hours or 24 hour shifts in the ER.
The same is true for software/engineering.
We can and we should be legislating and addressing these lifestyle issues in regards to careers. If after that is all done people still choose gender like jobs... well that is all fine and dandy.

I always tell my daughter to avoid by geekoid · 2014-02-04 11:24 · Score: 4, Funny

open sores.

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Re:How do we get more women involved in tech? by PCM2 · 2014-02-04 11:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Probably because it's unhealthy for tech to exclude 52% of the population based on gender.

But that wasn't the proposition. The proposition was how to "get more women interested in open source." If you're talking about excluding women, then fine, if that's actually happening then that's something worth talking about. We shouldn't be excluding people. But why is it necessary to "get people interested"? If they're not interested, then fine, let 'em pursue other interests. It's a big world with lots of options.

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Re: If there's one role model I want for my daught by DoofusOfDeath · 2014-02-04 11:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think you're inadvertently making another important point. Attractive women aren't just distracting. They can completely disrupt many men's brains for long periods.

I recognize Nixie as smart and insightful. I also can help spending 80% of the time I see her daydreaming about sleeping with her.

If I had to work with her, this would be a serious problem for me. I'm not saying that's grounds to not hire attractive women, but it might be why I'd have to look for another job myself.

Re:Girls misuse tech talks to get into relationshi by geekoid · 2014-02-04 11:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

the word you are looking for is 'misogynist'.

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Re: Girls misuse tech talks to get into relationsh by DoofusOfDeath · 2014-02-04 11:30 · Score: 5, Funny

I think everyone on Slashdot has a story about women just feigning interest in coding because they want a one night stand.

In what? by Curunir_wolf · 2014-02-04 11:33 · Score: 2, Informative

It's not "open source" that I'm looking to get them interested in...

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"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia

Re:Girls misuse tech talks to get into relationshi by Neo-Rio-101 · 2014-02-04 11:36 · Score: 2

No you're probably right. A book called "The Manipulated Man", written by a woman, even suggested that women only go to university to meet eligible men, and not necessarily study. Additionally women perform better than boys in junior school, but this academic excellence enters entropy later in her life when she hits puberty and discovers that by being stupid and cute, boys will buy her things that she would otherwise work for.

So yeah, you could say that they show up to technical conferences for other reasons.

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READY.
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Women want to be involved FOSS by nevermindme · 2014-02-04 11:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

There is no glass door, ceiling or anything, anyplace or anywhere. You don't even have to give your real name to be involved in a project. If you cant stand working in a boys club open an account on one of a open project 100 sites, write a doc, compile and make a installer and you can be the top of the FOSS world if you its useful to 20 million people. Write the next app everyone needs, wants and uses daily and then give it away for no reward but complaints from everywhere, then perhaps be the one of hundreds of free products that make a jump to commercial success.

Gender Balance by inhuman_4 · 2014-02-04 11:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

According to the BLS 95% of workplace deaths are men, even though men make up only slightly more than half of the workforce. So how come there is no push to get women in high risk jobs, like oil wells, private security companies, mining, etc?

It's got nothing to do with gender balance. It's about feminists finding things to rail against.

Re:Girls misuse tech talks to get into relationshi by QuasiEvil · 2014-02-04 11:50 · Score: 2

If only young women would use my technical presentations for such purposes. Unfortunately the few I've met are generally interested in the subject matter and not the old guy talking about it.

I was married to a fellow engineer for ten years. Hands down best relationship of my life, even if we had divergent goals at the end. I've spent the last eight looking for someone understands what I'm thinking about most of the time and haven't even come close, but no engineers in the last eight years either. Unfortunately, embedded software and electrical engineering have a very low percentage of women overall, and a minute (almost undetectable) number of single ones.

Men into nursing by smoot123 · 2014-02-04 11:58 · Score: 2

Sure, just as soon as this bright spark also puts some money into getting more men into nursing, human resources, and primary education, all fields as dominated by women as IT is by men. Maybe more so. I don't think my kids' elementary school had a single man on the staff other than the janitor.

Brain Change by sphealey · 2014-02-04 12:11 · Score: 4, Informative

So... how was it that women's brains were "wired" for programming from 1940 to 1985 [1], but suddenly around 1990 they stopped being interested in "coding" and "IT"?

sPh

[1] From 1940-1950 approximately 100% of programmers were women; from 1950-1980 the percentage was still very high and probably a majority. 1984 was the peak year for women graduating with engineering degrees since WWII and a large percentage of those women took CS degrees.

Re:Brain Change by sphealey · 2014-02-04 13:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

Actually the environments where computer programming was developed had plenty of men - they just considered the activity too mundane and low-level for their capabilities and put "the girls" (many of whom had MAs in math) on that task.
sPh
Re:Brain Change by formfeed · 2014-02-04 15:44 · Score: 4, Funny

So... how was it that women's brains were "wired" for programming from 1940 to 1985 [1], but suddenly around 1990 they stopped being interested in "coding" and "IT"?
sPh
Easy: The rise of OOp
Women didn't want to be objectified.

It's just the way it is... by gwstuff · 2014-02-04 12:20 · Score: 2

Why does society feel compelled to force the population of a profession to have 50-50 split, or generally a 1/n * n split with n groups involved. From an algorithmic standpoint, having such equitable fits across a large number of professions is extremely improbably, and the effort required for society to do so correspondingly large. It is comparable to the class of hardest problems out there.

The intuition here is this - imagine that you need to come up with multiple parallel activities to engage a group of children. It's easy when you give the children the option of which activity to join. Now imagine if you had to make sure that every single activity had an equal split of boys and girls. It might be ok to come up with the first few - you would attract relatively open-minded boys and girls. The problem becomes harder as you fill activities, to the point that after going through enough activities, differences in tastes have grown so much that it is nearly impossible to fit people from both groups into the same activity.

Women and men are epistemologically different. This doesn't mean that women can't do tech - the most capable person in tech I know - my role model - is a lady, and there are a good number amongst the best people I have encountered. Correspondingly it doesn't mean that men can't be good grade school teachers, because they make up the smaller fraction. It's just the way it is, and from a statistical and social standpoint, it is unsurprising.

Not a question of preference by lavamind · 2014-02-04 12:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Really tired of hearing the same "but it's their choice" rhetoric about women in tech. The fact is, women's brains aren't more or less "wired" for anything, and most preferences are learned through socialising. I'm sure plenty love tech, programming, gaming and everything, but simply can't stand the "community", where misogynistic bullshit is unfortunately the norm rather than the exception. And I'm not just talking about outright exclusion, but harrassement, sexist joking around, stereotyping, etc. But don't take it from me, ask any group of women already involved in open-source about the challenges they face daily. In fact, that's just what most everyone in tech fails to do : listen to them and take them seriously (including the criticism).

Re:Not a question of preference by Tanuki64 · 2014-02-04 13:40 · Score: 2

Who voted this misandristic bullshit up?

The fact is, women's brains aren't more or less "wired" for anything, and most preferences are learned through socialising.
Proof by assertion against all results reputable (non gender religious) research studies came up with.

But don't take it from me, ask any group of women already involved in open-source about the challenges they face daily.
All men should always keep in mind: Women lie. The lie is above all the most important weapon of women. The proof is in this case easy: Usually there is no way to know who is involved in and open-source project. And it never matters. If there is are women in open-source, it is only noticed if they need to flaunt: 'Hey, look guys, I shove a pair of tits in front of me'. Those have an agenda and definitely are not to be believed.

Re:If there's one role model I want for my daughte by Seumas · 2014-02-04 12:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

So you want your daughter to be a tech blogger that quotes press releases from the latest cell phones and tablets and throws out occasional tech tips or howtos for a living? Regardless of gender, the whole gizmodo/engadget type of profession doesn't really qualify as a STEM career in my mind. It's like saying that someone assigned to reporting on local crime for the local paper is in the law enforcement career.

If people really need role models (I don't really know why they do, but okay), then maybe someone like Jeri Ellsworth would be a more compelling one? Someone who doesn't make her living regurgitating current tech news and subjects for a crappy blog or youtube videos, but actually -- you know -- makes stuff. Using a strong engineering and mathematical and science background to do so.

Re:Girls misuse tech talks to get into relationshi by Seumas · 2014-02-04 12:34 · Score: 2

I'll admit, we've all probably known the girls who go to college and use it as a "find my future husband" utility and then never actually do anything with their education or career as soon as they graduate, marry the guy they met in college, and have kids -- but they're hardly representative of the whole and I've *CERTAINLY* never heard of, say, girls attending the local linux group to score some hot rich sugar daddies.

I'm going to play the safe bet and assume your comment was sarcastic.

Re: If there's one role model I want for my daught by Oligonicella · 2014-02-04 12:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

Your inability to control yourself is really more of a reason to not have you around, not avoid having her around.

Re: If there's one role model I want for my daught by turtledawn · 2014-02-04 13:09 · Score: 2

I thought that was a very self-aware and considerate comment, actually, and showed an appropriate response by saying that he would remove himself from the situation instead of trying to drag her down. I thought that's how adults are supposed to function - be aware of and accommodate your own weaknesses.

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Uh, "if it looks roughly mouse-shaped according to my infra-red sensitive pit, eat it"? --Chris Burke 09-08-10

Re:They aren't being excluded by minogully · 2014-02-04 13:14 · Score: 2

you (like myself) are a man, and simply will never have this problem

Men have this problem too. Look at the field of nursing.

I recall my wife telling me about the 2 guys in her nursing class. All the girls thought that they must be gay for going into nursing, because guys just don't go into nursing. And out of a class of around 200 students, there only being 2 guys was a pretty telling statistic. Once they found out that one of them was straight, they instantly all got creeped out by him, which is one hostile environment for a guy.

What's worse, is that she ended up in the field of labour and delivery. A new male nurse just started in the post partem area (where they go after the baby is born), and they all immediately thought this guy was gay too. Then they found out that he was straight and now they're all weirded out that a straight guy CHOSE to go into the unit where he helps new mothers breastfeed all day.

Now personally, I'd never WANT to go into nursing, but maybe I've just been conditioned into thinking that it's a woman's job? Probably it's just that I'd rather go into something I'm interested in.

Uh, how do we know women aren't contributing? by Areyoukiddingme · 2014-02-04 13:16 · Score: 2

How do we know women aren't contributing to open source? Open source outside of the Linux kernel and a few other corporate-supported projects is primarily done at home as a hobby. Open source has a very long tail in that respect.

So for projects done entirely at home, people publish their results by creating an account on SourceForge or GitHub or Tigris and upload their source. A good many of those account names are gender neutral, and regardless, neutral or not, the account doesn't contain the data concerning the gender of the owner. Male, female, or any of the other possibilities, most of the systems don't even ask, and for those that do, people can pick whatever they want. So how do we know women aren't contributing?

If anything, I'd say it's likely there are more women contributing to open source than is generally known. Open source publishing is exceedingly friendly to anonymous and pseudonymous contributions (with the exception of projects with paranoid copyright assignment requirements). How do you know fyunkclick783 isn't female? The default assumption is a developer is male, so any woman wishing to avoid notice as a female open source contributor need do nothing at all to maintain that assumption.

Perhaps you're asking the wrong question. Maybe you'd like to ask, why would a female open source programmer choose to conceal her gender? I can answer that question with a question. Why would a male open source programmer choose to explicitly assert his gender? You realize that rarely happens? Pick any random project on SourceForge. Odds are it's a sole maintainer project. Now tell me, male or female? Odds are they're male, but you don't know. Now tell me, are you likely to stop using an open source tool if you discover the maintainer is female? How about if you discover they're male? Want to bet people who make that decision on that basis are vanishingly rare? So why do you care what the sex of the maintainer is? You don't.

No one cares what the sex of the maintainer of an open source project is. We care about whether or not the tool does what we need done, whether or not its stable, whether or not it eats our data, and whether or not its available in our Linux distribution. The sex of the maintainer is irrelevant to all of those factors. It's not "Don't Ask, Don't Tell'—it's "Don't Give a Damn."

How can we get more men interested in by Lawrence_Bird · 2014-02-04 13:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

Quilting?

I am so tired of these "how can we get women interested in... " subjects. Science. Math. Programming. Uncle. Women will be interested in those things when it actually interests them. In many ways these discussions are totally degrading towards women as it makes things out to be that "if only we could show them...." or "if we only gave them a leg up..." Do you think women are stupid? They can't figure out what they like or don't like? Or that without preferential treatment they will go elsewhere?

Re:If there's one role model I want for my daughte by rwa2 · 2014-02-04 13:44 · Score: 2

All good points.

But from the standpoint of "providing strong role models of women using open source to have fun and make money" I can't really think of anyone who does it better, including any male tech "vloggers" I've seen awkwardly hemming and hawing their way through a device teardown or interface demonstration.

And yes, I'd also hope that my daughter would aspire to eventually be more, but at this point, just seeing someone on "TV" who talks enthusiastically about computers in general and Linux in particular who is also a girl would do wonders for the image of "what type of person plays with computers" that otherwise gets jammed into your head by the nerdy stereotypes that constantly show up in media.

nobody is excluding them by cascadingstylesheet · 2014-02-04 13:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why, exactly, "should" we try to get people to do what they don't want to do?

Re:nobody is excluding them by whistlingtony · 2014-02-05 00:57 · Score: 2

We had two bosses. One liked to yell as a motivator. That was the guy. One was pretty cool to work for because they listened to us. One was a man, one was a woman. The woman left (probably because she didn't like being yelled at and was competent and could work in another department. Now we're stuck with the guy.
There is absolutely a benefit to encouraging women. They tend to be a LOT more sane than men are, or at least have better social skills. Yes. There are differences. And man do we NEED those differences. Go Women!

Re:If there's one role model I want for my daughte by Nemyst · 2014-02-04 14:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'll preface this by saying I do not know Nixie Pixel at all. My first impression however was quite negative and for one particular reason: when I come to a site looking for a person's ideas and thoughts, I don't want to see cartoons of the person peering at me (in revealing clothing even) and pictures of her face everywhere on the page. I also very much doubt that a persona similar to this, but male, would use the same sort of techniques to drag an audience in.

She might be great at what she does, but by openly flaunting herself in this manner I'm more put off than attracted frankly. I love smart people, people with ideas, be they men or women. If they're also good looking, all the better for them, but that's entirely orthogonal for me (unless I'm looking for a date, which I most certainly am not when I click on links on /.) and associating one with the other just... cheapens it. Like they're insecure about their content so they feel the need to add some more hooks in.

Re:How do we get more women involved in tech? by tlhIngan · 2014-02-04 17:54 · Score: 2

I know there is a fashion lately to try and force people to be "gender neutral" in their writing, but "he" has for a very long time been a standard reference that you use in English when the sex of the person being referred to is unspecified. It's perfectly acceptable and anyone who is offended by it is either incapable of critical thinking, uneducated or simply looking for something to be offended by. It's not any more insulting to a female reader to refer to "he" in the generic when writing something generic than referring to a ship as "her" is insulting to males who happen to work on "her".

Which is perfectly fine.

Someone decided to be more inclusive and fix the documentation. Just a minor change to be more inclusive. And it was rejected, which is also fine. Except it was done in such a way that was NOT fine, and highlighted the maintainer's sexist and bigoted beliefs. In fact, when an upstream maintainer decided to quell the argument by just accepting the change, he blew up.

We're talking about changing "he" to "they". In documentation. Not code. A minor change, that was rejected in a very offensive way, and someone higher up decided to just get rid of the hassle, fix it, and let things be. Except things blew up even more.

And that's when things went downhill revealing the maintainer's true nature.

What started as minor edit to be more inclusive turned into an all out war of bigotry. What could've ended with a simple rejection of "doesn't improve things too much" instead was turned into a complete bigoted and nasty thread.

It could've been resolved professionally. It was a really minor change that affected nothing - accept it, don't accept it, you can make very good very neutral reasons going either way. But it turned into an all out bigot justification

No one would've gotten offended by the change or lack thereof, but the upstream maintainers wanted to be "better" and more inclusive and really just fix it to set a good example .But it takes one bigot to suddenly cast the entire community into darkness. You don't care, I don't care, nor do many other people. Just one person however took so much offense of changing "he" to "they" that this mountain was created.

And I suspect projecting the FOSS community as a bunch of boorish men doesn't impress the women, who would be more than happy to contribute in a great professional environment. Not one where the guy you submit code to may decide you're a female and reject the change as "women suck".

Re:Uh by epyT-R · 2014-02-04 19:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's interesting how women's sensitivity doesn't seem to stop them from engaging in exactly the same behaviors towards men, at work, on tv, in movies, in music, (recently in games too), the law, college campuses (eg pulling fire alarms at toronto university), and pretty much everywhere else. When challenged about this hypocrisy, they respond with shaming language. It's hard to feel sympathy for a group that routinely engages in the same behaviors it complains about.

Perhaps the reality is that both genders behave this way from time to time, and as adults, we should just let it roll off our backs and get back to work so that they are paid for it.. After all, the definition of 'professional' is someone who is paid for their work, not someone suffering from delusional solipsistic narcissism.

Re: If there's one role model I want for my daught by u38cg · 2014-02-04 21:50 · Score: 2

Or you could, you know, grow the hell up.

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[FUCK BETA]

women in tech by whistlingtony · 2014-02-05 00:22 · Score: 2

I used to know when there was a new woman hired. There'd be ten guys standing around a cube beating their chest... I'm exaggerating, but not by much.

A lot of the comments here are pretty foul. A lot of "There's no sexism!" A lot of "Oh yeah, well they do it too!". Oh, there's a "our brains are wired differently!" That's an old standby. There's the old "They just fake interest to get dates." There's a rant against feminists.

Notice that most of the comments are from dudes, and they're derogatory or dismissive......

One day I will have a daughter. I don't want her listening to you assholes. Of the posts I read, ONE was supportive and suggested actually listening to women. The rest of you denied the problem, cracked crude jokes, or blamed it on physiological differences. No. The problem is you.

My daughter will not get any pink shit. No princess shit. She'll be told from day one that she's good at math, and I don't care if she grows up to be a ..... glassblow, whatever, i picked something at random, but she'll have CHOICES and won't be shuttled to the back of the intellectual bus by the likes of you people. You should be ashamed of yourselves. The problem is YOU, you social skill lacking, self problem denying, asshats.

Little girls get told to be princesses. They grow up watching crappy disney films where the princess gets passively rescued by the prince. They get passed over and thought less competant. They get pushed and force fed images from day one. If they are forceful, strong, self reliant? They get labeled bossy, bitchy, pushy. This pervades every field. But tech IS terrible, and you should all be intelligent enough to know this. But that would require looking at your own part in it.

My own personal story? We had an opening. For weeks the jokes flew, "man, I hope we don't get a chick, we'd have to stop swearing and telling jokes." Well, we got a dude. My coworkers were discussing this very topic later, and denying it ever existed when I stopped them and asked them if they thought our boss had overheard us (of course he had) and if it had swayed his opinion, even unconsciously. They were silent. Of course it had, how could it not have? At least they had the good graces to show some remorse and take some responsibility.

Re:Uh by ybanrab · 2014-02-05 01:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

Men objectify women as sexual objects, women objectify men as disposable objects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

'The first step to remedying a problem is admitting that it exists.'

Re:1.5% according to this month's LXF by Grishnakh · 2014-02-05 03:45 · Score: 2

I really wonder if that's as much of a factor as they make it out to be.

I've been a software engineer for well over a decade now, and most software engineers I've met are not involved in open-source development, and have little interest. They just do what's required for the job, and if the job uses MS tools (or other proprietary stuff, like Green Hills, Rational, etc.), that's what they use. It's pretty rare I run across engineers who have a real interest in open source. Usually, to them, it's something that looks interesting, but their job doesn't involve it, and they don't have enough interest to get involved on their own since they're already busy with their work, plus family life outside of work. They don't exactly have hours and hours of time every day to pursue open-source development on their own, and unlike a lot of open-source developers, they didn't get started in it early and then manage to steer their career in a direction where they could work on open-source software development either part-time or full-time for their employer, in a paid capacity.

I have a female neighbor who is a software developer; she works with COBOL in the finance industry. I seriously doubt she has any interest in open-source development (not like there's much open-source COBOL going on anyway). Even if she did, she has a bunch of other non-computer-related hobbies, and a family, so there isn't exactly a lot of time for open-source hobbyist work there.

Face it, most software developers aren't interested in becoming open-source activists and developers; they just want to get a good-paying job at some corporation and work there during the day, and do other stuff outside of work. It's only a small minority of developers who are so into it that they do it in their free time, and become so good at it that they push their way into convincing an employer to pay them to do it (like Linus). And for various reasons, the people who have the luxury of doing this are almost always (98.5% of the time apparently) men. Men have a lot of advantages that women simply don't in this area: they're typically less social than women, and they don't have to worry about getting pregnant, so it's easy for them to stay single and focus on work, just like Nikola Tesla and Isaac Newton did. They also have a much higher tendency towards Asperger's than women.

Re:If there's one role model I want for my daughte by nixiepixel · 2014-02-05 07:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's Nixie Pixel: http://www.nixiepixel.com/

She's very articulate, and the technical depth is there, if you can keep yourself from getting distracted.

I really don't know if there's protocol on responding to a post when you became the topic, but we'll see.

Just wanted to say that I had been struggling with creating content lately. Over the last 4 years you'd be surprised how hard it is to come up with new, even semi-intelligent topics! Having taught myself Linux in the early 2000s, it's been a learning experience all around... I like to think I'm doing my best. In the end, I'm a one-woman-show, and I know I can be a tough act to follow.

I've received thousands of negative comments like the ones seen below. Even though I know better (don't feed the trolls, right?), sometimes they discourage me. Then I read ones like the one you posted here and I have to say, it makes it all worth it.

Thank you. ^.^

Re:If there's one role model I want for my daughte by digitalhermit · 2014-02-05 07:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

She seems to know her stuff. I show some of her videos to my daughter.

If someone cannot separate their libido from their technical and work related duties, then the problem is not Nixie Pixel's.

Does she lose credibility because she's attractive? I dunno. If anything, I'm more critical of the bubble-headed, "I played ResEvil so I'm a geek grrl!! lol" type. And actually, those types irritate the crap out of me. But looking at her vids, she has technical knowledge that's no worse than many others that I respect.

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Getting Young Women Interested In Open Source

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