Slashdot Mirror
Getting More Women Coders Into Open Source
Nerval's Lobster writes: Diversity remains an issue in tech firms across the nation, with executives and project managers publicly upset over a lack of women in engineering and programming roles. While all that's happening on the corporate side, a handful of people and groups are trying to get more women involved in the open source community, like Women of OpenStack, Outreachy (which is geared toward people from underrepresented groups in free software), and others. How much effort should be expended to facilitate diversity among programmers? Can anything be done to shift the demographics, considering the issues that even large, coordinated companies have with altering the collective mix of their employees?
Do open source coders meet in person much? I am not hip to that scene, but I thought it was mostly done online.
But I thought Friday was SJW day on slashdot.org? Instead of worrying about penis and vagina counts how about we worry about all the American tech workers who have been replaced by foreign workers. 94 million Americans are unemployed including almost half of them are women. How about we do something about that instead some ignorant moronic SJW fantasy about equal Vagina to Penis counts at every work place?
How about that PAVA? Penis and Vagina Accountants does that sound ok with you?
Open source projects require a lot of your own time, and women often still take on a bit more of the work caring for the house and kids when they are not at work (usually because they want to).
I've recently applied to join one for the first time. I want to do a bit more at home to boost my resume and skills, and I thought that might be a good way to do it. The reason I never have before is that while I don't have kids or a partner or anything, I have a lot of other interests and coming home from work after writing code all day, to have dinner then sit down to write more code, isn't really that appealing. I love my job, but I also like to play drums, I have dance lessons, I sew, I bake my own bread, I read a lot, play video games, and I'd rather be out with friends for after work drinks than still working for free. Is this because I'm a women and more social? I got into coding because I thought it was fun, not because I was a lonely guy with only my computer for company? Or just because it's how I am. No idea. I DO plan on finishing one of my Android home projects one day though, I swear!
I've been doing an open source project for about 4 years now (I have been working as a programmer since 1998 - I have a Comp Sci degree, too). Considering some of the places I've found my project in use (Middle Eastern locales) I'm almost certain they don't realize it's a one woman show project. I think we don't get tagged as female devs on our projects unless we cover our stuff with pink ribbons and flowers.
Recognize that there is no justification for the treatment received by Anita Sarkeesian for challenging sexim in games, that would help.
99% of the treatment she calls harassment is people calling her out on her bullshit. She spins this into "Its because I'm a woman/feminist", but the reality is its just the internet doing what it does best: Calling you out publicly on your bullshit. She is also a public figure at this point, and as such, has been receiving what plenty of public figures get - Non-credible death threats and some pretty mean tweets. So what you are saying is that we should treat her different because she is a woman? Or are you being sexist and not saying that all harassment of that nature is bad, but you will only defend it because it is happening to a woman?
I keep trying to convince my teenage daughters that they should get into coding since they are absolutely guaranteed to get a great job after college, even if they are just mediocre developers, purely because of their gender! But no... they would rather study things like journalism and anthropology. My mind boggles. I am a professional coder who also teaches a college level web development course on the side. I have the resources and experience to train them, but my offers fall on deaf ears. Sigh. Even after being married to a woman and having four daughters I just don't get girls.
'Society' never encouraged me to code. My entire high school class learned QBASIC in Info Tech class. Pretty much everyone hated it, I found it fascinating. I always wanted to know how things worked, I got my Dad to explain to me how the TV made pictures, how sounds went down the phone, how a microwave made things warm..I was born like this. There are the kinds of people that want to buy things, and there are the kinds of people who wants to understand what things are made of, and how to make them themselves. The second kind of people become programmers. More men than women are that kind of person, they are not taught to be that way, they just are. My female high school friends had the exact same opportunities to learn to code in high school, and to take electronics as an elective subject, but chose not to. I doubt they came from families where their Dad said, "you can't learn to do that it's a boys job".
The idea that in every field, we must have 50/50 is simply stupid.
I completely agree with you on this. As a worker in the technology field, I believe this is an area that naturally suits a meritocracy (confession: this is also why I am not a big union supporter specifically in tech). With that being said, I think Slashdotters should consider that there are some potential upsides to "getting women into tech/coding" efforts:
1.) I believe that people have natural affinities to certain fields of endeavor. It's possible (probable?) that more women than men don't find tech attractive. However, it is undeniably true that there may be some females who would otherwise like tech but are discouraged by a culture that feels like it is discriminating against them. To throw out a counter-example: I see a disproportionate(?) number of Slashdot posters who express no interest in sports. (I am a huge nerd and huge NFL fan, BTW.) What percentage of those Slashdotters might otherwise have found that they really like (football, baseball, hockey, whatever) but were turned off by a middle/high school culture where the football players were dicks and picked on nerds? Had they had a different environment in which to acclimate themselves to the topic, would they have found something that they really enjoyed and are missing out on because of how they were introduced to it? I was introduced to sushi in the mid-90s by a group of rich douchebag semi-friends (I used to spend on food in a whole day what they spent on a single sashimi order) who insisted I throw a glob of wasabi on top of everything, and I hated it. It took me more than a decade to figure out it was something I really liked just because of the social context in which I first experienced it, and when I tried it "on my own terms" I found out I loved it.
2.) Racists are generally people who have never spent serious personal time with a large group (not just a few) of people they discriminate against. Most of their opinions are formed by inherited bias or media. Similarly, MOST (not all) misogynists are generally men who have had very limited SERIOUS interpersonal experience with women outside their family. (I want to note for the record that my 17-year-old, turned-down-by-every-girl-I-asked-out self would certainly have qualified as a misogynist; just like at that age I thought "fags" were perverts because I didn't actually "know" any, even though I knew several who were my friends but I didn't know they were gay). Just like I think the "cure" for racism is to actually get to know a LOT of people of other races (not just a few and in limited contexts), I think the "cure" for misogyny is to get to really know a LOT of women, as friends, bosses, subordinates, co-workers, whatever. It may not relieve your frustration with dating, but it will certainly change your opinion of "what women want/are." And having more women VOLUNTARILY in tech cannot possibly help but make that situation better.
TL/DR: it makes no sense to force women into tech or require a certain percentage of workers be women (or other minorities). But efforts that encourage females (but don't mandate them) to enter tech should be encouraged by every male tech worker.
"95% of all Slashdot
My post was about people behaving in an unprofessional and discriminatory fashion. Something the moderators appear to support.
Being able to do the job matters. Being openly toxic towards your fellow workers is grounds for dismissal.
Just because your company succeeded despite people being abusive towards each other does not mean it's the ideal way to do business.
You'd have not made it past the interview process. Keep your drama queen shit off my code and out of my face.
Relax. I would never have wanted to work for you anyway. Besides, you couldn't possibly have paid me enough.
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If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.