The Empathy Gap and Why Women Are Treated So Badly In Open Source Projects (perens.com)

Bruce Perens writes: There's no shortage of stories of horrible treatment of women in Open Source projects. But how did we get here? How did we ever get a community where a vocal minority of males behave in the most boorish, misogynistic, objectifying manner toward women? I have a theory: "It’s unfortunately the case that software development in general and Open Source communities are frequented by males who have social development issues. I once complained online about how offended I was by a news story that said many software developers were on the autism spectrum. To my embarrassment, there were many replies to my complaint by people who wrote 'no, I really am on the spectrum and I’m not alone here.'

It’s still an open issue whether males and females have built-in biases that, for example, lead fewer women to be programmers, or if such biases only develop as a response to social signals. There is more science to be done. But it’s difficult to do that sort of science because we can’t separate the individuals from the social signals they’ve grown up with. Certainly we can improve the situation for the women who would be programmers except for the social signals."

Comments

Re:Summary insufficient, click through the link.

[Bruce Perens]

What about the women who have "social development issues" that draw them to the field, or do they get off with a wink and a nod?

I know they are there. I have had some startlingly unpleasant interactions with a handful of them. I don't know enough about them yet. Probably someone else should handle that side of the problem.

Re:Summary insufficient, click through the link.

[LaurenCates]

Yes. You CARE. We have all been hearing the dirge of the so-called progressives: "if you CARE about people, this is the way you should feel about X situation", or else MISOGYNY.

The fact that you care makes it all right for you to mischaracterize the problem?

-LaurenC