Slashdot Mirror
Women in the Open Source/Free Software Communities?
MikeA asks: "We know what men have done in the community and it seems that all the 'big names' are men. Are there any female kernel hackers out there? Are there any major projects run by women or that have women as developers? Are there even many women using Linux? If not, why not? How do we attract more women to these development projects? We are missing out on a large user base and development resource if women aren't interested. " I agree, so I thought it would be nice to take the time to discuss what what the women have done for the community. What accomplishments they've made, the types of projects they get involved in, and any hopes they have for the future.
Of course there are women using Linux. Check out the following:
http://www.linuxchix.org/
This should at least get you to a starting point.
You know, I've often wondered the ramifications of having a different sex devolop software. Just for the mere fact that male/female brains work differently. For example, men are more vector based using distances an bearings in navigation, while the woman uses landmarks and left, right, etc. While this seems sexist to some, this is what current research (that I've read) is indicating. It might be interesting to see the differences in design that arise.
Just Kidding!
Anyway, one of the problems I can immediately see/grok is that, at least when I went to college these past 5 years, is that there was a ratio of like 20:1 of male to female in the CS department.
It was slightly better in the EE department, of like 8:1, but that's still pretty bad.
Maybe this is different in other schools, states, or countries, but that would seem to put an damper on the party spirit already. Any female contributors to the Open Source, internet, or computing world have very many hurdles. I'd say they deserve congrats for that.
This brings a different problem to light, on how to change this statistic. If women don't participate in this exciting new revolution, the internet, e-commerce, and Open Source, among others, will they be left behind? Will there be a missing perspective? How do we change this?
It isn't enough that women be part of the creative-web design aspects of the internet. They need to be involved in the design, development, and implementation of it as well. I apologize if my stereotypes are outdated. Perhaps women are a very big part of the movement; just that in my corner of the world, I haven't seen it yet.
Anyone want to correct me?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I recall that the cover even taunted Bill Gates (although I don't remember exactly how). If you live in Orange County, SoCal ...you can drop by the Kinokuniya Bookstore in the Costa Mesa Yaohan to see if they still have it in stock.
How much of this difference is also fostered by boys learning from men and girls learning from women, btw?
Just the fact that boys see men using numbers and girls see women using landmarks?
Anyway, I'm proud to announce that I am a man/boy/male that uses landmarks, lefts and rights, and locations rather than numbers. I have horrible distance/time perception. How can anyone tell, other than guessing, scale, distance, time, etc?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Sigh. Open source is about letting people do whatever they want with the source code. It's about freedom. If hardly any women want to use it, that's their choice. Doing nothing, absolutely nothing, with open source is also allowed. Anyone who's followed the gender wars knows that open source is everything feminists claim that women want. The organizations are non-hierarchical and base their decisions largely on consensus. The demands to make a profit, beat a competitor, and win contracts are virtually non-existent. It's open, inviting, and totally inclusive. Maybe women are just love corporate scheming and nasty power games more than they let on.
-- $SIGNATURE
. . . was, of course, Admiral Grace Hopper, oldest serving officer (of *either* sex) in the US Navy, project leader of the team that built the first commercial general purpose language, and a Righteous Babe.
"Don't ask for permission. Just do it! It's easier to apologize for having done something than it is to get permission to do it." - G. Hopper
Which is why OpenSource development works so well when you come to think of it.
Why do people say that when they're about to be rude?
Regardless, learning linux is a big step. It's adoption of the standard. And from that point, one can easily fall into the trap of accomplishing much more.
Considering that I believe there is a tremendous gender gap in computing, it's a good thing(even if not a great thing) that there is a site for women and Linux. What else needs to be done is to introduce women to computing in general as well, rather than leaving it a man's market and the domain of the arcane, mystic, and powerful.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I don't care if the person who wrote some code or contributed to open source has a penis or a vagina. Why should I? What does it matter?
If a person wants to contribute or not, it's up to them. I would hope as reasonable intelligent individuals we wouldn't care about this sort of gender rubbish which plagues the rest society. It's not like open source advertises and makes all the ads blue to favour males.
Open source is a lump of clay on a table with a sign that reads, in english, "play with me". If women don't want to play, their choice. We should be more concerned the sign is in english as that actually EXCLUDES people, some of which even have vaginas!
There are probably many factors involved, including but not limited to:
1) Cultural -- the US is a major factor in computing and the US is still a society that for the most part expects boys to play with screwdrivers and footballs and automobile engines (and therefore become engineers of some sort) and girls to play with dolls and play kitchen sets and games like "Let's go to the Mall" (and therefore become homemakers and housewives.)
2) Environmental -- CompSci is a science/engineering discipline. Engineering and science are still dramatically male-dominated. Anyone who wants to believe otherwise, fine, but try to find a female professor in any science/engineering dscipline, or better yet, try to become a female professor. Females certainly aren't encouraged to become CompSci majors, and are probably discouraged in many cases.
3) Situational -- I'm sure plenty of women are scared away from computers the first time they show up at a user's group meeting or similar get-together, log into IRC and start chatting, send EMail, post on
Yadda yadda yadda. Isn't there a FAQ with this info someplace yet?
And, semi-off-topic, I really get annoyed with women who call themselves "grrls" or something similar like that. I find it just as annoying as 31337 5p33k.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
Just to play the devil's advocate for a bit...
:)
Does it really matter if any women are in the open source developer community? Does it matter if Linux was created by a man rather than a woman? Would some massive economic, social and spiritual change happen because it just happens that the author of a piece of software was female?
Maybe I have never been big on "heroes" or maybe it's just the fact that I never really looked up to anyone as a child and said I wanted to be like them because they were famous, but I think it's pretty silly to think that there is a problem in the world if a particular field is dominated by men. Now I'm not saying that it's ok to discourage people from going into a field of work because it's dominated by men, what I am against is pushing someone towards a field strictly because it is and going as far as to mount an entire campaign around it.
Men and women are not the same; physically and psychologically. While growing up, each person should be given a broad range of fields they can work in when they get older and should be free to make up their own decisions about which one they enjoy the most and what they as an individual are most suited towards.
Of course, as a man, I don't really have a good perspective on how women are treated as they grow up. Maybe there is a good amount of discouragement which men don't get when trying to enter a male dominated field. This is not to say that men aren't discouraged when entering a male dominated field either, it's just we are too self absorbed to care what other people, especially men, think.
Then again, I would like to find a woman who understood my work so I doubt have to dumb down my conversation. I really hate doing that.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
As for open source: over the years, I've found that generally I contribute to projects which directly affect both myself and others who share the same ideals. I wouldn't be caught dead assisting in writing some inane Quake user editor because I don't feel it positively contributes to the world at large. However, I've happily contributed to Mozilla, Rio MP3 transfer software, a now-abandoned terminal emulator for OS/2, xlockmore, and other projects (including games!) which LONG pre-date Linux and the Open Source movement. These projects have helped me feel like I'm making a difference, like I'm doing something to help my peers. I certainly wouldn't rule out assisting in kernel development, device drivers, or pure UNIX-related stuff on an idealistic basis. However....
I'd never presume to speak for women in general, but most of those females I know who program and use *NIX as much as I do don't obsessively do so. On the contrary, most men I know who program and use *NIX do so all night long, sustaining themselves on Jolt and Oreos. I'll bring myself to do that once in a blue moon, but I (like my friends) like to spend more of my free time away from computers. When I get home in the evenings, I like to spend time with my cats, tutor, direct musicals, go out dancing, or a whole slew of other things which don't directly relate to programming. Because of this, I don't usually get involved with open source projects which are time-critical (like kernel releases) or require intense debugging and pouring over technical manuals (like device drivers). I do enough of that at my day job -- and I'd rather leave that sort of work to someone who really enjoys hooking up a logic analyzer, a disassembler and an external serial console to their PC at 2AM to try and get that bizarro sound card warbling correctly with the latest bleeding-edge kernel release.
So when you ask "How do we attract more women to these development projects?" you might also want to ask yourself "Are these projects something which a woman would want to work on?"
I'll let someone else give a review of the significant computing accomplishments provided by women to the Linux and Open Source movements . . . but if it's anything like the contributions women have made to commercial operating systems over the years, it may well be true that key portions of Linux were written entirely by women!
Oh, and by the way, keep your judgements of my preferences of recreational activites to yourself. Just because I don't and won't play Quake doesn't mean I will do anything to stop you from doing so.
"But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
Well, NewsTrolls is headed up by me and we run Linux/Apache and at home I've got a dual-boot Win98/OpenLinux2.2 and a G4...(and a Globablys 130 that I haven't figured out what to do with...yet)
;P)...
Seriously, women in Linux is a real issue b/c the entire tech industry except PR and marketing is almost void of woman (and please don't bring up the what-about-Kim-Polese-example
I brought the issue up in my review-- On Bill, his Mini-Me's and the Linux Alternative of Gary Rivlin's book the Plot to Get Bill Gates and it got a lot of reaction. I got tons of emails from women and some men thanking me for pointing out some of the bullshit in tech in general but also got some seriously disturbed and angry guys telling me to shut the hell up...
I wrote to Gary Rivlin about it which turned into an interview on the whole issue of women in tech
Personally, I can count on one hand the women I feel like can relate to what I do, and I think that's sad. I wish there were more of us out there...real women who want to know more than where to shop and read friggin' horoscopes and snotty guys-are-losers advice columns...
--diva
diva Pasty Drone NewsTrolls, Inc.
Admiral Grace Hopper may be a hard coder and a Righteous Babe, but I'm putting my vote in for Ada Lovelace. I mean really. This chick was the first programmer (of *either* sex), ever. She wrote assembly code and she had to do all her debugging without actually running any tests of her programs. It's too bad her slacker husband couldn't get his com-u-turd finished. I wonder if anyone has ever gone ahead and built that thing, I bet most of Ada's code would have run correctly on it.
I'm sure plenty of women are scared away from computers the first time they show up at a user's group meeting or similar get-together, log into IRC and start chatting, send EMail, post on /. or any other method of socializing whereby it becomes known that they are female.
Utter and complete bullshit. Yes, sometimes you run across the stalker who won't leave you alone, and you have to change your email addresses and install lots of filters. But this rubbish about women being scared away is simply perpetuating the myth that "women are scared, defenseless little creatures who must be protected from the big bad world at all costs."
Perhaps your mother or your grandmother viewed the world that way, but the vast majority of women my age (twentysomethings, that is) are fully actualized, self-confident people who know how to set up a mail filter, or at least who know how to man procmail or RTFM of their favorite mail reader.
The quicker you guys learn that today's woman can take care of herself, the quicker you'll find that elusive mate you've been looking for these past few years.
In your favor, though, your first two points are quite valid and need more serious attention. I'm doing my part by tutoring middle-school and high-school girls in math, science, and computers. Why not get your favorite female friend who likes geek stuff to do the same thing?
"But always she's the spectre of uncertainty I first endured, then faded, then embraced..."
Girls of the E-School Calendar idea from UVA. A little out there, I think. But... :)
Obviously, there are women in these fields, but not a great deal of us. Those of us that are here generally stay low profile. Why? Tons of reasons. Part of it is the fact that as soon as people discover that you are a female with a clue, there are two common responces (there are more, but these are the ones you get ALL the time).
One - You really don't have a clue, i can treat you like dirt and get away with it, because i'm male, and only males have a clue when it comes to computers.
Two - Ooooh! a female with a clue. She wants to go to bed with me. She really will be thrilled to be informed that i'm her best ambition in life, and heck, i get a new bed buddy out of the deal.
Those of us that survive that, because we love the toys, or have more important things to worry about, keep a very low profile. Just as self defence. Add to that, often we don't get a more intelligent responce by the other females (outside the industry) that we know. "What do you mean you work in computers? Don't you mean you're a technical writer (at best)? -Real- women don't use computers."
Now, don't get me wrong, i have some wonderful female and male friends who are completely savvy. And i do use *nix. I'm cozy w/many flavors. I just don't advertise. And as someone above put it, i do my time at the office. After 60 hours a week getting code and servers to do what i want, when i get home, my computer there is for games and communication w/friends only. I'd rather go to ballet, and out to coffee, than spend yet MORE time staring at that screen.
If you want to find lots of women w/a computer clue, find one. She knows more as friends, and almost with out a doubt, emails/trades stores/shares code/shares info with quite a few more. It's the proverbial underground network. In order to find us, you have to know us. *wry grin* Not the most welcomeing of things, but it's getting more public and better every year. When i started in the "professional" workforce, i knew less than 5 tech savvy women. Now i hear from over a 100 a day. That's just in 3 years. Give us time. As our network gets stronger, and the environments get less hostile, we will get more visible.
When I was in elementary and middle school (in a nationally acclaimed school system), the teachers would generally say that us girls should be in higher level math and science courses. However, what they said is not actually what they did. From the time I was in first grade, my mother and I had to fight constantly to get the school to actually place me into classes that would challenge me in math and science; the school's excuse would always be "Well, these classes are hard, and her schedule is already challenging." This pattern continued into high school, where I actually had my (female) guidance counselor say to me "But physics is so hard...and so is calculus," to try to discourage me from taking them both in the same year. There were only two teachers in my high school that encouraged me to take computer science courses. I was eventually the only girl in the class.
When I got to college, I talked to some other women in my major. The scary thing is this:
They had the same problems I had.
And unfortunately, this problem also extends to the attitudes school systems take with minority students. At a meeting of the Black Engineering Society, I found students of all minority backgrounds sharing similar experiances.
So what can be done? First, fight for your daughters, sisters, and friends and encourage them to challenge the school's placement reccomendations. If my mother had not stood up for me when I was in first through 12th grades, I would not be here at college on a full scholarship.
Also, please fight the stereotypes in society. When I was working as a computer repair technician at the local CompUSA, many customers would ask to speak with the "real technicians" or call me the 'secretary.' Reactions like this, and present biases make it exceedingly difficult to want to stay in such a profession.
I am one of the lucky women who was encouraged by others to become the geek I am today. We are out there...
-NatMarie rainfa1l@happypuppy.com
This topic is a popular one on a mailing list for women in the computer industry known as systers http://www.systers.org If I remember correctly the major components they list are lack of encouragement in school for girls to be interested in math/science, and lack of mentors/role models for girls to model themselves after. Another friend of mine mentioned that some schools are experimenting with segregated boy/girl classes, and although unpleasant on a number of ideological levels, the girls math/science scores had climbed 30%. There's a reasonable body of research to support the claim that boys get more attention from their teachers in class then girls do. As for the role model component, one friend of mine who attended caltech back when the ratio was 1 woman to 7 men (it's now down to 1 to 3) and then went off for an optical computing PhD. She's so used to being in a pure male environemnt, that she doesn't even recognize if she's the only woman in the room--and more importantly this doesn't bother her. Oh yes, and I looked through the list of debian developers and there are a a couple of female looking names in there, and then some I can't recognize... so I'd have to say that there are women involved in open source.
Some of us, I'm sure. Most don't have the energy/initiative/ability.
I'm unsure whether this counts as dating, most of what goes on here. Either is promiscuous general group sharing or it's solid friendship for 4 years or it's two people clinging together and getting married after graduation.
Dating would seem to suggest experimentation, exploration, etc. There aren't enough women here for that to be true for the men, and the women don't seem to want to bother with all the men.
Still, the lop-sided ration makes for interesting situations.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
See, realize this. Most of you linux hackers were doing this since your early days of high school -- at the very worst since you hit college. In the adolescent social setup, there is often a congregation of people around a theme.. those who get into linux or computers are largely male "geeks". And the most known thing about male "geeks" is that Women Are From Mars.
No, it's not a "women can't do it" problem at this point, it's an "OH MY GAWD THERE IS A GIRL HERE!!!" phenomenon. Girls who do try to play with computers when they're younger have to constantly navigate this.. as a result they're either scared off or they simply don't get the same exchange of information because they're scaring the geeks.
So, take this girl who was actually interested in computers and throw her into college now. Suddenly she's behind all these guys who've been geeking for years with each other, meanwhile she's been forced to learn it on her own, and she feels the disadvantage strongly. Only now it's worse.. suddenly she's "one of the few geekgirls out there" and thusly desirable by all geeks. And she's STILL not getting the information exchange like everyone else.
A lot of women navigate this by hitting online with male monikers and personas to try and circumvent that attitude (btw, someone recently went to the newsgroups posting roughly the same thing under both male and female names, the male got more respect, the female got hit on), or they just quietly duck back into the mold of "learning it for themselves" as they've always done.
It's a bad situation, really. What *I* would like to see as a strong female geek (who is also trying to avoid hiding either myself or my femininity) is more women helping women, and more women helping the young girls. I don't advocate complete separation.. but having support systems and role models for those starting out is vital. I also don't think that trying to change the geek mindset of "OH MY GAWD THERE IS A GIRL HERE" is going to work, that's just too much a part of being a geek.
As for "why aren't there women in open source support sites out there?" .. uh, very recently there was an article posted here about linuxchix.org.
I, personally, would love to start a branch for women in FreeBSD .. an even rarer phenomenon in my experience. :)
UNIX Systems and Network Administrator and FreeBSD chick,
Gwendolyn R. Schmidt
peeka boo :) I believe that woman "geeks" are an incredible asset to the Linux community. Girls are alot more sensible and humble. We are willing to teach before punishing those that are clueless. Besides, the woman are smarter. :)
I don't think it matters that Linux was crafted by a male or female set of hands. I think it does matter that women are not more a part of the Open Source movement or part of being online because both are revolutions of power away from central authorities and in the hands of people who now have voices.
If women aren't involved(out of lack of foresight), then they aren't given voices, or the choice to speak, and everyone loses.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
What's wrong with the excuse that you're a bad student? It worked with me =)
Just get your act together. Either she's a fair prof and you're not putting in enough effort, or she's unfair and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it except give your best.
In either case the only thing you can do is try to learn as much as possible, pass the class, and go on with your life.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I'd imagine that a disproportionate gender ratio in the engineering disciplines is bad because, as in medicine, concerns of women, which may differ from concerns of men, get less attention because they just aren't conceived in the minds of men.
If women don't participate in this exciting new revolution, the internet, e-commerce, and Open Source, among others, will they be left behind? Will there be a missing perspective? How do we change this?
I (a man) graduated with an English Lit degree and the ratios in my major were probably in the neighborhood described above. I suppose similar ratios exist in education.
I don't recall the women trying to figure out what to do to change this, no one wondered if the men would be left behind or if they could provide a missing perspective. In fact I would argue that those so absorbed in science and technology may be missing out in the fascinating world of literature (or maybe not).
What, so if they aren't complaining, or they are too busy to think about it, or if they don't realize there is a problem, or because they don't see the problem means there isn't one to be tackled? Just because there is a gender ratio doesn't mean its a good thing.
I certainly have better things to do than participate in many open source revolutions. I however have a choice because I am connected to the system, if nothing else through my friends, my job, and through Slashdot.
Sigh. I don't know, but I think everyone needs to be concerned about deficiences in the system. Because if there is a deficiency, then there is a problem just waiting to be uncovered, and if everyone is part of the system, everyone is affected.
Two arguments: If women are no different then men, then there is no *need* to push them into the field, because men can do just as well in stead of women. If this were true, then I would think women would already be involved as much as men, because they are no different then men. Since they are not involved, I would take that to mean there is a difference somewhere, either on the personal level(which I don't believe) or the social level.
If women are needed in the field, and they are held back because society hasn't yet adapted to the changing world, and we don't do our part to help, we are as guilty as those who do their part to hinder. We're just watching them close the world off to women.
I'm wondering if you could get your wife to think about this and reply, actually.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Isn't this some of what the question asked?
Here's a thread talking about some of the first female contributors to the computing field, programming, etc. Not Open Source, but still very core stuff.
Was it Ada who also did the frequency hopping stuff that the military later used for their torpedoes and is now being used in such things as TDMA(or is it CDMA?)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
No, come to think of it, it wasn't Ada that did the frequency hopping bit.
That was a female actress in the US, I think. Anyone remember her name? Shame on me for not knowing it.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
How else will I get intelligent children?
Anyway, that's irrelevant to the topic. Have you women, in this underground network, ever conspired to take over the world?
For example, is Fiona Carly of HP part of your network?
Being visible may not be a good thing, btw. Especially if it makes you a target. Regardless, I'd think this network needs to get involved in getting girls into the network so that when they get into college and workforce you have even better/stronger connections.
There's already very many old-boys networks around. It'd be ironically just if there were a few women's networks to advance the cause and needs of women.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
She designed COBOL! Ecch! For this, we may forgive her someday. But not yet. ;-)
Neo: you're *that* Trinity? I thought you were a guy...
Trinity: Most guys do.
...visibility is low because people assume that neutral names or unnameds are men.
Given the response to women around--aside from "oh my god it's a girl, GET HER!!" there's also "oh my god it's a girl, RUN AWAY!"--it's easier to let people assume you're a guy, sometimes.
I'd imagine it's a taught thing, though, and not a born thing. I know plenty of guys with similar traits; no interest at all in CS except that it pays well.
No exploratory spirit or wonder at technology. Just irritation that it doesn't work.
For many that's fine. They aren't CS majors, and computers are a tool, like a pen or a bookshelf, to organize data and communicate with others.
I don't know how to change things. I'd love it when I had my own daughter if she were interested in computers. They seem so wondrous, in their ability to simulate Reality Itself(tm).
Still, that's a long way from now, and I do have other issues to deal with. Dinner.
Good luck, both as a CS major and as a female CS major! Um, I didn't know they had computers in Maryland =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
You can't force anyone to do anything. But I think it's important that we don't consciously or unconsciously exclude them as well, which I strongly believe our culture in the US does.
:P
There isn't something that can be done for the immediate present, but that can be done for the future. What, exactly, I haven't figured out yet, but if it's a problem, it can be solved =)
Male engineerspeak.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Now all I have to do is get married, have kids, and raise a daughter =)
Seriously, though, (junior|middle) high school tutoring programs seem a very attractive thing to pursue, and no I am not a pedophile. Or a cradle robber. But I seriously do think there is something wrong in my society.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Among other things, originated the IP masquerading code. Here is her home page.
Your post should have been moderated as "flamebait".
"Most women see computers as tools. As means to an end. Not a toy. Not a world to be explored."
How absurd. Most users, period, view a computer as a tool. Why are you singling out women? Every comment you have made applies EQUALLY to men.
Women learn better "from other people"? You imply that men are more capable solo learners. As an educator, I'll clue you in on a little fact: Most individuals, Male or Female, learn material in less time when assisted by another.
If you're joking, my apologies for biting.
I used COBOL exactly once in my lifetime too. But it is not a bad *idea*, just a terrible implementation. It tried to address the irritating disconnect between code and documentation thru the naive assumption that a natural language based compiler would be self-documenting. Knuth has spent much of his time on the same problem, and he may not have succeeded either.
Ellen Spertus wrote a paper titled "Why are There so Few Female Computer Scientists?". This was in 1991, but I don't think anything substantial has changed. (This, BTW, is a woman with a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.)
I know the question is more about women in open-source projects than computer science, but people don't get involved, typically, with any kind of computer project (open source or otherwise) unless they've got the technical know-how to do so.
Anyways, the main points in her paper about why women don't get into computer science are:
- Societal Factors. Such as women being discouraged from technical fields, mathematics, science and other "male" fields when they're children or in school.
- Masculine Environment. That is, a lot of computer related workplaces or college classes have mostly men, and therefore a tendency for there to be things that some women would find offensive (sexist or sexual humour or female pin-ups, for example). Also, men use sarcasm or insults to communicate more often that women, often leaving women feeling as if the environment is hostile even when it isn't really. Different interests (sports, for example) can also leave women feeling less socially included.
- Gender-biased language.
- Some attempts to encourage women into these sorts of fields actually backfire, for instance making it seem as if women are less capable and that's why they might need extra help. (This can be subtle and the exact same thing could be interepreted differently by two different people.)
The paper goes into much more detail, however, including reasons why biology is probably not very much of a factor and some possible solutions.If you read that paper I think you'll see that it relates fairly well to this topic.
Yes, there are women in open source. Yes, there are female hackers. (And I mean hackers in the true old-guard sense of the word for people who love to write code for its own sake and are very good at it, not people who break into someone else's box.)
Normally I don't go too overboard in the ubergeek oneupsmanship, but I think it's called for here to counter the prevailing winds.
I've been hacking open source since before that phrase was fashionable, we used to just call it "free software". Or even "public domain" if we felt like using big words. Most of it runs on Irix (although some has been ported to Linux) because I got addicted to SGIs when they were the only game in town for fast graphics.
I started playing with computers when I was ten, wrote software on my own time for a while, got my first paying computer job when I was 16. I was the youngest employee at ETA systems, a supercomputer company that's now bankrupt (like all the rest of them). I literally remember when I thought Unix was for wimps, an insane waste of expensive supercomputer cycles. If batch job control was good enough for me, it should be good enough for everybody! (So I did see the light on that one, now I'm a rabid Unix fanatic.)
Got a CS degree at Stanford (while taking quite a few feminist studies classes along the way). Went off to work at The Geometry Center, a research group where developing free software was a major part of our mission. Came back to Stanford to get a PhD in CS. Along the way I adapted some research software for use in a free SGI visualization product.
I am used to almost always being the only or one of the few women in the room. One of the few sports I enjoy doing is kickboxing, which is at least as male dominated. I probably wouldn't have chosen to either start or continue with that if I hadn't built up reserves of confidence from my experiences in CS.
I do believe the low percentage of women in CS is due to cultural conditioning, and that the gender imbalance causes professional difficulties ranging from extreme to subtle. Ellen Spertus has several essays on this (which are worthwhile enough that I'll add yet another pointer to them). In my case most of the difficulties have been subtle, and I've benefitted from many mentors from many people over the years. Most of them have been male, but it's worth pointing out that at my first computer job my boss was female as was hers.
-- Tamara