Hi Brianna, Thanks for responding to my comment. I have a few follow-up questions:
*QUESTION ONE: Is the 50/50 goal realistic?* I raised the 50/50 goal because of comments such as this, which I've come across in many discussions: *"...then maybe it makes sense to give a damn about why half the populationseems to be alienated from the cause." * >From which I infer that the ultimate goal is to have equal numbers of men and women in our movement. If we're not aiming at 50/50, then the phrase "half the population" is confusing. So, do you mean that we should aim at 50/50 or not?* QUESTION TWO: What is a comfortable ratio for you?* You gave this example: *Let me tell you entirely sincerely, what makes me feel included is feeling that it's not unusual for me, a woman, to be part of a group. That is, enough other women around that I never go to a meeting > 10 people and find myself the only woman. It's hard to feel you belong when there is little visible evidence that you do. * I'm going to express my understanding of this example to the best of my abilities, so please correct me if I get it wrong. If we have a group of 11, I'll assume the following: 1 woman, 10 men >> uncomfortable 2 women, 9 men >> uncomfortable 3 women. 8 men >> uncomfortable 4 women, 7 men >> comfortable Does that look right to you? My gut feeling is that when more than a third of participants in a small group are women, the sense of being in a small minority is diminished. But I really don't know, and I'd very much like to know what you think. However, let's say we have a conference of 100. Would you feel uncomfortable in the following circumstances: 10 women, 90 men? 20 women, 80 men? 30 women, 70 men? My guess (it's only a guess!), from thinking through these numbers, is that many women in FOSS would like the ratio to be around 2:3, if 1:1 is not our aim. Thanks again for contributing to this discussion. Alex Garber On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 19:12, Matt Giuca <[email protected]> wrote: > > The drastically lower rate of participation in free software suggests >> that the free software community is worse behaving than society at >> large. > > > Wait. You're operating under an unstated assumption that the only factor > influencing the percentage of women in a particular community is how well > the males in the community behaves towards women. That's a GIANT unproven > assumption. This is a complex problem and there are undoubtedly many > factors. > > For example, maybe it is the case that women are naturally inclined, to > some degree, towards a professional career in computing, but are much less > inclined to pursue computing as a hobby. I'm not trying to put a case for > that, but just suggest one possible explanation for this apparent gap > between women in free software versus women in the software industry -- one > that doesn't have anything to do with behaviour of the other people in the > community. > > Taking the rate of women's participation as a proxy for the happiness >> of the ones there seems reasonable to me. So I don't think they are >> such different questions. >> > > That is, again, not a very good proxy. If we take a hypothetical example > in a school where Grade 6P spontaneously starts a finger-knitting craze. It > spreads within the class, but not so much outside the class. Now a couple > of students from Grade 6S hear about it and also start finger-knitting. But > it never really catches on in Grade 6S, because there isn't an "everyone > else is doing it" mentality. Basically, finger-knitting is in the culture > of Grade 6P but not in the culture of Grade 6S. However, there are still 3 > or 4 students in Grade 6S that are doing it. They occasionally hang with > the 6Pers at lunch time and they knit together. You could look at this > situation and say "well only 5% of finger-knitters are from Grade 6S -- > therefore, we must assume that Grade 6S people are generally unhappy with > finger-knitting." But that's not true at all. The 3 or 4 Grade 6S students > who are in the community are very happy indeed. They just haven't been able > to convince many of their fellow 6Sers to join them, because it is not in > the Grade 6S culture. > > By way of analogy, I am trying to say that just because only a small > percentage of a particular group is participating in some activity does not > mean that the ones that are participating are unhappy. It also doesn't mean > that, were that percentage to increase, that the ones already participating > would become happier. > > You seem to be unhappy that there aren't enough women in free software. If > you are being genuinely offended because people are treating you > differently as a woman, then that is a legitimate problem which should be > addressed. But if you are merely unhappy because of the low numbers, then > what I think some of us are trying to say is that it shouldn't matter: > we're not here in our capacity as men and women, we're here to discuss and > appreciate free software, and we should be able to do that without > consideration of gender. > > Matt > > _______________________________________________ > Free-software-melb mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb > >
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