coffee.geek.nz

A couple good articles and threads today on how limiting who you hire for a job to people who make open source contributions means, in practise, only hiring men.

culture cat explores this from the angle that there are less women in open source. Geek Feminism blog talks on the culture of open source means women aren't welcome (amongst other things)

I want to add, what has been alluded to in the above blogs. Women have less spare time than men.

This is on average, and have been proven with multiple studies. Why? Women still do more of the house work, chore, errands. Women still do far more of looking after children. Worldwide, women have spare time in small chunks between vaccuming and collecting the children from school and cooking and serving the family meal. They perhaps shouldn't be, but they are.

I liked to come home from a hard day building things for telcos, to sit on the couch with a laptop and build the features I want to have into the open source projects I contribute to. I could spend as long as I wanted making code elegant and flexible, without giving any thoughts to budget and quotes. It was how i relaxed.

I've pondered for some days writing a post being an woman working with and contributing to open source software for the Down under feminists carnival - such a post would include how awesome it is to work in this great field.

Such a blog post would also include the seriously negative sexist incidents that happen from time to time. Especially the high profile ones. (They're not the norm, and they happen infrequently)

In the past when I've reported on such negative incidents on my blog (3 times) I've received email telling me to stop pointing it out. Usually it's from open source project leaders and people I do respect in the open source community. The form of the email is usually a very very long essay explaining that describing what has happened to me or my friends at a conference is going to damage the community, the project, and is going to drive women away from the field. Please be quiet.

They ask me why I want to do such a horrible thing to open source as to blog about the things that happen. Very clearly I'm part of the problem by reporting it. Often they'll throw in something about me not understanding how open source culture works.

So on that note, I'm not going to write the post after all - I don't have the energy.

Instead I encourage you to check out the Geek feminism wiki

Feminism - Noun - A social theory or political movement supporting the equality of both sexes in all aspects of public and private life; specifically, a theory or movement that argues that legal and social restrictions on females must be removed in order to bring about such equality

For those that claim to not be a feminist:

i'm not a feminist but...

I appreciate the right to choose my government representatives.

I enjoy the option of wearing pants or shorts if I want.

I'm pleased that I was allowed to learn to read and write.

I consider my education is more than just something to pass the time before I marry

I quite like being able to choose who I marry.

It can be very convenient to control how many babies I want to have (if any)

It's awfully useful to be able to open a bank account and own property in my name.

I like knowing that my husband or boyfriend cannot legally beat me.

It's really swell to keep the money that I earn.

-- source unknown