[Linux-aus] An Open Letter to the Open Source Community

[Tim Ansell]

Hello,

I am not a woman, but from what my limited understanding allows I think
the following should be made clear.

It is easy to dismiss individual people and incidents. However, after it
occurs many times it becomes much harder to ignore.

Take the following example,
---------------------
Assume there is *only one* person on each lists which does something
sexist or acts badly towards women.

If a woman is 10 lists she has had to deal with 10 people.

While a person who is only on one of these lists see the women getting
fed up after *one person* acting badly.
---------------------

This perception problem also grows quickly with the more activity a
person is involved in,
---------------------
Assume there is two people on each lists which does something sexist or
acts badly towards women.

If a woman is 30 lists she has had to deal with 60 people.

While a person who is only on one of these lists see the women getting
fed up after *one person* acting badly.
---------------------

I myself are on 26 mailing lists and currently join 13 IRC channels.
This is pretty normal in the FOSS world. Why would you join an community
where you have to deal with 39 idiots?

> And for more geekchix perspective ...  check out Penny Leach's
> article... http://www.vitta.org.au/infonet/17.1_PennyLeach_WomenInICT
> 
>         "Oh wow... I assumed you were just someone's girlfriend"
> 
>         yes, I do know about computers, and yes, I am a programmer, and
>         no, I'm not just someone's girlfriend. So after that, you'd
>         think the subject would be closed, right? But no.
>         
>         The next thing that happens is that I have to prove it. This
>         almost never happens to men. They say they're programmers? Fine.
>         They're programmers. With women, there seems to be this
>         lingering suspicion that it's not actually true. I don't just
>         have to prove that I'm a programmer. I have to be a really
>         really good programmer, otherwise I'll be dismissed as just a
>         'girl programmer'. Not a real one, because, implicitly, girls
>         can't actually be real programmers, they're just this smaller,
>         cuter, somehow pinker version of programmers.


Thank you for your time.

Tim Ansell
--
http://blog.mithis.net/ - Mithro Rants about Stuff