Article, "Free As In Sexist"

[vlion]

Interesting read. I'd encourage people to read it, if they haven't already. Not 100% sure I agree with everything, but it's definitely worth mulling over.

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381

Comments

[azurelunatic]

It aligns pretty well with my perspective on FLOSS culture, and why I'm exceptional as a woman/perceived woman within it (because I act like "one of the guys" in many ways, and because I'm not even on a lot of heterosexual men's attraction radar, I get treated like a man/treated like a human most of the time).

I'm highlighting Dreamwidth as an exception that helps prove the rule because that's where I spend most of my time, and because I know you spend a good amount of time around it too. We've talked offline about your current(?) workplace, which is a certain variety of software engineer culture (very "company", very conservative), but I'm not sure what your wider exposure to FLOSS cultures is like.

Dreamwidth developer culture evolved out of LiveJournal technical support culture as it existed during rahaeli's management, and was then deliberately shaped to encourage participation from women, other minorities-in-tech-culture, and neophyte developers. It is astoundingly atypical of general FLOSS culture. At one point I looked through some other IRC quotes databases for some examples, and while I picked out some egregious examples, I also didn't have to search for them.

This is the essay I wrote back in 2010 on how Dreamwidth is not like many FLOSS shops: http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/6389107.html

[vlion]

I hang out in #rust and #lisp besides #dreamwidth; those are sort of my gotos for actual IRC contact. I also contribute to the Mercurial development discussions, as I manage hg deployment at work.

Otherwise I keep abreast of the news & interact with different areas of FLOSS. I'm sort of the unofficial FLOSS lead on my team.

Overtly, I don't really see sexism. But hey, not many participants are women. So that's an interesting side indicator that something ain't right in the kitchen.

One interesting cultural note is that Dreamwidth is largely fannish/fanfic culture. Which, insofar as I can tell, has a different gender ratio than, say, compiler development hobbyists. Is that because compiler writer hobbyists come out of CS programs and thus sort of might be considered to already have a prefiltered gender imbalance out of the gate? Not sure.

I also note my current workplace tends towards hiring women in subservient roles: secretary, project manager (at our workplace, this trends towards 'secretary for projects'), HR, etc. People who Don't Get The Real Work Done, if you catch my drift. We do have female engineers. Not many.