On 07/02/13 13:49, Shlomi Fish wrote:
Before I answer your question, let me add that I think we should train
potential female (and male) contributors to not give up so easily after running
into a potential difficulty.
I have no idea how you "train" potential contributors to not give up but
you don't do it by being an arse. Studies show that boys are encouraged
to keep trying, and girls are often told "oh, let me do it for you" from
very, very young ages. That seems like training potential female
contributors to give up and after a lifetime of that kind of training I
don't see it as very surprising that some women are likely to stumble
and give up rather than be tenacious. Sad, but not surprising.
However, having said that, we're not held to what we learned as
children. There are many professions which require tenacity, such as
athletics, law, business management...; and so women can and do learn
such skills. It's just worth understanding that some women are coming
into learning such skills at a disadvantage to those men who were lucky
enough to be taught them for the majority of their lives.
There's another key difference that should be recognised, and the
situation isn't that there is a dire shortage of women who know Perl
(25-30% of Perl programmers out in business), there's a dire shortage of
women involved in the Perl community. (between 2 and 6%) The tenacious
women are learning Perl, they're just doing so for work. *Not for fun. *
I suspect that when there are people who are approaching the Perl
community in an attempt to try to learn to program, or who already know
how to program and want to learn Perl, we have to *compete with other
**fun**pursuits.* When the few bad apples in the community are allowed
to behave badly towards them, that's not fun. *If learning Perl isn't
**fun**, they won't stay.* Why would they? There are other, more fun
things to do than be insulted, treated badly, harassed or otherwise in
pursuit of something you thought could be cool. This is a problem for
Perl and, in my opinion, for programming in general - *programming is
not competing as well against **other fun pursuits*.
It's also worth noting that when people flame others on mailing lists,
or abuse others in IRC channels, active contributors also go away. You
can lose up to 25% of your project just from one long flame-war. *People
are in open source for fun*. Take the fun away, make it worse than
work, and lots of them won't stay. It's easy to find entertainment on
line these days that doesn't involve dealing with people who are being
arses.
Telling people that they have to have a thick skin, in order to have
fun, will not work into the future. Knowing Perl or being a developer
in a lot of open source is no longer enough of a hallowed destination
that it's sufficient reward for weathering the abuse between newbie and
achievement. Perl (and a lot of open source) needs new developers more
than it needs developers with thick skins. *Getting a thick skin isn't
fun.* It doesn't matter what you had to go through.
It's inevitable to face hardship and abuse, because even I, as a guy, faced
them, and still do, and have to know how to overcome them.
Yes, men face abuse too. The abuse men face is rarely gendered. Women
may face worse abuse if their gender is known than you likely have any
idea about. Regardless, strangely enough, *abuse is not fun* regardless
of your gender. Some people will stick through it, but I can't blame
the people who don't.
I think trying to restructure a so-called-hostile community is like making the
mountain come to Muhammad. On the other hand, a single motivated person with
some amount of creative thinking, and who is not willing to give up can make a
world of a difference.
*Hostile communities are not fun* for people who don't want to show off
how much of an arse they can be. If we want people to come to learn
Perl and participate in the Perl community, because *Perl is fun* (and
as a language I really believe it is) then we need to make sure
that*participating in the Perl community is fun*. Or at least we need to
make sure that participating doesn't suck.
Yes, individual motivated people can change things, they do all the
time. People who stand against hostile behaviour and work to welcome
and encourage all potential contributors are changing things. People
who encourage involvement and shared decision making are changing
things. People who make sure that their actions are*increasing the
level of fun* rather than sucking it out, are changing things.
On Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:54:29 +1100
Jacinta Richardson <jar...@perltraining.com.au> wrote:
Feminists (and there are both male and female feminists) are not at
fault for pointing out that lots of entrenched behaviour is not okay.
It just isn't. Things like using soft porn in slides should be
obviously not okay. But things like asking a woman who's turned up to
your tech group if she's there because her boyfriend is, or who her
boyfriend is, or even if she has a boyfriend, is also not okay.
Why not? While you shouldn't ask a woman if she has a boyfriend right at the
beginning of the conversation, it's not such a bad question to ask later on.
Really?
Do you have any idea how creepy it is to turn up to a gathering for the
first time, as a woman, and have numerous guys try to work into the
conversation a question on what your relationship status is? Can't you
just assume that women are there for technical reasons and not to be hit
on endlessly, because that's what asking a woman about her relationship
status is, it's a precursor to hitting on her, not just polite
conversation. Having that conversation every time I attend new
technology gatherings (where I'm not previously known) is tedious and -
guess what?! *It's not fun*.
After she's been going a few times, and you've established a rapport -
if you do, *maybe* you could ask her then, although if she wants you to
know she'll probably have said.
Safer questions:
* How are you?
* What got you interested into <technical topic>?
* Is this your first time here?
* Do you work with <technical topic>?
* What do you do?
* Have you been to any <similar technical groups>?
* Have you heard about <upcoming conference>?
* Would you be interested in giving a talk yourself at <technical group>?
see, all of these are the same kinds of questions that you could ask a
new man visiting. It's not that hard; if you wouldn't find it of dire
important to know the sexuality and relationship status of a new person
because they're a man, then forgo trying to find that out from a new
person just because they're a woman.
*Have fun!*
Jacinta
