Here are my views on some of the questions/themes I see raised in this thread.
- Why are you against calling Julia “she” or saying things like “court her”? I think many women who might otherwise contribute will be alienated by it. I personally am not often one for language policing but I find this terminology annoying and unpleasant. It makes me want to interact less with the Julia community, which I otherwise enjoy very much. - Women should just deal with it, then. This is a position you are free to hold. But if you want more women in the Julia community then saying they are just too thin-skinned is not helping our case. There are many women who don't find this sort of thing annoying at all, but because there are few women in the open source community, the number of women who are both in OSS and not alienated by this language is small. Julia won't be able to attract many women if we keep saying/doing things that drive a large fraction of women away. - I don't care if there are more women in the community./If I have to stop speaking in this way to attract more women, it's not worth it to me. Ok. But the maintainers/owners care about having more women involved. - It's a free country, I should be able to say “Julia is beautiful and I would date her.” Absolutely. But you aren't owed space on official Julia mailing lists to say it. - I don't understand why this is a problem for women. In my language it's normal to say this sort of thing/I just can't understand it. It's perfectly fine to disagree with me about whether this “should” be a problem (although I think this is a silly question to ask). But if you were allergic to my perfume (or you just really hated the smell) and I kept wearing it to work even after you'd asked me to stop several times, everyone would consider me rude. Our boss might even require that I stop wearing it, even if I really liked the perfume. Out of respect for my coworker and boss I'd do my best to stop wearing the perfume, even if I didn't understand why he hated the smell. >
