What GNOME's Women Outreach Program Is Paying For This Summer

[Calinou]

If everyone invited their wives and family to learn and contribute, I'm sure we'd be close to at least 33% female participation. I think that'd be much more effective than an outreach program, but maybe that's just me...

And please don't start on the he/she thing...it's a fault of the English language that it doesn't have a gender-neutral, singular pronoun, other than 'it', and I doubt many people are going to start calling other people 'it'. That is the only reason people use 'he' or 'she', and usually it's a matter of what they learned rather than personal preference or bias.

?they?. It sounds pretty fine.

[wizard69]

This is total crap, I hate to say it but it is true. In the open source world how is it even possible to discriminate against woman? Everyone is free to join in on just about any project that they are interested in.

Maybe in the ideal or naive view of the world, that is true. In reality though, gender based discrimination exists in the general industry and open source world in particular and finding ways to counter balance that is a good thing.

The problem is these programs cause more harm than good and do more to damage the status of woman in the industry rather than to promote it. The minute you have a group eliciting special favors to get ahead you set up a we against them attitude. You increase hostility towards woman in the workplace.

That is the reason, a large number of organizations are involved in doing this.

That doesn't make it right nor does it deliver the results that help the industry. Woman should enter the field for the same reasons men do, which general comes down to having an interest in the technology.

[RahulSundaram]

If everyone invited their wives and family to learn and contribute, I'm sure we'd be close to at least 33% female participation. I think that'd be much more effective than an outreach program, but maybe that's just me...

And please don't start on the he/she thing...it's a fault of the English language that it doesn't have a gender-neutral, singular pronoun, other than 'it', and I doubt many people are going to start calling other people 'it'. That is the only reason people use 'he' or 'she', and usually it's a matter of what they learned rather than personal preference or bias.

If you want to invite friends and family to contribute and demonstrate that it is more effective, that would be acceptable. Outreach efforts aren't limited to only one way a single project does things. Gender specific pronouns can and often does indicate bias since the vast majority use male specific pronouns when you can typically just as easily use gender neutral ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

This is one of the steps you can take to avoid a bias, deliberate or otherwise.

[RahulSundaram]

This is total crap, I hate to say it but it is true. In the open source world how is it even possible to discriminate against woman? Everyone is free to join in on just about any project that they are interested in.

That one is really easy and one that you could looked up yourself. There are literally hundreds of examples. Here is one.

https://lwn.net/Articles/417952/

[89c51]

Unfortunately, you are being idealistic again. Everybody has a right to contribute. However, noone has the right to demand that such contributors be accepted and anonymous contributions often will not be accepted by major projects. The reason we have such policies in many projects is because of the presence of bad actors like SCO and the legal necessity to have a audit trail. I also noticed that you use the word "he" which assumes the contributor is a male. Part of the reason outreach projects target women is because of such assumptions.

For Fucks Sake. Someone -> he, she, it whatever. It doesn't imply anything.

As for the anonymous contribution thing legal necessity or not i will continue to find it stupid as long as i live. And i suspect this -since it is software we are talking about- is purely an american problem.

[RahulSundaram]

For Fucks Sake. Someone -> he, she, it whatever. It doesn't imply anything.

As for the anonymous contribution thing legal necessity or not i will continue to find it stupid as long as i live. And i suspect this -since it is software we are talking about- is purely an american problem.

It may not imply anything to you but you did use "he" and you can avoid this problem by consistently using gender neutral pronouns. The legal problems facing open source projects are hardly limited to one country. It is a global problem and therefore anonymous contributions are not a practical solution for many contributors. As long as you understand, why your solution isn't workable, the exact reason doesn't particularly matter

[wizard69]

I fully understand what you're saying but what I think you're forgetting is many women are DISCOURAGED to get into tech fields. If you want examples, go to websites like notalwaysright.com, search for any tech related thing, and you'll find an insane amount of bigotry toward women. It's a shame we still have to live in a world like this.

You are right but these programs just make things worst not better. In a very stark manner it says to these same men that woman aren't good enough to earn the positions like "I" did. Woman are doing more to damage themselves than they realize by promoting this crap.

It isn't just the tech fields either, the military is finding out that separate but equal just increases hostility towards woman.

But, if women aren't appreciated and wanted in tech fields, then they'll never feel the want or ability to join. Give women a dedicated incentive to do something for the linux (or at least gnome) community and it could really be appealing to them.

They no more need an incentive than a man does. Let's face it either you are interested in the industry or you aren't. If you are then go after these programs just like any male would

On a side note, there are people like nixiepixel on youtube. I can't really tell if she's helping or hurting the appeal of more women joining the linux community. I think the fact that she's attractive and self-passionate about linux helps make linux seem "cool" to some, on the other hand, she's not really helping women in the developer or professional realm.

Hmm will have to research that nixiepixel at a later time😜. I'm not sure if I want to ask how she isn't helping but let's face it ones professional career and private life shouldn't markedly impact each other. Beyond that it is certainly the case that lots of woman could do better professionally if they where to loose a bit of weight. There is nothing worst than a fat programmer (male or female) that is too weak to get up from his desk and go see what his latest creation is doing on the production floor. It shouldn't surprise anybody that if you don't look healthy, people will reject you.

[Nobu]

You almost have to be trained in how to use 'they' singularly. I've gotten used to it, but I still find myself struggling at times to figure out how to word sentences in which I'm talking about an unknown somebody. It often involves changing 'somebody' to 'anybody' (which changes the meaning, if only slightly), or 'want' to 'have', or inserting a rhetorical 'you' somewhere in the sentence, which may or may not confuse whoever the sentence is directed at.

[d2kx]

I would be interested to hear Fatima's opinion on this.

Also, while I fully understand the arguments against this program, it is clear that the status quo is disappointing and that there won't be any change without such programs.

[89c51]

It may not imply anything to you but you did use "he" and you can avoid this problem by consistently using gender neutral pronouns. The legal problems facing open source projects are hardly limited to one country. It is a global problem and therefore anonymous contributions are not a practical solution for many contributors. As long as you understand, why your solution isn't workable, the exact reason doesn't particularly matter

I use "wrong" words in english most of the time. I am no native speaker. But anyway its not about my English. Trying to base an argument in favor of the need of programs like WO on language used (by most i might add) is pretty weak.