X.Org Women Outreach Program Only Turns Up Two Applicants So Far

[daniels]

"I am a white male who has never encountered discrimination or sexism in my life, but here's why this program is completely unnecessary".

'And I've never contributed anything to open source, but it's disgusting that people are trying to encourage a wider contributor base.'

[TheBlackCat]

Nice hardware.

*sigh* Lewis' Law strikes again.

[anda_skoa]

Which would be illegal in all countries I know

Something being illegal does not make it non-existant, just persecutable.

Driving intoxicated is illegal, yet people get run over by drunken drivers all the time.

Cheers,
_

[Cyber Killer]

I don't get it. Most women are clearly not interested in IT, why the big push to get more of them here? It's rare to hear that somewhere a woman wasn't given an IT position because of gender. On the other hand catering to somebody who lacks proper skills just because they have specific gender, now that is clear discrimination (of the skilled people regardless of their gender, skin color, or other born properties).

I would love to work on FLOSS for 5,5k$, I even got the skills, but I'm a man, and that means I can't. Duh, sexism.

My point is - if the aim is to balance the opportunities of all genders, then the rules should be fair to anybody, not like this, where one group is given a bonus.

[TheBlackCat]

I don't get it. Most women are clearly not interested in IT, why the big push to get more of them here?

That assumes that women are inherently less interested, rather than turned off from it because they don't feel welcome in the field. Considering how much the gender demographics have changed in IT (and other high-tech fields) over time, I think your assumption is unfounded. On the other hand, there are demonstrated problems with the attitudes of many men in the field.

On the other hand catering to somebody who lacks proper skills just because they have specific gender, now that is clear discrimination (of the skilled people regardless of their gender, skin color, or other born properties).

Good thing, then, that nobody is suggesting that.

I would love to work on FLOSS for 5,5k$, I even got the skills, but I'm a man, and that means I can't. Duh, sexism.

Xorg has had its XorgEVoC project for a while now. However, despite the fact that there are many qualified women who could participate, so far all the applicants have been men. They are trying to encourage more qualified women to participate.

My point is - if the aim is to balance the opportunities of all genders, then the rules should be fair to anybody, not like this, where one group is given a bonus.

One group is already given a lot of bonuses. This is a tiny, tiny step trying to correct the imbalances that already exist.

[scottishduck]

I don't get it. Most women are clearly not interested in IT, why the big push to get more of them here? It's rare to hear that somewhere a woman wasn't given an IT position because of gender. On the other hand catering to somebody who lacks proper skills just because they have specific gender, now that is clear discrimination (of the skilled people regardless of their gender, skin color, or other born properties).

I would love to work on FLOSS for 5,5k$, I even got the skills, but I'm a man, and that means I can't. Duh, sexism.

My point is - if the aim is to balance the opportunities of all genders, then the rules should be fair to anybody, not like this, where one group is given a bonus.

"catering to somebody who lacks proper skills just because they have specific gender" being a thing that is not occurring here. If 3 women apply and are not capable workers then none will be hired. The reason for excluding men in this instance is because if there was 50 women and one man, the man would probably get the job.

[Cyber Killer]

"catering to somebody who lacks proper skills just because they have specific gender" being a thing that is not occurring here. If 3 women apply and are not capable workers then none will be hired. The reason for excluding men in this instance is because if there was 50 women and one man, the man would probably get the job.

Not if the recruitment process is fair. If it's fair, then the most qualified person gets the job. If that 1 man would have better qualifications then any of those 50 women, then why shouldn't he be given that position? If one of those 50 women would have the best qualifications, then the job should be her, etc... It seems rather simple to me.

Maybe it's better to have some means to ensure a fair recruitment process? Like hiding the gender (and name) and physical appearance (as that is very often another unfair criteria) of the applicant.

Because giving bonuses to minorities doesn't fix the problem, it's only a temporary duct tape, and actually makes the problem far worse. E.g. in my country there's a program that gives bonuses to companies for hiring disabled employees. Very few really disabled people (e.g. the ones bound to a wheelchair) found a job because of this, but on the other hand a lot of healthy people were forced by employers to fake a disability and get papers for that, in order to get/keep a job (one of the most absurd examples was a position for a disabled person in an ambulance team where it's critical to be very fit in order to do the job properly - sic!). I wonder if gender forced equality programs will in turn make people get sex change operations or fake gender identities in order to get a job in the future? :-P

[stiiixy]

Don't be too quick to judge. My aunt is in IT, and is from Australia. After living away from there for a couple years, she didn't want to go back because of the attitudes of the men there.

Your Aunty isn't the only one mate, although you didn't actually state she received death-threats. That's just a SLIGHT differance. I effectively quit working for IT company's because most of the bulldog MS mentatlity by manager's who knew nothing about IT, or managing for that matter. If it isn't sold by MS or Cisco or *buzzword American tech company*, well, don't come asking for a job. There's some story behind it, but it's boring =D We're talking about the lady's here. So,

back to the point of my original post in this thread; I'm up for hearing about stories behind the women who experience such things. There's a lot of men who obviously aren't aware of such things going on and awareness can only help start the process of reducing it.

[TheBlackCat]

Not if the recruitment process is fair.

Again, qualified women are not even applying for these sorts of positions, and there is a lot of reason to think that a large reason for that is the perception that FOSS is not friendly to women. The goal here isn't to correct the imbalance in hiring, it is to convince qualified women that their participation would be valued.

Unfortunately, the reactions to the program only serve to reinforce this perception.

[blackiwid]

"I am a white male who has never encountered discrimination or sexism in my life, but here's why this program is completely unnecessary".

rofl, nice saying it sounds so good even its just 100% false, sounding good does not mean u are right. I get discreminated all the time, because of my weight, because I have no job, because my hair is not full, because I wear the wrong cloth, because I am a computer gamer, because I am IT guy without extremly good social skills, because I try to eat less meat, because I dont like to trink so much alkohol, because I dont come networking when all go out to smoke, because I dont have academics as parents and dont know the full social codes of there social layer, because I am not rich, because I have no car (therefor woman often discriminate)... I think I could go on a hour.

And in this case nobody did PROOVE that its the sex and not the skill level or more likely that woman dont want to make that jobs, that nearly no woman studies that, would at least spontan for any sane person make it likely that woman just dont want to make this work, thats the most logical reason u can get out of that. So u have to disproove that first, not say there is a job where not 50% employes are woman so it MUST be sexism.

Go ahead I have nothing against this woman that got now a job with that, instead of the job they would get anyway most likely, but the sexists aka feminist, womanist is sexist the name is even sexists, antisexism by sexism? Its so retarded.

If I call myself DICK-lobyist I am a sexist, but as a feminist I am not a sexists? so whatever have fun...