Feminism's dirty little secret

@hkwint Oversimplification. Plain and simple. First of all: what is sexism? Second, what is the set of characteristics that an expression must fulfill before it IS considered sexism.

E.g. my girlfriend bought a book on dieting lately, because she wanted me to lose a few pounds - this is embarrassing ;-) I said in the foreword that given I had followed all instructions I would fit in my bikini within a few weeks. Is this sexism?

"Of course not" you will argue "The book has a female target audience". Well, obviously not. Compare that to this:

"# MemCache Store – MemCache is a program designed specifically for high performance memory caching. It’s not written in Ruby, but it’s damn fast and it’s what all the big boys use."

Ok. Some context: language that is exclusive to females and inclusive to male developers has got to go. Each time I come across this exclusion-jargon, I die a little inside, and lose a little respect for the source of the material. I feel like it is almost an intentional barrier put in place by the groups who continue to try to keep 'us' out, like an unspoken right of passage you can only get to if you are male.

With 1.5% being female, is this a surprise?? Even LESS of that percentage is actually coding!

Bottom line: it is VERY dangerous to limit free speech. It is not without reason that (at least in Holland) lawmakers are very reluctant to enforce those limitations. Limiting it implies enforcing the value standards of one group onto another. Religious groups and radical feminists will find female undie ads sexist.

Note that (and the Stallman example shows this very clearly) you can also use it for political reasons. I feel that project enforces standards will work much better, since they are enforced by the community itself. Note that any project can fork if they don't like it. Let's say a number of women and a few ringleaders enforce such standards in a project. Won't the main developers say some very sexist words and start to work elsewhere?

Note that a lot of projects (the vast majority) are one men projects. Who do you think who calls the shots there. The report (FLOSS polls) even mentions it:

"F/LOSS still is very much based upon voluntary work which people carry out in their spare time rather than as part of their paid labour. Therefore a lot of measures which are successfully applied in the work environments of companies, public sector institutions or others can not be employed in this context. This particularly concerns issues of discrimination, inflammatory talk, valuation of particular work tasks and so forth. Activities tackling these issues have to come from inside the community itself and we would rather not propose recommendations in this directions. It is up to the community as a whole to decide upon how it should organise itself and communicate this. It is up to single projects themselves to integrate measures such as rules of conduct or other forms of tackling the social dynamics set out above."

But I guess you haven't read it. You're talking plain pub talk, man. If things were only this easy. Posting it is an offense to both your and my intelligence.

Hans Bezemer

@hkwint I'm not against any code of conduct. As a matter of fact, I proposed such measures a number of times, on Usenet forums and on my blog (http://thebeezspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/08/revenge-of-linux-m...).

But note that sexism is not that easy to spot as discrimination for the simple reason that (as a proved in above sample) it depends a whole lot on the actual value system. These systems (as illustrated - I won't say proven - by FLOSS polls) differ HEAVILY between the different groups.

Sure, anyone would agree that "women can't code, so why should you" is clear cut sexism, but "Now you're one of the big boys, girl" may not get you the same answer. Within hackers social context, this is clearly a compliment. You want to jump on somebodies neck for that? I can only speak for myself: if I can't express myself naturally anymore the fun is gone.

If you really go around the internet, you will find that even within certain feminist circles this isn't taken seriously anymore. This is really a two way street and the report even indicates that FORCING it on the community will have adverse effects. Just as the atmosphere changes when women enter the workplace, the community will change when women participate. But then they have to participate.

I think it is also wise to prepare women properly before they enter the community, know what to expect and know where to go when certain behavior (note: private email isn't monitored by anyone) isn't acceptable. When I went to a fashion show with my girlfriend, she prepared me too. Should they have accommodated me by drinking beer, making sexist jokes and farting in order to make me feel at home?

I really feel that people should be measured by the quality of their work - and get the full credits of it. No matter what. People should not be put down because of how they look, their sex of their color. But putting the FULL blame on a community is simply not fair. That is certainly not the conclusion of FLOSS polls if you read it properly.

And when it doesn't happen, it simply doesn't happen. You can't force an ideology on an entire community without paying the price at one time or another. Simply fork. Gentoo is an excellent example. In that way, FOSS may be the most democratic force in modern times after the internet. A community is just that: a bunch of people working together voluntarily. They can vote with their feet if they don't like it. If sexism is such a powerful force in FOSS we have lost anyway and this discussion is futile.