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[Travis B.]

So, yes. On average, even setting aside childcare and eldercare (which I'm not sure why you're so insistent on doing--are you implying women with children or elderly parents can't also have technical interests and skills?), women have more time-consuming societal expectations placed on them than are placed on men.

I am not implying that women with children or elderly parents can't also have technical interest and skills at all, if anything it is the people I have read who have basically said "women don't participate in FOSS because they don't have time because they all have kids or old people to take care of" who I am dismissive of - after all, kids take naps and go to bed, and do people really have no free time unless they have really little children or parents that need eldercare around the clock? Kids grow up fast, and by my age my own daughter is well past the age where she needs much being taken care of.

[alynnidalar]

Nobody is saying "women who have children have no free time whatsoever", the point is that women have, on average, less free time than men.

At any rate, this is only one of a whole pack of different factors that have been brought up by both you and others. No single factor is going to explain the situation, Travis. It's a combination of factors, of which "women often have less free time" is just one.

[Ares Land]

The question, though, is whether this can take into account the large disparity between commercial software development and FOSS development.

Additional thoughts.
This page is interesting: https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/FLOSS
The figures given there are lower than in corporate software development, but not that low.

It occured to me that a lot of programming occurs in areas we don't typically think about: SAP and relatives, HR software, COBOL back ends and the like. All of these are fields that are under represented in FOSS; all of these have a higher proportion of women. (Why is that? They often hire folks with non-CS degrees. Saying that women don't go for CS degrees as much as men is, I think, the understatement of the century.)

Given all that... maybe the problme isn't as bad as that.

Sorry to interrupt this discussion, but are you saying that corporate software is less problematic than FOSS, at least regarding gender issues? It sounds like I may need to reëvaluate my software choices and even operating system in the future.

Nah. Not all open source projects are equal; you can start with the page I listed above for some examples of non or less-problematic FOSS projects.

Well, yes, the people behind FOSS include the Linus Torvaldses, the Richard Stallmans, and the Theo de Raadts of the world, and these sorts of people don't make it the most welcoming of places, and this sort of thing leads itself to the most plausible of explanations. But again, this leads to the conclusion that women simply can't handle these kinds of people while men can - without there being any actual sexism involved - and I honestly don't like this conclusion, because it essentially says in a way that women are weak while men are strong.

Personally, I think it means that women are smart and men pretty dumb. I don't know, we deal with enough assholes at work. Not wanting to put up with them on your free time seems kind of a smart move.

It's good to remember that women don't get the same share of assholery as men do. See that asshole at work that seems to make a point of being as annoying as possible? Well, if you were a woman, he'd be just as annoying, plus he'd be extra condescending and hitting on you.

I don't really think there are more assholes in FLOSS than elsewhere. But think of this: we put up with a certain amount of workplace annoyance because, eh, we need the paycheck. But on our own free time? I don't know about you, but my tolerance is much lower.

I am not implying that women with children or elderly parents can't also have technical interest and skills at all, if anything it is the people I have read who have basically said "women don't participate in FOSS because they don't have time because they all have kids or old people to take care of" who I am dismissive of - after all, kids take naps and go to bed, and do people really have no free time unless they have really little children or parents that need eldercare around the clock? Kids grow up fast, and by my age my own daughter is well past the age where she needs much being taken care of.

My daughters are 2 and 7, so well past the very demanding newborn stage. And they're great kids at that. So we get plenty of free time, but still, it's a lot of work. Laundry, buying clothes, school or daycare related chores, endless tidying up, endless cleaning, keeping them busy, breaking up the occasional fight, 'yes you do need a bath', 'eat your spinach', 'have you brushed your teeth yet?' and so on.
That said, we both get time for our personal projects... though there are plenty of days when, when we finally reach bedtime or naptime, I just don't have the energy for conlanging or writing. I'm sure you're familiar with all that.
Now, picture the same thing, except you're entirely alone dealing with this, with zero or negligible contribution from your partner.

Now, add the baseline level of sexism and low social skill in IT: people are kind of annoying, plus they're trying to hit you up. Do you really want to deal with that in what free time you get?


(Again, on second thoughts, I don't think FOSS communities are that toxic. But all it takes is one asshole...)

[Travis B.]

Nobody is saying "women who have children have no free time whatsoever", the point is that women have, on average, less free time than men.

At any rate, this is only one of a whole pack of different factors that have been brought up by both you and others. No single factor is going to explain the situation, Travis. It's a combination of factors, of which "women often have less free time" is just one.

Point taken.

[Travis B.]

Well, yes, the people behind FOSS include the Linus Torvaldses, the Richard Stallmans, and the Theo de Raadts of the world, and these sorts of people don't make it the most welcoming of places, and this sort of thing leads itself to the most plausible of explanations. But again, this leads to the conclusion that women simply can't handle these kinds of people while men can - without there being any actual sexism involved - and I honestly don't like this conclusion, because it essentially says in a way that women are weak while men are strong.

Personally, I think it means that women are smart and men pretty dumb. I don't know, we deal with enough assholes at work. Not wanting to put up with them on your free time seems kind of a smart move.

It's good to remember that women don't get the same share of assholery as men do. See that asshole at work that seems to make a point of being as annoying as possible? Well, if you were a woman, he'd be just as annoying, plus he'd be extra condescending and hitting on you.

I don't really think there are more assholes in FLOSS than elsewhere. But think of this: we put up with a certain amount of workplace annoyance because, eh, we need the paycheck. But on our own free time? I don't know about you, but my tolerance is much lower.

So in essence the disparity between commercial software development and FOSS, as you see it, is due to people being more willing to put up with shit at work because they need a paycheck than when doing things in their spare time.

The people including you who have been saying that toxic men are oftentimes more toxic towards women are probably right, but this leads back to FOSS or software development in general being especially toxic, because why should this be specific to them? Of course, this does not appear to be universally true, since Linus Torvalds and Theo de Raadt have both been singled out as particularly toxic yet are not, to my knowledge, accused of sexism.

My daughters are 2 and 7, so well past the very demanding newborn stage. And they're great kids at that. So we get plenty of free time, but still, it's a lot of work. Laundry, buying clothes, school or daycare related chores, endless tidying up, endless cleaning, keeping them busy, breaking up the occasional fight, 'yes you do need a bath', 'eat your spinach', 'have you brushed your teeth yet?' and so on.
That said, we both get time for our personal projects... though there are plenty of days when, when we finally reach bedtime or naptime, I just don't have the energy for conlanging or writing. I'm sure you're familiar with all that.
Now, picture the same thing, except you're entirely alone dealing with this, with zero or negligible contribution from your partner.

I remember when my daughter was little I would take naps while my daughter was napping even though my parents were helping me take care of her - I was too exhausted to consider doing anything like work on FOSS.

[Ares Land]

The people including you who have been saying that toxic men are oftentimes more toxic towards women are probably right, but this leads back to FOSS or software development in general being especially toxic, because why should this be specific to them? Of course, this does not appear to be universally true, since Linus Torvalds and Theo de Raadt have both been singled out as particularly toxic yet are not, to my knowledge, accused of sexism.

I'm not a FOSS contributor (well, not a very high profile one anyway) so I don't know how toxic various communities are.
But making the not unreasonable assumption that it's no worse than the rest of IT, why should women put up with it on their free time especially when unpaid?

[Linguoboy]

Personally, I think it means that women are smart and men pretty dumb. I don't know, we deal with enough assholes at work. Not wanting to put up with them on your free time seems kind of a smart move.

This is what I was getting at with the "all roads lead to 'women are weaker'" comment. If that's the one and only explanation you can come up with for why women would not willingly submerge themselves in a toxic environment then FFS talk to some women because you're a prisoner of very limited powers of imagination.

Folks made much of the fact that Torvalds was an "equal opportunity abuser". But terms like that only make sense in a context where there is actually equality of opportunity. But there isn't in FOSS; the "same" behaviour has different impacts based on who perpetuates it and who is targeted. What happens when women programmers try to behave like a Linus? Let's ask one:

Valerie Aurora, a former Linux-kernel contributor, told me that a decade of working in the Linux community convinced her that she could not rise in its hierarchy as a woman. Aurora said that the concept of Torvalds and other powerful tech figures being “equal-opportunity assholes” was false and sexist: when she and Sharp adopted Torvalds’ aggressive communication style, they experienced retaliation. “Basically, Linus has created a model of leadership—which is being an asshole,” Aurora told me. “Sage and I can tell you that being an asshole was not available to us. If we were an asshole, we got smacked for it, got punished, got held back. I tried it.”

"Being an asshole is just part of the culture. Suck it up, sweetie."
"Okay, I can be as much of an asshole as anyone else."
"LOL NO."

I'll say it as many times as I need to: Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Folks made much of the fact that Torvalds was an "equal opportunity abuser". But terms like that only make sense in a context where there is actually equality of opportunity.

Even in such a context, it would probably still be a problem, simply with everybody complaining about his poisonous and hostile work environments in equal measure (such as would probably also degrade the quality of their output).

[Travis B.]

Personally, I think it means that women are smart and men pretty dumb. I don't know, we deal with enough assholes at work. Not wanting to put up with them on your free time seems kind of a smart move.

This is what I was getting at with the "all roads lead to 'women are weaker'" comment. If that's the one and only explanation you can come up with for why women would not willingly submerge themselves in a toxic environment then FFS talk to some women because you're a prisoner of very limited powers of imagination.

Of course, that was ignoring the other possibility that had been mentioned, which I later acknowledged, that in many cases toxic men are more toxic towards women than towards other men.

Folks made much of the fact that Torvalds was an "equal opportunity abuser". But terms like that only make sense in a context where there is actually equality of opportunity. But there isn't in FOSS; the "same" behaviour has different impacts based on who perpetuates it and who is targeted. What happens when women programmers try to behave like a Linus? Let's ask one:

Valerie Aurora, a former Linux-kernel contributor, told me that a decade of working in the Linux community convinced her that she could not rise in its hierarchy as a woman. Aurora said that the concept of Torvalds and other powerful tech figures being “equal-opportunity assholes” was false and sexist: when she and Sharp adopted Torvalds’ aggressive communication style, they experienced retaliation. “Basically, Linus has created a model of leadership—which is being an asshole,” Aurora told me. “Sage and I can tell you that being an asshole was not available to us. If we were an asshole, we got smacked for it, got punished, got held back. I tried it.”

"Being an asshole is just part of the culture. Suck it up, sweetie."
"Okay, I can be as much of an asshole as anyone else."
"LOL NO."

Yes, this is a product of how in our society assertiveness by men is treated differently from assertiveness by women, as had been mentioned. Assertive women are seen as "shrill" and whatnot, unlike assertive men.

I'll say it as many times as I need to: Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis. Listen to women, Travis.

I'll do my best.

[Travis B.]

The people including you who have been saying that toxic men are oftentimes more toxic towards women are probably right, but this leads back to FOSS or software development in general being especially toxic, because why should this be specific to them? Of course, this does not appear to be universally true, since Linus Torvalds and Theo de Raadt have both been singled out as particularly toxic yet are not, to my knowledge, accused of sexism.

I'm not a FOSS contributor (well, not a very high profile one anyway) so I don't know how toxic various communities are.
But making the not unreasonable assumption that it's no worse than the rest of IT, why should women put up with it on their free time especially when unpaid?

I am a FOSS contributor (well, I am not sure if "contributor" is the right word, because the projects I work on are typically my own), and while the area I work in is relatively low-toxicity, I have heard stories about how incredibly hard it can be to get one's contributions accepted in some projects, how much internal conflict goes on in many cases, and like, and how this dissuades many people from participating even ignoring any sexism or like.

But this is far less of a factor if you are like me, and the projects you contribute to are primarily your own. In my case I spend my free time working on FOSS primarily because I enjoy writing code that I want to write, as opposed to code I write for the sake of a paycheck. This is even though very few people have used my code I have written on my own, and much of what I have worked on is very arcane, to say the very least, yet I continue writing it nonetheless, so I don't do it for status or for the sake of producing code examples for future employers. And if one doesn't specifically enjoy writing code, why engage in FOSS in the first place, unless you are doing so for your day job?

[zyxw59]

There's also the myth of the equal opportunity asshole — the TL;DR is that even if the toxic men are equally toxic to men and to women (or similarly along any other axis of marginalization), women on average have to put up with more toxicity in their lives, so the equal amounts of toxicity are more likely to put women over the threshold of intolerability.

[Travis B.]

Ignoring the free time issue, because that is not something we can do much about other than changing gender roles in society at a whole (something that is generally not within our power), that leaves us with two different things we can do something about: 1) general toxicity driving off women for the reasons mentioned above independent of any direct sexism per se and 2) sexism as such. What can we do about this? I know some projects have adopted "codes of conduct" and like, but while it is easy to point out direct sexism and banish the offenders from projects, it seems like dealing with general toxicity overall, especially with "equal opportunity abusers", would be more difficult.

[malloc]

Sorry to interrupt this discussion, but are you saying that corporate software is less problematic than FOSS, at least regarding gender issues? It sounds like I may need to reëvaluate my software choices and even operating system in the future.

/facepalm

The solution is to find ways to include women in FOSS, e.g. by trying to avoid toxicity better, not to abandon FOSS for proprietary software.

But would you consider it ethical to use existing FOSS given the problems associated with it?

[Travis B.]

Sorry to interrupt this discussion, but are you saying that corporate software is less problematic than FOSS, at least regarding gender issues? It sounds like I may need to reëvaluate my software choices and even operating system in the future.

/facepalm

The solution is to find ways to include women in FOSS, e.g. by trying to avoid toxicity better, not to abandon FOSS for proprietary software.

But would you consider it ethical to use existing FOSS given the problems associated with it?

Would you give up the ability to have software that is free as in freedom (e.g. that program I mentioned that I modified to fix a bug in writing to a board - that was only possible because the software is FOSS in the first place) simply because the movement behind it has improvement to make in the area of gender issues?

[Linguoboy]

Ignoring the free time issue, because that is not something we can do much about other than changing gender roles in society at a whole (something that is generally not within our power)

Who's power is it within, then? We all have the power (and--I would argue--the moral obligation) to point out injustice when we see it. Men depending on the women around them to do disproportionate amounts of unpaid physical and emotional labour is an injustice and we should be talking about it as much as we can until that gets fixed.

that leaves us with two different things we can do something about: 1) general toxicity driving off women for the reasons mentioned above independent of any direct sexism per se and 2) sexism as such. What can we do about this? I know some projects have adopted "codes of conduct" and like, but while it is easy to point out direct sexism and banish the offenders from projects, it seems like dealing with general toxicity overall, especially with "equal opportunity abusers", would be more difficult.

From what I've read, the Python community--while still having a severe gender imbalance--has generally worked much harder at being inclusive and non-toxic. I'd look at what they've done which has worked and see how much of it could be replicated with other projects.

[alice]

Sorry to interrupt this discussion, but are you saying that corporate software is less problematic than FOSS, at least regarding gender issues? It sounds like I may need to reëvaluate my software choices and even operating system in the future.

/facepalm

The solution is to find ways to include women in FOSS, e.g. by trying to avoid toxicity better, not to abandon FOSS for proprietary software.

But would you consider it ethical to use existing FOSS given the problems associated with it?

It's never ethical to use software which has problems associated with it. That's why I don't use software at all, ever.

[Travis B.]

Ignoring the free time issue, because that is not something we can do much about other than changing gender roles in society at a whole (something that is generally not within our power)

Who's power is it within, then? We all have the power (and--I would argue--the moral obligation) to point out injustice when we see it. Men depending on the women around them to do disproportionate amounts of unpaid physical and emotional labour is an injustice and we should be talking about it as much as we can until that gets fixed.

Yes, we should point out these things because they are injustices. But that is different from actually changing other people's personal lives, which is a whole lot harder than simply pointing the fact out, and requires change on a societal scale, which requires action on all of our parts. This is a much bigger matter than simply working to make the communities one is involved in less toxic, as said communities tend to be much smaller than society as a whole, and one therefore as an individual can have more leverage as a result.

that leaves us with two different things we can do something about: 1) general toxicity driving off women for the reasons mentioned above independent of any direct sexism per se and 2) sexism as such. What can we do about this? I know some projects have adopted "codes of conduct" and like, but while it is easy to point out direct sexism and banish the offenders from projects, it seems like dealing with general toxicity overall, especially with "equal opportunity abusers", would be more difficult.

From what I've read, the Python community--while still having a severe gender imbalance--has generally worked much harder at being inclusive and non-toxic. I'd look at what they've done which has worked and see how much of it could be replicated with other projects.

I have heard similar things myself in vague terms about the Python community, but I have not seen them firsthand simply due to not being active in that community.

[Vijay]

Because if toxicity without sexism per se itself drove people in general off, you would have just as many men fleeing FOSS as women, but this is not true.

It's not? How many men go into FOSS as opposed to how many go into developing commercial software?

I haven't seen statistics on this.

So maybe it's not true.

At the same time, you have companies pushing people into developing FOSS even if they don't want to

Are these also disproportionately men?

Of course, if said toxicity included pervasive sexism, that would be a different story, as then it would explain why more women are dissuaded from participating in FOSS than men without leading to that conclusion

What is "pervasive" sexism, and how is it different from the sexism everyone in this discussion has been telling you there is in FOSS?

Sexism above the general baseline for society in general.

It doesn't have to be "above the general baseline" if there isn't any discussion about it within the industry.

So basically it makes perfect sense if one chooses somewhere else to do fieldwork, for these very reasons, and for of those who do go there, it would make perfect sense if they were predominantly male, for the very reasons you give.

I think you can argue the same for FOSS. Only so many people want to go into CS anyway, let alone specifically FOSS, and I find it highly unlikely that even most of the people who are in CS would prefer getting into FOSS over doing something that will actually give them a paycheck.

Yes, we should point out these things because they are injustices. But that is different from actually changing other people's personal lives

Not really. It is the first necessary step for "actually changing other people's personal lives."

Think about Black Lives Matter, for example. Has it magically made racism against black people disappear? Of course not. But has it made people talk about racism more? Yes. Has people talking about it made any difference at all? Absolutely.

EDIT: Oh, also:

India, where apparently CS is much more popular amongst women than it is here in the US

That's not quite what's going on. You see, India only won its independence 74 years ago, at which time it struggled to recover from centuries of colonialism. Delhi was once the envy of the world; now it is a "gas chamber" in the words of its own mayor. Long story short, there is obviously a lot of pressure on people to pursue the most profitable careers they can, regardless of gender, and CS is pretty profitable. That's why so many people there go into it.

[Linguoboy]

Ignoring the free time issue, because that is not something we can do much about other than changing gender roles in society at a whole (something that is generally not within our power)

Who's power is it within, then? We all have the power (and--I would argue--the moral obligation) to point out injustice when we see it. Men depending on the women around them to do disproportionate amounts of unpaid physical and emotional labour is an injustice and we should be talking about it as much as we can until that gets fixed.

Yes, we should point out these things because they are injustices. But that is different from actually changing other people's personal lives, which is a whole lot harder than simply pointing the fact out, and requires change on a societal scale, which requires action on all of our parts. This is a much bigger matter than simply working to make the communities one is involved in less toxic, as said communities tend to be much smaller than society as a whole, and one therefore as an individual can have more leverage as a result.

But it's not necessary to change the society as a whole. If the goal is to get more women in CS contributing to FOSS, then you only need to change expectations for the subset of society which contains women who might contribute to FOSS. This is still a daunting task, but if you're looking for where to exercise leverage, this is an area where it goes further. Societal change is always piecemeal. It always begins with certain groups and radiates out to others. Those working in CS and related fields are a relatively privileged group within their societies. If we can shift attitudes within this group, the chances of it becoming a more general societal expectation are relatively good.

I have heard similar things myself in vague terms about the Python community, but I have not seen them firsthand simply due to not being active in that community.

In many ways, Guido van Rossum sounds like the anti-Linus. He recognised early on the lack of women in the community as a problem which needed solving and he did things to solve it. For instance, he wanted women on the Python Software Foundation Board so he kept publicly offering his time to mentor women so they could serve on it until finally some of them took him up on the offer. Now they're on the board.

When I look at the Python Foundation website, I find a diversity statement linked to prominently on the Community page. In the sidebar, I see that they've retweeted a tweet from a female-presenting programming extolling the benefits of belonging to the community. These are small things--you could say they're pretty bare-minimum--but they still me something about their priorities. By contrast, I don't see anything comparable on the Linux Foundation website.

[Travis B.]

Who's power is it within, then? We all have the power (and--I would argue--the moral obligation) to point out injustice when we see it. Men depending on the women around them to do disproportionate amounts of unpaid physical and emotional labour is an injustice and we should be talking about it as much as we can until that gets fixed.

Yes, we should point out these things because they are injustices. But that is different from actually changing other people's personal lives, which is a whole lot harder than simply pointing the fact out, and requires change on a societal scale, which requires action on all of our parts. This is a much bigger matter than simply working to make the communities one is involved in less toxic, as said communities tend to be much smaller than society as a whole, and one therefore as an individual can have more leverage as a result.

But it's not necessary to change the society as a whole. If the goal is to get more women in CS contributing to FOSS, then you only need to change expectations for the subset of society which contains women who might contribute to FOSS. This is still a daunting task, but if you're looking for where to exercise leverage, this is an area where it goes further. Societal change is always piecemeal. It always begins with certain groups and radiates out to others. Those working in CS and related fields are a relatively privileged group within their societies. If we can shift attitudes within this group, the chances of it becoming a more general societal expectation are relatively good.

So how would you go about convincing the partners of potential female FOSS developers to take on a greater proportion of the physical and emotional work at home, or at least convince potential female FOSS developers to not put up with their partners not doing their share?

I have heard similar things myself in vague terms about the Python community, but I have not seen them firsthand simply due to not being active in that community.

In many ways, Guido van Rossum sounds like the anti-Linus. He recognised early on the lack of women in the community as a problem which needed solving and he did things to solve it. For instance, he wanted women on the Python Software Foundation Board so he kept publicly offering his time to mentor women so they could serve on it until finally some of them took him up on the offer. Now they're on the board.

I had always had the impression that the Python world is much friendlier as a whole than the Linux kernel development world. I also noticed on one of the pages about statistics of women in computing that Python conferences had a significantly higher percentage of female participants (e.g. ~30%, which is way higher than most of the other stats that were given).

When I look at the Python Foundation website, I find a diversity statement linked to prominently on the Community page. In the sidebar, I see that they've retweeted a tweet from a female-presenting programming extolling the benefits of belonging to the community. These are small things--you could say they're pretty bare-minimum--but they still me something about their priorities. By contrast, I don't see anything comparable on the Linux Foundation website.

From reading that diversity statement, it is a start, but statements like that can easily be empty verbiage - but in Python's case it seems like they have actually put in some work rather than just spat out a standard corporate-esque diversity statement and left it at that.