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0 pointsanigbrowl14y ago0 comments

This report also pushes the intolerance hypothesis, as well as women being less dedicated, being fearful of text interfaces, and preferring more collectivist environments: http://web.archive.org/web/20091007234852/http://opensource..... (Please go read the report before criticizing me for citing it. It's written by a woman who is allegedly a feminist.)

That is a misleading characterization of the paper, which aims at establishing an analytical framework rather than offering itself as a 'report,' within an existing analytical framework. For example, rather than suggesting that women are 'fearful' of text interfaces, the author observes that their continuing popularity in the FLOSS community exacerbates past educational disparities: 'Instead of deducting from biological sex difference, the phenomenon suggests a lingering deficiency of women’s IT education and women-unfriendly products and tools.' The writer goes on to posit that many staples of geek culture (eg long coding pushes) act as exclusionary factors for women who may have to juggle coding with other tasks such as child-rearing, and that women's contributions in areas such as documentation or design are seriously undervalued.

Your summary of the paper is so far off base that I find myself wondering if you inadvertently linked to the wrong document.

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yummyfajitas14y ago

The article certainly does not suggest a "lingering deficiency of women's IT education" w.r.t. the use of text. It suggests that women "usually obtain their programming expertise through the formal education system" and that schools teach primarily "Microsoft visual basic, visual C++ or Java." The only "educational disparity" is that women don't teach themselves to use the shell whereas men do.

You are correct, however, that my use of the term "fearful" was wrong. Thanks for the correction. In actuality, the article doesn't explain why women don't teach themselves how to use gcc.

And yes, you are also correct when you point out that one specific reason women are less dedicated and less willing to put the time in is that they have other interests (such as child rearing and housework).

Apart from the minor issue of whether "fearful" was correct, what do you object to about my characterization?

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