FOSS Sexism Claims Met With Ire and Denial 1255
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the girls-don't-write-foss dept.
from the girls-don't-write-foss dept.
Last Friday Bryce Byfield gave us a little insight into the fallout surrounding his article on sexism in the FOSS world. Unfortunately it seems that FOSS junkies did little better than the rest of the world with respect to sexism, displaying similar levels of denial, abuse, and ignorance. "But the real flood of emotion comes from the anti-feminists and the average men who would like to deny the importance of feminist issues in FOSS. Raise the subject of sexism, and you are met with illogic that I can only compare to that of the tobacco companies trying to deny the link between their products and cancer. Because I took a feminist stance in public, I have been abused in every way possible — being called irrelevant, a saboteur, coward, homosexual, and even a betrayer of the community. I know that many women in the community have been attacked much more savagely than I have, so I'm not complaining. Nor am I a stranger to readers who disagree with me, but the depth of reaction has taken me back more than once. I think the reaction is an expression of denial more than anything else."
Feminist issues in software? (Score:2, Funny)
How wrong were I thinking that only professional matters should be of concern. Before we tackle the obvious sexist attitude in capitalist society towards childbearing, let me recall Sokal's discussions with postmodernist on mixing politics with science. Hope we aren't all living in Orwell's animal farm, just yet...
Note to Author: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Here's two (Score:5, Funny)
It's EtherApe. But you knew that didn't you..
An example (Score:1, Funny)
Here's an example of how you appear to show your feminism by how another person appeared to me when "being sensitive".
Talking about "The Accused". One girl and she says "A friend of mine felt ashamed of being a man after watching that".
My IMMEDIATE thought was "What? Did he get a boner in the rape scene?"
My second thought was "He said that hoping to get a 'sensitivity' shag".
People accept feminine problems exist.
And they don't assume women don't understand stuff "because you're a girl".
But then YOU come along and try to make us feel guilty about how other people treat women.
And that pisses people off.
We have enough we HAVE done in our lives to be ashamed of without someone trying to get us to shoulder stuff we didn't do.
MMO? (Score:3, Funny)
I have been abused in every way possible — being called irrelevant, a saboteur, coward, homosexual, and even a betrayer of the community.
Gosh...this totally happened to me too on the original Everquest forums. And they never did fix paladins!
Re:How can sexism even be an issue in FOSS... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No Denial Here But What Are the Reasons? (Score:4, Funny)
What if they're really good binary only drivers?
Re:re (Score:4, Funny)
You sound fat.
Ubuntu “Karmic Koala” released for men (Score:5, Funny)
THAWTELESS, West London, Monday — Canonical, Inc. has announced the release later this month of Ubuntu Linux 9.10, "Karmic Koala," to men [today.com].
Project founder Mark Shuttleworth explained that "this stuff is difficult to explain to girls" and thought they'd have gotten the hint when he called 8.04 "Hairy Hardon." "Worrying about sexism in open source just detracts from the battle for Linux. So we've put the tits back into the default desktop. And arses."
Crime-fighting geek Shuttleworth, who dresses as a billiionaire playboy by night, swore that plenty of women liked him lots and that he obviously wasn't unable to get laid or anything, having gotten seriously rich in the dot-com era, not to mention having gone into space. "Chicks dig that stuff. Trust me, I've met lots of girls. More than five!"
Canonical Community Manager Jono Bacon echoed this sentiment on his blog. "We just don't understand how come women are 15% of all computer programmers but only 1% of open source programmers. It must be a bit complicated for them. That's why I've written this spontaneous blog post, completely unrelated to anything my boss may or may not have said, on all the fantastically talented women in free software, even if none of them seem to work much on Ubuntu any more. Also, I'm absolutely confident that saying I'm in a computer geek heavy metal band will get me lots of chicks too, even if their pretty little heads can't understand Linux."
A special women's edition of Ubuntu 9.10 will be released on a bright pink CD. "It doubles as a makeup mirror!" said Shuttleworth.
Stand up for equality! (Score:5, Funny)
echo "alias woman=man" >> ~/.bashrc
Re:I'll second the call for examples. (Score:5, Funny)
Just tell me which UNIX command you would use to get instructions on a program and deny that this isn't intentional.
Re:Mod parent up... (Score:5, Funny)
“It’s a free market world,” said Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy. “It’s about competence and getting the job done [today.com]. Working sixteen hours a day on a project you really love is par for the course. That we’re all eighteen to twenty-five is from the accelerated Internet-based learning of the new generation, not exploitation of young workers who don’t know any better.”
Over a third of women in IT had complained of sexism up to sexual harassment at work. “It’s women who just don’t have social skills,” said Nerdboy. “They object to the guys freely choosing to all go down the strip club after work. They’re just not team players.”
Open source projects have worse figures than industry, with male to female ratios approaching fifty-to-one. Many women cite gross sexism on mailing lists and IRC. “In my experience, women just don’t have a working sense of humour and can’t take a joke. My girlfriend thought it was funny! Even leaving helpful comments on their blogs didn’t work. ‘Political correctness’ is no exaggeration. Anyway, I met my girlfriend online!”
“...,” said his girlfriend, RealDoll Ada.
“And it’s not like you can get the applicants,” added Nerdboy. “We can hardly get any girls to apply for a job here. They’re obviously naturally not good enough geeks. It must be evolutionary. We need more pink computers.”
“This is of course a terrible, terrible state of affairs,” said a spokesman for the Confederation of British Industry. “In the meantime, we need lots more IT workers shipped in from overseas.” He was later heard muttering something about “divide and conquer” and sniggering.
Re:Well if that's true... (Score:0, Funny)
Re:anti-feminist != sexist (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'll second the call for examples. (Score:4, Funny)
[W]hat is the real problem with your cake?
The cake is a lie?
Re:Mod parent up... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mod parent up... (Score:1, Funny)
Having watched a lot of sci-fi, I wouldn't rule out the existence of the elephant so quickly.
The elephant could be out of phase for example, or out of sync with normal time. Aliens could have hidden the elephant for all manner of reasons.
Re:Here's two (Score:3, Funny)
"A bitching sailor is a happy sailor"
Is that bitching as in complaining, or as in "That's a bitchin' ride, bro."?
Re:Mod parent up... (Score:3, Funny)
I get really sick of subversive PC behavior...
Get a Mac?
(Wow, it felt weird saying that!)