Re: Code Of Conduct

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Tue, 2006-05-30 at 19:57 +0300, Baris Cicek wrote:
> I wanted to put my 2 cents on this women involvement issue.
> 
> Actually women in proprietary software market have a good motivation
> like earning money from what they do. But in free software world, they
> hardly have this motivation, and most of time it's volunteer work. 

This is true of everyone, regardless of their gender.

> I doubt that female enthusiasm to IT is high in the world. Therefore
> they need some motivation to get involved. It's something to do with the
> loving what you do in Free Software world, and women mostly choose other
> things than staying by the computer for hours. If we go deep into this
> gender psychology and genetic closeness to particular activities should
> be considered. 

By consider, you maybe mean "use as an excuse". I don't think you have
the evidence to say that women are inherently incapable or unwilling to
do technical work. Not so long ago, it was acceptable to say the same
thing about people of different races. That was wrong, and this is
wrong.

> From where I live (ie. Turkey) most women in the IT world are only there
> for earning money,

I have quite a wide experience of the industry. I've worked with
hundreds of software developers in tens of companies. I know that most
people are only in it for the money. The percentage of I.T. people who
love software enough to work on Open Source is tiny. I have not noticed
any gender-based differences. However, even my wide experience is
probably not statistically significant, so treat it as anecdotal
evidence.

>  and those I doubt they would ever touch computer at
> home or elsewhere from their office. Sure thing that there are some who
> loves to use computers. But that's really few, which won't exceed
> fingers of an hand. 
> 
> It's not easy to increase women involvement in that sense. We need to
> find motivation, and proprietary world does it by giving money. But
> nothing comes to my mind for Free Software world. I doubt it would be
> easy to change generic women behavior and eagerness. But maybe finding
> some really handsome hackers, and opening a beauty saloon with GNOME
> installed computers might help. (was a joke :). 

You need to recognise that there is a problem and avoid this kind of
nonsense. It's not necessary and it's not helpful. It should be easy for
you to understand that it can make someone feel unwelcome.

-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com