The abstract simply says:

No doubt the best coding is done in the FLOSS community — but where are all the women?

As a bright, open community, we can do better than being 99% male, and it pays to care. In this talk, Olivier will be tackling a few clichés, trolls, and misunderstandings to clarify the situation. Find out:
– why this is a problem;
– why you should care about it, and
– how well it pays to care.

Come and meet the Blonde and the Scruffy Coder in a story of love, frustration and passion — a story in which you are the hero.

I’ve been talking and writing about the problem of gender balance in online communities for almost two years now. This talk is based on a talk I gave last summer, in French, at the Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre in Mont-de-Marsan, which attracted lots of interest and discussion from both men and women.

Surely enough, talking doesn’t do much towards changing a problem whose roots are everywhere in our society. But it is my hope that I can at least spread a little awareness, by tackling the (often poorly-handled) problem in an entertaining and un-academic way.

The Chemnitzer Linux Tage (shorthand: CLT) is, in my opinion, the best free software conference in Western Europe, I recommend any FLOSS enthusiast with some knowledge of German pop by. Despite the nearly-1000-km ride, it’ll be a pleasure returning there.

Le monde du logiciel libre bouillonne de bonnes idées et tend ses bras grands ouverts à qui veut y rentrer. Du communiste à lunettes rondes jusqu’au libéral aguerri, on y trouve un peu de tout… sauf, et c’est vraiment curieux, des femmes. Même si presqu’un diplôme en informatique sur quatre est attribué à une femme en Europe, au final au sein de la communauté du libre, le pourcentage de femmes dépasse à peine un seul petit pourcent. Le seul adjectif qui me vienne à l’esprit est riquiqui.

Pour un mouvement qui se dit sociétaire et se targue d’être fondé sur des valeurs éthiques, il n’y a pas de quoi être fier. C’est ce que j’ai essayé d’exprimer dans une présentation d’une demi-heure, en explorant un peu les mécanismes et proposant quelques pistes pour changer les choses.

Le problème, c’est que le sujet fâche beaucoup. D’une part, tout le monde n’est pas prêt à accepter l’idée que même si le phénomène dépasse de loin la communauté du libre, nous y sommes encore pour beaucoup. Mais surtout, on se comprend très mal. Par exemple, lorsque j’explique qu’afficher une jolie paire de seins sur un poster n’arrange rien à la situation, on me prend au mieux pour un affreux rabat-joie, au pire pour un censeur prude.

Du coup, j’ai choisi de prendre le taureau par les cornes en allant chercher tous les clichés auxquels je pouvais penser. La blonde (nouvelle-venue nécessairement idiote) et le hacker barbu (participant assidu nécessairement masculin) en faisaient partie. Je ne me suis pas non plus gêné pour afficher en grand une généreuse poitrine féminine glanée à deux pas d’ici, pour bien mettre les choses au clair.

J’ai été très surpris par le succès de la conférence. Une bonne quarantaine de personnes, au trois quart faite d’hommes. s’était entassée dans la petite salle malgré les hoquets du planning. Mais c’est surtout le débat qui a suivi qui m’a enthousiasmé —il était remarquablement riche et encourageant, fait remarquable dans un milieu plus connu pour son inclination à troller.

Quelle suite donner à tout cela ? Le site GenderShouldntMatter.org, que j’ai créé il y a un an, aurait fort à gagner d’un meilleur nom de domaine et d’une traduction en français. Le groupe de travail Diversité de l’April pourrait lui aussi avancer plus vite. Enfin, on pourrait tenter de convaincre l’organisation des prochaines RMLL d’abandonner le logo poupée-barbie et d’insister plus sur le problème (je pense en particulier aux teneurs de stands associatifs, dont certains ont parfois des attitudes vraiment sexistes). Malheureusement, le temps me manque, et je me contenterai seulement de donner à nouveau cette conférence à l’automne.

Le fichier source de la présentation pourra peut-être satisfaire les plus curieux, mais il n’aura vraiment de sens que pour ceux qui étaient présents, et est donc à prendre avec des pincettes. J’aurais plaisir à y modifier les pourcentages la prochaine fois —qui sait, peut-être aurons-nous alors doublé la proportion de femmes, en ne laissant plus aux messieurs qu’un maigre 98% ?

I have noted with pleasure that the 1-page-website I built about the situation got noticed before I tried to spread the news. The idea came up as I attended Aurélie Chaumat’s conference at the RMLL [fr] this summer — when the position and efforts of the women from LinuxChixFrance [fr] and GrepGrrl [fr] made a strong impression on me.

My thoughts are as follows:

1. The imbalance happens despite there being free choice. This is a crucial point: nowhere in the community are women intentionally rejected. We should ask ourselves what causes women to decide that the community is not for them (whether before even trying or after some efforts to join).
2. This is obviously a chicken-and-egg process to which one will never find a single source. On average, women spend less time on computers, therefore are less advanced computer users, therefore are less inclined to join, therefore spend less time on computers, therefore etc, etc. (there are plenty of better descriptions around).
   I noticed there is a great tendency for people, especially male, to systematically shift the responsibility elsewhere (“but the girls just don’t want to study IT!”). Changing the imbalance is never going to happen if we don’t tackle the problem everywhere at once.
3. Some people believe the situation is simply not a problem, and argue that nobody should intervene. The argument goes that since free will is preserved, then it must be that free computing is a naturally masculine thing to do. This is often supported with a variety of arguments in the line of “Women are child-bearers, naturally (from birth) attracted to socializing, negotiation, human contact, and naturally (from birth) less attracted to technology and computers”. This is, from my experience, an argument brought up mostly by the privileged group, and I obviously disagree with it.
   It sprung into my face, while teaching several highschool classes last year (physics and chemistry), that girls were just as interested in technology and tinkering as boys. If the ideas above still echo in your mind, get in a school and spend time with kids.
4. I am not even willing to discuss the idea that women would be less naturally able to handle technology or computers. The idea is mostly found in various forms of humor — but it also transpires in real life (I can tell from feedback from a female airline pilot friend, as well as other situations). I find it not only stupid, but also insulting.
5. This is of course not about having nice-looking numbers, or politically correct policies. It’s not, either, about making “better software” with women, or even “communities that run better”. I view this as a question of ethics.

In any case, and independently of the above, we can do better, indisputably. Because, every time we buy horribly stereotypical toys for our kids, every time we laugh at the dumb-miniskirt-blond-woman “joke”, every time we make a sick sexual allusion to sell a server [comment], we label our community as “male-only”.

Now, can we do more? We can go on making empty statements on how discrimination is bad (sorry Jono), to which everyone obviously agrees. Or we can start really tackling things — but it’s hard, and requires caution all along, to not drift into the wrong side (for example, looking exclusively at numbers and discriminating entrants until satisfied).

I thought setting myself a simple set of guidelines would be a good start, and I published them on that website. Please join me in working towards making the community a place where gender doesn’t matter.