Free-ish Software [dot] Org!

I pointed out an article on Mashable which I found both interesting and uplifting yesterday, on five programs which are introducing young women, some as young as middle school, to computer science. I commented that it was a real shame that, for all the obvious problems and all the talk, neither the FSF nor the GNOME Foundation seem to have the slightest involvement in anything like this.

I commented further, as I have before, that it's an even greater shame that a "free software community" whipping boy like Apple does so much better than the community does in reaching out to women. (In fact, when you see some of the commentary which ensues whenever this issue gets raised, you'd think a lot of people had a hard time distinguishing between "outreach" and "reach out and touch someone, whether they like it or not". Where's their sense of humor, anyway?)

One well-known (around here, anyway) "free software advocate" and "FSF Community Response Team" member feels that the whole thing is somehow complete mythology, and sets out to "debunk" this gross misunderstanding pretty much the entire rest of the world, as well as several studies, seems to have.

He claims that Apple, which he supposes might get a thousand resumes a week, rather than actually looking at them, simply puts them "on file" and then picks some semi-random sample consisting of an equal number of resumes from men and women. In contrast, an organization which didn't feel obligated to be an "equal opportunity employer" would simply start looking at the top of the stack and stop as soon as they had as many candidates as they needed, presumably completely ignoring the rest.

Here's his "description" of how he imagines it works:

Here is an excercise [sic] to get the concept into your head. Say you normally receive 1000 resume’s [sic] a week and you need to pick the best. You are likely to pick based on first come first serve, and then check their qualifications and then hire them if they are qualified to do the job.

However if you are a Equal Employment Opportunity employer you cannot do this. You can’t pick based on first come first serve. Your company policy requires an equal workforce so you’ll simply have to put most of the resumes on file. The practice discriminates against hiring men because there are already ‘too many’ if there are more than 50% of them in the company despite the fact that computer science graduates aren’t 50/50 men and women.

First off, this is dead wrong: Apple doesn't demand that women be represented at 50%, nor does it insist that a women be hired for every man hired. It does insist that managers demonstrate that they are screening, interviewing, and—when appropriate—hiring women, and members of other underrepresented-in-the-workplace groups. The representation of women in my engineering team at Apple at the time I was there was between 25 and 30%—just a bit higher than the norm for engineering there. (Apple's average in engineering positions when I was there was between 20 and 25% women, and Apple is high for the industry as a whole.)

Apple probably receives closer to a thousand resumes on every business day, and someone takes a look at every single one. Pre-screening is done in HR, but if there's a possibility of a fit—and I can testify to the occasional frustration stemming from the gap between what HR considered a "fit" and what I did—the resume is forwarded to a hiring manager. And a hiring manager at Apple is expected to provide concrete, written feedback to HR on each and every resume they're given. If you don't want to interview someone, you're expected to say why. Neither "It was late and I was tired" nor "This resume is too far toward the bottom of a large stack" constitute acceptable feedback.

Our debunker seems to be unable to get the fact that, generally speaking, discrimination of one sort or another against women is the norm, in practical terms. They tend to get hired less often into technical positions, and when they are hired, they tend to get paid less.

Making sure that HR is seeking qualified candidates who might be underrepresented in some way, that managers are aware of their responsibilities in creating an "equal opportunity" environment, and that everyone understands that sexism, racism and the like are not funny is what Apple does to improve things.

The fact that this provides absolutely no explanation whatsoever for the huge disparity between representation by women in proprietary software, at around 20%, and the representation of women in FLOSS, at under 5%, seems to have escaped this luminary of the FSF Community Response Team. Since there's no "interview" process, and no one submits resumes to take part in "free software" projects, how is it that women are so under-represented...?

Sadly, there's nothing that responds to that at all: just the assertion that Apple is discriminating against men, and the repeated assertion that (appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, presumably) the writer really loves women! Really.

He just doesn't care if they don't want the first thing to do with the "free software community", apparently.

While the FSF is having their mailing list, and discussing logos, and the GNOME Foundation is talking about similarly effective means of women's outreach, some people—thank heavens—are actually doing something to get women involved with computers, and, at least as importantly, showing them that they are competent, they are capable, and they are welcome.

Looking forward as I am to being around the GUADEC conference in Den Haag this year, I'm wondering what sort of sexist crap might be passed off in the guise of "gentle humor" this year. I will bet any amount of money that the percentage of women present at the conference is well under 10%.

And that is an ongoing shame to the community.

Discussion of Richard Stallman's comments at GCDS last summer made a reappearance on the GNOME foundation-list, thanks to Patryk Zwardawski's claim that the proposed Code of Conduct for speakers was "defined to stop RMS from making jokes".

I thought the following anecdote, provided originally in a comment on my blog entry about my emails to Stallman on the incident was telling. Here's a woman who had an interest in free software, and was turned away by Stallman's not only singling her out for completely unwelcome attention, but—incredibly—gesturing in her direction when he brought up "EMACS virgins".

"Member of the Church of EMACS have a Holy Duty to relieve [such women] of their virginity". And there she is, boys!

Hi, I'm a technically-proficient woman who was interested from a young age in building a career in the free software industry. My interest is still there, but I've since abandoned the idea of it as a career move and switched to network security (where I work with both free and non-free software). I grew up wanting to design and write operating systems that did cool stuff and that everyone could use and share.

Then I got involved in the local "scene" and was driven off by the rampant dismissal of female programmers and blatant, unapologetic sexism shown to me by BOTH the men and women in the industry and hobby. Being constantly objectified and treated as second-rate simply because I had breasts instead of a beard wore me down and I eventually abandoned all of the projects I was involved in to focus on security. Going to an RMS talk in the early 90s and meeting with him in person was among the worst of my experienced - I was fifteen, still obviously underage, and skipping gym class to hear him speak at a professional conference (that I'd snuck into). He actually pointed to me in the back and proclaimed, into the mic, "A GIRL!" causing the audience to turn and look. Mortifying. Then he proceeded to gesture toward me every time he referred to "EMACS Virgins." (I cannot believe that he is still doing the same talk 10+ years later.) I was young and terrified of calling out someone that I'd previously idolized.

The sexism on display in his talks and in these comments are the precise reason as to why there aren't many women in free software to speak up, and the awkward gender ratio and propensity for male nerds to shout down any opposition makes it even more difficult to do so.

So, that's what I've been talking about all this time. And some significant people are beginning to agree, and they're saying so.

Many still aren't. "Free Software Advocate", FSF Community Response Team member, raging homophobe and woman-hater Brandon Lozza in particular has been making much of my statement that Richard Stallman's "harmless little joke" was tantamount to advocating rape (although he's completely distorted the statement to claim that I accused Mr. Stallman of rape, but Brandon's not terribly bright...)

We've had an incident of sexual assault at a Linux conference within the past couple of weeks. Why are we turning a blind eye to Mr. Stallman's continued defense of his idea of "gentle humor"? Someone needs to explain that "women's outreach" isn't like "reach out and touch someone". Certainly not without their consent.