Society -did- discriminate back then. I was in south africa, I guess, not exactly progressive, but, well, there were zero females in the programming/computer related classes. It was Frowned Upon(tm). They were relegated to the cooking/baking/sewing. Very sexist, I know. But that was 15 years ago. Look at it now! The ratio has evened up to a great deal, and many classes are almost equal in terms of male/female ratio.

This means that in 5-10 years time we might see a boom of female developers, and I expect the ratio to improve as the discrimination becomes a thing of the past. Its still going to be prevalent in cultures that still have that discrimination (you aint going to see female programmers coming out of Iran any time soon) but I really do think its a shadow of the past, not a problem of the present.

Melissa has been trying for sometime to raise awareness for issues which she(and doubtlessly many others) sees as being the “cause” for the pathetic levels of female participation in F/OSS projects.

It should be noted that the levels of female participation in F/OSS varies greatly from one language/nationality to the next-in Brazil there are high levels of female participation, in America female participation in F/OSS is so low that it is barely separable from the noise-factor of the margin of error in the studies made.

Melissa sees the “cause”- she identifies and redresses it,pointing towards behaviors which “cause” women to be absent.

The general gist of these causal behaviors is:

they are performed by males
(not exclusively but by and large)

they involve sexist(jingoistic) vocabulary, jokes, and witticisms which render women in a insulting/perjorative light.

The main thrust of the argumentation boils down to this: If men did not engage in these behaviors, then women would be present in much larger numbers.

There are a lot of issues with such an argumentation in general. I don’t wish to fully articulate here where these problems lie. Rather I wish to point out the identifications(equivocations) which actively undermine the goal sought in pursuing such argumentation.

Firstly if one identifies “sexism” as being the “cause” then any comment which has anything to do with sex can and will, inevitably(by some at least), be seen as a behavior, engaged in by a sexist, aiming towards sexist exclusion-ie. discrimination.

The effect of such identification is taboo-ization. Certain topics become taboo, for engaging in certain topics means engaging in sexist behavior.

In a community blog where no reference is made to sex there is no discrimination right ?

Look beneath the surface: if the supposed “cause” of the absence of women in F/OSS is the prevalence of sexist behaviors then the absence of said sexist behaviors should invariably “cause” women to participate in F/OSS. But if certain behaviors become taboo, behaviors which are acted out publicly, then these behaviors will become more virulent because they are not aired, not on public display, not visible and identifiable.

If men can’t comment on anything related to sex without being attributed sexist behavior then women can’t either-ie. double standard ?

But if someone wishes to call attention to sexist behavior how can they do so without that which they wish to say being related to sex, which itself is a sexist behavior, which is aimed towards sexist exlusion, ie. discrimination ?

The igasm is a sex toy-in one sense it is a palpable example of “objectification of sex”. The objectification of sex, is one of those behaviors engaged in by those wishing to discriminate. Anyone who comments on such is engaged in OO programming: the objectification of sex is itself becoming an object, being objectified, ie. second order object, and is accompanied by second order behavior.

At this point the equivocation and identification becomes absolute-only a sexist could comment on something so sexist.

To summarize:

There are a multitude of issues at work behind the phenomena of the incredibly low participation of women in F/OSS. Identifying sexist behavior as the cause of this leads invariably to a witch hunt in which any and all things said are evaluted in terms of their identity with that which is being sought, ie. one is looking for an example(behavior), looking for that which is the cause, finding the example(behavior) means finding the person, the space between eliminating the behavior and eliminating the person is vague and undefinable-because, well, it`s the same difference.

A community which cannot joke about sex is simply not mature.

A community which is governed by a taboo which only allows for any comment relating to sex in the form of appeals to end sexism is a community where people do not feel free to act as they are-in a community of paid employees this is normal-you are not being paid to be who you are, yet in a community of free contributors this identification, speaking as you are, is the actual economy itself-hence why those who feel wronged on this issue simply get up and walk away.

The issue of sexist discrimination will not go away by tabooizing the topic of sex. To the extent that the only legitimate reference to the topic of sex is to appeal to ending sexist discrimination this system will auto-regulate itself-perpetuating the taboo, hiding the bevahviors, and burying the problem-instead of solving it.

The real issues at work behind the low levels of female participation in F/OSS are much more mundane, probably even boring-as opposed to a classic good gal vs. bad guy. I suspect that a healthy dose of female economic pragamatism can more fully explain the phenomena at hand that sexist behaviors-but such is infinitely more difficult to solve, and such cannot be solved inside the community.

In Brazil F/OSS is tightly linked with left, progressive social ideologies of emancipation and liberation-engaging in F/OSS actively helps the poor and disenfranchised-immediately, whereas in the US these benefits are primarily secondary-I suspect that only where the results are immediately tangible are they sufficient to outweigh basic common sense economic pragmatism.

Whereas there are some cultural elements involved in these issues they play a different role as has been portrayed thus far. Melissas’ response is easily identified as being prudish. But this is not the case. Her response is a function of the equivocating logic of identity at work in the identification of the cause of that which she seeks to struggle against. To the extent that such equivocational logic of identity is at work in the discourse of sexism in the US society, the US will appear prudish, which logically is the reason why the US has the largest porn industry in the world.

I am just left wondering how many of those who attack others for sexism and who never, ever speak of sex publicly, end up at night wearing leather and lack…what is shown is not me, what is hidden is mine…..

Any decision you take will affect users and colleagues, and we expect you to take those consequences into account when making decisions.
In response to this question. For those not familiar with the issue, here.
To be honest, the associated party&#8217…

People can post anything they like in their blogs, say anything they want to other people and engage in whatever activities they feel like providing that they’re not participating in the Ubuntu community while doing so – something that the CoC makes clear. I think it’s pretty clear that posting to Planet is an example of that participation. Most blog software allows you to provide different feeds depending on tags, so it’s pretty easy to separate out stuff that might be inappropriate.

Also, I belive planet is an aggregation of personal blogs from people that participate in the Ubuntu community. These people should use common sense, of course, but still it’s their own personal blog. It really annoys me when people criticize what others post on their blogs (usually it’s “who cares about your life, I read planet to read about ubuntu/gnome/debian/whatever”).

I think it’s reasonable to expect people to respect the CoC when they’re being confronted on Ubuntu’s IRC channel, but I can’t see how it should apply to what people do on their blogs.

I can understand why he did not want to work with people with such behaviour any more.

It’s a simple toy not pictures of a massacre or a hardcore porn.

right now I’m really disappointed and would like to know about the CC’s opinion on this matter.