On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 12:11:46PM +0000, Helen Faulkner wrote: > > > I agree with Ben that the problems are more subtle than overt. I have > never noticed overt sexism in my dealings with debian, though maybe I > haven't been looking awfully hard either. > > I think that on average, women are likely to be not so confident that > their skills will allow them to survive in an environment like debian, > compared to their male counterparts. I don't know why this is true, but > I experience it all the time. My only guess is that it's basically > cultural, and that it's deeply rooted even in someone who is generally > sure of her technical/learning skills, as I am.
I believe this is partly caused by the continuous mostly unmeant and unintentional, subtle and less subtle women-unfrienly behaviour by the male-dominated linux-community. Some interesting reading I stumbled upon in the past: Typical real-world story about how women are approached in Free/Open source environments: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2001/10/11/womhackers.DTL There is even a Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO: http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/index.html And the LinuxChix organisation is also a good resource for women interested in Linux, Open Source and Free Software: http://www.linuxchix.org I think that many men on this list if they read for example the mentioned 'HOWTO' (how silly its name may sound, it is quite insightful), will be pointed to the fact they do expose women-unfriendly behaviour from time to time, without realizing it. Hope this helps, --Jeroen -- Jeroen van Wolffelaar [EMAIL PROTECTED] (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357) http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl
