Helen Faulkner wrote:
I wasn't assuming that. I'm technically not that bad myself. That's
not the point. The point is that *on average* I believe a woman is
going to feel less confident about this stuff than a man with similar
skill. Do you have anoher suggestion as to why women don't get
involved in debian, given that, as you point out, there are people out
there with the skill to do so?
This kind of situation also applies in the other field I know
something about - academic physics. Same thing - male dominated
field, where most women feel less confident of their skill than their
male colleagues. Especially when they are starting out in the area and
haven't gained much experience yet (eg postgraduate students). It has
nothing to do wih their actual level of skill. It's something else,
and in my experience (I've talked to lots of people in different
institutions and countries), it's so widespread as to be almost across
the board.
Being very frank here, I *really* do not think that changing the social
demographic is in any way related to the Debian project. People either
think they can or they think they can't join Debian.
Currently most of the developers in the western world are men. Currently
most of the new teachers in the USA are women. DPL can't be asked to
change that. [Normal] Governmental policies can't even change that.
So in a nutshell, I think that this point in moot. DPL can't really
affect the DD demographics - it is up to the actual societies (ie. the
world *outside* Debian and GNU :)
- Adam
PS. Just a small note; since the Internet is rather anonymous, if a
woman would feel apprehensive in posting a bug report, whatever, due to
the fact the she may be identified as a women, well, just change the
name to 'Bob' or something. No one will know!
