On Tue, Dec 14, 1999 at 03:29:31AM +0000 or thereabouts, Kirrily 'Skud' Robert wrote:
[Caitlyn wondered if we were as many as 10% of the total Linux users]
> Um, I was counting the people who, while not having Linux as their
> primary OS, may use a Linux-based system for web serving, samba, etc at
> work. Plus people who use their husbands/partners/etc systems to get
> online, but who don't "identify" as as a Linux user.
>
> The last place I worked (a large university's computer centre) had about
> 10% female linux users.
>
> Also, I'm seeing about 3-5% at conferences and user groups. I'm
> imagining that there are a lot of others hidden due to having other
> priorities than attending linux/unix/opensource activities (eg family,
> social life, etc).
>
> I'd say 10% of people who use Linux or Open Source regularly are female,
> but that a smaller proportion self-identify as linux users and involve
> themselves in the linux community.
>
> How does that mesh with what other people have seen?
When I saw the 10% figure I wondered, too :) You may be right about
the number of women who just aren't visible - one of the things I
love about linuxchix is that so many more have become visible to me
through it - but Australia must have many more women attending
conferences than has this side of the world.
I've been to quite a few now, ranging from small events put on by
LUGs to larger events with several thousand. And I would have put
the proportion of women who have attended those as much nearer 1-2%,
averaging out the numbers over the years. Even if you were to count
the women working on stands and stalls (I am coming to hate the phrase
'booth babes', but that's how they are commonly described, grrr), it
would still be low.
That's for big events, though. There's plenty of LUGs in the UK but
I have no idea how many women attend LUGs. The numbers might be
different there.
Since getting to more of these things I do look at the crowd (crowd!
yea!) to see what it consists of, just from idle curiosity. One thing
that I've noticed recently is a much wider mix of people, which I
think is cool. And we're now able to book bigger halls which have
things like sensible disabled access (well, crap disabled access,
but at least more than before) compared with the small rooms in buildings
we used to have, and people who simply couldn't get physical access
to a room at the top of the stairs can now wander around an event
floor. I do remember giggling at one show where the techie and business
crowds, who were clearly identifiable, began to overlap for the first
time: it looked so incongruous.
Anyway, amidst all that noticing (nosing, if you prefer), I still don't
see that many women. I'm sure you're right that more of us exist than
attend shows. There's lots of things I do in my life where I don't
attend the related events. Linux is surely the same for others. But
I'd have said fewer than 5% of the attenders at a show are female.
On the subject of the FAQ, I suppose you could say, "Estimates by
different members of the list vary from (lower number) to (higher
number)" :)
Telsa
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