
Writing about FOSS sexism - fogus
http://www.linux-magazine.com/content/view/full/40376
======
jacquesm
I fully believe it.

Lots of the 'men' in open source really are just boys with digital toys.

Sure, plenty of us have girlfriends, wives and children. But a large number do
not, on /. one of the prevailing memes is that ./ers do not have a life
outside of their computing.

The attitudes towards women in general, especially potential girlfriends is
quite shocking.

Even on HN the stuff that comes by every now and then is beyond the pale, and
even more scary, it gets voted up, suggesting the majority feels that way.

~~~
ErrantX
I think it's compounded as well by the fact that a lot of "geeks" struggle
with being sociable, especially with women. In a lot of cases it really is not
sexism; they just don't "get" people full stop and sometimes don't even really
think about the concept that someone at the other end of the keyboard is a
person too. As a result they come across as highly arrogant or unfeeling (and
when talking to or about women as sexist).

I've noticed on the various forums I hang out a lot of the younger types have
that ingrained mild sexism that young boys usually have - only they cling to
it for just a little longer. It soon goes when they head off to college :D

EDIT( you know personally I find a large number of feminists as bad or worse
than sexist men - they all need throwing into a bag and shaking about a bit
:P)

------
tptacek
Actually insightful. The notion that people who do not believe themselves to
be sexist cannot detect ambient sexism rings true. I got in a bunch of fights
with Erin early in our marriage by professing a similar world view. It was
only when I watched her go out for IT jobs after staying home with the kids
for a couple years that I saw how bad it was; interviewers would, for
instance, ask who was going to take care of the kids if she was working.

It's also simply the case that there are fewer women in hard computer
disciplines (dev, hardware) than in some of the softer ones (support, SE, QA,
etc), which biases some people's expectations.

~~~
benhoyt
I'm wondering why it's sexist (devaluing one sex) to ask who is going to take
care of the kids. Isn't it quite possible it's concern for their family
situation (because work affects family)? A guy probably wouldn't be asked this
simply because it is much more common for the mother to look after kids.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if my wife were being interviewed and they asked
her this: "Does your husband work from home? We're just wondering if he's the
one who's going to look after your kids, because we're happy to be flexible
with your work hours if you need that. Even bringing the kids in here
sometimes would be fine."

~~~
wglb
Because they ask the woman that, not the man.

~~~
yummyfajitas
That doesn't necessarily imply the people asking are sexist. They might simply
be Bayesians.

~~~
jacquesm
You could not have made the point of the author of the article better than by
showing exactly how that comes about.

An employer does not have a right to ask that question of either partner. It
is a question concerning their private life.

If the question is _not_ sexist then it should turn out that it is asked as
much of guys as it is asked of women and it turns out that is not the case. It
ends right there.

No amount of 'buts' or other terms like that going to make that go away. The
condition is already satisfied, no need to inspect other variables to see if
we can change the outcome of the program, they are now irrelevant.

Imagine the reverse, if an employer would ask a guy: "I take it your wife is
home and looks after the children ?". My response would be 'none of your
business'.

You can safely assume that people are not going to leave their children
unattended, how they go about that is their problem, and none of your business
as an employer. No matter whether the person in front of you is male or
female.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The issue of whether employers can ask questions about one's private life is
rather orthogonal to the issue of sexism, no?

Not that it matters, but I agree that children, hobbies, drug use and sex
partners are not the business of my employer.

~~~
jacquesm
That's true, but the fact is that such a question would never be asked of a
guy. That is what makes it sexist.

After all, if it is none of the employers business when they're talking to a
guy why should that change when interviewing a woman ?

~~~
yummyfajitas
The employer may believe it is their business (regardless of gender), but that
the probability of a man missing work due to children is considerably lower
than a woman doing so.

Similarly, employers might ask reserve officers about service obligations,
while not bothering to ask them of civilians. They could do this not out of a
bias against military folk, but simply because reserve officers have a
considerably higher chance of missing work due to service obligations.

~~~
jacquesm
The interesting thing here is that as an employer you _really_ don't want to
go in to territory like that, because if you end up not accepting the employee
for the position you are open to legal action because of having asked such
questions during an interview.

Most larger corporations have a pretty long list of stuff that you have to
familiarize yourself with before being allowed to interview people
independently for exactly that reason. Or they'll have someone from HR
breathing down your neck during the interview.

Seriously, these questions are _off limits_. At all times.

An interview should concentrate on the applicants capabilities, suitability
for the job in terms of teamwork, qualifications and so on.

Go outside those boundaries on the asking side and you are in trouble.

If someone volunteers information like that and you use it to make your
decision better be ready to back it up with a 'real' reason or you are still
going to be open to trouble.

That's one of the reasons why rejection letters are such inane boilerplate,
most companies are loathe to tell you why you were rejected for fear of
opening themselves up to legal issues.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I didn't claim it was legal. I claimed it wasn't sexist/anti-soldier-ist.

~~~
jacquesm
Hehe, but it is!

Asking someone about their service status is done so that you can then choose
to _not_ employ that person to minimize your risk for absence, which would
lead to people in the service being less likely to get jobs, which in turn
would lead people to not want to be in the service because of the effect on
their job prospects.

Asking women about their private life (are you pregnant, do you want children,
do you have children) would cause professional women to maybe decide they
didn't want any children because of the effects that would have on their job
prospects, or to simply not apply for jobs. This would negate decades of slow
progress in getting the workforce to be reflective of society.

So, by definition it is discriminatory to ask these questions, the effect will
be discrimination, even if that is not the stated purpose of the question. An
employer could, and many do, for instance hide behind arguments like 'trying
to maximize productivity' or 'being worries about the children of the
employee', but none of that holds water.

At the end of the day the employer is simply worried that someone is going to
miss a couple of days work.

And it's true, there is a real cost to all this, if someone gets pregnant, has
to take care of their kids because they're ill or gets called up for the
service then the employer will have to find and train a replacement if the
absence is long enough, or swallow the loss in productivity for a shorter
interruption.

But the cost to that business does not trump the cost to society as a whole if
we let people pick and choose on those criteria, _that_ is why it is illegal.

~~~
ErrantX
_are you pregnant, do you want children, do you have children_

But they don't appear to have asked those questions :) (see my other comment)

Personally I do think it is reasonable, though, to ask whether a women plans
to have children in the immediate future (say, the next 18 months). It's
unavoidable that pregnancy does result in requiring time off (I've heard it
argued that a women planning to have children soon and applying for a job is
possibly defrauding her employer.... I don't agree with that but it is an
interesting way to consider it). They're not going to be missing a few days in
the office during a pregnancy - that is long term time off (usually). That's a
scientific and genetic fact; asking the question is, surely, fine (and it can
be refused to be answered etc.). Discriminating because of it is wrong; but
the employer may wish to know so they are aware they will have to find a
temporary replacement in the near future :)

I also am not sure why, if your faced with 2 candidates of equal ability you
cant choose the one (male or female) who is NOT actively planning to bear
children in the next year or so without being marked discriminatory etc.

------
Mz
Members of the in-group are often blind to subtle things that are very
exclusionary of members of the out-group. An example that doesn't bring racism
or sexism into this: I joined a forum some years ago where the owner routinely
lamented how he desperately wanted more international members. He was probably
one of the biggest offenders in terms of creating an exclusionary environment
that made foreigners feel unwelcome. One piece of the culture that was very
obvious to me as an exclusionary practice was the on-going joke that if you
were on the forum at certain times, you were a total loser with no personal
life. These were the same times that people in other time zones would be
available to be online (ie people in other countries).

At the time, I happened to be frequently up all night. I made it my goal to
actively root out this piece of forum culture and "set an example" about how I
was online all hours. About six months after I joined, membership began to go
up quite a lot -- but especially international membership. I'm sure that to
this day the forum owner has no clue whatsoever how that happened, even though
I have stated that I made it happen. I doubt I am believed.

~~~
srn
Second on unnoticed exclusionary behavior. Making sexist assumptions which are
"reasonable" because there are not many women in the field may very well be
self perpetuating.

------
billswift
Some asshole that I have never heard of writes "Raymond is not read much any
more"! With the general suckiness of the articles, I don't see any reason to
bother reading much more of Bruce Byfield. I just wish Raymond would actually
write more.

