

The Ada Initiative: Salaries for women to participate in open source - bryanlarsen
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/428075/3824bdd3ce2f7151/

======
yummyfajitas
I wonder why women are so unwilling to contribute gratis to the world's
informational commons?

I used to think the reason women didn't contribute to open source was simply a
lack of relevant skills - programmers are primarily not women. But Wikipedia
exhibits a similar disparity, and I seriously doubt there is a skill gap in
writing neutral point of view articles on every topic. The data on wikipedia
strongly suggests my skills hypothesis is wrong.

An interesting empirical question: do women contribute to open source
proportionately to their involvement in programming for pay? A quick google
search finds weak evidence [1] that they do not:

<http://www.oscon.com/oscon2009/public/schedule/detail/10173>

[http://infotrope.net/2009/07/25/standing-out-in-the-crowd-
my...](http://infotrope.net/2009/07/25/standing-out-in-the-crowd-my-oscon-
keynote/)

If not, then that might indicate a more general phenomenon: women are less
willing [2] to contribute (gratis, at least) to the informational commons than
men. It's an interesting question, and I'd love to see more data/speculation.

[1] This is the only primary source I've found. A number of other secondary
sources cite this one.

[2] Wikipedia demonstrates the issue is not skill. Women's contributions to
Facebook strongly suggest the issue is not free time. The ATUS also suggests
time is not a factor - women have about as much free time as men (men spend
8.1 hours/day on work related, household and care providing, women spend 7.85
hours/day). <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t08.htm>

~~~
huertanix
To offer a possibly way oversimplified theory: In a typical workplace, sexual
harassment and random acts of male chauvinism are constrained by corporate
culture, so at least from my experience, women can be somewhat comfortable
being themselves as paid programmers.

From my experience in open source projects, the number of trolls trolling is
quite a bit higher, especially when the primary channels for communication are
mailing lists and IRC, which people have an easier time being trolls on due to
anonymity and lack of face to face interaction. Not having a boss to yell at
trolls for trolling or not having the possibility of getting cockpunched for
saying something stupid might be another factor.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Is there a lot of sexual harassment/chauvinism on wikipedia also?

Personally, I've observed vastly more sexist/chauvinistic behavior on Facebook
(where women seem quite happy to contribute) than on OSS mailing lists, but
that may just be an artifact of the people I interact with.

Another question: can anyone think of other free/for-pay intellectual
activities which do/dont exhibit a gap? We can compare OSS to paid
programming, Wikipedia to Demand Media, are there other comparisons of this
sort one can make?

------
acangiano
All these initiatives to help women in tech, make me ponder if the same
courtesy is extended to men in fields dominated by women. Is there the same
desperation to attract new male recruits? The same incentives? For example,
does anyone know of similar initiatives to increase the number of male
elementary teachers or nurses?

~~~
grhino
The organizations, communities behind those female dominated fields need to
feel there is a value in increasing their representation of the male
perspective.

I don't think communities feel that nursing or elementary school teachers are
missing out on the male perspective.

Society is still exploring how to handle the wide variance in what individual
women and men want to do with their lives, what men as a group and women as a
group are culturally interested in doing, and what men as a group and women as
a group are innately interested in doing.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Apart from a few activists, I don't think computing communities feel we are
missing out on a female perspective [1]. But for some reason, this attitude is
often a point of criticism by the activists. Why is that?

(Incidentally, nursing does need men - a lot of men are uncomfortable having a
woman assist them in personal care activities. More male nurses = increased
patient satisfaction.)

[1] Near as I can tell, the only place we could possibly be missing out is in
some UX fields, and even there it seems that empirically-minded men are doing
a good job (see: Facebook, Zynga, Apple).

~~~
sp332
You are definitely suffering from a lack of female perspective :-) Women are
raised with different priorities and different habits of mind, different
strengths and mental and emotional tools.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The communities that don't feel male teachers/nurses are important are
definitely suffering from a lack of male perspective. That's the point I'm
making - the moment you flip the genders in grhino's argument, you immediately
get objections.

(That said, in general I don't think gender balance matters much. Either
women's different priorities/habits/strengths result in them producing good
code, or they don't. It's only in unusual cases involving human interaction
where it actually matters - e.g., doctors/nurses working on your privates.)

~~~
grhino
There are organizations that specifically encourage men to join nursing.

[http://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-receives-
recognition-e...](http://dukechronicle.com/article/duke-receives-recognition-
encouraging-male-nurses)

------
zeteo
"The Ada Initiative—named for Countess Ada Lovelace, the world's first woman
open source programmer..."

Or rather, the world's first programmer, who was also a woman and open sourced
her programs.

------
slayer
Some research shows that the majority of OS core developers are FT paid
employees, not volunteers: <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1248869>

In addition, there's research showing that OS culture is both explicitly and
implicitly unfriendly to women: <http://www.ncwit.org/cultureos>

------
radu_floricica
From what I understand at a cursory glance the salaries are meant to be for
the members of the organization, not for programmers working on open source
projects (which would be a bad idea for so many reasons...)

~~~
bryanlarsen
"It is clear from the FAQ that TAI hopes that fundraising will provide the
financial resources to allow the organization to dig into projects that are
difficult or impossible for all-volunteer organizations to take on."

This implies to me that it will actually pay programmer salaries. Why would
this be a bad idea? Most open source software is developed by developers paid
to do so.

Secondly, I certainly hope that Valerie Aurora does more than administer the
project. I want my union mounts!

~~~
sciurus
I think when they use the words project and program to describe their work,
they don't mean software. Their focus seems to be on "helping women get
careers in open technology through recruitment and training programs for
women, education for community members who want to help women, and working
with corporations and projects to improve their outreach to women."

The initiatives they have listed so far are

* Development of guidelines and policies to encourage women’s attendance at conferences, recruitment of women to your company, and participation of women in community projects. * Workshops to train community members and employees on practical skills for encouraging women. * Public relations advice for developing and maintaining a women-friendly reputation. * First Patch Week, a week in which companies and communities sponsor open source software developers to mentor women while they write and submit their first patch. * Women in open technology and culture survey, a survey of a representative cross-section of projects and communities to develop a baseline for measuring progress in women’s participation. * Improving women’s participation in Wikipedia and other open data projects.

This seems very different from, and more valuable than, paying programmer
salaries.

