Women in Free/Open Source Software

Presented by Elizabeth Bevilacqua

What this talk is for

• Identifying the current situation of women in F/OSS
• Discussing ways this trend can be reversed
• Providing resources

Assumptions

• You want more women to be involved with F/OSS
• You are interested in learning about the problem
• You may want to help

Statistics

• An EC funded study (2006) summarized in the Flosspols report, indicates that about 1.5% of F/OSS community members were female:
  
  http://www.flosspols.org/deliverables/ FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.pdf
• This compares with the 28% in proprietary software
• The Ubuntu Census Survey (June 2006) also reflects a similar female ratio with 2.4% women actively volunteering in the Ubuntu community:
  
  http://www.eskar.dk/andreas/output/PersonalProfile.HTM

Why aren't women involved?

• Fewer Role Models and Mentors
• Advertising and popular media promote the idea that computing is for men
• Much of the reward from the F/OSS community comes from approval of your peers, sexist attitudes take away from this
• Many women feel uncomfortable as the "token woman" in a group - there just aren't enough!

Sexism

As much as we wish sexism was dead, it's not.

• Women involved with the F/OSS community are routinely "hit on" (many avoid this by using gender-neutral nicknames or just their initials)
• Many are guilty of addressing their community in this manner: "Hello Gentleman/Dudes/Fellas..." - if it's not obvious that you're female, the assumption is otherwise
• Sexist jokes particularly aimed at women are common and create a "boys club" feel to many F/OSS communities

Sexism hurts.

Reversing the Trend

• Projects such as KDE Women, Debian Women, Ubuntu Women and Gnome Women exist to attract women to their projects and F/OSS in general
• Authors of Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing from Carnegie Mellon University are working to develop programs for girls to keep them interested in computers
• LinuxChix seeks to unite women world-wide in a safe atmosphere with other women, connecting them so they feel less alone

What you can do

• Encourage girls and women in your life to use and contribute to F/OSS, don't underestimate their abilities!
• Treat women like normal people, don't be shocked by their presence
• Be friendly
• Don't tell sexist jokes
• Use an inclusive greeting when addressing a group
• Get involved with one of the -Women groups
• Read Val Henson's HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux: http://infohost.nmt.edu/~val/howto.html

-Women Group Resources

• Debian Women: http://women.debian.org
• Ubuntu Women: http://ubuntu-women.org
• Fedora Women: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Women
• Gnome Women: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen
• KDE Women: http://women.kde.org/
• Apache Women: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-women/

Other Resources

• LinuxChix: http://linuxchix.org
• Carnegie Mellon Project on Gender and Computer Science: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/index.html
• HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux by Val Henson: http://infohost.nmt.edu/~val/howto.html