Weblog entry #54 for dkg
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virginsremarks, we have another powerful leader in the Free Software Community making sexist remarks in a talk to developers (this time, it's Mark Shuttleworth). It's a shame that these two people have said stupid things that hurt their causes and their communities by perpetuating an unfriendly environment for women. And it's a bigger shame that neither leader appears to care enough about their community to issue a sincere public apology for their screwup (if i'm wrong about this, please point me to the apology — i've looked).
These guys are in a situation which is nowhere near as hard as writing good software or managing complex technical projects: if you make a stupid mistake, own up to it, apologize, and try not to make similar mistakes in the future.
Perhaps worst of all, are the remarkable number of unreasonably fucked-up comments on the blog posts discussing these unfortunate events. If you're in the habit of defending remarks like those made by RMS and Shuttleworth on the 'net, please take a minute and ask yourself a few questions:
- Do you think that the Free Software community today is overwhelmingly male (even by the standards of the male-dominated IT industry)? If not, thanks for playing. You are living in a fantasy world. Try some basic research.
- Do you think that the significant under-representation of women is a problem? Let's say there are about three answers here:
- Gender disparity in Free Software is a Good Thing
- If this is your position, please announce it explicitly so we all know. Just so you know: I don't want to be part of your all-boys club. You can stop these questions now, sorry to have bothered you.
- I don't really care about gender disparity in Free Software one way or the other
- You may not care; but a significant subset of the Free Software community thinks that it's a problem and would like to address it. Please keep this in mind as you go to the next question. Also, have you thought much about the idea of privilege and how it might apply to your situation?
- I think gender disparity in Free Software is probably a Bad Thing
- Great, glad we agree on that.
- People in our community have a problem with the current state of affairs, and point out some specific behavior that makes the bad situation worse. What should you do?
- Shout them down or attack them
- Gee, it sure is upsetting to hear people talk about problems in the community. It's almost as upsetting as getting bug reports about problems in our software. Shall we shout them down too? Maybe we should attack them! Condescension is also great. Those silly bug reporters!
- Argue them out of having a problem
- This just doesn't work very well. Someone has already volunteered to tell you about a problem that you hadn't noticed. You are unlikely to convince them that they were imagining things.
- Take them seriously
- Yes! It seems to be surprising to some commentators that this is not a witch hunt or a lynch mob (interesting that these terms often-used in defense of white men connote specific historical traditions of the exercise of male privilege and white privilege, respectively). Well-meaning people have respectfully raised good-faith concerns about the state of our community, and made very simple suggestions about what to do to make the community more welcoming to women: lay off the sexist remarks at conferences, apologize when some nonsense does slip through — we're all struggling with various kinds of internalized oppression, you won't be perfect — and try not to do it again. Why not listen to these people? Why not support them?
Please read the Geek Feminism wiki and blog. Even if you don't agree with everything on those sites (hey, it's a wiki! and a blog! you don't have to agree with everything!), people are at least trying to address the problem of sexism in our community there. Engage constructively and don't hide or ignore problems!
UPDATE: I've asked the site admin to remove some trollish comments. If you want to use the comments on this blog to announce something like "i'd like for free software to be a boys-only club", that's fine, i'd like to know who you are so i can adjust my perception of you accordingly. Anything advocating or excusing rape and/or murder is way over the line and is not welcome here. i'm sure you can find some other place to troll.
Comments on this Entry
While RMS didn't apologize (and I wish he would), the FSF did hold a "women in free software" mini-summit, run by women, to discuss the issues. So at least it appears that the FSF is taking the problems seriously.
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I don't know you, so please forgive me if you already know this... the fact that the women got together to discuss and process doesn't mean that the problem is taken seriously. It's a symptom of what always happens with racism or sexism: the victims take it upon themselves to heal or help fix the situation.
What is needed is more people being allies (like Daniel is doing here by writing this post- he doesn't deserve a medal for it, but it's important work). You could start by being an ally and saying "yes, I agree, this is a problem" instead of pointing and saying "but look, they're defending themselves".
Women don't need to discuss the issues, women are the ones being discriminated against, they already know what's happening.
Get my drift ?
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What would be really nice is if Shuttleworth and Stallman (not Stallman's embarrassed staff) could find the wherewithal to say, honestly and sincerely. that they were trying to be funny but have looked at what they said and at how it was received and realize that their words had the effect of marginalizing an already marginalized community within the Free world. And that they regret their choice of words, because they regret marginalizing anyone.
-Amanda
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i like the original post very much; I almost see it as an xkcd/toothpastefordinner style flowchart, with a number of side branches leading off to "please go get educated".
and i agree with Dorothy, above, who says that a FSF summit run by women doesn't really address the issues.
--Jeremy
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Err this is actually much more frequent than one would hope, _especially_ in Free Software, I'm afraid :( So it really should be unsurprisingly that this answer is more used than it should.
— Diego E. “Flameeyes” Pettenò
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What do we need to do as participants in a free software culture to encourage and engage active (and even activist) users?Making it clear that behavior like this is antithetical to the goals of the community would be a good step.
I find it interesting that someone like Shuttleworth could pioneer the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, which makes this sort of "don't be a jerk" expectation explicit (and even the, ahem Ubuntu Leadership Code of Conduct, which says leaders will "act with civility, respect, and trust"), and still not see how these ideas are relevant to his own situation.
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The real issue, to me, is that of the _ego_. The real problem is that of men not accepting that women being equal to them.
That's the reason why we do not have enough _leaders_ which are women, that's the reason why so many people are upset when women come to say what they believe about sexism in free software.
Now, I don't think asking RMS or any other guy to shutup of apologize will change anything. I even feel it's a sort of patronization when the one calling for that are actually male.
I would rather prefer to see another strong personality be a woman and stand up to say what she thinks with honnest (and perhaps crude) words too.
And woman _leaders_ promoted as _equal_, not someone that you care about its fragile sensitivity and want to be "respectful". And not only leaders of "woman in free software" projects (which I don't have anything against, of course), but leaders of the same projetcs as men..
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It would be very nice if men like RMS and Mark S. would grow up and take responsibility for their own behavior, but if they're too fragile I can understand.
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Even if it doesn't get through to the majority(I hope the sensible points do) right now, it shows a growing trend of it being on the forefront of discussion.
I hope someday it's the comments that are ignored; or rather the commenters themselves are ignored.
One day such comments will be made by obvious asshats(there's a reason Debian uses EGlibc), or ironically to remind us of how far we've come.
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But I tolerate "bigotry". Not in the name of an ideology of diversity but in the name of liberty and real tolerance.
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I'll be clear here: one of the goals i believe the Free Software community should have is to make sure that everyone can use Free Software for their work (hint: we're not there yet). One of the big stumbling blocks toward that goal is that we currently only do a good job at solving the problems of a subset of people. So how do we fix that? We should invite people into the community to share their viewpoints, to make sure that their needs are addressed, and to make sure that we can take advantage of a range of different perspectives.
So one plan for advancing that strategy is to call people out when the say or do damaging things, and to ask them to think about the consequences of their actions. If people take this seriously, and work to counter the persistent marginalization that large groups of prospective users and developers experience, that seems like it would help the advancement of Free Software, not hinder it. Your approach of "tolerating bigotry", on the other hand, just means that the community becomes an unwelcome, nasty place for everyone other than the people who happen to please most persistent, nasty, overbearing bigot. Not really a win for Free Software, is it?
Furthermore, i think you're mistaken to pull in the term "bigot" here in reference to the speakers of the original remarks. While anyone would agree that there are some bigots who regularly make comments on various platforms in this community, I actually haven't seen many people claiming that RMS or Shuttleworth themselves are "bigots" for their sexist remarks. I have seen the remarks themselves get pointed out repeatedly (and rightly) as sexist, though. People are asking RMS and Shuttleworth to apologize — why would anyone ask a known bigot to apologize for something the bigot by definition wouldn't actually be sorry about?
Rather, RMS and Shuttleworth have been asked to apologize precisely because the supportive community in general seems to think that these folks are not incorrigible sexist bigots, but rather good people who have slipped (as everyone does occasionally) in the face of typically sexist cultural attitudes that we've all internalized to some degree or another.
It seems to me that people demanding (or cheering) that RMS and Shutleworth not apologize are the ones who are really demanding that these two men lay public claim to incorrigible sexism, even in the face of the damage it does to the communities these leaders otherwise work hard to sustain.
I'm on the side of folks who prefer non-bigots as leaders, thanks. And if it pisses off a few bigots along the way toward encouraging the community as a whole to behave respectfully to one another, so be it.
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If there is a community here, then (like any community) some people probably feel very comfortable in it -- like they belong to it; and others may not feel very welcome at all.
You've publicly (though anonymously) stated here that you don't care whether women feel comfortable or welcome in the community. I'll take this opportunity to say (not anonymously) that i do want women to feel both comfortable and welcome in the community; going further, I want people of any gender to feel like this is a community of people they can belong to.
If that means we need to make some uh, intolerant jerks feel less comfortable or less welcome in the community, so be it. Intolerant jerks can always learn a little bit of empathy, and examine their prejudices and grow out of them, if they want to start feeling comfortable in the community again.
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If you have a problem with the way someone does things, then don't use their software. If it happens to be a GPL'ed project, and it comes down to the maintainer not accepting patches from certain genders/races/etc, then you can just fork it.
If the *women* in free software don't like what's going on, it's up to them to change it. In this day and age, all they really have to do is demonstrate that they have the same technical aptitudes & proficiencies as any man, and that should put the whole thing to rest for the next generation.
Also, any truly independent woman isn't going to want to watch passively while a knight in shining armor rushes to their rescue, anyway. That's taking a step backward, and if anything it's insulting and degrading to them.
For that matter, no one has even demonstrated that a 'damsel' is actually in distress here.
Those of us in the 'business' of free software should really stick to stamping those bugs. For the rest of you, I'd recommend a career in theater as a more positive outlet.
We don't need the political B.S. or the touchy-feely garbage detracting from our work.
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And i'm no knight in shining armor; i'm just a guy stating the obvious because it seems to be novel to a lot of folks in our community still. Unfortunately, the folks who don't get it yet, when faced with a post by a woman which draws attention to sexist nonsense, will often dismiss the woman's post with a range of typically sexist responses. Maybe those folks will listen to me a little bit since i'm not a "whiny" or "overemotional"?
In my original post, i've already pointed to other writing (such as the GeekFeminism blog and wiki) by women about the issue, if you'd prefer to read a woman saying (more clearly than i can) that these kind of sexist attitudes drive women away from our community. By all means, read them first and take them more seriously than you take me. They have a lot more experience and knowledge around confronting sexism than i do.
But listen: it's not only up to women to combat sexism; they confront and combat sexism every day, because our culture is still a sexist culture. They shouldn't have to, but they do. I think it's wrong, and i'd like to see it change even though i'm on the privileged side of this particular situation. Are you going to tell me that i shouldn't say anything about it? It's up to all of us to imagine what we want our community to be and to work toward that. Women are already marginalized by sexism. Why should it be their responsibility to explain it to you? Please re-read Amanda's comment above.
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I'm sick of those in mainstream media and in fact it causes the opposite effect.
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