howto
I recently read Val Henson’s HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux. The article, aimed at men, has been around for several years, but despite this, few people I’ve met have read it. When suggesting the article to others, I often hear the same protestations and justifications for not reading it: “Oh I don’t need to read it. It’s not interesting to me. It’s not relevant to me. I’m not sexist. I know how to deal with women who are interested in Linux. Look, I even date one.”
Actually, I disagree. You do need to read it. You may not think of yourself as sexist, you may not think the article is relevant to you, it may not be as interesting to you as reading your lastest email from Famous Dude who took you under his wing and became your mentor because “you reminded him of himself at that age,” and you may be dating a woman who develops Linux. But these things don’t preclude you from reading the article.
Don’t assume that you won’t learn something from it—perhaps something that you didn’t realise was sexist, a different interpretation of an action, a viewpoint you hadn’t previously considered. Hell, I, learnt something from it and I am a woman involved in Linux development—you’d have thought I might “know it all” by now. Furthermore, if you recognise some of your own behaviours, try to resist the temptation to dismiss the article or justify how, in your case, making that invitation to “mount your partition” is different and just a funny joke. Continual revaluation of our own behaviour and opinions is no bad thing, but it does require courage.
April 8th, 2005 at 3:04 am
I read through the article. As a guy who goes out of my way to read about/understand sexism & male privilege it amazes me how often I find sexist remarks in Linux chat rooms. How often a woman is treated as *other*, and as stated in the article, as “an object of desire.” I, personally, find it so disgusting and I do call it out. First the guilty party calls me a “feminazi” of course, and then when they find out I’m not a woman they call me a “fag” or some other term to *attack* my masculinity.
When I first heard about LinuxChix I was so happy. Glad to see a space for women to express themselves, for themselves without the glaring eye of sexist men.
All my support,
Julio
April 8th, 2005 at 4:51 am
I would have to say that I honestly quit computer science because of sexism. An equally important reason is that I just didn’t want to troubleshoot people’s computers at every since social occasion I was present at. As Fred and I both worked at the same job pretty much with the same job description, I got to see first hand exactly how differently I was treated. Right down to my hourly wages. It was more or less the same situation at school, and I decided that I wanted to deal with computers only by myself at home, in my own personal time.
I have yet to face sexism in my current field of accounting.
Thanks for linking to the HOWTO.
April 8th, 2005 at 4:52 am
The write-up is excellent. Reading it again refocused my mind and gave certain insights. It is of great use when it comes to introspection.
April 8th, 2005 at 5:45 am
Sam, have you read “Women Don’t Ask”? Your mention of salary (and other) differences for men and women doing the same job reminded me of it. I’m reading it at the moment, and I’m continually amazed. I’d definitely recommend it.
April 8th, 2005 at 6:58 am
Ooh, I’m expecting “Women Don’t Ask” to arrive from Amazon any day now. Looking forward to it!
Your explanation of why many men should read the article is wonderful. I hope they get it.
April 8th, 2005 at 7:16 am
I wish I had more time to expound upon this. Maybe if I remember it in a week, I’ll write a longer disection of the HOWTO. Until then, I hope this is complete enough.
I was greatly disappointed by the HOWTO. The stated intent of the paper is a noble one; unfortunately, the steps presented are counter-productive and sexist on their own. Instead of saying “Linux geeks should be nicer to newbies,” it says “Guys should be nicer to women.” No. Either I can be an asshole to everyone or I can’t. To ask for different treatment for different genders is SEXIST, and when the stated goal is to minimize sexism, it becomes counter-productive.
The HOWTO is a mastubatory effort written by a group which defines itself by sexism: “the focus is on women and we attempt to maintain a female-dominated environment.” Great. If a man tried that he would immediately be jumped on as sexist and discriminatory; but in this case, the individuals are empowered (or some such crap).
The HOWTO ignores that women are just as guilty of reinforcing the stereotypes and sexism as men are; much of this cultural conditioning occurs in school where the majority of teachers are (wait for it) women. The paper encourages vulgarity but not “bitch”. It repeatedly asks not to be treated differently but then asks for special treatment–from the viewpoint of the article, it’s ok for me to be an ass, just not to women.
I know, the article is directed at women so of course it singles out behavior directed at women. However, the behavior being discussed often doesn’t have to do with man/women but more with bully/object. Instead of correcting the root causes which are not gender specific, the HOWTO pushes for gender specific remedies.
Eighty to ninety percent of the HOWTO can be summed up, “Don’t be an asshole. Be helpful.” That is something many people (man and women) in computing need to adhere to. And if we stick to it, I think you’ll find interest in computing increase by _everyone_.
April 8th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Where does it say in the article that it’s OK to be an ass, just not to women, brlancer? I didn’t see that bit.
Not all feminists believe in affirmative action. I do. I think that until we have a genuinely equal society, where both genders have role models for all kinds of careers and lives, we need to make systems that particularly encourage the gender that is underrepresented in a group. For instance, I think it’s important that my child have both male and female role models at school and preschool. Currently there are more female than male teachers for young children, so I support affirmative action that encourages men to study teaching and get jobs in daycare and primary schools. In those cases, I think it fair that if a man and a woman have equal qualifications, the man get the job, or that one decides that 40% of the positions are only for men.
Equivalently, I expect that in a male-dominated field, women should be particularly encouraged to participate.
When we have approximate equality in a field, I believe it will be self-replicating. One of the reasons many men don’t want to work in preschools is that they’ll be in a tiny minority. If there are 40% men in a preschool, it’s going to be a far more attractive environment for other men - and for women - to work in.
April 8th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
Hell, I, learnt something from it and I am a woman involved in Linux development
Me too.
I’ve pointed many people to this how-to, especially ones who think they already “know it all by now.”
April 8th, 2005 at 9:25 pm
Hanna: I have not read “Women Don’t Ask?” The local library appears to have a copy which I will borrow. Sounds like an interesting book.
April 11th, 2005 at 8:59 am
The love of my life is a Debian Linux user and technology journalist.
Interestingly she wrote an [spanish] article about this, that perhaps takes a different direction from popular discussions surrounding the topic.
http://www.lapetiteclaudine.com/archives/002244.html
As it’s in Spanish, I’ll translate and summarise:
Marta says that (from her experience) one of the real impediments to her own freedom of movement in technology related feilds has in fact been other women insisting that by virtue of being a woman she is automagically part of a struggling class, and thus has responsibility to wage change on innate sexism in the industry. She says that these attitudes, along with women specific technology interest groups and clubs strengthen divisional, bigotted assumptions and attitudes surrounding the technical capacities of women. Her advice is to simply get in there and prove yourself. She also realises this is not always possible in situations where employment is the offering, though notes that the Open Source movement has been a real freedom for her in this regard, as she is judged on the merits of her questions and contributions, not by gender. To take it further, she says there are real advantages to being a woman in a technology related field, whether on Debian lists or in Python development
threads she says she gets far more help than most others, evidence of a healthy culture of encouragement and openness in the field.
I don’t know how many of you agree with her views on this, but from my perspective as a male free-software developer, I certainly find her position refreshing - when she travels with me to conferences (or I to hers) we’ve never encountered shock or vocal differentiation due to her being a woman in a technology related field - in fact quite the opposite; welcoming interest and mutual nourishing. Perhaps things are a little different here in Europe I don’t know.
To make a point, couple of years ago she complained about being frustrated with the MacOSX interface, and was experimenting with SuSE at the time as an alternative. I showed her about 4 bash commands and now she’s blissfully happy learning on her own. I get slapped for doing things for her, all she ever wants is a good manual and advice when /*she needs it */ ;)
April 11th, 2005 at 9:35 am
It seems alot of what I summarized is spread across two articles, the second of which “Woe Man” is here:
http://www.lapetiteclaudine.com/archives/001960.html
April 12th, 2005 at 5:17 am
Julian–I’ve tried both Google and Babelfish, but the translations were…poor. I got the gist but if you can find solid translations, I’d love to read them.
Jill–I think the paper speaks for itself; every issue presented is how men should behave towards women. However, the presented issues are almost all universal: “Don’t be an ass.” Were the issues presented in that way, I would be championing the paper as a guidebook for schmucks the world over.
But it’s not. The paper treats these issues as unique to or especially relevant to women. They’re not. They’re universal. “Don’t be an ass.” Can’t be much more universal than that. The paper isn’t telling me I shouldn’t be an ass, it’s saying I shouldn’t be an ass toward women. It’s asking for special treatment. That’s crap. The problem isn’t that men are assholes to women; the problem is that *nix geeks are assholes to everyone, whether picking on gender, nationality, what school you went to, whether or not you went to school, what distros you use, or whatever. Fact of life, roll with it.
I believe Jill’s discourse on Affirmative Action is a red herring; aside from mentoring (and perhaps meeting location), it isn’t related to the HOWTO. While I could respond to the remainder of her post (I actually wrote one, then decided against posting it), it’s not relevant to the discussion at hand. The paper isn’t about affirmative action, it’s about bending over backwards to accomodate a group that doesn’t want to play the game at hand. Well, that and the other ninety percent that is just people being assholes to one another which is completely non-specific to women.
If a group of people wants to form a group specializing in the political and social ramifications of computing and specifically *nix, more power to them. If a group of women wants to get together and form a girls club with a “Boys allowed, but we’re in charge” sign on the door, they can kiss my ass. That’s not equal opportunity. I’d be just as pissed if the genders were reversed and so would anyone; that they aren’t in this case is hypocrisy. The HOWTO is reinforcing this hypocrisy and should be rewritten to be inclusive.
October 13th, 2005 at 11:23 pm
Hanna: I have not read “Women Don’t Ask?†The local library appears to have a copy which I will borrow. Sounds like an interesting book.
November 1st, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Just out of mad curiosity, have you ever dated at all in your life so far?