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Ubuntu Open Week - WIOS - Issues - Elizabeth Krumbach - Thu, Nov 5, 2009

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(03:01:35 PM) pleia2: Hi everyone! Welcome to the Ubuntu Open Week Session on the Ubuntu Women Project: Women in Free Software Issues
(03:01:53 PM) pleia2: My name is Elizabeth Krumbach. I currently work as a Debian and Ubuntu Systems Administrator for a Philadelphia-based Linux-centric technology services provider. I became involved in the Ubuntu Women project as soon as I found out about it in the spring of 2006.
(03:02:22 PM) pleia2: Aside from Ubuntu Women work, I'm a member of the Community Council. I'm currently heavily involved with the LoCo Teams projects, specifically with my own state of Pennsylvania and the greater work of the US Teams Mentoring program. I also work on the Ubuntu Community Learning Project (which I did an UOW session for Tuesday).
(03:02:53 PM) pleia2: On also I contribute upstream some as a Debian Package Maintainer and am the sysadmin for the Ubuntu Pennsylvania Team Linode.
(03:03:07 PM) pleia2: In this session I'm going to give a general introduction to the Ubuntu Women Project, explain why we feel such a project is important.
(03:03:26 PM) pleia2: Then we'll go into a Q&A session. Following this session Mackenzie Morgan will be hosting a session about ways to resolve some of the issues I will discuss - so if you have questions about actually solving the problems, I suggest you wait for her session :)
(03:04:05 PM) pleia2: So, I am going to start out by saying that I am not speaking for all women in F/OSS or all women Ubuntu, that would be impossible! The opinions of women inside and outside of the Ubuntu Women project vary widely.
(03:04:37 PM) pleia2: While discussing "Issues" I am drawing from my own experiences and experiences of other women within F/OSS communities that curb or prevent participation, these experiences are not shared by every woman who becomes involved, but do impact many.
(03:05:21 PM) pleia2: Now, to the resources! The official website for the Ubuntu Women project is http://women.ubuntu.com. From there you can get to all our other resources, including our Mailing list, Forums, Launchpad and Wiki.
(03:05:57 PM) pleia2: History-wise, the project was loosely founded on the forums and in IRC in the summer of 2005. It was extended by Vidya Ayer to mailing lists and a website, and became an official team in early 2006.
(03:06:34 PM) pleia2: Intitally it was modeled closely after the Debian Women (http://women.debian.org) project, but since their focus was primarily getting women to become Developers it quickly became apparent that the Ubuntu Women approach would have to have a much broader focus, encouraging women to be a part of every facet of Ubuntu.
(03:07:03 PM) pleia2: Before I get into the details of why we have the project, I want to emphasise that we have a very serious committment to not being separatist or exclusive.
(03:07:39 PM) pleia2: If you join our IRC channel, mailing list or forums you'll find both men and women involved in the project. We have no gender requirement placed upon our members, anyone who is interested in getting more women involved is welcome to join us, so please do!
(03:08:23 PM) pleia2: The main goal of the entire project is to get more women involved with the general Ubuntu community. As such, separatism would defeat the whole goal of this project.
(03:09:08 PM) pleia2: And really, the "#1 Bug" in the Ubuntu Women Project is the need for the project to exist. We would like to be able to dissolve the project in the future when more women are comfortable getting involved themselves.
(03:09:22 PM) pleia2: So, why do we feel this project is important?
(03:09:47 PM) pleia2: Simply put, those of us who are involved with Ubuntu Women believe that everyone has the potential be a valuable resource for the Ubuntu project and we should work to be inclusive and encouraging.
(03:10:15 PM) pleia2: We've chosen to focus upon becoming well-versed in the issues currently facing women specifically in the community so we can shape our project to cater to those issues.
(03:10:58 PM) pleia2: Does anyone have any questions about the premise of the project before I discuss what kinds of issues many women encounter?
(03:12:26 PM) pleia2: ok, I'll move on then... What are these issues?
(03:12:42 PM) pleia2: We don't want to dwell on the past because we want to move forward in a positive and encouraging way, but for the record, there have been a few incidents which have caused women within the project to either leave or pull back involvement, these are documented here: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Ubuntu
(03:13:31 PM) pleia2: Looking at these incidents by themselves may not seem like much, but the culture within F/OSS is such that such incidents compound an already very male-dominated space where as a minority many women feel uncomfortable.
(03:14:23 PM) pleia2: This discomfort comes from a variety of things, but frequently stems from being (or feeling like) you're the only woman in a room/project/irc channel/etc
(03:14:42 PM) pleia2: As much as I love and appreciate the men I work with on projects, it's comforting to not be the sole representive of a minority within a community :)
(03:15:44 PM) pleia2: Many women in F/OSS also frequently receive tongue-in-cheek marriage proposals from strangers upon learning they use Linux (it's not really that funny, we've heard it before, and at this point it's off-putting), among the frequently less flattering comments asking for pictures or assumptions being made about your looks.
(03:16:56 PM) pleia2: Many have been exposed to situations where they were part of an audience at an event where the speaker or audience member makes remarks assuming the audience is all male (please, please don't start another presentation at a tech event with "welcome, gentlemen!")
(03:17:38 PM) pleia2: There are often assumptions being made that you're attending an event as a "just a girlfriend or wife" rather than an actual contributor - and then there is the resulting shock when people learn you're actually involved.
(03:18:57 PM) pleia2: And in some cultures, there is still a stigma against women holding leadership positions, so even in F/OSS a vocal minority of detractors may make it difficult for women in these areas. Even with support from much of the team, these detractors are exhausting and cause many women to avoid getting too involved.
(03:20:07 PM) pleia2: There is also an atmosphere in a lot F/OSS projects that's a bit like a men's locker room, or a boys club where crude and sexist behavior is the norm (I don't see much of this in Ubuntu itself, but it is an image within F/OSS that we need to combat)
(03:20:36 PM) pleia2: All this boils down to is a culture where you are not only a minority, but you're constantly reminded that you're a minority and when you start being unsure about your committment? It makes it that much easier to give up, or not even start getting involved at all!
(03:20:53 PM) pleia2: < highvoltage> QUESTION: I've followed some of the geekfemism conversation, and it seems to mostly focus on what not to do and negative things that people have done, wouldn't it be more effective focussing more on things that do work well and showing why equality is beneficial to all?
(03:21:19 PM) pleia2: That's why maco is doing a whole session following mine on Encouragement and how to Do It Right :)
(03:22:48 PM) pleia2: So there are few women in F/OSS, you wouldn't believe what a relief it was for me to join Ubuntu Women so I could share experiences and have a network of support from people who understood these challenges.
(03:23:15 PM) pleia2: any questions regarding these issues?
(03:25:06 PM) pleia2: so I'll be pre-emptive about one question we tend to get
(03:25:15 PM) pleia2: Why isn't there an Ubuntu <insert minority>?
(03:25:31 PM) pleia2: Because no one has created one yet! The Ubuntu project is very open to other sub-groups like Ubuntu Women if there are people who feel a need to create it. Yes, #ubuntu-men exists, but for some reason nobody ever feels the need to hang out there.
(03:25:53 PM) pleia2: And we understand that not everyone shares in these viewpoints, methods or goals, which is really a great thing about F/OSS - you don't have to. And if you're sincerely interested in getting involved we're always open to constructive discussion.
(03:26:31 PM) pleia2: One of the things we're working hard to do is have #ubuntu-women be a place where women can come and feel comfortable, as well as others within the project joining us to engage in thoughtful discussion on the issues within the community
(03:27:20 PM) pleia2: This is a delicate balance, and one that is a continuing challenge, but we have a really great team of folks from throughout the involvement spectrum of Ubuntu
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