[NBLUG/talk] SVLUG: Women in FLOSS

[Stephen Cilley]

> Also the built-in "network."  Many OOSgeeks do a lot
> of "what they do"
> in isolation -- other people & the typical "office"
> setting are actively
> destructive to their productivity.  While it's a
> GROSS generalization, it's
> also true (as a generalization, not about every
> woman) that women
> tend to be more social.  Geeks antigravitate away
> from corporate 
> environments.

First of all, it's not true that women are more social
than men, it's just that in our culture, men socialize
in a very different way from women.  Second, geeks are
especially social for men.  We don't tend towards
cliques as much as other types do, but just think
about the LUGs, the various types of conventions, the
mailing lists, the chatrooms, the BBSs, etc.  We tend
to communicate in atypical media, but that doesn't
mean we don't communicate.  I mean, think about this,
we're talking about trends in the FLOSS *community*.
Another thing she (the presenter) talked about was men
tend to play up their individual achievements and self
sufficiency, whereas women are more likely to share
credit.  She gave an example of two people who had the
exact same experience but gave completely different
anecdotes.  The man said, "So I installed linux and
then hacked for the next three weeks straight, that's
how I learned." and the woman says, "My father gave me
a book with a cd of SUSE in the back and then my
sisters and I played games for three weeks and I
learned to program some."
Honestly, I've spent the last two days thinking about
the way that I interact with women, and being very
careful when I did to avoid the arrogance that keeps
them away.  I'm pretty sure this is on us, guys.

Stephen

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