Women and Mozilla!
(for a French translation of this post, please visit Julia's Blog. Julia is a French contributor -and soon intern!- at Mozilla. Thanks Julia, you rock!)
Since I arrived in Mozilla last year, it has been impossible not to notice that women's presence is almost non-existent among the community, the employees, and in Mozilla and Free Software events. So I started wondering about this, and did a bit of research on women's implication in the FLOSS world.
The numbers I found astounded me: only 2% of women work in FLOSS communities, against more than 25% in proprietary software. In the development field, numbers are even lower: the percentage of Open Source women developers falls down to almost 1% (European Commission FLOSSPOL 2002-2005)
From that point on, I started wondering: Why? What are the reasons for this? And should Mozilla do anything about it?
I thought all these questions over, and made some more research. That's when I realized that many FLOSS projects already had women's groups: Ubuntu Women, PHP Women, GNOME Women, DrupalChix, and many others.
So I took the opportunity at the Paris Ubuntu party to give a conference about this. I wanted to engage a discussion with the audience, in order to gather their ideas and points of view about women's involvement and visibility in Mozilla as well as in other FLOSS projects.
Here is a summary of what I talked about:
Women's implication and visibility in Mozilla and FLOSS
Some numbers
* Only 2% women in FLOSS communities vs. 25% in proprietary software
* Slight increase in number of women since 2000, but too slow to be really noticeable yet
Famous examples of women in FLOSS
* Mitchell Baker (Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, and who recently won this year's "Women of Vision Awards" delivered by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology).
Mitchell published a post a while ago precisely about women in open source and the Mozilla Project.
* Satoko Takita (Chair of the Board of Directors, Mozilla Japan)
* Women's groups: Ubuntu Women, DrupalChix, PHP Women, etc.
What about Mozilla?
* There is no "Mozilla Women's Group"
* Idea = instead of creating another women's group and dividing things up even more, maybe we should create a meeting point where women / men / existing women's group / anyone interested by project can join. This could be a mailing list, forum, blog, IRC channel ...
* More women also means more potential contribution in FLOSS communities and in Mozilla
Some reasons why women don't participate as much in FLOSS
* Seems very technical on first approach, even if things have evolved a lot in last couple of years. General public (so both women and men) tends to think that Open Source softwares demand technical skills
* Discrimination (sexist jokes, repeated flirting, stereotyped approach of their computer-skills)
Hey, just as an example: check out what happens if you search for "girls linux" in Google (same thing happens in French, in case you're wondering), or again if you mistype LinuxChix (linuxchicks, I'll remember that one! ...)
However, when you type "girls mac/macintosh", "girls windows" or "girls maths", the first 10 answers aren't links with naked girls (and ridiculous fake Tux tattoos added with GIMP or Photoshop) ... I'm wondering if this doesn't reflect something?
* Communities are mainly composed of men. Therefore, women tend to approach them less naturally
Why a "women's project"?
* Online and software society is a product of its participants
* If there are too many men : this (consciously or not) finally reflects in product. And product probably won't attract women
* In order for the Web and computing to become even more open, and more representative of the entire population
Questions to the audience
* How can we incite more women to participate in FLOSS projects?
* What keeps you (women) from participating?
* How can we help women integrate an overly masculine field?
* In your opinion, is there something missing, and that could explain such a low feminine participation?
The audience gave great feedback, and a few people gave their opinion on all these questions.
Reactions ranged from one "extreme" to the other: from the very feminist position, to the "we shouldn't do anything, I don't think there's even a problem" one. I must say that I feel in between the two: something should be done, but I don't think we should start a "women's only group". It would be great if it could stay something open in all senses. Women's group already exist, why start yet another one that might end up dividing us even more?
When I hear things like "*All* the girls I know just want their computers to turn on when they press the power button -and that's it. There's no need for a women's project in computing", that just proves to me that something should be done.
So if you think the same -or not!- please feel free to leave your comments and feedback here. I'm really curious to know what you think, in order to create a project that will make as much sense as possible.
Some pictures of the conference at the Paris Ubuntu party:
Picture taken by Maurice Svay
Picture taken by Maurice Svay
Commentaires
“* Seems very technical on first approach, even if things have evolved a lot in last couple of years”
Hang on a sec. So—what?—women aren't capable technically? How would this discourage women more than men?
Or is this just another example of:
“* Discrimination (sexist jokes, repeated flirting, stereotyped approach of their computer-skills)”
…which I think is the real issue.
***
“check out what happens if you search for "girls linux" in Google”
Ugh.
It's worth noting, though, that “girls” is often used as a demeaning word for women, rather than actually meaning girls. Searching for “boys linux” produces equally useless (though less sexist) results.
But “children linux” and “women linux” both return a lot of relevant pages.
(A notable exception is http://linux.die.net/man/1/cycle —“a calendar for women”, which seems to think that women only care about periods and childbearing. It should probably be called “a menstrual calendar” or somesuch.)
"women aren't capable technically? How would this discourage women more than men?"
-> I should have been more precise in this point : this goes for women AND men, indifferently. General public (so both women and men) tends to think that Open Source softwares demand technical skills, so that can be discouraging.
But I also think there are probably reasons that can explain why women aren't as present as men in the development field -and it's *not* because they aren't as capable.
Delphine: great post! I've been studying this (such strong imbalance between sexes in FLOSS) for a few years. I hope we'll have time to chat about it next time we see each other
I generally tend to agree with you.
Greg:
> Hang on a sec. So—what?—women aren't capable technically? How would this discourage women more than men?
Unfortunately, yes. But they're not less capable in terms of intellect, but because of social reasons. It's an extremely wide topic, and I recommend you reading about psychology of sex and sociology of sex if you're interested in this topic. Basically, in the process of education and socialization, women are, generally speaking:
- discouraged from trying to act and solve their problems. (core of FLOSS hacking activity)
- discouraged from competing in activities socially recognized as "male" domain.
- discouraged from showing that they are "smart"
- discouraged from getting involved in technical projects.
and others.
Discouraging may be executed in many ways. They may risk being less "sexy", less "girlish", less "attractive", less "interesting" both by boys and girls in their social groups.
I totally recommend two chapters from Aronson's "The Social Animal" about experiments on kids that proves that 5 year old girl are the first to know that "they should not play with boy toys" and "they should not play with boy's games" - which more or less indicates that by the age of 5 (but not earlier) they already know their roles in social network.
It's also important to notice that other girls are usually much more restrictive in punishing a girl for breaking "the rules" than boys are.
Then, school system cleanly follows the stigmatization and self-fulfilling prophecy in regards of split between girlish/boyish (see - R. Salomone "Same, Different, Equal - Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling" - it does not recommend same-sex schools, just some same-sex classes basing on experiments and those experiments results are interesting)
Then, with learned helpless they step in to the real world and, I promise, what open source offers as tempting is very far away from what they were believe is "attractive" for them.
Of course then, we end up with exclusive male community which grows specific social code and habitus, and it becomes even harder for a girl to join it.
I recommend:
- http://blog.milkingthegnu.org/2008/...
- http://dyepot-teapot.com/2009/04/25...
you know, imbalance in the workplace, in scholastic settings, or anywhere opportunity should be equal has always driven me nuts. thanks for writing this post.
when i was in graduate school, i had a number of female friends who ran a "women in leadership" workshop. it was a great event geared at bringing women professionals together. although i understand why it happened, zero effort was made by these women to invite men to that "table" for a discussion. i don't know, maybe this was not a time to bring men into that particular conversation and it was a "women only" event. in any event, i tried to join the organizing committee to show my support, but was asked not to. it was a bit deflating, to be honest, because i wasn't trying to come in as a male, but more as a peer sensitive to the issue.
one reason i find Mozilla admirable, or more, specially mitchell baker and the other women at this organization, is that i never feel like mozilla has a women vs. men dynamic. my guess is that having some balance at the top of your leadership sends an unspoken signal to everyone that we are equals and we should treat everyone with respect as peers.
i like the concept of this post, but i might not put Mozilla in the same box as other projects when it comes to gender imbalance. perhaps i'm wrong though.
i hope some of the many women at mozilla comment here. i've emailed your post to them to see what they have to say.
I blogged about that very same problem recently:
http://jamesboston.ca/cms/?q=node/1...
I think that mentorship by women for women could help create a network effect that brings women into the community.
You have a unique point of view that would be useful to Mozilla Education (http://education.mozilla.org). Send me an email and I'll connect you with the right people.
Some project that brings female students into oss communities is definitely needed.
Delphine - great post, and yes we need more women in open source.
How do you feel about holding an open call one evening and doing a brain storm about this?
Interesting podcast here, discussing how to get more women involved in open source:
http://www.womenwhotech.com/opensou...
And more audio here from the SCALE event from last Feb...
1) Keynote
Danese Cooper: Women As Open Source Alpha-Geeks
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale...
2) Her PR Problem -- Tooting the horns of women in open source:
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale...
3) Emma McGratten: Do women approach coding differently to men?
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale...
4) Open Discussion: Women in Open Source
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale...
Great post. Thanks for having the courage to get this conversation going!
My sense is that we need to be thinking about all sorts of people who aren't getting involved in Mozilla, and then to look at ways to make it easier and more attractive to get involved.
The kind of initiative you are talking about is one good way to think about this. James' suggestion that Mozilla Education can help is also right. It's all about create easier pathways in.
Just to introduce myself: I'm a woman, joined frenchmozilla team (french l10n project) 5 or 6 years ago. I'm no techie: no patch, no check-in, no code, but I learnt a lot about Mozilla during these years.
And I found my place in the community: you could say "Public relations", I like to organize or help organizing events to get our team together, welcoming newcomers and so.
My opinion is that one doesn't need to be a geek or a techie to help and take part to the adventure of FLOSS, but it is not known enough.
Many people are admiring Michell Baker and she does deserve it... How many people (I mean outside Mozilla) know that she's a lawyer? Not a developer or an engineer. I bet that it is not so evident and it's worth to mention.
I also agree with Seth on 'i never feel like mozilla has a women vs. men dynamic' and I would say that, in my opinion, there is no techie vs non-techie dynamic.
Thank you all for your comments, and for so much relevant information. This is really helpful.
All these reactions are so interesting. I hope I can read more (thanks Seth for sending this out to the Mozilla women!)
I think more female input to development would be a good thing for all software. The social factors gandalf is mentioning probably have an influence - though woman are clearly as capabable as men in scientific thinking and problem solving (see e.g. nuclear physics being a mostly female-dominated area), I know more women than men who are not even interested in how stuff on their computer works, which is one of the main factors of going for development work. That _must_ be socially and not skill-driven. The challenge is to change that, slowly but surely. I always have been and continue to be very interested in that topic, and I'll be there for helping any effort made there. Thanks for posting about this and picking up that topic to make something move!
The "Women in Open Source" (or lack thereof) issue has been discussed at some length for awhile in other open source communities; Val Henson (who apparently changed her name) has been talking about this for 7+ years:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage...
See also:
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com...
Congratulations for your way of presenting a real issue! Balanced, far sighted and open. If I may, a little personal opinion, I hope it won't be perceived as sexist: a man can really fall in love with a computer; a woman falls short of doing so, which is a signal of cleverness and "humanism"?
Not sure it is fully relevant with your questions but anyway...
"La femme est l'avenir de l'ordinateur"
from Aragon
Hello Delphine - this is only my second week as a Mozilla full timer, just finished up a degree at Seneca College where we did Open Source classes that got us connected to the Mozilla community. I would love to talk more about this with you anytime - I'm very interested in encouraging more people to get involved in open source but as a feminist I also have a strong leaning towards wanted to encourage and mentor other women to get involved. It would be great to do some courses targeted at high school girls (as suggested in "Unlocking the Clubhouse") in order to get them involved pre-college as members of the Mozilla community. That's the idea I'm mostly working on in my head...perhaps a blog post in the future.
Hi, I'm a (female) Computer Science student from Romania. I liked very much your post and I'd like to share a few thoughts.
I'm new to OSS development. I'm a GSoC participant this year and can't wait to see more closely how OSS works (from the inside).
I found in XWiki a great environment, open, welcoming and responsive, all I wanted from a community. I was lucky enough that one of my best friends from the University was also selected as a GSoCer for XWiki, and she very much agrees with me.
Unlike the years before, this year was held a presentation about GSoC at our University and that's why I tried it. I wish more girls would have too. Next year I'll join the presentation and encourage more of them, because I think it's a good thing.
By looking at my colleagues I think girls need a certain level of acceptance from the community, and trust before expressing themselves fully and really getting involved. One other problem I saw in my female colleagues was a slight lack of self trust (most times irrational because they are highly capable) and fear of just trying things out (fear of failure and criticism or to be labeled as not skilled just for one little mistake, I don't know... ). I think all they would need are some encouragements and more confidence.
Generally speaking, big stoppers for getting involved would be:
- conflict of any kind. I heard guys saying that they do it because it's fun. Not for us, for example I'd do anything to avoid it
- being mocked up and not being taken seriously or even worse being laughed at (and this 99% of the time happens from people less prepared)
- being hit on
What I expect is to be treated normally, not being taken lightly nor praised. Just normal.
I think the change should come from the women in everyday life. For example, every little joke or situation you thought was not appropriate, say that you found it offensive! Just say it. Many man don't even realize that they did something wrong and don't mean it, and sadly many women too (and I get really really sad when hearing this from women !). And when someone is serious about their remarks, still try your best to explain that they are wrong, and why it was discriminant, and hopefully others will join and share your effort.
I am happy that people started talking about these things and a certain level of awareness was created. There should be more stories about women in IT, real examples around us.
Last year there was a course at the University where every lecture they brought in local successful people in IT (commercial companies), like the General Manager of Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and many other. Not a single one of them was a women.
Then, last summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to go on an internship in Santa Clara, CA. I thought to myself, it's the Silicon Valley, now I'm gonna surely meet lots of great women to inspire me! And I still haven't met a single one in development or leading positions !! It is true that the company I worked for was very small and that I didn't get to see many other people from other companies. But you cannot imagine my sorrow. I though, if I didn't even meet one, what chances do I have ??
I'm not the kind of person that gives up easily so I won't let this get to me, but it would be nice to actually meet such a person who would tell me: you can do it, I did !
I have never tried to see what's going on in any of the all female groups mentioned, I guess I just don't really like the idea of dividing up, maybe I was wrong to do so, I don't know.