Re: Debian, lists and discrimination
On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 02:42:17PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> On 2004-08-07 13:11:55 +0100 Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org> wrote:
>
> >So you think that changing our culture to be less confrontational
> >would be
> >beneficial to encouraging participation by multiple groups?
> >Excellent.
>
> Yes, but I'd like to see metrics for this and the data gathered. We
> can all act as we think, but it would be better to see the effect in
> an obvious and agreeable way. I strongly suspect these are going to be
> general across demographic splits and don't understand special-casing
> women so early.
Women have been special-cased because they've stood up to be counted.
They're an easily recognisable demographic who have said "we have these
problems".
> So far as I have seen, debian women's acts seem sexist and likely to
> discourage participation by men. Is a bug in the aims or a bug in the
> presentation?
I'm pretty confident it's presentation. Mostly, I think it's a different
form of confrontational behaviour, expressed as a reaction to attack. Not
very different to krooger's quasi-religious bangings-on in substance, merely
a difference of form.
> >I think we're probably under-represented amongst those groups, too,
> >and I
> >think that if there's anyone who feels that it may be to the project's
> >detriment they should try to work out the reasons why and try to
> >rectify
> >those if appropriate.
>
> Later in the message you wrote that we probably miss out, so I assume
> you are one of "anyone who feels ...". Is only addressing women now
> trying to work out the reasons why for those groups too?
I'm addressing the problem of women in Debian because I have experience with
women in "non-traditional" roles, and because they have taken some of the
initiative in starting things off. I also believe that the culture shifts
that might take place could be beneficial in a larger scope.
To address your question more directly, in a limited way, addressing the
problems some women have expressed about Debian will hopefully address the
problems that *some* other groups have.
- Matt
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