Re: [all candidates] lack of women in Debian
Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> writes:
> On 19/03/13 at 21:43 +0100, Gerfried Fuchs wrote:
>> * Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> [2013-03-19 07:44:32 CET]:
>> > But it's also about how we see our project. I would like Debian to be
>> > a very welcoming project, and I hate the fact that it's harder for some
>> > groups to get involved.
>>
>> Given that the context of this statement is "lack of women in Debian",
>> why do you believe that it's harder for women to get involved?
>
> Let's split the process of getting involved into several steps:
>
> Step 0: Alice knows nothing about Debian
> Step 1: Alice is "exposed" to Debian
> Step 2: Alice would like to contribute to Debian
> Step 3: Alice starts contributing to Debian
>
> Going from Step 0 to Step 1 is less likely for women, because there are
> fewer women in situations to be "exposed" to Debian (studying CS, IT
> jobs, etc.). And there's not much we can do (as Debian) for that.
I would like to strongly disagree here. Getting involved in, and
contributing to Debian does not require one to be anywhere near CS or
IT. It certainly helps, because we, as a project, are far better
prepared to receive and encourage such contributions, but that's not all
there is to it.
There are many ways to reach out to non-technical people too (including
but not limited to friends, partners, family and various non-technical
events), and we as a project can and should encourage this kind of
outreach too, and not limit ourselves to technical contributors only.
(Also, not being in a position to be naturally exposed to Debian does
not mean that one wouldn't become a technical contributor later on.)
> Going from Step 1 to Step 2 is also less likely for women, because the
> prospect of getting involved in a project with so few women might be a
> bit frightening.
Agreed, but there's a lot we can do here to make it less so.
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