Gender Poll - 2009

[reed9]

This can be a cultural thing or just that those women don't really care about IT.

This is a delicate topic and I have no wish to start an argument over this here, but I feel the need to speak up.

The low numbers of women involved in IT, or science and math in general, has nothing to do with aptitude, ability, or intelligence, and almost everything to do with pervasive, if often subtle, sexism. Although, in see_no_windows case, the sexism is not so subtle. I think it is the reponsibility of the open source community to step up and at the least say something when they see that kind of obnoxious comment. It's easy to dismiss, say it's just one person, or not want to rock the boat, or a forum isn't the place to talk about it, but I firmly believe that kind of tacit acceptance is harmful. It's nice to believe the open source world is a true meritocracy, but given a number of the events, articles, and comments posted over the past year or so, a number of women's experiences belie that, and we shouldn't defensively dismiss or silence their voices.

[Bemk]

Well, this sexism is more or less the cultural thing I was referring to. It is embedded in most cultures that the female gender is considered as less, which in my opinion is a lot of rubbish. Males are to me equals of females, because of the simple fact both male and female are humans.