Hmm, my suggestion wasn't to treat everyone the same, that doesn't seem reasonable or like a good way to achieve our goals. Rather, it was to blur the way identities are formed - from having male or female names with male and female personalities and roles to focusing on the content of our work and forming communication and identity around this - maybe this could start with a simple change to how names are handled - instead of using your real name, you have to pick a username. It would seem wrong to intentionally prevent someone from picking a manly or girly name - but I would hope this would at least offer some women the chance to pick neutral names and not give away their identities without having to assume a male identity as you're mentioning.
As a software engineer, I see the women trying to become "one of the boys" as you mention pretty often, they either do this or assume a less technical role (as if only men can have technical positions). But if you remove the ability to tell whether your collaborators are male or female, and create a culture of focusing on generating personal identities or social status based on qualities other than birth-name, gender, race, etc., such as what project you work on, your strengths, or what you find rewarding in life, you might find someday your collaborators are a mix of women and men without ever realizing it - the stereotype of the white male contributor thinned out without anyone knowing. Creating a sort of anonymity isn't going to be easy- people will want to identify themselves as male or female naturally, as it's a part of how we distinguish ourselves in the outside world. This could ruin a plan like this - but I like the idea nonetheless on the principle of it. It provides opportunity where currently we have stereotypes, and it might still have some positive consequences, even if not radical. I think the culture in general (not just with Debian) will have to change from one in which only white men fulfil technical roles (where QA is apparently the only exception) to one in which gender and race play little to no role. However, we can take more of a stance without outright "we need women" - which seems artificial and not true to the heart of the problem. Reducing personal identity in the leadership might help too - if there is no face with a name, and a name is nothing but a designator that reflects a personality more than a body, it's easier to look at a project and not immediately think "I'm alone here - everyone else is a white male". Think - even now you can research who is serving whatever leadership role on wikipedia - once they're high enough up. You generally find the project is lead by some white guy, which isn't surprising. But what if you couldn't do this, because the name of the leader was something like "Cloud" or something... Eh, this wouldn't work - people cling too closely to the way things have always worked and would name themselves according to their social structure separate from the project (either with a name which designates gender in some way, or with things that men traditionally associate themselves with - gamertags are a good example, if you play games, you can still tell a male's handle from a female's...) Hopefully all of this rambling has inspired thoughts that might be actually useful? Anyone? On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 10:47 PM, Russ Allbery <r...@debian.org> wrote: > bjf...@gmail.com writes: > > > One of the great things about the internet and a project like this is > > that personalities and qualifications come forward without the ability > > to judge based on their physical image- whether racial or gender > > related. Maybe we should find ways to capitalize on this so as to reduce > > the chances for someone to be judged bases on a name or their designated > > gender- reduce chances for this to be communicates and emphasize content > > of the work- what is being done over who is behind the work. > > This is a common suggestion and, on the surface, has a lot to recommend > it. After all, if the goal is to eliminate sexism (and racism, and > similar bigotries) as much as possible, shouldn't we just treat everyone > exactly the same and completely ignore such characteristics? And that is, > indeed, what a lot of women prefer. > > The limitation to this approach (which, let me be clear, doesn't undermine > the idea entirely) is that men, and white men in particular, are the > unremarked normal in most (not all) of the societies that contribute > people to our project. This has a subtle but persistent effect: treating > everyone the same rarely translates into treating everyone by the pure > average of all the possible cultures, genders, and other variations in the > world. Rather, treating everyone the same almost always, without a lot of > very careful attention, translates into treating everyone like the > unremarked normal. In other words, treating everyone like men (and > usually like white men). > > This isn't always bad. Some women strongly prefer this. But other women > don't, and don't find this as welcoming as it's intended to be. Not > everyone wants to be treated like "one of the boys" and have their gender > erased, even with the best of intentions towards an ideal of equality. > And men are often oblivious to the drawbacks of this, since they don't > *realize* they're treating people with gendered assumptions. They're > following the golden rule: they're treating people the way that they would > want to be treated, and obviously they're perfectly comfortable being > treated like the unremarked normal of white men, since that's who they > are. It takes some practice and attention to even realize there's an > often significant difference between treating everyone like men and > treating everyone equally while respecting their actual identities. > > I think it's fair to say that the general feeling among the folks who > think about equality and diversity issues a lot is that the "X-blind > culture" concept, which is roughly what you were referring to, was a > useful blunt instrument to get us past the era where women were fired when > they got married because of course married women shouldn't work and should > be raising children. But that type of obvious, blantant sexism -- which > can be fought with obvious, blatant concepts of equality -- is mostly gone > (thankfully!). That doesn't mean there's no sexism left, as one can see > from the sad statistics about diversity within the project. Rather, it > means that what's left is subtle, and difficult, and complicated, and is > not particularly amenable to this sort of blunt solution. > > -- > Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-vote-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: https://lists.debian.org/871tk5vq5h....@hope.eyrie.org > >
