Embodying Hacker Culture in Women-friendly Free Software Groups

Embodying Hacker Culture in Women friendly Free Software Groups Yuwei Lin ESRC National Centre for eSocial Science University of Manchester Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Free/Libre Open Source Software Software whose source code are available for ● users to run, copy, study, modify, improve, and redistribute. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To ● understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer. Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Free Software and Safe Living Security holes or software glitches: users can not ● only report a bug, but also define what is a bug. Transparency and openness: “Given enough ● eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” (Eric Raymond) Peer production ● Freedom of re/configuring and re/designing ● technology Taking control ● Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Hacking coding handson activities tinkering handling tools working with machines building prototypes (all these activities originate from engineering culture and are prominently male defined) Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Motivations of Getting Involved Just for fun Reputation Mutuality Gratification Job required Selfhelp: to fix a bug at hand God told me so Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

What is visible? men coding hacking taking control 'hacker' as a homogeneous social category Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Problems overemphasis on coding and hacking ● visibility of women in free software ● current societal inequality and knowledge gap ● 8 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Barriers of Including Women Cyberbulling & trolling, sexist & discriminative languages ● Unfriendly and inhumane online environment (e.g. RTFM) ● gendered role in FLOSS development inequality of different ● types of knowledge & women's reduced role Housework (childrearing) – lack of time ● Lack of role models, mentors and support ● Education (official curriculum, experiences) ● A maledefined competitive mindset (reputation, flaming) ● Any other reasons that differ from culture to culture, nation to ● nation, region to region? Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Women's Voices and Networks Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Contexualisation & Embodiment Beyond numbers and the binary gender codes and biological differences Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Methods & Data Sources virtual ethnography: DebianWomen (mixed sex) & ● GenderChanger Academy (single sex) informal conversations ● content analysis (webpages, mailing list) with the ● help of Text Mining + Corpus Analysis techniques who (memberships), said what (topics), done what ● (actions) limits: neither real life nor real time 12 ● Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

IMCWomen 13 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

GenderChanger Academy 14 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Belonging to a group keyword-in- context (KWIC) concordance 15 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Helping 16 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Participating 17 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

DebianWomen training and providing support for ● women interested in Debian and FLOSS organising online tutorials, bug ● squashing parties, mentoring 9 female Debian Developers (total ● 1049 DD to date 20Nov07, 0.8% women) 18 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Female Memberships computer security analysts ● programmers ● system administrators ● translators ● anthropologists ● Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Bodies and Technologies ICTs used: mailing lists, irc, cvs, wiki, webpages ● common participants: names ● issues: events, problems, sharing information ● (forwarding messages) (technologicaloriented) experiences embedded ● in the conversation about fixing problems or bugs emotions ● 21 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

I’m one of these males on #debianwoman and mailling list. I found your “debianfriendly” project idea extremely interesting. I’d like a more collaborative and less competitive Debian world and I think that’s exactly why DW has been so successful. —Carlos (comment) March 31, 2005 @ 8:51 am I’m not a developer and have never been on debianwomen or any other developer site/group/list but I use debianuser a lot and do think there’s something gettting very struck about the culture: a focus on programming and fixing compatibility problems but in a rather macho way. The result is that we don’t have a good hardware compatibility list for Debian, we don’t have good documentation, we don’t have good ways the expertise on, say, the user list, creates FAQs etc. I’m not sure what the answer is but I think it is linked with a stereotypically Western male gendered component to the problem. If there’s a way I can help I’ll try but time is very limited sadly. Chris (male, end user of Debian for years now) —Chris Evans (comment) April 10, 2005 @ 3:30 pm Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

The DW project got my attention because it promoted a “positive, welcoming and friendly atmosphere” still I did not try to participate because I’m, well… male. I would very much like to see a “positive, welcoming and friendly atmosphere” Debian project for all people. —Tim Blokdijk (comment) April 06, 2005 @ 4:07 pm Sometimes I get worry about the idea of the “invasion” by men in womengroups… but is interesting to see this places like “friendly places” where everybody can have access to (without gender specific). —gaba (comment) April 09, 2005 @ 2:19 am Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Where the joy lies? SELFREFLECTION ● (Emotion + Body + Technology) ● Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

But we have achieved *a lot*. I don't feel anymore it is a taboo to talk about females within Debian (be it Developers, Translators, Users or whatever form of involvement), and are no longer stuck with XXL night-gown sized tshirts in Debconf (LOL). To me it has made a great difference and my involvement in the project feels more quot;normalizedquot; to me. Also, in RL meetings, the default assumption that the attending females were $girlfriends of some male quot;actuallyquot; interested in the meeting has decreassed significantly. I don't know whether it is related, but since Debian Women exists the feeling of a quot;socialquot; community on top of the quot;technicalquot; community has been much reinforced. This might be my subjective perception of quot;belongingquot; to this community, improved by the existance of other females in it, and other members of the project being welcoming and inclusive about us. (DWZL220106) Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

% M W U 200506 61,88 36,78 1,34 Statistics about the IRC channel 200507 56,01 40,72 3,27 200508 60,02 37,49 2,49 200509 52,66 42,66 4,68 200510 50,3 42,37 7,33 200511 58,05 36,57 5,38 200512 65,14 30,58 4,28 200601 59,69 37,89 2,42 200602 70,8 26,96 2,24 200603 70,72 28,4 0,88 200604 73,54 25,58 0,88 As one can see, even if I can't quot;identifyquot; one third of the people, I have identified the most contributing people. I see an interesting tendency for men participation to increase while women participation decreases. I already have this feeling for quite a long time but it seems that numbers are proving me correct. Is it good or bad: I leave this up to you, people...:) (CPDW250406) Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

I'm not sure if it's inherent aggression in male communication style as much as it's simply how communication on a quot;realtimequot; textbased medium goes. A situation where are several people in one quot;areaquot; holding several different conversations is much different than say Jabber or AIM where you are speaking directly to one person, and you wait for their response before you type again. Sometimes comments get lost in the shuffle because people are trying to follow multiple conversations, other times that conversation thread simply dies out. I don't attribute this to inherent aggression of males, but rather the way conversations flow on IRC. I tried to introduce family members to IRClike gathering areas, thinking it would be worthwhile to actually be able to hold conversations with more than one person at a time. It very much didn't work. They felt the same way that people were quot;talking overquot; them, ignoring them that they couldn't keep up with everything going on because one group of people was talking about one thing, another about a completely different topic and yet another group of people poking fun at each other. They gave up because they just couldn't catch up and keep up with the conversation flows. Practice + Experience + Body + Technology (PLDW260406) Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

GenderChangers Academy since Nov. 1999 ● ladies only ● /etc eclectic tech carnival ● The /etc is named after the directory in which *nix systems store ● system configuration files. DIY or DIO (handson training) ● exchanging computer related skills ● grass root and local ● 28 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

The Eclectic Tech Carnival Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Memberships system and network administrators ● anthropologists ● artists ● musicians ● accountants ● social workers ● Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

events in 2007 September 3: A bit of everything. Get together, ● exchange experiences, lounge, cook, eat and watch a geek movie. October 1: Computer Hardware Crash Course ● November 5: Introducing Free Software. ● Installation, configuration and use of a few of the best FLOSS applications December 3: Building and managing a Website: ● HTML and CSS Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Ladyfest.net Ladyfest is a volunteer run ● DIY festival of music, art, performance and workshops. It helps to showcase the skills and talents of a diverse group of people. Lecture Evening Virtual ● Identities and female Internet Networks. Sara and Nancy from the Genderchanger Academy speaking about female networks (IRC) Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

How Girls Make Knowledge coding knowledge is still considered as more ● advanced (reproduction of hegemonic mainstream hacker culture) layered & networked & embodied epistemic cultures ● rationality + sensitivity = hybrid: femininities ● (complex, layered, strategic, adaptive, emotional) + masculinities (disconnected, emotionally avoidant, instrumental, simplistic) Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Achievements visibility & awareness raising ● identity building (exploring & experimenting) ● knowledge sharing, mutual learning and support ● (“a lowRTFM environment) creating a more intimate collaborative space ● beyond the simplistic categories of gender talks, ● it's women's play embodied in these online narratives; a women's version of 'just for fun' 36 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Women's Play on GNU/Linux strengthens the importance of networking, sharing ● experiences and problemsolving tips, of socialising and social capitals in FLOSS dev. creating a more harmonised & reflexive space ● In Janice Raymond's words: 'The empowering of ● female friendship can create the conditions for a new feminist politics in which the personal is most passionately political'. resistance & change; sameness and differences ● 37 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Mihmo interaction designer at Red Hat's engineering department cofounder of GnomeWomen LinuxChix appears to be succeeding on these fronts. However, as large as the group seems to be, I'm somewhat skeptical that it's produced many open source *developers*. Think of it this way, only men write books and women and men read books. It's good that there are literate women, but if the books are created only by men, then a male perspective will dominate. I use this analogy because I have thought for a long time that programming is a new literarcy, and that as computers become more and more pervasive in everyday life, those who fail to gain some ability in programming will be left behind. http://mihmo.livejournal.com/6071.html Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Anne Nicolas Director of Engineering at Parisbased Mandriva As a woman, I feel like a human being working with other human beings (I hope so :) ). So one may encounter relationship problems in this team as in any other field. It's hard to avoid bias, and of course the Linux world is also suffering because it. But I must say I haven't had any major problems until now (I cross my fingers twice :) ). I think the most important words are open mind and dialogue, sane discussions and respect. Yes, there are very few women in the Linux world, but it's up to them to contribute and to become part of it. It's just a question of interest. http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20071022#interview Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Whose Wonder Woman? Whose Female Hacker? Global or Local versions? 40 Codes and Conduct Workshop, 1920 November 2007, Lancaster

Embodying Hacker Culture in Women-friendly Free Software Groups

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