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
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users to run, copy, study, modify, improve, and
redistribute.
Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To
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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
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only report a bug, but also define what is a bug.
Transparency and openness: “Given enough
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eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” (Eric Raymond)
Peer production
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Freedom of re/configuring and re/designing
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technology
Taking control
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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
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visibility of women in free software
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current societal inequality and knowledge gap
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Barriers of Including Women
Cyberbulling & trolling, sexist & discriminative languages
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Unfriendly and inhumane online environment (e.g. RTFM)
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gendered role in FLOSS development ­ inequality of different
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types of knowledge & women's reduced role
Housework (child­rearing) – lack of time
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Lack of role models, mentors and support
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Education (official curriculum, experiences)
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A male­defined competitive mindset (reputation, flaming)
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Any other reasons that differ from culture to culture, nation to
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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) &
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GenderChanger Academy (single sex)
informal conversations
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content analysis (webpages, mailing list) with the
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help of Text Mining + Corpus Analysis techniques
who (memberships), said what (topics), done what
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(actions)
limits: neither real life nor real time 12
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

IMC­Women
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

GenderChanger Academy
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Belonging to a group
keyword-in-
context
(KWIC)
concordance
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Helping
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Participating
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Debian­Women
training and providing support for
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women interested in Debian and
FLOSS
organising online tutorials, bug­
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squashing parties, mentoring
9 female Debian Developers (total
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1049 DD to date 20­Nov­07, 0.8%
women) 18
Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Female Memberships
computer security analysts
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programmers
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system administrators
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translators
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anthropologists
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Bodies and Technologies
ICTs used: mailing lists, irc, cvs, wiki, webpages
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common participants: names
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issues: events, problems, sharing information
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(forwarding messages)
(technological­oriented) experiences embedded
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in the conversation about fixing problems or bugs
emotions
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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
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(Emotion + Body + Technology)
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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
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ladies only
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/etc ­ eclectic tech carnival
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The /etc is named after the directory in which *nix systems store
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system configuration files.
DIY or DIO (hands­on training)
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exchanging computer related skills
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grass root and local
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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
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anthropologists
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artists
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musicians
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accountants
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social workers
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

events in 2007
September 3: A bit of everything. Get together,
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exchange experiences, lounge, cook, eat and
watch a geek movie.
October 1: Computer Hardware Crash Course
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November 5: Introducing Free Software.
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Installation, configuration and use of a few of the
best FLOSS applications
December 3: Building and managing a Website:
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HTML and CSS
Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Ladyfest.net
Ladyfest is a volunteer run
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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
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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
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advanced (reproduction of hegemonic mainstream
hacker culture)
layered & networked & embodied epistemic cultures
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rationality + sensitivity = hybrid: femininities
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(complex, layered, strategic, adaptive, emotional) +
masculinities (disconnected, emotionally avoidant,
instrumental, simplistic)
Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster

Achievements
visibility & awareness raising
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identity building (exploring & experimenting)
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knowledge sharing, mutual learning and support
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(“a low­RTFM environment)
creating a more intimate collaborative space
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beyond the simplistic categories of gender talks,
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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
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experiences and problem­solving tips, of socialising
and social capitals in FLOSS dev.
creating a more harmonised & reflexive space
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In Janice Raymond's words: 'The empowering of
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female friendship can create the conditions for a new
feminist politics in which the personal is most
passionately political'.
resistance & change; sameness and differences
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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?
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Codes and Conduct Workshop, 19­20 November 2007, Lancaster