In short, don't be an asshole

Hanna Wallach at join-the-dots points to Val Hensen's well-written article HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux. Hensen's paper has pointers to several other resources on women and sexism in computing.

A sentiment I hear frequently: "What problem? There's no problem! Sexism is dead! Women are staying out of Linux because they want to!" If you feel this way, you may change your opinion by the time you finish reading this HOWTO. I also used to believe that sexism was dead. Shortly after joining several women in computing mailing lists, I realized how wrong I was. Week after week, women have new stories about how they were discriminated against and insulted because they were women. These stories aren't decades old, nor do they involve people who grew up when sexism was more acceptable. These are day-to-day experiences of today's women, in modern settings, who are being driven out of their chosen profession by sexism. This isn't theoretical--many women actually leave the field of computers entirely because of blatantly sexist incidents involving superiors at work or at school.

I was actually shocked to see one entry in the list of suggestions— “Don't complain about the lack of women in computing”—until I actually read the commentary and realized what she meant: Don't compain about the lack of women in computing as though that were the reason you're not getting laid.

See also Hanna's earlier post about Debain Women Friendly.

Comments

UIUC is NOT a friendly place for women in CS, btw. Networking and socializing is a big part of the department culture and women are excluded from this. I was definitely made to feel like an outsider when I was there.