Posted by aufumy on September 16, 2009 at 5:53pm
A short while ago, I edited my drupal.org account, and changed my gender from unknown to female.
I breathed a sigh of anticipation and release after making the change.
I wondered what had taken me so long to admit that I am actually female.
I began to realize that my fears of being hounded or harassed, while may come true, as some of the tales of previous female pioneers sung by webchick in 'Women in Opensource'.
I also realized that I'd rather stand up and be counted than hide in the intertubes, because there are always all kinds of people anyway, and hiding doesn't mean bad things aren't going to happen to others or myself.
Comments
Congrats! :)
Feels kinda nice, doesn't it? :)
I don't think you have much to worry about in terms of hounding/harrassment from the Drupal community (or if you do, let me know and I will crack some heads! :P). I can't really speak for other communities though. Using a gendered handle like "webchick" on random IRC channels has been kind of interesting. From time to time, it evokes a very strong reaction from both men and women, who think I'm somehow trying to get more attention to my support requests or 'asking' for people to cyber me, or whatever. ;P
But I do think it's important for women in general to be "out and proud" (depending on your individual level of comfort, of course), because women being present on the Internet and doing awesome things with technology (in whatever capacity that is) is important not only for breaking down stereotypes of stupid people but also in presenting visible role models for others.
you've inspired me, i went
you've inspired me, i went and changed mine as well! i didn't set it for the same reasons, but i couldn't disagree with the rationale, and we should "stand up and be counted" as you say!
interesting that d.o has gender, but g.d.o doesn't...
ps. i realize this is still
ps. i realize this is still kinda exclusionary to anyone not identifying as male or female... has this ever been broached? /can of worms
I don't think so...
I think that people who don't identify as either probably don't answer the question. But I'm not sure what other options we could offer in that box that would properly encapsulate the spectrum of gender.
ya i know, i guess it just
ya i know, i guess it just gets too complex... i said it was a can of worms! just wish there was some way to acknowledge exceptions to the male/female without being just no selection... though, if we have any qualms about selecting female, i can't imagine that being transgendered for eg and selecting any options would be terrifying!
Just so this is captured...
Someone on IRC contacted me with this same concern. I was given a couple of links:
http://www.campusprogress.org/fieldreport/4164/choose-one - how facebook handles this (aka what NOT to do)
http://genderblocks.com/types/organization - some examples of what other projects are doing
I just watched a CiviCRM demo today and noticed that they use Male / Female / Transgender. I wonder if that would be sufficient...
usually I do not tell my gender
usually I do not tell my gender in the internet. That is different with groups I know.
Since in every day life you have to cope with the behaviour towards sbd being one of a few females in IT anyway there is no reason not to tell here. The least is that when meeting they think you are the secretary who does not understand a word - there are even secies who do know:-). And this behaviour in a working life is sometimes done w/o words so it took me a while to realize it. :-) I did not expect it because I was not used to it. Sometimes no response is also a feedback.
Fortunately that really was the exception. So I think it is not so bad to just not think about it. On the other hand: Do tell me what can do about a recent statistics: Females earn 23% less than men in the same position.
. . .
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Bettina
Don't Follow Trends: Set Them!
https://drupal-training.de
https://www.skool.com/drupal/about
Congratulations
Congratulations Ariane!
Bettina, I have heard of a difference in salary but 23% seems like quite the high gap. Where did you hear that?
There was a W5 (Canadian) documentary a while ago, that showed women pay more for haircuts, even if wanting exactly the same one, e.g. going to a barbers, or for buying a car, etc. Somethings like haircuts, we may all implicitly know about the differentiation, but take it for granted.
I just wonder about that 23%, how did they do the comparison, was it based on job type or job title? I heard a study that compared males that had a loftier sounding title to females that had a more ordinary title doing similar work.
I do not think that is a fair comparison if that is the case, because I think the gap would be less if you compared similar titles together.
The question than becomes for me, how do we get women to market themselves better and not sell oneself short?
A lot of times, as in the way we tweak our resumes, as in the ways that we might sell ourselves in an interview, it is about marketing that makes the difference to get that position that you want.
Gender becomes an incidental factor that influences the way we market ourselves, or believe that we are allowed certain rewards, or even that we are allowed to view ourselves as equals.
The struggle while definitely existing in the external environment, becomes more interesting for me, when brought back to the internal struggle that exists inside ourselves.
I have come to realize that every time I get angry about something, I realize that even though it is an external factor that tripped me up, actually it is also a sign that I have an internal conflict myself.
And dealing with the internal conflict first, allows me to handle the external factors in a much more powerful or humorous way, feeling less like a victim.
That sounds about right to me
I'm not surprised at all. Pretty much everything I've ever read on the subject puts the gap in the 20-30% ballpark, no matter what factors are controlled for in terms of title, industry, years of experience and so on. This is going back to the 1970s through now. My personal belief is that this is due to a combination of discrimination and the way women are socialized to behave in society, being less aggressive and asking for less, not calling attention to yourself, etc., and the fact that gender roles at home are still very unequal in most families, so that women who have children face even more difficulty. In fact, I've read recently that mothers vs childless women have similar pay gaps, so that might even account for most of the difference between average pay for women and men. Of course the exact difference varies between different types of positions and different industries, but it's also true that whole industries where most workers are female tend to be lower-paid than industries where most workers are male.
Jean
Jean Gazis
www.jeangazis.com
www.webhostny.com
in the meantime a read a bit more
@aufumy
in the meantime a read a bit more about this (Germany only?) statistics: It was an overall rating in a variety of branches. In the first three years after starting a job the difference is less and -good for us- the lowest difference is in the IT branch, there it is only 18%. ;-)
I think they compared equal titles, but women often do not get equal titles! And that is an experience I made myself. So not giving you the title they do not have to give you the same money. But about this I do not know by own experience, since in Germany you usually do not talk about salary with collegues. It is just not done. And especially the bosses do not want you to do it. :-)
. . .
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Bettina
Don't Follow Trends: Set Them!
https://drupal-training.de
https://www.skool.com/drupal/about
Which ties nicely back to the
Which ties nicely back to the topic of standing up and identifying myself as a female, being okay with doing that.
Also, recently I attended a tech conference with my bf, who is a more social person than I. So of course a lot of males, just assumed that I was tagging along with my bf, which was compounded by my shy nature to speak out loud.
The difference though, is that I addressed the issue with one guy who I talked to, that I would have normally have reacted in a way to be internally furious, and not knowing how to bridge the subject, thus avoiding much contact with said individual. And with another guy, when he pointed out to a gf that was indeed tagging along with bf, saying well look at me, I am attending the talks, I loudly proclaimed for all to hear nearby, "I am a senior developer". Which was amazing for me to have the gumption to claim that title, whether it is fully true or not or whether I believe it or not.
I could have tried to act with a more forceful nature in general, so people would know sooner, but you know, I did stand up for myself when needed, and I think that I should be allowed to act friendly in public with my partner. I am allowed to be a female whilst being a developer as well.
this is also a "typically female" was to see it
Looking internally for the causes of things that are external is a pretty stereotypical way for females to look at problems in our society - most men would be far quicker to put the blame somewhere else. I'm very inclined to do it myself, but working on changing one's internal reactions doesn't have to mean not also trying to change the external factors such as social expectations and discrimination.
Jean Gazis
www.jeangazis.com
www.webhostny.com
Right, I fully agree and
Right, I fully agree and believe in the practice of standing up for oneself.
The difference for me, is not giving up my full power and responsibility to the external world, in blaming others only. Taking back the power for myself and thus the responsibility to make change.
When I am in a state of anger and blame, which I can be very good at, I have found from my experience I have not been able to calmly and powerfully effect the change I would like to see happen.
I'm glad you declared yourself.
Some things aren't worth being worried over. :) I'm currently living through the mommy pay gap years, and I can understand why someone who works full time in IT already has more experience and makes more money than I do, but there's more to life, and parenthood that is conveniently covered in regular accounting, so I'm more or less at peace with it.