Just wow

Monday, October 12. 2009

Over at Linux Magazine, Bruce Byfield wrote quite reasonably about the abuse he received for taking a pro-feminist line in discussing sexism in the FOSS community. Among the comments is one from somebody calling himself "MikeeUSA" which includes this choice paragraph:

Nina Reiser chose to become an enemy of Hans Reiser, one of the Men of the Free Software Movement. She committed adultery against him with his best friend, then she divorced him and stole his children (whom he loved), then she went after his meager wealth (most of which he had been using to fund opensource development so that we all might benifit), then after doing all this she visited him (perhaps to articulate legal threats to him and demand payment)... that was too much for him to stand there and do nothing. Now we are less one great developer and contributor to the opensource movement: he doesn't get to code while in prison, nor can he allocate monies towards developer's salaries (because he has none: prison doesn't pay well).

Just in case you've been living under a rock, Hans Reiser is in prison for murdering Nina. What sort of idiot do you have to be to blame the victim for their own murder? This is the equivalent of blaming Nicole Brown Simpson for depriving show business of a great actor.

Read the whole thing if you want to be amazed, shocked, possibly distressed.

Now what does this have to do with Postgres? Nothing much, except that Postgres is a FOSS project, and I for one am acutely aware of the imbalance of genders in our community, and wish it were otherwise. Count me among the Bruce Byfields and not among the MikeeUSAs.

As far as I am concerned, people like MikeeUSA need to crawl under a rock and stay there. If I found such a person in our community, I'd be inclined to make their life so uncomfortable that they left. We don't need bigots and sexists, and we do need far more women. And we need more people to say so.

Posted by Andrew Dunstan in PostgreSQL at 16:54 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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Andrew, I am not sure how harassing someone who has a belief you don't agree with is defensible. 
 
On the one hand, you are complaining about "abuse" that someone received for making pro-feminist remarks, and on the other hand you are saying you want to "make life uncomfortable" for someone else who is a "bigot" and "sexist". 
 
I don't think you will find support for the harassment of anyone in the Postgres community, even if they hold beliefs that are unpopular or controversial. Intolerance for the sake of promoting tolerance isn't logical.

#1 Bruce Momjian (Homepage) on 2009-10-12 17:43 (Reply)

I'm not going to harrass someone for their beliefs. (In another life, I made myself extremely unpopular with certain strands of progressive thought by opposing, on free speech grounds, laws that criminalised expressions of racist opinion, notwithstanding that those opinions were highly offensive to me, so I have some credibility on that score.) 
 
But I find it hard to believe that someone like the person in question would not act on their beliefs. And it is perfectly reasonable to work against people whose behaviour is consistently unacceptable. 
 
I think we need to make sure that we have a climate that is welcoming to all groups, but especially those that are under-represented in our community, most notably women. If someone were to act in such a way that that goal were undermined, would you just stand by?

#1.1 Andrew Dunstan on 2009-10-12 18:01 (Reply)

BTW, I don't think we do have such a person in our community, or if we do he keeps himself well hidden, so the debate is a bit academic. 
 
I think the sexism we practice is much more insidious, akin to the form of racism Steven Colbert so effectively parodies when he says "I don't see race." 
 
And following up Bruce's point some more: I am an ardent supporter of free speech, so far as the law goes, but I don't think social groups are obliged to be tolerant of all forms of thought. Christian Churches should not be bound in the name of tolerance to admit professing atheists, for example. 
 
Should we be tolerant of someone loudly spouting racist sentiments? I don't think so. I will defend their legal right to do so, but I will not associate with them or welcome them into my living room. I apply the same logic to sexism.

#1.2 Andrew Dunstan on 2009-10-12 19:04 (Reply)

Hi Andrew, 
 
Thanks for linking to Bruce Byfield's post. 
 
I have found the PostgreSQL community to be incredibly welcoming and friendly. One issue that comes up from time to time is that we tend to be very direct with our opinions, and to the uninitiated -- that can be alienating. Also, we have policies around code acceptance and quality that are high, and uncompromising. That attitude is different than other projects, and can be jarring for people at first. 
 
Our community and development style is certainly not appealing to everyone, and never will be. But I think we can do more within that to encourage people to participate in ways that we need -- end user documentation (the wiki!!), case studies, advocacy and code review. 
 
As far as women go - I have seen women become more prominent in the Postgres communities over the last four years. We certainly could do more to encourage developers who use Postgres to become active on our mailing lists and to join planet.postgresql.org. I'm happy to encourage any women who work with Postgres to become more visible in our community. I certainly don't think that this is my personal responsibility -- I would hope that all of the male developers would take it upon themselves to encourage the women they know who code to join us. And if you're wondering how to go about this in an effective way, I'm happy to talk to anyone about it. 
 
Back to the original topic -- if you're interested in a full dossier on the harrasser's behavior in several open source communities over the last few years, Kirrily Robert (aka Skud) wrote about it. The link i'm including below discusses sexual assault, threats of violence, and actual violence against women. If you link to this post, please include a similar warning: 
 
http://geekfeminism.org/2009/10/08/psa-mikeeusas-hate-speech-and-harassment/

#2 Selena Deckelmann (Homepage) on 2009-10-12 19:27 (Reply)

Selena, 
 
Triple wow. Where do such people come from? 
 
Yes, we're often very direct and yes it can be offputting. I think that's probably true for some members of both sexes. 
 
I don't think we need to apologise for having high standards. 
 
We've been terribly bad in this industry for a very long time at getting women involved. I don't know the answer any more than anyone else does. But it's long been a cause of sadness to me.

#2.1 Andrew Dunstan on 2009-10-13 00:29 (Reply)

I don't think we're suffering too terribly badly from anything remotely analogous to the above, which is a happy thing. 
 
I'll observe that RMS got himself in some hot water over a joke about "Emacs virgins" where he had a line promoting "deflowering virgins," and couldn't understand why some people thought that was offensive. (I can see a way he might imagine he wasn't being offensive, but sometimes he's wrong, and this was a pretty evident case...) 
 
The bit that causes me a bit of concern is the "crawl under a rock and stay there" line. 
 
I'm not quite sure what the right thing is. Notably, if such an individual merely shuts up, then there's still a bold misogynist sitting there. If he sits there silently, I can't tell if he's just simmering, or quietly boiling towards a perhaps-violent explosion. (If "MikeeUSA" thought Hans Reiser was right in killing his wife, then what other violence might he find personally acceptable???) 
 
I'm not sure that I want such people silent; silence can mask danger.

#3 Christopher Browne (Homepage) on 2009-10-13 00:29 (Reply)

"We don't need bigots and sexists, and we do need far more women. And we need more people to say so." 
 
A contrived Postgres community will serve us poorly I think. A merit based approach to contributions sounds good to me. 
 
Did you really have to send this over the Planet PostgreSQL feed though?

#4 Si on 2009-10-13 02:39 (Reply)

Andrew, 
I tend to agree with Bruce on this. So the guy is a creep. What does this have to do with getting more women into FOSS. To me this hypersensitivity is just distracting from the true causes of the lack of women in FOSS and extremely annoying. 
 
Focus more on getting young girls interested in programming and less about making them paranoid that every geek guy is a sexist creep they should watch out for. This happens in all walks of life (and not to the glorified extent that people boast about) -- why is it such a big deal here? why aren't we talking about the great things that men and women do to encourage women like all the great male mentors I've had? Why most we always focus on the negative and blow it out of proportion like its the most ubiquitous thing. I should know being both female and of mixed race and I guess I've been pretty lucky to have never experienced these things in FOSS groups.

#5 Regina (Homepage) on 2009-10-13 21:43 (Reply)

Regina, 
 
I guess I just read what the creep (boy, is that an understatement!) said and reacted, not knowing he was well known for this, as Selena pointed out. 
 
As for encouraging the young, my own daughter is currently taking a programming course, so I guess one way or another I might have done something right there <img src="/andrew/templates/default/img/emoticons/wink.png" alt=";-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" /> 
 
I'm really glad your experience has been so positive. My wife reminds me regularly that I don't accentuate the positive nearly enough, so I am not totally surprised by your reaction. 
 
I don't think what you said is quite the same as what Bruce said, though.

#5.1 Andrew Dunstan on 2009-10-13 22:07 (Reply)

Andrew, 
Glad to hear you are doing things to encourage the next generation. 
 
Yap I guess I was mixing two thoughts at once. I agreed with Bruce that dealing with people with intolerance because they are intolerant is unproductive 
and had what I thought to be a related thought. I think I also overreacted about this, but feel people are so inspired by the heinousness of a crime that they can't think clearly. 
 
My main gripe is the assumption that FOSS is short on women because FOSS people are in general more sexist and prejudiced than any other group and I feel that is the message we are sending. 
I don't think somehow focusing all our attention on stamping out every iota of sexism 
and tiptoeing around the words 
we use around one another when talking to each other and being hypersensitive to it 
will solve anything. To me that makes for very stilted conversations. I suspect that's the way a lot of those accused of anti-feminism feel. 
People say racist, sexist hurtful things to me all the time and some are good friends and I probably do too in gest and I take their state of 
consciousness into consideration before flagging them as intentionally hurtful. I just don't want every young woman running around thinking 
oh because some guy yelled at me in a newsgroup or he didn't answer my question or "It's because he's sexist and this must be a sexist group that puts up with this." 
- it could be "Cause you said something unfounded or he had a thousand 
people asking questions and just didn't happen to notice yours, or he just happens to be a jerk." I apologize if I'm sugar-coating a bit. 
 
Here is an example Open Source GIS crowd probably has fewer women than most other FOSS in the industry. 
All the men in that crowd have been very kind and mentoring people even more so than any female crowds I've been in. 
Why are the numbers so small? It has very little to do with them pushing women out and I think more to do with 
women just not being as interested because of well meaning practices passed down from parents and so forth. 
 
These guys you mentioned from their actions I would not construe as sexist. 
My first thought Hans is obviously a guy who was hurt by another person and out of rage 
killed that other person. It is a tragedy -- end of story. Mike is a guy looking for attention and expressing his twisted feeling about how he 
has lost an important person in his life. Yes that's sugar-coating it and what I assume with just knowing what you said. Yes I walk around with sugar-coated goggles which would probably explain why 
I haven't noticed these crimes against my race and sex as much as other people. 
To me I don't care -- I just want to know is there something founded in what they are saying and they are just not expressing well, 
can they be changed and what their motives are? 
The Hans crime is not a sexist crime, its a rage crime. If he killed his best friend 
I would consider it as much of a tragedy but if his best friend is not a girl now its not sexism -- its a bit clearer what it is? 
 
Selena, I've had too many good male mentors and many reciprocal mentoring relationships to mention and I have mentioned some of these people 
in blog entries. 
I would probably embarass them if I mentioned their names in some sappy blog entry about how great they are and how they've changed my life.<img src="/andrew/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" /> 
 
Thanks, 
Regina

#5.1.1 Regina (Homepage) on 2009-10-14 16:00 (Reply)

Regina, 
 
your capacity for understanding and forgiveness vastly exceeds mine. I can't see everything as a cry for help or expression of hurt. 
 
Not every insult is sexist, racist or some such. But some are, and should be seen as such. And, to be honest, if someone says, for example, that it's OK for women to be raped, I'm not that interested in understanding their motives. 
 
I agree that we are not wholly or even largely responsible for the low numbers of women in our community. I think the causes go back to social perceptions of computing, mathematics, physics and engineering as somehow unfeminine, and to the ways in which these disciplines are taught. 
 
I also think there can be a sort of clubby male atmosphere at meetings and conferences, which can be offputting. That's something that isn't at all intentional, but is one reason we need to be a tiny bit self conscious about how we act.

#5.1.1.1 Andrew Dunstan on 2009-10-14 17:06 (Reply)

Regina, 
 
I would be so happy if you wrote a blog post about a great male mentor you've had. 
 
It's very true that a lot of attention is being paid to the bad things that are happening. I think people need to be reminded about the positive experiences that women have all the time. 
 
I'd also like to say -- overtly sexual and degrading statements made by members of F/LOSS organizations do discourage women from participating. I see those comments that get everyone riled up as more of a symptom than a cause, though, and part a reinforcing loop. 
 
But, certainly - more positive reflections on mentoring, and explanations of how mentoring really impacts participation are a critical part of expanding community. 
 
-selena

#5.2 Selena Deckelmann (Homepage) on 2009-10-13 22:58 (Reply)

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