Dawn Nafus has published an excellent paper entitled “Patches Don’t Have Gender”: What is not Open in Open Source Software. When I read it, I did so with some trepidation as I feared it might render my draft Free as in Sexist redundant. However, while we make a similar argument, we do go about it in different and complementary ways.

Despite the title, which is quoting a man on the supposed neutrality of code, Nafus’ argument is better reflected in the subtitle: “what is not open in open source software.” In short:

• There is no shortage of F/LOSS incidents in which women are sexualized, the target of hurtful and offensive talk, or are compelled to school men or serve as exemplars.
• Liberal feminism and F/LOSS take equality to mean minimizing gender differences and seeing technology as a neutral tool.
  • However, the supposed gender-blindness of technology is a myth that is “unwilling to acknowledge the materially obvious ways in which the participation had been socially shaped” (p. 676). For instance, while the criteria of success for commercial and “stable” code might be efficacy and performance; F/LOSS and higher-status development typically entails argument and advocacy (i.e., pushyocracy).
  • This myth, which many people (men and women) might aspire to is problematic: “To have to argue that gender is both something utterly artificial and meaningless and yet very real puts these advocates in an interpretive bind regarding what is and is not real. This is a central, vexing bind critical to F/LOSS production” (p. 675).
• While leaders might recognize the imbalance in women’s participation (at 2%) they reject any possible course of action. One such man at a conference balked at such suggestions: “This was not because he believed our suggestions were likely to be ineffective; his obvious discomfort revealed that women’s absence posed fewer problems than the method to change it” (p. 674).

In Free as in Sexist? I make a similar argument: that geekiness, openness, and freedom – things I otherwise laud – are at the heart of the imbalance. That is, some geek identities can be narrow and unappealing, open communities are especially susceptible to difficult people who are especially alienating to women, and the ideas of freedom and openness can be used to dismiss concerns and rationalize the gender gap as a matter of preference and choice.

Interestingly, Christina Dunbar-Hester and Gabriella Coleman have posted a rebuttal of Nafus’ piece entitled Engendering Change? Gender Advocacy in Open Source. (Nafus makes use of Coleman’s work on liberalism in hacker culture.) Dunbar-Hester and Coleman argue that:

• gender in F/LOSS is more complex than Nafus portrays.
• this is evidenced by women friendly/advocacy projects within F/LOSS, and the many men who supported those projects. For instance, Debian Women had much support and the the imbalance was recognized as a bug even in their bug tracking system.
• there is an increasing level of discourse about gender and sexism in F/LOSS.
• in this space some see gender as being like any other technology that is hackable, and allows us to ask questions as to why the way things are, and something to hack on [Dunbar-HesterColeman2012ecg, p. 3].

However, while I have enormous respect (and gratitude) towards Biella, I do not find their response convincing. While I agree that recent advocacy and discourse is heartening (e.g., too of my favorites are GeekFeminism and AdaCamp) this is an (important) beginning rather than proof that substantive progress has been made. Furthermore, as I argue, it only takes a few “bad apples” among a barrel of sympathetic allies to render the environment toxic. Finally, I think the point on gender hacking is techno-utopian. Indeed, both Nafus and I note Eric Raymond’s early musing as an example of this; he made the questionable claim that hacker culture is more gender balanced because of participants’ geeky enthusiasms:

after all, if one’s imagination readily grants full human rights to future AI programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and gender can’t seem very important any more. [Raymond1991jf]

Instead, I – and I think Nafus – share the disappointment of Lisa Nakamura who realized, in the late 90s even, that all the talk about gender irrelevance or fluidity in cyberspace came to naught. While one might have found some ungendered or queered performances online, one was more likely to find white men playing as Mr. Sulu or as a libidinous geisha [Nakamura1998rci].

None-the-less, I find all of this to be important and fascinating and thank Nafus, Dunbar-Hester, and Coleman for the engaging reading.

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