Re: Perl's Glory Days Are Behind It, But It Isn't Going Anywhere

On 06/02/13 14:55, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> I hope I won't get attacked for it too much (and I am an active 
> contributor to [email protected]), but I think part of the problem is 
> that Feminists (and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminazi -s - a term 
> which no longer mean the same thing) are *never* happy from whatever 
> behaviour the good-intentioned male hackers exhibit towards female 
> developers who wish to start,

I realise this is derailing the thread further, but I'm going to object 
to this.  Shlomi, there are *many*, *many* men in the Perl community who 
manage to get along with the women in the Perl community without any 
gender-related problems at all.

For starters, they don't insist on using "guruess" or "hackeress" after 
being told that "guru" and "hacker" were not originally gendered and 
don't need to be so (and I'm delighted to see that you've improved in 
this area).  They're also the ones who wouldn't even bring up the word 
feminazi if trying to make your point, when it has never meant the same 
thing and is and always has been a deliberate slur against feminism.  
They're also the ones who don't jump to point the finger at feminists 
for what is clearly a society-wide problem.

Feminists (and there are both male and female feminists) are not at 
fault for pointing out that lots of entrenched behaviour is not okay.  
It just isn't.  Things like using soft porn in slides should be 
obviously not okay.  But things like asking a woman who's turned up to 
your tech group if she's there because her boyfriend is, or who her 
boyfriend is, or even if she has a boyfriend, is also not okay. If 
someone is correcting you on what you view to be relatively mild 
transgressions perhaps it means that mostly you're doing okay. Or, 
occasionally, perhaps it means you didn't understand that your 
transgression isn't that mild.

As a feminist, I can say with pride that (although not perfect) the Perl 
community at large is my favourite group of tech people to hang out with 
largely because it's the least sexist.  Sure, I got asked what the 
partners' program was like, less than an hour after my talk at YAPC::EU 
and sure, I get challenged to prove my Perl credibility by people who 
don't know who I am at YAPC::NA (a few times) but mostly this is a 
really good crowd.

So I don't agree at all that "part of the problem is that Feminists ... 
are *never* happy from whatever behaviour the good-intentioned male 
hackers exhibit towards female developers who wish to start,"  The Perl 
community has many men who behave wonderfully towards women who wish to 
start in Perl, and I (and I'm sure a lot of feminists) are delighted 
with that.  What do I mean about behaving "wonderfully"?  I mean 
treating them as you should treat any other starting developer: assume 
competence, determine background, point out appropriate resources and 
provide help when it is requested, and only that help, versus "here let 
me finish it for you".

I don't think that Perl's decline in popularity is all that related to 
why Perl has too few women in its communities.  Over time, my training 
classes have probably averaged 25-30% women (which is on-par with 
women's representation in IT in business).  Skud's survey (years ago) 
suggested 6% women (which is 3 times higher than women's representation 
in open source for pleasure, although the survey may have been answered 
by people who only worked in open source for work).  I think Perl has 
too few women in its communities for almost all the same reasons that 
too few women are involved in open source for pleasure, and they're well 
documented elsewhere. That is, this isn't a Perl problem, but a wider 
problem.  All we can do is promote (haha) the strengths of our community 
and treat our newcomers well.

All the best,

     Jacinta