# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Discussion and Support > Ubuntu Women >  Women in Brazil

## kurtkraut

Hi,

I'm brazilian and I've been a bit worried about the huge lack of women participation in the Ubuntu Brazilian community.

In Rosetta, we have a single woman among 77 other male translators. Thru IRC, mailing-lists, forums and etc woman participation is almost inexistant.

I would like to know if Ubuntu is beeing used by a considerable amount of women and they are not confortable in exposing their gender in public places, such foruns in portuguese *or* they are not using Ubuntu at all.

It is important for me to measure somehow how many women are using Ubuntu in Brazil to analyze the effect of some campaign and activities to stimulate women participation in Ubuntu Brazil. For instance, people who order CDs from ShipIt usually distribute their CDs among their male friends, not both male and female friends. I'm trying to remind them to spread Ubuntu for men and women as equal.

Unfortunately, Launchpad, Ubuntuforums.org and other official systems of Ubuntu do not have a form asking for gender and country data. So it is a bit hard to know how many women are envolved with Ubuntu in Brazil.

So please, if you are a woman and live in Brazil, and of course, is using Ubuntu, please reply this post. And anyone who has any kind of suggestion, please be welcome to do it.

Sorry for my bad english,

KurtKraut

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## svaksha

Hi , 
Well, I am not from Brazil but there are many women using Ubuntu all over the world and actively volunteering in the Ubuntu community too. I dont have exact numbers but why dont you try posting this on the Ubuntu-Women mailing list <ubuntu-women@lists.ubuntu.com>.  Maybe someone else can answer this better.
Thanks !

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## gaiba

A testimonial about my Linux experience:

I’m brazilian from São Paulo. I’m not a system developer or something like that, so I believe my message will sound a bit silly for most of you. Actually, I’m a graphic designer working with usability and information architecture on the Internet. I'm an Ubuntu user at the university lab. I use it on my own, because i'm curious about it –especially Gimp.

The first time I used Linux was some years ago, when I volunteered at CEU -a school that has a computer lab with Linux running on all machines. My job wasn’t at the lab, but I got interested on learning it when I used it at the first time. I realized that Gimp, Kontour and Inkscape could be an alternative to the expensive “designer package” softwares (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and so on). After that, all I did was Google researches about it and learned the basic concepts (open source softwares, distros, etc). I experienced live CDs from Kurumin and Slax, but my goal is not accomplished yet: I don’t have it installed because when I tried on my own it didn’t work –got lost with the partition stuff and quit. Now I only have Gaim, Firebird and Firefox, but still running on Windows.  

The frustrated experience also happened when I went to an Install Fest to get Linux installed on my computer. At the beginning there were only men and they barely talked to me. When they did, they spoke only to my male friend that btw wasn’t really interested about Linux at all. When one of them finally got to talk to me, he asked if I wanted a Linux version with Hello Kitty wallpaper, in a sarcastic way. Well, I don’t know if he was just joking or I’m a complete useless newbe, but I really got angry!!! I can’t blame all guys that were there, some of them really tried to help me and gave me some good information, but this one acted like an idiot! In the end, we had a stupid problem: my computer entries are USB and they only had PS-2 keyboard and mouse! =S

Since then I’m just trying to do things on my own. I have a huge tutorial in PDF and hope to have it running on my personal computer soon!

Well, I think that’s all! Sorry for any English mistake!

Regards,

Juliana Gaiba

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## Clunsford

Unfortuantly a lot of geeks float amist this and many other communties who are basically scared of estrogen.

Sorry about that ladies

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## _teo_

> ... Now I only have Gaim, Firebird and Firefox, but still running on Windows...


Hey Juliana, don't give up! The ubuntu people are very kind. They'll help you sorting out all of your problems. Even I as a newbie can help you, if you wish, of course, to reattempt ubuntu installation. Just give it a try. It doesn't hurt.




> ... he asked if I wanted a Linux version with Hello Kitty wallpaper, in a sarcastic way. Well, I dont know if he was just joking or Im a complete useless newbe, but I really got angry!!!...


I completely understand you. If I was you I would get angry too. I am newbie as well. So what? I'm much better elsewhere and as a matter of fact I'm improving in Linux too.




> Well, I think thats all! Sorry for any English mistake!


Please don't worry about your English. Mine isn't native too.
By the way: nice avatar.

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## Mirrorball

I'm Brazilian, a girl, Ubuntu user, and we live in the same city. Feel free to send me a message, although you posted three months ago.  :Sad:

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## calande

I'm a man from Curitiba, Brazil, I can help if you need.

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## melissawm

Here here!!!

24-year-old brazilian girl living in Belgium, Math Grad student, serious geek!!!

If you can tell me how i can help, that would be great! I keep looking for ways to help the linux/Ubuntu community but my knowledge is still limited to answer forum questions or to write documentation and stuff, but a women's LUG for Brazil might be a good idea - sometimes all the documentation's in english and that might compromise the interest that women (or people in general) take in linux. 

But seriously, i think the lack of women is just a reflex of a larger thing, which is a DIY culture turned specifically for men (as Linux might be in some levels consider part of the DIY culture - it sure takes the same amount of time and effort as, say, building a car at home or playing with electronics). 

As for me, since I use linux everyday for work and find it really beautiful and transparent (in the sense that i can actually KNOW AND SEE what i'm doing as opposed to windows) i spend a lot of time reading the forums and wiki and stuff, but that's speaking for me...

Good luck with the search and let's do something for Brazil  :Capital Razz:

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