# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Discussion and Support > Ubuntu Women >  ubuntu is my boyfriend.

## boredom_amused

Before browsing this forum I had no idea that women made up such a small percentage of users and of those who do, most seem to be using it because of their partner. Is this a reflection of the larger trend of males dominating the computer world? Is this why it is so difficult to find funny science/tech-y shirts that will actually fit me and not look like a smock?

I came into Ubuntu as pretty much a total outsider and newbie. I set it all up and got everything working, no dual boot or anything I just took that leap of faith and have it on my desktop and laptop. Any problems I figured out with help from the forums and I'm proud of that. So why do I still feel uneasy that I'm suddenly in the minority? apparently a really tiny one?

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## IYY

You shouldn't feel uneasy but rather proud, but the lack of female GNU/Linux users is indeed a problem. It's not just Ubuntu, but all distros that suffer from this trend. The problem is the same in computer science and engineering departments at most universities, espeically in North America. 

It's interesting how once, a long time ago, computer science was the field with the highest female:male ratio in universities. Nowdays, it's probably the smallest.

I guess the problem could come from the fact that women seem to dislike fields that have to do with anything technical: cars, engineering, computers... I don't know why they do this, because women are just as capable as men in those fields, but that's the way things are. It's possible that society is to blame: boys are given toy cars, robots and legos whereas girls are given barbies and pink ponies.

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## Henry Rayker

I don't think it stops at what kinds of toys boys and girls play with as children; I think society's perception of females who are interested in mechanics, computers and the like are partly to blame as well.

My girlfriend is an engineering major and when she tells people that, they act kind of shocked or surprised; I think some women feel uncomfortable with this kind of attention. It seems like girls hate being singled out or to be told they are in the "weird" minority..

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## boredom_amused

I know I shouldn't feel uneasy, but it's kind of disturbing to think that less than 5% of users are women when I'm sure computer users in general are way more representative of populations.
Would you say then that Linux's perceived technicality is the main deterent? and if so, why are men way more willing to overcome this challenge? I don't think it's so simple that women dislike technical fields per se. There's something else, and I don't what it is.

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## matthew

> Before browsing this forum I had no idea that women made up such a small percentage of users and of those who do, most seem to be using it because of their partner. Is this a reflection of the larger trend of males dominating the computer world? Is this why it is so difficult to find funny science/tech-y shirts that will actually fit me and not look like a smock?
> 
> I came into Ubuntu as pretty much a total outsider and newbie. I set it all up and got everything working, no dual boot or anything I just took that leap of faith and have it on my desktop and laptop. Any problems I figured out with help from the forums and I'm proud of that. So why do I still feel uneasy that I'm suddenly in the minority? apparently a really tiny one?


I wish I knew. If you think of any ideas that might help you and other ladies feel as welcome as we truly wish for you to feel please let me/us know.

If nothing else, at least know I'm glad you're here.

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## Henry Rayker

I think it has to do with a lot of factors.

The prime deterrant for new users (of either gender) is likely to be the technological aspect of it.

As for what keeps women away, specifically: I'd say some of it is the fact that there are so few female users in the community. Some (I'd be willing to say most that I have come to know) women seem to feel uncomfortable going into an almost entirely male environment. So the problem is its own cause, to some effect.

Another thing I'd say is that, while computer users overall should be better distributed, I think the amount of women at higher levels of computer knowledge drop off. On average, the males I've known have been more knowledgeable about computers than the females.

One reason why males seem to overcome the challenge could be that men are more impulsive. I would say that, of my closer friends, I am the most computer literate, however, I've completely destroyed my system far more times than they have. It seems to be a sort of bathtub curve. The people who have crashed their system the least have the most "average" amount of knowledge. The ones below that level of understanding crash their computers more (due to viruses) and those above crash more (due to experimentation).

EDIT: I feel the same as matthew. If anything can make more women feel better about their presence here, let us know. I'm glad that at least some are able to overcome the fear and step into something new.

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## boredom_amused

> I wish I knew. If you think of any ideas that might help you and other ladies feel as welcome as we truly wish for you to feel please let me/us know.
> 
> If nothing else, at least know I'm glad you're here.


The funny thing is, I _do_ feel welcomed. Even the cheesy people in the promo material made me feel welcomed.

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## matthew

> The funny thing is, I _do_ feel welcomed. Even the cheesy people in the promo material made me feel welcomed.


That's encouraging as is your willingness to just jump in and try things. I think you have every right to be proud of yourself (and not because you're a woman, but because of the sense of accomplishment that comes from embracing and figuring out complex stuff). If you keep this up you might just find yourself loving it so much around here that you go from a brand-new neophyte user to an apprentice helping other newcomers with problems you have already learned to solve, and next thing you know you're staff or something...well, that's my story anyway.  :Smile:

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## boredom_amused

> I think it has to do with a lot of factors.
> 
> The prime deterrant for new users (of either gender) is likely to be the technological aspect of it.
> 
> As for what keeps women away, specifically: I'd say some of it is the fact that there are so few female users in the community. Some (I'd be willing to say most that I have come to know) women seem to feel uncomfortable going into an almost entirely male environment. So the problem is its own cause, to some effect.
> 
> Another thing I'd say is that, while computer users overall should be better distributed, I think the amount of women at higher levels of computer knowledge drop off. On average, the males I've known have been more knowledgeable about computers than the females.
> 
> One reason why males seem to overcome the challenge could be that men are more impulsive. I would say that, of my closer friends, I am the most computer literate, however, I've completely destroyed my system far more times than they have. It seems to be a sort of bathtub curve. The people who have crashed their system the least have the most "average" amount of knowledge. The ones below that level of understanding crash their computers more (due to viruses) and those above crash more (due to experimentation).
> ...


hmmm... all of my male tech-savvy friends and relatives (save for my 12 year old cousin who thought it was really cool and was really excited by the stickers that came with the cds i ordered) discouraged me greatly from using linux. 
Maybe the male-impulsiveness has something to do with it, but are men 95% more impulsive than women? I still feel like there's this black box that i'm really curious about. Maybe I'll be a super nerd and talk to a prof and make this a research project.

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## boredom_amused

> That's encouraging as is your willingness to just jump in and try things. I think you have every right to be proud of yourself (and not because you're a woman, but because of the sense of accomplishment that comes from embracing and figuring out complex stuff). If you keep this up you might just find yourself loving it so much around here that you go from a brand-new neophyte user to an apprentice helping other newcomers with problems you have already learned to solve, and next thing you know you're staff or something...well, that's my story anyway.


hahahahaha we'll see, we'll see. thanks for the vote of support.

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## hbuser

> That is true... at the same time men usually have tough times entering fields normally dominated by females. Male nurses face ridicule. Male elementary teachers make up a small fraction of the total -- by some studies I have seen as little as 7%.
> 
> Men, in the United States, have to register for the draft while women do not.
> 
> Inequality surrounds us daily and special interest groups do little more than attempt to tip the scales in their favor when we should be trying to level them out.
> 
> I have one boy and one girl (one more on the way) and I constantly find myself trying to counter the "standard" societal messages they are being bombarded with. It is not an easy thing... but if we all look at each other as humans and not as "blank" type of human we might, as a society, finally move past the issues.
> 
> I admit that I once thought that dream possible, I have sadly come to the conclusion that it probably will not in my lifetime.


the male/female ratio in the sciences isn't neccessarily true in other parts of the world.  i live in venezuela, and though a lot of ubuntu users seems to be male, it seems that about half of the IT students in colleges here are female.

i have a friend who owns a software company; he is sending recruiters to Iran (IRAN you all) to find women to work for the company: that place graduates one of the highest proportions and highest-achieving female computer scientists.  i had no clue.

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## Lanning

This Christmas, I had the fun of being told "you're cool" (and also that my laptop -- a Dell C400 with Ubuntu Feisty Faun (I got that Broadcom chip working!!! YAY ME!!!) -- is really cool) by a definitely geeky pair of  brothers who are about 20 years younger than me (two  IT professionals, btw). I'm a 52 yo self-taught (with help from the forums, google, et al) geek who loves to take apart laptops and fix 'em and install Linux. I'm pretty slow with the Terminal still (can't remember the code) and I'd really like to play more games (but can't figure out WINE) -- and I'm having a blast. You're never too old to learn this if you have patience, fortitude, and a good bit of stubbornness -- some qualities we older broads have had to develop in order to survive in a "man's" world.

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## valke

yeah, ubuntu is my main man.

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## syms

ubuntu is my boyfriend....
why are you girls so strange? why you dont like boys? in nowadays there are so many innormal people...  :Sad: 
anyway i think it is just a joke  :Smile:

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## Eisenwinter

I just want to say, total respect to all of you.

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## FutanariKitty

Perhaps this is a serious bit of thread necromancy, but it IS Samhain after all, and I can't resist the urge to wax philosophical about gender.

Personally, I've always had the mindset that the various subtle deficiencies in equality stem from societal sources. While it's no small secret that 'male' and 'female' brains are generically different, what separates the sexes is really unclear. For that matter, sex doesn't just end with male and female (do some research on Klinefelter's syndrome, for example). Males are typically assumed to be stronger, faster, more analytical and logical. Females assumed to be softer, quieter, ruled by emotion and highly empathic.

I think these generalities (and many more) have just become to ingrained into our upbringing. I mean, I couldn't tell you how many girls I know that could fight like a demon, or how many boys I know that are truly in touch with their emotions. Society punishes people like that though. The girl who knows how to fight and stands up for herself is considered uncultured, crude, and unfeminine. The boy who isn't afraid to cry is viewed as a pansy, less than a man. Does any of this seem utterly ridiculous?

I've got a bit of an interesting perspective on the topic considering I've lived on both sides of the gender binary at some point. I was raised as a boy and lived the first 23 years of my life as such. I can personally tell you how shockingly different my body and mind are now that I'm taking estrogen supplements and testosterone blockers. It's a joke amongst some that women are always hormonal, but I'll just say it goes both ways. The effect of testosterone on the body is a frightening one (to me, that is).

Society is programmed with expectations about how people will behave based on their gender. In actuality, it's no different than our society's stereotypes on race and ethnicity, but the scope is incredibly encompassing. It's one of the first things we are taught as children, from the color of our clothing to our toys. I'm sure there are a number of fathers out there that would be highly upset when their toddler boy wants to play with a doll, whilst a number of mothers would probably be upset when their baby girl wants to play with G. I. Joe's. These stereotypes are reinforced year after year of our development. Some people think they're just 'always' there, or they aren't a big deal, but from someone who had to reacclimate to another gender it's not so simple. I think the worst part of it all is how society has so firmly linked gender roles with what's between someone's legs, as if that was the business of anyone out there. I mean, look at how women, in many cases, are viewed as little more than baby factories. And you better believe that someone who appears so androgynous that others can't easily determine gender tend to upset a LOT of people. They innately become flustered and uneasy.

It's a bit ironic how the contributions of women tend to go unnoticed and forgotten. Look at the work of Lynn Conway, whose research at IBM led to some important advancements about the very machines we use today. She was transgendered, and was fired in 1968 when she revealed this to IBM. Her work went unnoticed and uncredited for nearly 30 years, until she finally came out about her past.

I could be a raging misandrist and say that it is the fault of men that women are treated so poorly in various endeavours, including the IT fields. And there's probably some truth to it, but that would do a disservice to all the men that actually do treat women fairly, nor does it take into account that both sides of the gender binary tend to treat those that 'break the rules' unfairly.

Anyway, I think that's enough rambling for one day. Happy Holidays everyone!

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## QwUo173Hy

Most girls I know look at computers (and maybe phones too) as a medium to an end, as opposed to something of interest in itself. For example, I love food, but I couldn't even tell you how many prongs are on the forks in my cutlery drawer. I just use them to eat (well, at least when others are present  :Smile:  )

My niece for example uses facebook to keep in touch with her friends and the same for her phone. If I mention drupal she glazes over. Same response when I tell her to try firefox instead of explorer.

I think the mobile phone market is actually changing attitudes to technology though. My niece started off downloading ring-tones and wallpapers but now she can set up my blackberrys voicemail for me. When I was 18 I couldn't even set up an email account!

Another thing is probably that software developers aren't great role models. I remember my first and last interview. A room full of middle aged guys wearing wolly jumpers. I was still very young then but I ran away with my tail between my legs and got a factory job just because I preferred the work environment.

Anyway, as the last poster said - enough of my rambling. It's medication time!

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## pony

I'm a girl,10 years old,and I love ubuntu. It's the only thing I keep on my desktop. I keep Windows for games and that's it. I don't really like the look of Windows. :Smile:  :Smile:  :Smile:

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## river226

> I'm a girl,10 years old,and I love ubuntu. It's the only thing I keep on my desktop. I keep Windows for games and that's it. I don't really like the look of Windows.


just got to say, awesome.

also it's said that more women aren't apart of the ubuntu game, i agree that linux needs to be promoted more i mean for me if i hadn't been in the right class with the right teacher in high school i would be half as into computers as i am now, and with no more ex-poser to linux then those late 90's IBM linux ad's. great ad's.

and when it comes down to it that's really it, cause from my own childhood i was raised on mac and windows and never understood the difference accept the concept that mac's look cool and this one doesn't, so i mean for the average user the OS of choice isn't really a choice as long as it does what they want. that goes for male an female, the only bar for linux is that the only real linux ad's are those IBM ones from the nineties, and thats pretty much it. plus the few times it makes it out there it gets a bad rep like that one girl in virgina if i got the right state, where they bashed the ubuntu OS that came with her laptop when she clicked the wrong thing on the dell site.
so i think the real problem is media, and women in the field of computers, and not linux or ubuntu. And i would also say the barrier for women there is that  society has dictated for one reason or another doesn't accept the Open Source model, and also dictates what is acceptable, and unfortunately despite all the great female comp sci's they never got to define the world, the fields that contributed to comp sci the most, manpower-wise were already male dominated, and that's the cause. ultimately in my opinion

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