Just a Question from a man

[wildman4god]

I know this is a womans sub board, so I hope I don't get in trouble for posting here, It just seems like the most logical place to ask this question. The question is "how many of you women experience sexism on the Ubuntu Message boards?" The reason I ask is I have read a few blog post lately that say there is a lot of sexism in FOSS, I have only been on the Ubuntu boards but over the past year, year and a half I can't remember anyone being sexist, But I would like to see if women actually have on the Ubuntu Boards, because I think there is a policy against sexism on these boards. Again sorry if I am not allowed to post here.

[aysiu]

I know this is a womans sub board, so I hope I don't get in trouble for posting here

No, you won't get into trouble. From the subforum sticky:

This forum section is for Ubuntu Women, a group designed to make women feel more comfortable in the Ubuntu Community and the Linux Community at large. It is NOT meant to separate women from the rest of the community.

[macogw]

Hopefully very few. We try to moderate well.

Do you count the assumption that anyone into computers must be male as sexist? I do. If you agree that this is sexism:
- In this forum a couple weeks ago a man expressed surprise at the mention of a 19 year old woman using Linux
- In a thread dedicated to talking about how hot the Miss Universe contestants are, I said I hope they are judged more strongly on their brains than looks. I was assumed to be a male eunuch.
- A couple months ago in this forum a few men made the claim that women's brains simply couldn't handle working on Free Software the way men's can. Also, that the men needed to mansplain to women all about how women work and what women feel--because we are incapable of recognizing or understanding our own thoughts and feelings.

Hrm, kinda funny that 2 of the most sexist comments I can remember were in the UW subforum.


I cannot attest to how many women are harassed on the boards in private message, however. Since I'm a mod, people are usually smart enough not to harass me

[wildman4god]

Thanks for answering my question, I was just wondering if the ubuntu forums were living up to it's code of conduct, if not we need to do something about it. Me personally I highly respect women and believe that women can greatly contribute to open source projects (or anything for that matter). I have heard a lot about sexism in FOSS lately and if there is anything I can do to make the situation better let me know.

[wildman4god]

Do you count the assumption that anyone into computers must be male as sexist? I do. If you agree that this is sexism:

I would agree this is sexism, although myself I find it hard to tell if a person on the message boards are female or male. Some times I can tell from your user name and avitar but sometimes not so much.

[macogw]

Ya know what? Perfect timing! Have a look through the SHEBUNTU thread for lots of sexism, mansplaining, and othering.

[wildman4god]

Yeah I looked through it, I don't think he's trying to be sexist but in the end he is being sexist. I don't think women (or anybody) needs a special version of ubuntu costomized for them, the beauty of linux in general is that you can customize it for you. If you can't or don't want to customize linux your self perhaps you shouldn't be using it. I don't believe ubuntu is for everyone, some people just can't handle having complete control over their desktop environment, that's why mac locks every thing down, because we keep hearing horror stories of how windows users keep deleting system files. Seriously women are more than capable of installing apps, themes, and what ever else they need and/or want in ubuntu. And even if women did need help (which they don't, I'm just playing devils advocate for a second) a man would be the least qualified person to make a distro for women, it would be just as instaulting to have a woman explian to me what it means to be a man.

[macogw]

heh it's not just the OP that's being sexist. Right now, I feel like infracting 3/4 of the people in that thread.

[MelDJ]

some men should learn to respect women. quite sad to see how some men think of women

[wildman4god]

some men should learn to respect women. quite sad to see how some men think of women

Ditto, sometimes I'm ashamed to be a man after I see how most of them treat women.