• Mozilla sponsors 2 out of 8 programs in the GNOME Outreach Program for Women this year!
• Blog post featuring a woman’s interesting point of view, when asked the question about being a woman in CS after her speech
• A French post by Julia Buchner, who notices from her own personal experience how positive discrimination in recruitment can be absurd and embarrassing: Diversity in Recruitment [fr]
• Wednesday Geek Woman: a tribute to Mary Cury on the Geek Feminism Blog
• Give your advice on how to make IT careers more attractive to women, starting at K-12 level
• A 10 year old girl’s rant about stereotypes boys can have. It’s really well written, funny and true. A great read
• Stormy Peters writes on how men have helped her throughout her life and carreer in Open Source, and thanks them
• And finally, don’t forget to check out the new WoMoz Planet for posts from women in Mozilla and WoMoz

In case you still haven’t noticed, today is Women’s Day. And most important of all, it’s the 100th edition of International Women’s Day.

So on this special day – necessary in order to remind everyone of the existence of persecuted women around the world – I would first like to have a thought for all the oppressed, beaten and stoned to death women, who are considered as inferior, who have few or no rights. All these women who suffer, still too numerous, but who stand tall. Those of them who dare to rebel, who fight for their dignity. We must not forget them. Today even more, we must remember them.

In this day, I feel even more lucky than ever to be where I am, in this community. The Mozilla community has welcomed me, let me express my ideas (amongst which, my feminist ideas), encouraged me to get involved with WoMoz (see my last post)… I am a happy woman.

A happy geek's girlfriend: the proof with this picture!

A happy woman, but who will not be caught off-guard. Today, this Women’s Day is also special because of its theme: “Equal access to education, training, science and technology: towards decent work conditions for women”. And this is exactly what WoMoz is fighting for! We try to end existing prejudices. Why would a woman not be capable enough to work in computing and to have technical skills?! The problem today is that women – even before knowing if they’d like to integrate this world – are oriented towards different fields, considered as more “feminine”. They don’t truly have a choice. From the outside, it may seem that they have the choice, but in reality it’s a whole other story. In my case, I don’t work in Open Source (I’m a journalist) and I don’t regret having chosen this job. However, I have never been taught computing during my scholarship, nor do I remember anyone talking to me about FLOSS. Computer science and new technologies seem reserved for boys.

And it’s still the case! When you are a woman, you really need to have a lot of guts to enter these kinds of fields. Of course, this assessment concerns also other domains… Women are frequently the victims of prejudice, and still too often other people decide for them… But WoMoz wants to be there to support them, to accompany them in their choices. And WoMoz is not only composed of women: there are also open-minded men in the group.

This post is certainly full of indignation, but also full of hope: because the WoMoz project exists (amongst others of course), and because I know that women are courageous. They are courageous and will continue to fight for their rights, 100 years after the first International Women’s Day.

Awesome news: join us in congratulating Mitchell for joining the Ada Initiative Advisory Board!

For those who haven’t yet heard of the Ada Initiative, it is a

non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture, which includes open source software, Wikipedia and other open data, and open social media.

The founders of the project are Mary Gardiner and Valerie Aurora, who both have a great experience in Free and Open Source, and have worked with various women in FLOSS groups during many years.

You may find more details concerning the Ada Initiative programs on their projects page as well as their services page.

Again, a big congratulations to Mitchell for joining! We can’t wait to hear more about what will be achieved, and have no doubt of the success of this project.

You probably remember the different stats, charts and posts on this blog (and others) that illustrate how few women are involved in FLOSS communities and Mozilla. We often use these kind of stats in our Women in Mozilla  talks. You might think the point with this is to complain about Mozilla (or other Free and Open Software projects) not hiring enough women? Well it sure isn’t! The truth is that we mainly use these stats to show how few women *dare* to lead their lives out of the common stereotypes.

“Hey girl, don’t you want to become a nurse instead? You’re into IT crap? What, FLOSS stuff? Certainly not! Do you really want to be ONLY around guy geeks?”
What is true: how many women want to become software developers? And how many of them dare to study for that? Have a look at the incredibly low percentage of women in IT schools in France… and you’ll understand the first issue is that women in general aren’t advised to follow technical courses.

There’s one crystal-clear thing though, for us who live in a FLOSS community (Kinouchou as a Mozilla contributor, Delphine as an employee and Claire as “geek girlfriend”): women are welcome here in the community! And we’re more than happy in the Paris office. Remember: Pascal Chevrel was the first and main person to encourage and help Delphine to start out the WoMoz project: a man helps a woman to team up with other women in order to have more of them at Mozilla! And guess what? In the Paris office, Tristan Nitot (President of Mozilla Europe) is more than happy to be in charge of doing the dishes!

Undoubtedly, Paris was the perfect place to start WoMoz.

So we just wanted to tell, each of us, a little bit of what our every day life with the Mozillians from Paris feels like.

—- Claire, the “Geek Girlfriend” —-

Picture taken by Tristan Nitot

I’m saying it in all our talks, I’m a happy geek girlfriend. I don’t know whether it’d be the same thing if my boyfriend didn’t work for Mozilla in Paris. When Vivien got hired I wanted to meet his co-workers… I was a bit afraid of getting in the middle of a bunch of geeks, but I was given a very warm welcome: only nice people who had the patience to explain what their work was about. And their enthusiasm was so communicative… it became contagious. I got passionate about the FLOSS spirit, and my dear Vivien approved (or even recommended) me in becoming part of it.

Pascal and Delphine, as well as other community members (Fabien, Frédéric, Théocrite) told me about WoMoz, and it felt PERFECT for the feminist I’ve always been! “Feminist” doesn’t even start to describe me: I’ve been a gender equality activist since I’m 15. Believe it or not, my feminist speeches have rarely been as well accepted as by Mozillians – especially in France. I’ve started BonjourMozilla.fr (with Pascal again!) to thank them all and promote what they’re doing for Mozilla.

And here I am, giving WoMoz talks as “geek girlfriend”, where I can (kindly^^) mock my boyfriend, geeks in general and even Tristan! Tristan who only tells me one thing: “Keep going!“. Did I mention I’m really happy as a geek girlfriend?

—- Kinouchou, the Mozilla contributor —-

Kinouchou in the Paris Metro. Picture by Julia Buchner

I discovered the French Mozilla community thanks to various FLOSS events where the ubuntu-fr association was present (I’m an Ubuntu contributor). This is how I became a “WoMoz” and that I met many other members during FOSDEM of 2010. This event was also the occasion for me to meet the French community during the evening gatherings, and therefore to find the time to really talk with the different people.

Since then, I’ve been participating in the community through the #frenchmoz IRC channel, the Bonjour Mozilla and at various Mozilla meet-ups. I feel so good and comfortable with Mozillians here that whenever there are Mozilla and Ubuntu-fr meet-ups at the same time, it’s really hard to choose which one to go to! Recently, there was a day where I was blocked in Paris with a meeting in the morning and one in the evening. The question was: where was I going to spend the day between the two? Mozilla welcomed me so warmly that I immediately felt at ease in the Paris office. The atmosphere is as industrious as it is friendly.

To me, Mozilla represents what a community really is: it is not only a group of people that gather around a project or ideals, but also a congregation of caring people, who listen to others. In all, a true family.

—- Delphine, the employee —-

Tristan, Paul and Delphine. Picture taken by Tristan Nitot

For a long time, I was the only woman present in the Mozilla Paris office. Even now, we are no more than 2. In the French community, there were also *really* few women. But from the start, I’ve never felt left out or treated “differently”. The only thing that “bugged” me was that I thought there was no reason that other women would not like to do what I’m doing, and that there was no reason that they shouldn’t be here as well, being part of Mozilla.

That’s how I started contacting the girls from the Mozilla community and the ones we were meeting at events, so we could do something that could start changing things (the first one being Julia Buchner, active WoMoz contributor and co-founder of the project). And that’s how we ended up with WoMoz. We know that each FLOSS community and each country have different issues with women in FLOSS. We definitely don’t deny that and we want to do something about it as well. But we were lucky here not to have major sexism issues or anything of the sort. Maybe it’s because we all know each other. Maybe it’s because we see each other regularly. Maybe it’s because we trust each other. There might be many reasons, but this is not the point.

Claire and Kinouchou have brilliantly described above what their experience in the French Mozilla community is like, and I agree on all points with them. This community and the colleagues I work with are what made me want to join Mozilla full-time and to dedicate my time to this job. I’ve never known this kind of atmosphere before in a job, and was always afraid I’d never find it other than with my friends. When I realized it existed, I starting clinging to it real hard, as much as I could. And I’m so happy – and happy is not even strong enough here – to be part of all this. My ideals now meet both my job and the people I work with. And I wouldn’t want it any other way

Thomas, Omnisilver and Delphine. Picture by Benoit Leseul

Here are some links to articles, blog posts and websites about women in computing and FLOSS. We will be publishing these kinds of links for time to time concerning these topics, in order to have an overview of what’s new and what is currently going on.

• IT Jobs Offer Growth, But Women Are Bailing Out
• Women in IT: The Facts: A summary of recent research on women in the IT workforce that makes  the business case for increased participation from women and provides  recommendations for action
• Women in Free Software: Recommendations from the Women’s Caucus
• Why Including Women Matters for the Future of Technology
• Le Rôle des Femmes dans les NTIC en Déclin (fr)
• TEDWomen
• Kathleen, a FAQ

That’s it for this time! Please let us know of any interesting links in comments of this blog, or on our mailing list. Thanks!

According to the director of Barbie marketing for Mattel, a lot of female engineers and other women in the tech industry voted for this Computer Engineer career for Barbie.

Mattel explains that “To create an authentic look, Barbie® designers worked closely with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering to develop the wardrobe and accessories for Computer Engineer Barbie®. Wearing a binary code patterned tee and equipped with all the latest gadgets including a smart phone, Bluetooth headset, and laptop travel bag, Computer Engineer Barbie® is geek chic.”

Barbie’s new career is not just an answer to the demand of the popular vote, it’s also a way to encourage young girls to aspire to engineering or technology careers.

Sources:

http://www.zdnet.fr/blogs/l-esprit-libre/la-poupee-barbie-sera-informaticienne-et-utilise-linux-39713313.htm

http://www.chipchick.com/2010/02/computer-engineer-barbie.html

Indian girls are massively interested in computer sciences and engineering jobs¹. The number of girl teenagers following theses studies has increased by 125% in 2008. They are attracted by information and communication technologies related to environment or electric resources, but not so much by nuclear or aerospace industries. 71% women are careerist, and the same percentage have chosen this stream because of the attractive salaries.

And what about parity? It’s interesting to notice that there are different perceptions of the situation between male and female workers: 55% men think that women and men are equal in the company. But what do women think about that? Only 26% share the same opinion. So, who tells the truth? We can see that in fact only 30% women are involved in management activities in their companies.

• WoMoz IRC Meetings are now held twice a month, at 17:00 UTC (9am PST). More info here
• We’ve finished establishing our WoMoz 2010 Roadmap during the last meeting: Roadmap and Last Meeting Notes
• Currently working on the first tasks of the 2010 WoMoz Roadmap: contacting
  community leaders
• Continuing the organization of specific teams within Womoz: survey team, webdesign team, l10n team, etc.
• Working on creating a WoMoz Planet: aggregating WoMoz community blog posts on the WoMoz Blog
• The Webdesign team is still working on rebuilding the WoMoz Website: integrating the wiki, blog and video site
• Really cool video by Lukas Blakk about Women in Open Source during FOSDEM 2010 has been integrated in the WoMoz Video Website here: http://womoz.mirocommunity.org/video/153/fosdem-2010-video-women-in-ope

Update on WoMoz Participants (data as of March 3rd, 2010):

• Mailing List: 66 members

• Wiki: 26 users (so people editing the wiki and working directly and regularly on the project’s evolution)

• IRC: generally around 20 online in the European Time Zone

• Facebook: 97 fans

Summary of the article “Geeks drive girls out of computer science” written by Jeanna Bryner

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks may be driving women away from the field. Women can be turned off by just the physical environment of a computer-science classroom or office.

When we think about computer science, we immediately think about the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science-fiction stuff and junk food. That stereotype doesn’t appeal to many women who don’t like the portrait of masculinity that it evokes.

Only 22% of computer science graduates are women and this percentage has been steadily decreasing.

The researcher Sapna Cheryan, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington, noticed that not only are women missing out on some of the “best career opportunities, but computer science is missing out on female perspectives“.

Studies showed that women are significantly less interested than men in computer science when they have to work in class-rooms or offices that contained objects stereotypically associated with computer science (Star Trek posters, video game boxes and Coke cans). While in a neutral room, there is no gender difference.

Women are more interested by a job in a company with neutral physical environment than a job in a company with stereotypically geek objects.

There was a subset of women in the study who didn’t view the stereotypical objects as masculine and geeky.

It seems to Cheryan that this is a cultural phenomenon: “These objects are not inherently masculine or geeky; they’ve been constructed that way. That means to me we can reconstruct the objects or more importantly the whole field.“

In conclusion, we should attempt to broaden the image of computer science to make it so that other people feel a connection to the field.

Link to the original article:

http://www.livescience.com/culture/091215-computer-science-girls.html

Links to related articles and containing more info about the conducted studies:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uow-oga121409.php

http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=54341

]]> http://www.womoz.org/blog/geeks-drive-girls-out-of-computer-science/feed/ 4 http://www.womoz.org/blog/new-womoz-irc-channel/ http://www.womoz.org/blog/new-womoz-irc-channel/#comments Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:12:47 +0000 Delphine http://www.womoz.org/blog/?p=227

WoMoz has moved on IRC:

we’re now on #womoz on the Mozilla IRC network: irc://irc.mozilla.org/womoz

We’ve made this change because the channel was created before the community had actually decided of an official project name. Now it just seems absurd and confusing to stay on a #mozillawomen channel when the project is called Women & Mozilla (or WoMoz).

So this is why we’ve moved!