Off the Beat: Bruce Byfield's Blog

Bruce Byfield

A month ago, I wrote an article about sexism in the free and open source software (FOSS) community. The result has been educational, to say the least. It's one thing to know about issues intellectually, and quite another to plunge headlong into a firestorm of reactions.

So what have I learned exactly? To start with, while members of the FOSS community like to think of themselves as rational beings, when subjects like gender issues are raised, emotion swamps logic to an alarming degree.

This tendency shows up occasionally among feminists in over-reactions, such as the call by srlinuxx on Tuxmachines.org to boycott Ubuntu because its founder Mark Shuttleworth made some sexist remarks in his LinuxCon keynote. However, such reactions are understandable, given that the issue is just now being discussed openly after years of people gritting their teeth in silence.

They are also a minority of reactions. More balanced responses to incidences of sexism are expressed regularly on such sites as Geek Feminism, where the regular bloggers show a consistent sense of the appropriate level of response, and seem dedicated to constructive activism.

But the real flood of emotion comes from the anti-feminists and the average men who would like to deny the importance of feminist issues in FOSS. Raise the subject of sexism, and you are met with illogic that I can only compare to that of the tobacco companies trying to deny the link between their products and cancer.

Because I took a feminist stance in public, I have been abused in every way possible -- being called irrelevant, a saboteur, coward, homosexual, and even a betrayer of the community. I know that many women in the community have been attacked much more savagely than I have, so I'm not complaining. Nor am I a stranger to readers who disagree with me, but the depth of reaction has taken me back more than once. I think the reaction is an expression of denial more than anything else.

Personal vs. Institutionalized Sexism

That brings up another point I've learned: people who are not consciously sexist themselves tend to be unable to see institutionalized sexism around them. They are not aware of any prejudice against women in themselves, so how could there be any sexism involved? They seem unaware that institutions and customs can be sexist simply by what they value or how they operate, that even something like a discourse developed by men talking to men can institutionalize sexism. Nor do they understand that, by simply accepting such institutions or ways of acting, they become supporters of sexism.

For instance, I am currently part of an email conversation with a prominent FOSS community member who has been pilloried who is hurt and baffled that I (or anyone else) could apply the word "sexism" to them. Their reasoning? They did not intend to be sexist, so therefore they can't possibly be. Therefore, labelling their behavior as unacceptable is unfair, they argue. The fact that, in context, their actions and remarks could not possibly be described in any other way honestly does not seem to have occurred to them. No matter what I say, they remain hurt and baffled -- and, like so many, deeply in denial.

Cutting across existing lines

But probably the largest lesson for me has been how understanding of gender issues cuts across other connections. Having spent much of my life in academia before becoming a freelance writer, I always assumed that, if you knew one or two opinions that a person held, you had a strong chance of knowing what their opinions were on other subjects. For instance, if someone worked for left wing political candidates and promoted recycling, they were probably concerned about recycling and racism as well.

Similarly, I assumed that, in the FOSS community, if you were a free software supporter, you were concerned about social justice and would therefore be against sexism as well.

No doubt I was naive, but that turns out not to be the case. Developers are just as likely to be feminist as testers, technical writers, and artists. More importantly, people in the open source camp are just as likely to be feminist as free software supporters.

In fact, to my chagrin, if anything free software supporters are often more likely to be hostile to feminism than open source supporters. While all sorts of people claim that no problem exists, in the last month, I've found that free software supporters are the most likely to accuse me of betrayal for raising the issue, or to argue that legitimate responses to sexist behavior is part of a deliberate effort at character assassination. Not all free software supporters act this way, let me emphasize, but a large and vocal minority certainly do.

I'm not sure, but I think that the logic here is that if you are already part of an idealistic movement, your actions must be above criticism in every other sense. From that assumption, perhaps it follows that anyone questioning any part of your actions must have the most Machiavellian of motives. The fact that some people who raise issues do seem to enjoy fault-finding because of past grievances only makes this assumption all the easier to hold.

With such painful lessons coming my way, this last month has been shocking, disappointing, and -- above all else -- exhausting. I've lost respect for some people I thought I knew, and gained respect for others. At times, I've been happy to escape into writing a purely technical article to take a brief holiday from the endless angst.

But am I sorry I raised the issue, or got involved in the discussions when other people did? Not in the least. I was convinced a month ago by the facts that FOSS has a problem with sexism, and the reactions I've seen have proved the accuracy of that conviction a hundred times over. It's not a comforting conviction, but it's a true one.

Besides, I keep telling myself, if what I see is offensive to me, at least it does not directly oppress me. Compare to female feminists, I have it easy. So what right do I have to complain?

Anyway, I'm not very good at lying to myself. Since very few other writers about FOSS care to approach the topic, I expect that I'll be writing and acting on my convictions from time to time in the future, no matter what reactions I get.

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