The gender gap

Once again, Stemp (so when are you going to start blogging in English ? ;-)) reminded me of Joyce Park’s articles on venturebeat :
http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2007/01/02/the-hidden-engineering-gender-gap/
http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2007/01/04/a-modest-proposal/

This issue has also been discussed on LinuxChix mailing lists.
Two good papers discussing the lack of women in computer sciences and in Open Source area (I have already stated that, to me, it is also a more general lack of women in sciences altogether), studying Silicon Valley female tech entrepreneurs.
There is a big lack of self-taught female software engineers, when male engineers often start computer science as a hobby and eventually, with a lower degree or no degree at all, manage to get a job or run a company.
What she suggests is a one-year, non-degree, Silicon Valley-sponsored program for women (well something close to my post-doctoral experience in a big biology lab in the US), to help them starting as junior engineers. Hum … She got strong oppositions to this idea, even from liberal males. Surprised ?

I’m deeply thinking about all of his, about the bug #2 thread on ubuntuforums. I subscribed to LinuxChix and LinuxChixFr mailing lists. I guess I need some time to write some of my ideas down, and have them evolve to some form of proposal too :-)

Ubuntu-Women roundup

First Ubuntu-Women meeting was held January 11-12th, 2007, on #ubuntu-women on irc.freenode.net. It was a quite exciting roundup and an opportunity to meet with other women using Ubuntu. You can read a summary on Ubuntu-Women Wiki and download the full log of the day. Also check ubuntuforms thread and UWN #28 (still in progress as I write).

The next meeting will be held on January 25th at 13:00 and 1:00 UTC. Two different times are scheduled to accommodate different timezones.

Ubuntu-women IRC meeting [en]

This meeting will be on #ubuntu-women on irc.freenode.net, Thusday january 11, 2007, starting 15:00 UTC and Friday january 12, 2007 starting 03:00 UTC :-)

The schedule was set up to cope with different timezones. Logs will be published. Everyone welcome.

Please see : Ubuntu wiki, the ubunruforums thread and the fridge annoucements

Ubuntu bug #2 ? [en]

Or bug in Linux in general ? or bug in society ? We should think about it. There are so few women in the Ubuntu community, in Linux communities, in some areas of our society, such as science and technology. What would be the best answer ?
This idea comes from yugo, answering one of my posts in the french speaking ubuntu forum (linked under Ubuntu, right panel) . Smart idea :)

Ubuntuforums.org has a women section, in order to promote ubuntu-women. This was a good idea, along with the staff being efficient in removing sexists comments always popping up whenever a thread talks about women. All of this helps women feel comfortable in this community.
I think time will change mentalities, but only if we want it and work on it, all together.

Please see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=321626