Good things taken too far
posted by pete on October 30th, 2008
I know I compare the Ruby world to the music world quite a lot for just one man.
Today, my point is made for me. Lots of talk, yet Rails is still a serious sausage party in late 2008. Is there hope for this to ever change?
[Photo credit goes to the always amazing Liz Clayton, from whom I have now learned the term “bonestorm”.]
October 30th, 2008 at 11:33 AM
There is no hope, we’re doomed!
October 30th, 2008 at 02:57 PM
We need a little more diversity:
http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/11/diversity.html
October 30th, 2008 at 06:08 PM
Yes, yes it is.
But is is worse than the rest of the industry? Can we seriously expect it to be better as long as the rest of the computer industry remains totally male dominated?
October 30th, 2008 at 08:40 PM
I think Luke’s right that we can’t expect Ruby’s gender balance to be better than the industry’s, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work to make it better anyway.
October 31st, 2008 at 08:40 AM
Maybe there are closet female techies everywhere, just afraid to come out? I have no shame but it’s still kind of gauche, you know ;)
You have to really enjoy hanging with sausage too.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:01 AM
Based on the demographics of my classes at school, there are clearly more women in computer science and engineering than are visible at tech conferences and pub nights and all these other sorts of things. Corina’s point above is a good one. You really have to be cool with hanging out with a crap load of dudes before coming out to such an event isn’t going to be weird.
Actually, I wrote about this before: http://funkaoshi.com/blog/where-are-all-the-ladies
October 31st, 2008 at 06:46 PM
I have a fun exercise for you. Go back and look at the photo again, then close your eyes and try to imagine that everyone in the photo is a hot girl.
Ha, I tricked you… you can’t!
November 3rd, 2008 at 03:18 PM
Good point, there are definitely less women at tech conferences than were in my (heavily male dominated) computer science classes.
I have a blog post kicking around my brain that basically says that maybe women are simply being rational and not spending a lot of money and free time to go to conferences (most of which, honestly, are not that fun), and if people (particularly conference organizers) are going to complain about this problem, maybe they should institute some affirmative action? This goes double for speakers, since most conferences won’t even pay your hotel (RubyFringe was an excellent exception) let alone airfare. Want women speakers? Pay for ‘em.