[OSGeo-Discuss] Diversity in FOSS4G

[María Arias de Reyna]

I understand it is difficult to see your own privileges and biases[1].
That's why I always prefer that a PoC talks about racism instead of
me. But I can still talk about inequality regarding women. Remember
that 90% of said here applies to all PoC. And that WoC suffer this
from both sides.

So I'm going to take a couple of steps back and start again, to see if
you can see the flaw. Sorry for not having the best bibliography, but
I have a weak connection here so I have to rely on things I have
already offline. But I am sure you will be capable of following the
lead and find better sources.

Those researchers have the prejudice that a country that has better
indexes regarding gender equality means there should be more women
studying STEM because nothing stops them to do so. So they call it a
paradox that "the more equal a country is, the fewer women go into
STEM". But the thing is, if they have researched a bit more (even just
asking the women of the study why they don't follow a STEM career!!)
they wouldn't call it a paradox, but something natural coming from
other causes.

In Europe, the percentage of women studying Science is increasing,
while percentage of women studying Technology is decreasing, according
to Eurostat[it was a bunch of links with data from different years,
just use the search engine from Eurostat]. That's one of the reasons
why talking about STEM is already a first bias because you are mixing
stuff. But many authors do this, so let's just skip it.

In Tech, women are leaving studies and the industry at higher rate
than men[2]. Which means, we have even less women working in our
industry than the real percentage of women that would like to work in
our industry. This unfriendly environment causes a lack of successful
happy role models that could encourage other girls to enter the field
too.[3] Role models are even more important to girls than to boys
because of the Otherness[4]. By default, everything is male.

So, first loop that explains the "paradox".

But even then, why are there fewer female college students in STEM?
Because, as all the links I posted previously already explained,
society pushes you out of STEM [5] [6]. Only stubborn woman like me
get far and it is just a matter of time to get burned because of this
unfriendly environment.

And there's more variables that influences why women are not into STEM
in supposedly "more egalitarian countries", but I don't think I should
extend more here. I am more than happy to have a BoF session about
diversity in next FOSS4G to extend the subject. Or in any other FOSS4G
I can attend.

So yes, that study is highly biased. In just a couple of paragraphs I
dig deeper than they did on their study about why that "paradox". And
yes, even the peer reviews were unable to see something so obvious.
Maybe because they are biased too[1]? Probably. I am not saying they
are evil on purpose or anything. I'm just saying their study is very
superficial. Just crunching a lot of data from one side and trying to
explain a multi-variable outcome with that.

To summarize: what can we do from OSGeo? Provide a welcoming friendly
environment, encourage those that are already on their path and
provide enough role models for all diverse groups. That's what I am
going to fight for. And as this is a global organization, until our
global demography statistics match the world statistics, we will be
doing something wrong.


[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean
[2] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0019793915594597
[3] https://thesocietypages.org/trot/2017/02/22/the-role-of-female-role-models/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy)
[5] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-011-0051-0
[6] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038040714547770