Gender Bias and Sexism in IT

I don’t often discuss topics like this on the blog, in fact I believe this is the first time, but an article I read made me think. The article in question is from TechNewsWorld entitled Is Sexism Rampant in FOSS? What I find funny about this title is that it almost connotates that sexism is only in the open source community and not rampant in IT in general.

(WebHost Blog) I don’t often discuss topics like this on the blog, in fact I believe this is the first time, but an article I read made me think. The article in question is from TechNewsWorld entitled Is Sexism Rampant in FOSS? What I find funny about this title is that it almost connotates that sexism is only in the open source community and not rampant in IT in general.

FOSS of course is an acronym for free and open source software and the article was based off of findings in an article by Bruce Byfield and a second article by Yuwei Lin as well as comments from the open source community.

A blogger from Slashdot named David Masover made a pretty good point as to the differences between the corporate world and FOSS, “I don’t think this is specific to FOSS. I think, if a problem exists, it applies to all software development, and it’s just easier for management to force people to behave in a corporate setting: behave, or you’re fired. If you tried that in FOSS, people would just fork the project.”

Some of the factors for women not getting into FOSS include lack of mentors, discriminatory language, gendered based environment, male-dominated competitive view, lack of a female perspective, and no sympathy from women peers. To this one blogger wrote, “there is not a lot in there about sexism.”

I extremely beg to differ. All of the above points demonstrate varying levels of sexism., mainly a hostile work environment. A hostile work environment that has many tie-ins to gender is sexist. I don’t care who you are, or how much you can tolerate, if your work environment is hostile you become uncomfortable and then there is only two things to do, fit in or leave. If you fit in then you end up becoming a part of the problem for others. If you leave, well that only demonstrates the point.

In IT as a whole, I think the main problem of sexism stems from the lack of role models. One of my friends has plans for getting her PhD in computer science so she can become just that, and what is interesting is in many of her classes she is the only female.  She doesn’t have anyone she can relate to, no one to talk to about how she can move forward career wise, or has practical experience in the upper echelons within companies. These are things that most men take for granted.

From what I have seen, hostile environments make it difficult for people to have longevity at a company, which means they will never get to the higher levels of management, and therefore will not become role models.

And now I pose the question; in an industry where talent has changed the face of our medium the Internet, time and time again, how much talent have we wasted, how many incredible programmers, managers, inventors, etc have we lost due to bias?

About David Dunlap
Over the past ten years David has been a prolific author of hundreds of blogs, commentaries and reviews found here on WebHostBlog.com, as well as WebHostMagazine.com and other sites around the Internet. David manages the daily operations at both WebHostBlog and Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide, and as the head editor, David uses his unique analytical skills to ensure that both sites maintain their integrity and tough, but fair minded, reputations. Prior to his active career analyzing the Web Host industry, David specialized in networking and communications for the U.S. government. David's expertise in traditional and search engine marketing has helped boost companies both inside and outside of the Web Host industry.