Re: Sexism in the Ruby community: how does the Python community manage it?

From	Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au>
Subject	Re: Sexism in the Ruby community: how does the Python community manage it?
Date	2013-10-17 15:36 +1100
References	<2013101623133337485-owenjacobson@grimoireca>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Message-ID	<mailman.1144.1381984626.18130.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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Owen Jacobson <owen.jacobson@grimoire.ca> writes:

> 1. What social biases and problems *do* we unwittingly encourage by
> way of community-tolerated behaviour?

This is a well-worded good question, and I'd like to draw a connection
with another one you ask:

> 3. How can we reach out to the Ruby community and help *them* get past
> the current crop of gender issues, and help them as a group to do
> better next time?

Important to a solution is to realise that, in order to improve the
community's arsehole problem, certain people will need to be excluded:
the recidivist arseholes.

Encouraging diversity is *not* the same thing as tolerating everyone.

Some people will improve their behaviour and cease damaging the
community, and are deserving of regaining some measure of trust to the
extent that they demonstrate that.

But some will not. These latter need to be identified early and excluded
from the community, before their damage exceeds the value of those they
make feel unwelcome.

This necessity is uncomfortable. There is a dream is that, if we could
only find the right formula, everyone would find their place comfortably
in this happy community and no-one would have to confront anyone else
because everyone wants to behave well.

That dream is unrealistic. Some people will – for reasons of naivety,
ignorance, privilege, denial, bigotry, self-justification, delusion,
arrogance, whatever – continue behaving in ways that drive members, and
potential members, away from the community far more than the value the
misbehaving person brings to the community.

So it is essential to accept that to maintain a community welcoming of
diversity requires active effort on the part of its members, and some of
that effort must be to confront misbehaving people and tell them that if
they won't stop their misbehaviour, they're unwelcome.

This is often resisted, even by those who don't want the bad behaviour,
since it can sound like a contradiction or hipocrisy. It isn't, of
course.

What it is is something that to some ears sounds even worse, but is
essential to maintaining a healthy community: Discrimination, based on
how people behave. It's making a value judgement that to exclude a few
unrepentant arseholes is worth the improvement in the community's
welcome for non-arseholes.

And without that active discrimination, people acting like arseholes
will go unchallenged often enough that they can ruin the community for
everyone else.

> I think it's hugely important and hugely beneficial that we welcome as
> many folks into the Python community as possible, and do our best to
> foster an environment where people can succeed regardless of who or
> what they are, and recent evidence suggests that that requires ongoing
> conversation and engagement, not just passive acceptance.

Thanks for starting this conversation here.

-- 
 \      “Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.” |
  `\                              —Mark Twain, _Following the Equator_ |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney

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