Being the Resident Gender Token in most situations has made me reticent to initiate gender-related discussions in mostly-tech gatherings. I don’t what to be that chick that everyone rolls their eyes at while thinking “there she goes, harping about gender issues again”. Not that I don’t think there are glaring gender issues in information and communication technologies and its communities and practices. It’s simply that when you become the predictable gender person in any gathering, you lose your effectivity in getting your message across — and that doesn’t do much for the cause.
Or at least I think that’s the case.
In any case, I was absolutely excited when I saw the Gaya, Gaya, and Jaya Trio was organising a “Culture, Gender and IT” session this afternoon. Natasha P and I had already done a Gender Evaluation Methodology for ICT Projects session a few afternoons back, and I really, really didn’t want to be the Resident Gender Person in this camp. So seeing The Trio’s session on the board made my day.
Or so I thought.
What really made my day today was the actual session. The Trio had prepared a presentation on what they believe were the connections between culture, gender and ICT, contextualised in the Indian experienced and focused on the serious lack of female FOSS developers.
The presentation was pretty controversial. It grounded current gender issues — and their ripple effects on the FOSS developer community — in the socialisation of women and men in Indian culture that begins with the Ramayana (of the pure and virtuos Sita who had to prove her virtue and value by going through tests and how Indian girls are expected to be just like her when they grow up). This is all reiterated in current portrayals of women in Bollywood movies and local soap operas — where the protagonist females are always nice and sweet and obedient victims of situations who eventually find happily ever after because they’re so nice and good and virtues, and where strong female characters are always portrayed as villains and / or end up dead.
The presentation then moves on (but not after many, many interruptions from the session participants who were asked to share the gender contexts in their countries) to explorations on whether that the male and female differences in aptitude in the hard sciences were genetic or social.
The main question, I suppose was: Is the reason why there are not enough female FOSS developers because women are simply not genetically predisposed to the hard sciences?
Jaya presented a study conducted by Elizabeth Spelke on female and male aptitude in the hard sciences. Apparently, according to the study of 13 year old Math Whiz potentials, the variance between boys’ abilities was higher than that of girls. Which means that while there are more boys in the Super Duper Math Genius category, there were also more boys in the You Better Invest in a Nifty Calculator Because You Suck at Math category. Girls, on the other hand, because the differences between their aptitude were less striking, tended to be in the Average Zone.
So while there are girls who are good at Math, more boys are better and worse than them. Kind of balances everything out.
So it’s not about genetics.
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