Thank you for posting this, Carla.

And really, is the occasional "folks" so awful? Or maybe "people"? I realize that in casual usage "guys" is considered pretty neutral... but this just makes me sad.

Thank you very much for saying this, and for doing the detailed rundown. "Guys" includes everybody -- except people who don't get software, because they're girls.

The set "People who do not get software" and the set "Women" are distinct sets, admittedly with a nonzero intersection. When you use "Women" (actually "Girls") as shorthand for "People who do not get software", you're making a logic error.

I didn't get beyond the introducer, who called the speech a "closing keynote", which is a contradiction in terms.

I had a reaction to his one comment before I saw the video, but now I'm incredibly incensed. The funny thing is, the guys (all male) at my job all laughed at (not with) his absurd euphemisms and sexist pandering. They think he made quite a fool of himself, and think he's that kind of male who (1) will do it again, give him time, and (2) will never apologize. He isn't adult enough to do so. I removed the explicatives the "guys" at work used when they referred to him and his talk.

I think we need "GIRLBUNTU" shirts. who's in?

thanks for posting this! i had to lookup the grover/customer fly in my soup skit from sesame street! btw, the timecode of the comment is about 36:00. thanks,
natalee

Yeah, he may have a taint of your typical alpha male in his character. Although, I am a bit hesitant to think he said those things intentionally to cause females grief or to dis females.

I'll quote a rather famous (on the net) source of authority on this male/female issue ("OMG! Damn that bastard, Sims. He put male before female in his sentence. OMG! What an horrible person." shock, horror, etc etc):

"Guys like to feel big and girls like to feel small."

When I first heard that, I thought, "That can't be true." Then I though, well, do girls want to feel big? Then I kept thinking. I doubt most girls want to feel big. It's comparative. Now of course in this (IMHO fubar) day and age we have biological males and females that linger (or sometimes thrive) on the opposite of the gender spectrum. So the above statement may not apply in all situations. YMMV.

Hmm... Hearing lots of thing about sexism in this keynote, I was glad that you've put keynote video link in your blog post.

I've watched it AFTER I've read your post, and I must say I disagree with you. Don't get me wrong, I applaud at your fighting against chauvinism, since I consider myself feminist too.

But...

This is the first time I've seen and heard Mark Shuttleworth. He sounds like a great pragmatical visionary, not a hidden chauvinist.

Sure you might take sentences out of the keynote and present them as you did in the blog post. But overall, in the whole keynote, there wasn't said anything against female developers or users per se... Sure he used grandma and mom references as they are typical computer non-literates (objectively speaking). He even said, I admit superfluous remark, "then we'll have less trouble explaining to girls what we actually do", but it was clearly meant for laughs and not for real.

It would be prudent if this publicity in blogging community showed Mark and others that there are better words then "guys", like developers, users, team members... But overall this is far from chauvinistic.

I'm afraid from my point of view it look like you nitpicked sentences, and part of sentences to show what might be considered bad, but in doing so you missed the keynote point, ie. you didn't see the forest behind a couple of trees.

Sexist? Seriously? What a stretch. Sure he could have been more warm and fuzzy in his mentionings but really. Mark Shuttleworth is an important face for the FOSS community. Compare him to Richard Stalman, Eric S. Raymonds or even Linus. He's the best shot Linux has in making it. Don't sully his rep by making weak claims. It was one speech that obviously wasn't going well and for all we know he was talking to a room full of men only. And I'll tell you why he used grandma's as his example for the simplest of users. More grandma's use computers than grandpas. My grandpa won't touch the dern contraption.

"'...you don't want some other guy, or girl, coming along and trampling that...' Aha! He does know the difference!-- ed."

I'd like to think that at this point Mark Shuttleworth realized that by using the term "guy" or "guys" was exclusionary; but in reality, I think it was just that at that moment he saw a woman in the audience and was trying to be inclusive.

It's too bad that he didn't totally wake up and realize that maybe he should pass on the "explain what we do to girls" line.

However, I do hear so many people, including women, use the term "guys" to refer to people in general, that I really don't think his presentation would have received anywhere near as much outcry, if that had been its only exclusionary reference.

I have to disagree with your article. I fail to see anywhere where he is drawing a line of "us" and "them". Your first three quotes hold no relevance. And the following quote is just three words and half of the other quotes are two word lines... This isn't sexism, this is someone trying to find sexism. Don't get me wrong, I am male, but I view women just as equal if not better than me. Besides the fragmented quotes, the few line that have any say about women in general are at the most just a bad choice in words, and apparently offensive to the easily offended. Not all girls are computer illiterate, but generally speaking guys have always been the stereotypical nerds. Now if there's one thing we know about stereotypes, it's that they're hardly ever a true generalization. Honestly, have you ever tried explaining linux to a non-tech girl? They look at you like your.... a nerd. As for the "guys" comment, I'll agree that maybe he could have used an asexual term, but honestly "guys" is a common term that refers to a group of people, and for all you know he could work with a bunch of men, which would take care of half of the guys comments. Maybe you should rethink your stance on sexism. You're showing a lot of hostility towards a guy who gave a speech about software. Why don't you write a blog about how the Church has constantly degraded women, or how women make less money than men in America. I'm not against feminism, but I think you could focus on an actual problem, and not just bad choice of words.

Nonny, someone who is genuinely inclusive doesn't suddenly wake up halfway through a speech, make a token inclusive comment, and then forget all about it. You are right that simply saying "guys" all the time would have been merely annoying, what pushed me over edge to "sexist and exclusive" was the dumb hooker joke at the beginning, and the stupid crack at the end:

"How do we make this just awesome for end users" then we'll have less trouble explaining to girls what we actually do." "

That clearly implies male developers trying to impress their tech-dim girlfriends. I guess lesbian devs are included in that.

For those who don't know-- "happy ending" means a man being sexually serviced by a hooker to the point of ejaculation. Inappropriate in any professional setting, and certainly out of line for someone who is preaching inclusiveness and community.

If the opinion of a woman doesn't carry weight, how about the opinions of two men who were there, Chris Ball and Matt Zimmerman:

On keynotes and apologies
http://blog.printf.net/articles/2009/09/25/on-keynotes-and-apologies

Explaining to girls
http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2009/09/29/explaining-to-girls/

Thanks for this entry, Carla. Mark is NOT a "nice guy" and I certainly wouldn't want to be on any team with him. If he had just used the term "guys" indiscriminately to mean "people", I would still not be happy but I could forgive.... However, it is clear that he intends for "guys" to mean "male people" when he distinguishes between "users" who are both male and female (and so he uses words that specify women as well as words that can mean both or usually mean men) and developers/techies who he never refers to in feminine terms. The best he can manage is the gender-neutral "people" and he uses that much less frequently than "guys".
If he gets put in charge of hiring, he will look to hire "guys". If he gets put in charge of a project, he will do it with "guys" and if he sees someone who isn't a "guy" he will tend to assume that person doesn't have what it takes to be a techie, developer, etc.
If it were otherwise, then he would also be thinking about the words he uses.

Without commenting on the other stuff, as has been brought up before, the "guys, guys, guys, guys" stuff was pretty much harmless. "Guys" tends to be used as a gender-neutral word more often than not these days. I've even occasionally heard females refer to all-female groups as "guys" before.

No, it's not harmless. Watch the talk. Observe the context. Mr. Shuttleworth discusses at length the importance of broadening the contributor base, of inviting more people in and removing unnecessary barriers. And yet he uses exclusive language. If 'guys' means men and women, why are women singled out for roles outside his glorious geek community? Hooker, mom, grandma, and 'girls' are all tech-incompetent. 'Guys' are the gurus, and it's pretty obvious they're men.

Matt Zimmerman, CTO of Canonical says:

"The remark in question was sexist, and although it may seem small in itself, it is representative of an attitude which is harmful to the community.

"I think that Mark cares about the health of the free software community, and the Ubuntu community in particular. I don’t think that he set out to exclude and alienate women, but he did so without meaning to....

"This one is pretty easy to correct, and I hope that Mark does so. It would send the message that we mean it when we say that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one."
http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2009/09/29/explaining-to-girls/

Carla, I think you & Bruce Byfield have done a huge amount to raise the profile of this issue within the community. Although there are many who still disagree, and/or apologize & excuse many of the cited examples, I think it's an incredibly important conversation, so thank you.

In this latest example w/ Mark, I was initially skeptical (or at least I was hoping that perhaps this time you crossed the line, provided that he's such an important leader for our community). I watched the video, then read your selections. While I had to go back to catch the reference to "happy ending," and I think you did cherry pick a bit, overall I have to agree with the larger point. I think what the skeptics either don't get or choose to ignore, is this not acceptable in 2009. Most of the "debian guys," "KDE guys," stuff is kindof subtle, but when combined w/ (as you mentioned) "...then we'll have less trouble explaining to girls what we actually do" -- THEN we've established a clear signal of exclusion.

It's sad to see so many examples of-- personally, I think (as a guy myself), maybe "sexism" is going a bit too far-- but at LEAST insensitivity, and at times rudeness to women. Particularly, when I think ALL agree that we want to include more women, it's just incredibly stupid.

So, well put Carla! Mark, I hope there's clearly another course correction before your next keynote.

When it is said ONCE, 'girls only'...blah blah... than to CONTINUE on that same theme one more or a third time, DOES bring attention to it IF you are looking out for it.

OBVIOUSLY, women (girls) will have been more sensitive to these SUBTLE remarks (to men) but to women, get a little annoyed.

I think that there are A LOT of tech 'boy friends' out there that DO try and impress their GF's with their geekness, and yes even my wife has trouble with 'to me trival things', but that does not make them stupid, just not their 'cup of tea'.

I think from the user USING the computer UI there will NEVER be a design or UI that is completely flawless and takes ZERO effort to learn. ( unless you design the BIG PUSH ME RED button here sign.. ) but much of software DOES have many buttons, so some people will just not get it 'right off the bat', and that is OK. Apple isn't perfect either, and they are LEADERS in UI design and simplicity.

But, the geek girls of open source need to understand that this does NOT include you. If you are a GEEK Girl in open source ( with all the Geek guys (oops men) than you are obviously excluded.. )

Women THINK DIFFERENTLY, and FEEL differntly, I think Mark should say 'sorry, I did not mean. blah blah...and that would be enough.. move on ok done. No harm to foul, sorry.

Kisses xoxo

Sigh. I had always believed that "happy ending" meant "and they lived happily ever afterwards".

Greetings, Carla. In light of what has been going on in terms of gender issues in freedomware itself, I decided to add a section onto the forums for discussing such issues. You can view the subsections of "The Lounge" here:

http://freedomwareproject.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=d537204c7bd33d038acf52cd3aed6079

P.S.: I already e-mailed you myself, but I figured I would comment here as well to ask you and everyone else for input (i.e. whether the title, "Gender related issues" was an appropriate one or needed to be changed, etc. etc.), because I understand how being an editor of a major publication, online or offline, can be very time consuming. Thanks in advance for your time and feedback. :)

Good call! Sexism, and heteronormativity, is intrinsically wrong and also bad for the FOSS movement.

I would not have been upset if it hadn't been for the "explain to girls" remark. The word "guys" can obviously be used informally to mean "persons of either sex" as in "Could one of you guys help me with this?". But that is not the case when the "guys" have to explain to the girls.

Mark can choose to apologise (it won't kill him) or not. Whatever he chooses to do will certainly affect how I will view him in the future. As a man who can admit when he has made a mistake or a chauvinist. I really hope Mark realizes that this is important since he is an open source leader.

Sorry for my bad English. It is not my first language.

As said by Brenda:

"The constitution of a psycho path is the ability to ignore (or be oblivious to) the effect that incidents have on other people. To say "but i wasn't offended" or "it's not offensive", when there are very clear reports from many people that they were offended. It's a state of mind where other people's emotions don't exist, don't matter, or at least you don't ever think on how they affect the person or the project."

Recommended reading: http://coffee.geek.nz/hide-rhino-or-consititution-psychopath.html

A man as smart as Shuttleworth knows what effect his words have.

I believe what he intended to happen, is happening. You are all coming out to show off the army of fem-geeks. imo hes showing he has faith that the females of linux will come out fighting, daring you all to show the men what you've got. sincerely it sounds like hes calling out to you all so you will listen on a personal level.

otherwise he is just a sexist jerk with too much money, but I dont think you build support and popularity by making half your users hate you. he could actually be doing something clever.

Hmm.. if I gave the speech myself I might have used similar wording (except maybe "parents" instead of "mom", etc.). Most girls I know use the word "guys" to address their female friends, so in "street-language" one might consider "guys" to be gender-free.

The problem is: I might have used similar wording, but I'm a nobody. Especially the "guys explaing to girls" paragraph has no place in a speech from someone like Shuttleworth.

English is not Mr. Shuttleworths first language so you might credit his lack of correct wording to that. I would not make such a big fuss about it, but Mr. Shuttleworth seriously needs to work on his public appearance.

I'm of two minds on this. I deplore Shuttleworth's implication that only "guys" contribute to open software. But is it such a ridiculous statement that we should just ignore it an concentrate on what Shuttleworth has done for Linux? Ubuntu is one of the more easily accessible distributions, and has worked hard to make Linux as easy (easier?) to install and use as Windows.

The other side of me says that women in development get no respect. My wife teaches math to 8th graders, and says the girls are much better students at that age. One of the brightest engineers I have met recently is a woman. We as male developers and engineers should be doing everything we can to encourage more women to participate in our fields.

My suggestion to Shuttleworth, is that he acknowledge a lack of female developers, and work to encourage more women to choose technical careers. It's at least as important a crusade as bringing Linux to the world.

There is no fly in the soup... its just a little lump of pepper! Alas, not everyone has the same taste

I think the only real sexist things he said were the opening joke and "explaining to girls" remark. The thing about mom and grandma is something that everyone on the net uses. It's just shorthand for clueless users. And "guys" is what I call everyone. In Spanish the male pronoun is used for groups of mixed sexes.

dakira said:
"English is not Mr. Shuttleworths first language so you might credit his lack of correct wording to that. I would not make such a big fuss about it, but Mr. Shuttleworth seriously needs to work on his public appearance."

Er....pretty sure it is. He was born in South Africa and lives in the UK. Thanks to years of colonialism, South Africa's languge is English.

Can't you see, this is a battle to keep one of the last bastions of male supremacy alive!
THEY corrupted our right to vote, work, go to war, they even try to rule us now (Germany has already fallen) ... erm YOU WITCH! (Though I suspect that people wont try to torture and burn you now ... ah the good old days )
This, and another comment that is still to come, should be enough to at least keep the appearance alive that the male homo sapiens sapiens is clearly superior to its female counterpart and secure my position in the hierarchy ( I don't know which one yet ).

There is a small typo : "printerjust". ( sily girl tryin to use a computa. isnt it cute? )

( It is also a sad truth that people do not understand irony so In order to not get killed here, THIS IS IRONY. I hope that my "points" were so far out of line that people see them for the BS that they are. I truly believe, if women really had been inferior to men, the Human race would have been extinct many years ago. ... I find it unbelievable that i went this far just to report a typo. )

Mackenzie: "Thanks to years of colonialism, South Africa's languge is English."

This is, um, not true :). For the majority of both white and black South Africans, the first language is not English but Afrikaans (which is derived from Dutch). South Africa was not settled exclusively by the English, the Dutch were there first, and several other nations came later (and, eventually, the whole thing wound up the Boer War, which was pretty nasty). Wikipedia's article on the language is (at the moment...) quite good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans

It claims Afrikaans is the first language for 60% of white South Africans. I don't know whether Mark's first language is Afrikaans or English, personally, but his English is clearly excellent on the basis of the speech. South Africa has multiple official languages, including both Afrikaans and English.

As an American english speaker, I have a hard time taking the usage of the term 'guys' in the speech as anything other than a generic reference to a group of people, commonly used by both men and women.

And the context here seems pretty specific:

"How many of you guys know Till [Kamppeter]... making sure that your printer, your mom's printer, my grandma's printerjust work out of the box...if we can do the same with sound, if we can do the same with wi-fi, we can do the same for various other amazing subsystems that are going to come into the kernel...if we approach this from the perspective of saying "How do we make this just awesome for end users" then we'll have less trouble explaining to girls what we actually do."

: I find it hard to interpret the girls here to by anything other than our moms and our grandmas, the people we want to make computing easier for.

People use the mom and grandma references all the time without them being labeled as a sexist comments.

Later, Seeker

Carla, kudos for presenting the facts so clearly, and calmly. I could not have been so calm. This entire issue is so discouraging to me, in this year 2009. We have made so little progress. I say this as a woman, mother, and grandmother, and computer user for 30 years. How can so many men, and even some women, not get it, not see that they are speaking from the position of privilege, which is to say, blindness? The comments make me sad.

Open your eyes, fellow humans! If we want real progress, we need to involve MORE PEOPLE. More women, more men, more non-straight people, non-white people. Not just in open source, but in all our endeavors. Diversity makes everything richer, easier, stronger. We need it.

This sort of language is exclusionary at best. It works against our best instincts, and discourages and repels the very people we need to attract. It is destructive. We need to change. How can we work together to make that happen?

Devon said:
"Mark Shuttleworth is an important face for the FOSS community. Compare him to Richard Stalman, Eric S. Raymonds or even Linus. He's the best shot Linux has in making it. Don't sully his rep by making weak claims."

I agree that Mr. Shuttleworth has made significant contributions to Linux and humanitarian causes. I run Ubuntu on my work laptop, and appreciate the work that's gone into it.

By my reasoning, if someone is a representative, we have more reason to scrutinize their behavior, not less. Rather than try to discourage debate about their behavior, I think we should encourage healthy debate. I'll bet the reason why RS thinks antics like the emacs Virgin joke are OK is because people have tolerated it, since he's so "important" to F/OSS. You know what? Calling RS or Shuttleworth out on bad behavior won't kill Linux or F/OSS. Encouraging professional behavior might actually make for a more professional community, which can only help.

In fact, if Shuttleworth or any other Famous Linux Person acts like a twit, and we all let it slide, then the general public sees F/OSS as being a community of twits. It's to Shuttleworth's benefit and the F/OSS community's benefit to encourage good behavior. Professional, adult representatives are necessary for F/OSS is to be taken seriously rather than being run by a bunch of socially backwards nerds. If Mr. Shuttleworth makes an apology for having offended, it can improve his reputation. He'll be seen as a mature person truly standing by his own desire to help people. At the very least, he will be living up to the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

Good behavior helps the F/OSS community overall. If it's OK to be a twit if you're into F/OSS, then the F/OSS community will be filled with twits. Something built by twits isn't going to be as robust as being built by a more diverse community. Certainly, if Average User can't get help using F/OSS applications because only twits answer their questions, that's not going to encourage them to stick with F/OSS. On the other hand, if the F/OSS community is full of thoughtful, friendly people, then Average User might find that the superior support sie gets makes it more appealing than closed alternatives. Let's encourage mature behavior & discussion rather than merely criticize those striving for a higher standard. It makes us look good to strive to better the community & the people in it.