Version 1.0 - Jan. 30th 2006
In December 2005 Michel Bauwens (wikipedia entry) approached me via email and asked me for a statement on his Peer-to-peer (P2P) theory (wikipedia entry), especially in relation to feminism and the underrepresentation of women in most P2P communities (such as the FLOSS community). In order to get an overview on the subject, I read through the short version of his paper The Political Economy of Peer Production. I'd recommend reading it before reading this text. My response, that had originally been planned as a simple informal email, grew steadily since I found Michel's theories quite interesting and had lots of things I wanted to comment on. So, in the end the original "short informal statement" ended up to be almost an essay.
When Michel had read my mail he asked me whether he could publish the text, since he liked it a lot. I promised him a slightly cleaned up (and spell-checked) version of it, and here it (finally) is. The style is a bit informal since it was a originally not intended for publication, but on Michel's request I left it that way.
You may find some of the points made in this text faulty or even offensive. You are free to do so. However, when reacting to it, please keep the following things in mind:
In this text I'll look at P2P communities mainly in the context of the FLOSS community, since that is the one I know best. I hope it maps to other fields as well.
Firstly: I quite like Michel's theories, because they seem to describe this "Phenomenon" that we witness spreading around the world these days rather well. I have worked with different FLOSS groups and recognise them in many details of the paper.
As for the feminism part, I think we can agree that there is a massive underrepresentation of women in most (all?) P2P communities. So, apparently something keeps women from engaging in P2P activities. There are of course the obvious reasons: In IT for example there is a underrepresentation of women altogether. But still, in "normal" IT the percentage of women is around 25%, in FLOSS they form about 1.5% to 2.5% of the total community.
So in order to answer the question of why so few women join a P2P community, the first aspect we ought to consider is: What does a P2P community look like from the outside? Or, how do people get involved in P2P in the first place?
The answer is, they (1) have to decide they want to join and (2) have to put some effort in it, such as finding a place/task to start, getting some recognition, proving themselves "worthy", etc. In my view a P2P community does not naturally strive for growth. There is of course the usual "We are always looking for new members" tag everywhere, but I found that when actually deciding to join a project, people there tend to be slightly suspicious of the newcomer at first. Understandably so, since they are dealing with something that is very important to them and don't know yet whether the "new guy" is qualified enough and will turn out to be an enrichment or a burden to the existing community. So what the newcomer does, is look for a little piece of work that is not too high priority and that (s)he can take care of. If that goes well, people start paying them attention, the newcomer gets bigger tasks/more responsibility and so on ...
As you can see, all this needs a lot of initiative from the newcomer. You have to approach a group of people who are often not very welcoming at first and basically squeeze yourself in, hoping that once you are in things will go a lot easier. This "squeezing in" is something that is much harder for women, than it is for men. They often lack the necessary persistence, self-confidence and chutzpah. I would like to point out though, that this is not in the "nature" of women. It is more in their upbringing which is still focused on being polite, demure, unobtrusive and other "female qualities".
Such a disposition may (or may not) serve you well once you are in a P2P community, but it certainly causes you a lot of problems when trying to get into one.
I don't think there is a perfect solution to this problem. P2P communities are -- though task-centred -- still communities, and one feature of a community is that there is an in- and an out-group and newcomers are met with suspicion in the beginning. Also most communities develop lots of own rules and habits that a newcomer has to find out and get used to. However, I don't think one can reproach these communities about that, as I tried to .... such behaviour basically lies in the nature of any group and it has developed for a purpose. Though there are of course things that can make it easier to join a group, such as slang dictionaries, -new channels and lists etc. and this shall be no excuse to treat a newcomer in an unnecessarily hostile way.
So, if it is such a drag to get in, why do people join a P2P community? As the paper correctly points out, it certainly isn't for the money. I find that in the very start it usually is any one or a mixture of the following reasons:
These reasons however don't work as well for women as they do for men: Being an open source developer gets you much more recognition among fellow men than among fellow women. Also women find it easier to form social networks where they get comfort and recognition, so they don't need to engage in P2P activities to get it.
The "change something" motivation also doesn't apply equally, since women are -- due to the above mentioned upbringing -- more likely to either just accept the situation or use more passive ways to achieve the desired changes (like filing bugs or writing to a mailing list) before they actually step right in and tackle the issue themselves, maybe even against some resistance from within the project.
This may sound dismissive. Let me thus emphasise, that these are only very early motives. Once involved, people stay for a lot of other reasons. (Fun most of all, feeling "at home" within the project, a sense of responsibility, ...) No one gets far in FLOSS if (s)he is only there for coolness. But still, for many of us this was - at least at the start - an incentive.
The other direction from which we can look at P2P communities is from the inside: At first glance, they seem to be a feminist wonderland, where people are solemnly judged by their abilities, not by other things such as origin, age, sex or whatever. This is only true in theory though. I agree that P2P communities are much more open about these things than most others. Exclusion or discrimination due to origin or age happen only very, very seldom and don't cause a real problem (That is as far as I know. Maybe I am just not aware of it).
However, for some reason things are different when it comes to a person's sex. I am not sure why this happens. I participated in quite a few FLOSS projects, some with a higher number of women, some where I was the only one. And while I felt accepted in all of them, I wouldn't necessarily extend that to women in general. I often observe that once you -- as a women -- successfully made your way into a FLOSS project you are awarded a kind of "special status". Not in relation to the other community members, but in relation to the rest of women. You are no longer "a woman", you are PersonX. You are recognised within the project, people respect you and cooperate with you without problems. That does however not change their general view concerning women: You, as an individual person, are okay. But women in general are still a clumsy, noisy, ever-giggling bunch that just has no idea whatsoever and you are rather the exception that proves the rule, than a reason to overthink one's attitude.
I often observe this double standard with amusement. It seems to be some handy way to incorporate a women into your group without having to change your general ways and/or attitude. This may work for the guys, causes a problem for the woman in question though. Many women are not prepared to put up with sexist jokes, slogans or general sexist behaviour. Even if they are not concerned themselves or even explicitly excluded. ("Women suck! Not you of course.")
From what I've seen, this doesn't change much until the percentage of women reaches a certain threshold, beyond that things get much better.
In order to reach that threshold a project needs a number of women who don't mind or are at least prepared to put up with such behaviour. Many women are not inclined to do so and either retreat to "friendlier" fields/projects or start fighting back (often carrying their protest to excess) and quickly get isolated. The theory of a P2P community may be gender-neutral but in reality it isn't. I don't think this can be forcibly changed, neither from the outside, nor from the inside. It is a process that will need plenty of time, but is steadily gaining momentum. In my opinion, it just needs enough women, for a project to reach said threshold. And the more women there are, the easier it is for others to join in as well.
Michel also asked me, how peer governance deals with this inequality. Well firstly there are, of course, groups like the Debian-Women Project or GNOME Women who actively try to raise the number of women in (in this case) the Debian or GNOME Project. I think this is a good thing. It should be handled with care though, since the work of such a group can easily get the reputation of being affirmative action. (Which it is not!) And as the paper correctly points out, getting people into the community for any other reason than their abilities does not comply with the P2P principles and is usually also frowned upon by most members of the respective community. So, I think you do need to get in more women, but not any of them. Like the Debian-Women Project and GNOME Women the aims of such a group still have to accord with the project's overall aims. Otherwise it's not going to work out.
The other thing that is needed are "outposts". Women who are already actively involved in a project and can serve as a role model and encouragement to others. Also, these women are a great help to other female newcomers, because they can approach them about problems they are not comfortable to discuss with male project members. (Most women tend to question their own qualification a lot and need some reassurance that they are doing good and important work and that they are doing it well. Also there are sometimes social tensions that most guys shrug off but that women feel uncomfortable about, since they usually have a higher need for harmony.)
These things provided, I am confident that the amount of women in FLOSS and any other P2P community will rise steadily. It is a slow process, but in the end we'll get there!
Meike Reichle
meike@alphascorpii.net
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