Hah, the times when I didn't know - or give a fuck about - the gender or nationality of any of the folks who worked on the same project, I remember them as if it was yesterday. Wait .... it was!

I didn't care much when we still had to meet every now and then while working on our shareware back in the mid '90s, but once online repositories became available, it's been even less of a concern. Then again, those big open source projects -- I prefer to watch them from a safe distance. With binoculars, you might say. Tell the drama to stay away from me, I have a good supply of that already. No need for a surplus.

In fourteen years of software development, for companies large and small, I've never worked with a female programmer, developer, or engineer.

I've had female coworkers who were analysts, graphic designers, quality assurance, technical writers, IT jockeys, program managers, project managers, and "normal" managers of various levels.

There's definitely a male bias in the programming fields, so I'm not surprised that they're under-represented in open-source projects as well.

I think we need inspector gadget on the case.

Yeah, I think it's mostly that there are about that many women programmers, nothing to do with the 'community being hostile'.

I too have been in the industry for over 10 years now and have had ONE female coder who I've worked alongside, and they were HTML, not 'real' programming

In fact, the company I'm currently at which makes various apps and systems for data management and display etc. has ONE woman employee out of about 15 of us.

It's just the facts of the industry I'm afraid, like it or lump it. Whether it's born out of an actual bias of interest, or more cultural I don't know. I now think there are innate difference between the sexes. I have three boys and a girl, who is the youngest (almost 2), and so she is exposed hugely to boy things, we also do our best to not do anything that's sex biased with her (like assuming she wants dolls or to look in the 'girl' isle in the toy shop). But with all of this, she still gravitates towards the pink area in the toy shop, and the jewellery and the like. It's quite odd to see.

I read some of the link this sift talk post is about, not really understanding the jargon and the types of jobs. I probably shouldn't be commenting, but what the heck.

What I picked up is a style difference between programmer men and writer women -- if I understood her correctly. The "hostile environment" she references appears to be impatience on the part of the mostly male programmers who just want to talk in their own language, at their own speed, in their own style.

My observation is that men can be pretty harsh with each other, especially in this anonymous environment. Really quick to insult and put down (in general, there are always exceptions.)

Women are much more circumspect in their language patterns. Women can be just as "mean," please don't misunderstand me, it just manifests differently. The directness of male speech is just not something we women are taught or is encouraged by our culture. Women with lots of brothers do well, I suspect.

"You Just Don't Understand" is a great book about the differences in how men and women communicate.

How much is nature and how much is nurture? I don't know.

Where I sit at work, I can see out my window to the preschool across the street. I see the teachers leading these 3-4 years old in a line, each holding the hand of the kid in front. For the most part -- there are always exceptions -- I see the boys pushing on each other and fighting. The little girls walk "nicely."

I shared my observations with a teacher one day and she concurred. The boys come out and hit. But then she told me something I couldn't see -- the girls "attack" each other with whispers behind their hands. They got just as mad, they just went about it differently.

That is what I see in this woman's observation of the "hostile" environment. She sees all the pushing and shoving, and she draws back.

I could go on about the implications of on-line versus in office, female vs male managerial styles, the civilizing influence of face to face communciation, blah blah. But I won't. Plus I could be all wrong.

I know 2 women who are professional open-source programmers, and 1 woman who is a systems administrator. The programmers are both well-deserved 'superstars' in their fields. All of them blog and speak (complain?) extensively about the problems of being a woman in the industry. It's not trivial -- they've had to take legal action in the past when men sexually harassed them at conferences. Part of the problem is that this field is a boys club, and an extension of that problem is that this particular boys club is one where a lot of the boys have poorly developed social skills.

TL;DR men are shit.

I work in a magical place where there are ponies, free beer, and lots of female programmers. YMMV.