An Incomplete History of Sexism In Drupal
2 min read
- August 2007: Sexism in IRC
- March, 2009: Design choices for DrupalCon Paris. Related reading: Is Drupal Full of Sexist Pigs and The where-are-all-the-women question, this time in open source.
- April, 2010: DrupalCon SF card game; the response from the creators of the game
- June, 2010: Sexism, harassment, and threats in the NYC group. There have actually been several other discussions over the years in the NYC group, but they appear to have been deleted from the group.
- August, 2010: Responses to events at DrupalCon Copenhagen; Sexism: It's Still Relevant; and a blog post with the video of the keynote in multiple sections.
So here's the thing. I'm proud to be a member of this community. The Drupal community contains some of the smartest, kindest, most generous people I have ever had the privilege of meeting. I don't think I'm overstating anything to say that my involvement in the Drupal community has altered the trajectory of my life. I have learned more in my six years of work within and around this community than at any other period of my life. It's an amazing place.
And that is why I'd like to see us do better. We can always rationalize away the things we don't like, or find ways to justify things that are distasteful.
But if you see something that feels wrong, stop and ask questions. Realize that you will need to have the same conversation, repeatedly. Realize that people will get mad at you and blame you for bringing it up. Realize that in the process of having conversations, you will learn about things that you misunderstand as well. But don't stop having the conversation, because that's how change occurs: one awkward, uncomfortable, unwanted conversation at a time.
