[sudo-discuss] "Free as in sexist?" Free Culture and the Gender Gap

Hi all, A few weeks ago, I participated in a panel on Women in Wireless at the International Summit for Community WIreless Networks in Berlin. The presenters were excellent, and I found the audience wonderfully receptive and engaged with the issue of women's participation in wireless networking communities. Among the points I emphasized was the need to expand the definition of 'geek' to include for instance language geeks, theory buffs, writers, critical thinkers of whatever medium, etc. An expansive and inclusive notion of hacking is something the sudo community upholds admirably well, I think. At the same time, our radically inclusive approach brings about the danger of excluding those who do not feel safe or welcome in the presence of certain behaviors, and as such means we must continually work to cultivate safe space<https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Articles_of_Association#Section_2.3_Bene… . A colleague whom I met at the conference shared this paper with me, and I'd like to share it with y'all. The points made by Reagle are particularly relevant to the Sudo Room community: "Free as in Sexist?" Free Culture and the Gender Gap, by Joseph Reagle (2013) http://www.firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381 Happy to discuss further, Jenny http://jennyryan.net http://thepyre.org http://thevirtualcampfire.org http://technomadic.tumblr.com `~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~` "Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories." -Laurie Anderson "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." -Hannah Arendt "To define is to kill. To suggest is to create." -Stéphane Mallarmé ~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`