On Sun, 2009-02-22 at 17:41 +0530, Krishnakant wrote: Interestingly, girls are in the majority among students, and women are in majority among teachers. It is for, so to say, "extra curricular" activities that females are absent. And this must be due to social issues -- male dominance. And the domestic responsibilities that they have to carry on their heads. If there are females in this list, it would be nice if they respond. This problem cannot be tackled by Free Software. It exists, as I understand, almost everywhere, including the developed world. This has to be tackled from a different angle. Best Sasi -- V. Sasi Kumar Free Software Foundation of India http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

On Sun, 2009-02-22 at 23:13 +0530, Krishnakant wrote: Krishnakant, we have men working in various kinds of jobs involved in many different kinds of other activities. The men and boys in this list itself must be working in various different kinds of jobs. Some of them may be employed in the kinds of jobs that you refer to. You see the men here, but not as many women. I don't know whether software is not the kind of work that women do not really enjoy, in general. Assuming that there is no such gender difference, we should be seeing so many more women here, since the sex ratio in the general population is pretty close to 1:1. And, in Kerala, females are more. Interestingly, to subscribe to a mailing list and to send responses occasionally, one doesn't even have to leave one's home. We need to understand why, then, we have very few females here. Is it because they tend to be overloaded with their jobs plus their domestic responsibilities? This could be a reason. Though gender equality is not one of the objectives of this list, I think it is an issue in all spheres of human activity, and, therefore, should be discussed everywhere. It is important that we do not, by any means, keep away one half of the population. My idea is to understand why. If it is that women do not find this activity very interesting, and, therefore, don't want to get involved, it is fine with me. But if there is something that keeps them away, especially something that we do or don't do, then we should look into it and take corrective measures. Is there something we can do to get more girls/women to join this list and come for our meetings? Of course, the timing of our meetings and the kind of venues we fix, are probably two examples of points that we should take care of to make it convenient for our female friends. It is true that there are social pressures that inhibit their participation, but there may be little we can do about it. Best -- V. Sasi Kumar Free Software Foundation of India http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

On Mon, 2009-02-23 at 00:57 +0530, Deepa Paul |ദീപാ പോള്‍ wrote: I deliberately used the term "absent" because it is value neutral. I did not want to be judgemental without understanding it. Yes, we cannot generalise. But when we see that women are a majority in many careers, including teaching, but see less of them in non-career activities, we may tend to suspect some kind of social hurdle. But I fully agree with you that women have to take an active role in breaking out (if that is what you meant). And the men who sympathise with the cause also need to help. Sorry that I did not remember your name, though you have sent several mails. It was not written after a careful examination, but I just wrote on the spur of the moment. And I could not recollect the names of any females who were members here. I am sorry. But I still cannot recollect another name. Incidentally, recently there was a private discussion about a conference of women FOSS enthusiasts. It originated from FSUG, Meerut, if I remember right. What do the females here think about it? The idea is, of course, not to exclude men, but for women to take the lead roles. You may allow a few men also to participate. What say? Best -- V. Sasi Kumar Free Software Foundation of India http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:23 PM, justin joseph <justinjoseph007(a)gmail.com> wrote: extra terrestrial interests :-) The concept of Freedom is not a copyrighted to free software alone. It have various dimensions and various movements used to address this issue in there own fields. I agree with you that a lot of burning issues in this country that need to be addressed separately. But spare this list for those discussions. Oh You are cared about Conclusion and analysed it as wrong .. great!! Please do it in some other list. leave us from spamming And I think this is not a men's only list to ask such questions Deepa Paul