I'm very saddened by what happened recently on github and twitter regarding s/he/they/ in a comment deep inside libuv.
First I want to make it clear that I understand there is a real problem in the world where women feel like they don't have a fair chance in tech fields. Women in tech really do get death and rape threats from some men when they speak out on this issue. Our society and media objectify women and this sickens me. On the bright side, I had never seen this happen among the people I call friends.
Using "he" and "his" in technical documentation to reference the developer is poor English and makes some women feel a little more excluded. It reminds them that most programmers are men. It reminds them that some assume all developers are men for practical purposes.
A helpful developer noticed that a comment deep inside libuv (not actual documentation) could be improved by changing the language slightly. They bothered to file a CLA and ask for the proper procedure to get it in. There was nothing wrong with this.
Now let's look at this from Ben's perspective:
- Ben is one of the most active contributors (if not most active) to libuv. Node.JS would not be what it is today without his contributions. He's a very technical engineer who continues to work on the community project out of a feeling of duty. He doesn't have to do this.
- Ben receives a pull request for a tiny grammatical change in the English of a comment deep inside libuv.
- He rejects the patch because he judges the overhead of adding a new contributor, filing the signed CLA, etc. isn't worth such a tiny, seemingly insignificant change.
- Ben has nothing against women and in fact volunteers lots of real personal time encouraging women to get into technical fields.
- The honest and helpful contribution was rejected because a honest and helpful maintainer didn't understand the value of it.
Then:
- Isaac pushed the commit through because he feels strongly that we should support women in tech wherever possible. Joyent does own the copyright on libuv and thus has final say on commit policy even though most the code was written by non-Joyent employees.
- Shortly after the push, he received sign-off from another maintainer.
- Ben was upset and probably annoyed. Not at the presence of better English in the comment, but the manner in which is was forced through fueled by political ideals.
- He publicly chided Isaac for the manner in which the commit was made and reverted the commit.
- Bert upon seeing that this might cause trouble, quickly (about 30 minutes later) undid Ben's revert and advised him to leave it alone for a while.
Ok, we're adults, this kind of thing happens. Different people have different opinions on how to solve social problems. We all want the same end goals, we just sometimes differ on how is the best way to proceed.
But then the crap hit the fan!
I won't recount all the negativity that resulted from this minor disagreement, but suffice to say, most of it was entirely uncalled for.
I'm glad Joyent has a unified engineering team dedicated to helping increase diversity and inclusiveness for women in tech. It's very convenient that they even all agree on the techniques to achieve this.
I'm glad Ben helps where he feels he is valuable. I have a similar tactic where I focus my energy with js-git and other projects. This helps me feel empathy for Ben.
However, I plead and urge us to stop fueling this angry mob.
I fear that Mikeal's post about "Inclusive by Exclusion" will come across as hypocritical to some and encourage others to continue being aggressive and mean. I'm not sure exactly how it helps us behave better.
I have watched the polarizing effect of the Joyent blog post where Bryan implies that Ben is being an a-hole and would have been fired on the spot had he been a Joyent employee. How does this help things? All it appears to do it further divide the community and prevent rational conversation.
It doesn't help our community to segregate us into competing groups like Joyent vs StrongLoop and Ruby vs JavaScript and male vs female.
We can do better than this. I for one celebrate diversity in all its forms. I'm a Mormon, many of my programming friends are vocal atheists. I'm a man, but I learned programming from my mom and older sister.
I don't choose sides in politics because I feel that pitting my opinion in opposition to some else who has an alternative and creative way to solve the same common goal is stupid.
I know I always take a lot of heat when I speak out on these things, but we need to stop being so aggressive. Most women will avoid a situation if there are angry men arguing back and forth. It doesn't matter if the men feel they are helping women by supporting "diversity".
I feel that aggressiveness will do far more harm to women than the gender of a couple words in a comment deep inside a library will ever do.
I feel that attacking a developer because he made an honest mistake and didn't understand the gravity of his comment will only drive him away and make men even more likely to be afraid when around women. It will make it harder for men and women to work together. Nobody should be afraid of anyone. Two wrongs don't make a right.
If you really want the world to get better, then join me in celebrating diversity in all its forms. Be accepting of other humans who have different opinions than you. You don't have to agree with their beliefs to be their friend and find creative ways to solve problems together.
We can do better.
Now if you don't mind, I'd like to go back to creating software to help more kids get into programming.
-Tim Caswell
whateva, you're a mangina