cobbles

Whenever there's fall out in a community or a community space is less diverse, we end up with a postmortem on our community areas. Sometimes we have a discussion on what the community is like overall. Then nothing is done, because no one comes forward. No one really wants to change things. The folks you designated as troublemakers just don't want to help. They engaged and your community utterly failed to welcome them. Instead those folks were ignored, or worse attacked.

Sometimes someone vital to the project quits. People step up, but some of the original folks who added so much to your community are gone. They aren't coming back.

It's very rare for anyone to let the public part of the community know why.

There's a reason for that. The repercussions for whistle blowers can be life threatening or merely career ending, particularly if they are from a diverse background. Although in our capitalist world, career ending can affect quality of life. So still life threatening.

Being a public facing woman in tech is like walking over a tightrope while someone starts thrumming the rope. Plus the tightrope is strung over over lava. You get to hear the fading sounds of folks who fell off ahead and behind you. You wonder what will knock you off.

So when you're in an abusive space, who do you trust?

How do you work out who to trust? To tell you if this is normal or not? How can you know if you're in a safe space?

For many of us, there is no such thing as a safe space. Especially in FOSS.

So women tend to do what we've always done. We talk, and it's not gossip about drama.

Men often want to reduce our whispers to mere gossip. The image of the gossiping old biddy to be feared and yet mocked. We grow up with internalised misogyny beaten into us by society. We're called scolds. [1]

Don't be like those mean old ladies. Be a cool girl.

We gather intelligence and share stories about our experience. We share carefully coded messages about who to be careful about.

It's so much more than just gossip.

The Whisper Network

We have some very public examples in our community when toxic community leaders are called out with receipts. Harassment happens. Our sanity is questioned, our career options are limited as we get to be labelled troublemakers.

So we hunker down until we are in a smaller quieter space. We're careful about what we say. In the silence between those words we detect what isn't said. We respond and the folks in our smaller spaces realise what we haven't said in turn.

Our whispers become stories and those stories become passwords.

About a week in, I showed a few of my new friends some emails I’d been getting from an older male writer many of us knew. The messages weren’t explicit or threatening, but something about their tone had made me distinctly uncomfortable. It was hard to put my finger on. I passed my phone around, trying to explain why I’d felt so creeped out, repeating every few minutes that I knew there was nothing tangible, that I was probably just making it up. “Am I crazy?” I asked, over and over again. Everyone kept shaking their heads.

A story like this is a password. Once you say it out loud, doors start to open.

Stories Like Passwords – Emma Healey [2]

​Misogyny

As a white woman, I can't really comment on the undercurrent for other folks and their experiences. But scratch a racist that pushes against any consideration for black folks and you'll find all the other things they are against as well. The same for a Fascist. The same for a TERF.

While we are all human, people who actively deny the human rights for other people harm others. Ultimately they will harm your human rights to be on top. So pushing for safe spaces for Trans folks, for disabled folks, for black and brown folks is important.

But it takes more than empty words of policy to enable me to trust you. Which is the same for everyone. If you are prepared to engage with TERFS and racists “because they do good work”, I know that ultimately you aren't safe to engage with. [3], [4]

But this has always been the culture within FOSS. The women are missing, but that's also across Tech. We have systematic issues within our Tech communities and society at large. Powerful influential men who through the tech they build, the communities they create can ruin Women's careers. Their networks of influence reinforce their power.

The men in stories like this always have just enough power, in their little worlds and in ours, that to confront them would be to court an ordeal, to invite others to question our own memories and motives. It’s always more trouble than it’s worth. If you don’t have hard proof, if you don’t have a police report, then what do you have? Only what you remember. Only what you felt.

Stories Like Passwords – Emma Healey [2]

Our disquiet with a situation, with our interactions are dismissed as drama. Our lack of safety is ignored. So of course it isn't worth it.

So we carefully work in the shadows. Giving support to each other and counteract the gas lighting in our communities.

It's not drama. No you aren't imagining this.

Are you safe?

[1] https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-scolds-bridle [2] https://medium.com/the-hairpin/stories-like-passwords-bf04e46c3fb6 [3] https://dotart.blog/cobbles/on-bears [4] https://medium.com/@violetblue/but-he-does-good-work-6710df9d9029