So all potential future open-source contributors feel "I can be part of this" rather than excluded.

I just wish there were more women who were actual open-source programmers rather than journalists, executives or advocates. People like Margo Seltzer (BerkeleyDB) or Lynne Jolitz (386BSD).

Is there any evidence that showing pictures of women actually makes a difference with this?

I'd be very surprised to see evidence to the contrary, as it's just an obvious fact of life that people generally feel less confident about entering a community that lacks anyone else like them. Have you never felt intimidated/uneasy when entering a group situation in which every other person was a particular race/gender/age group to which you don't belong?

Not that I can think of, but then I don't really define myself by my gender or race or really give much time to identity politics in general.

May I posit this is because you are rarely in situations where you feel your gender is pronounced? If you were, say, a man applying for a job as a general hospital nurse, you would feel this, or as a heterosexual hairstylist applying for a salon job. There are stereotypes you would feel pressure to justify why you, who do not fit the stereotype, would be a beneficial person to hire, in such cases.

Not defining oneself by gender or race does not invalidate the hypothesized effect: that one may feel excluded if they don't see anyone like them doing it. There is no denying that the fact of being a man or woman influences a lot of our lives and how people treat us.

I felt uneasy in my college electives composed almost entirely of women.

I imagine I would have loved that.

> Have you never felt intimidated/uneasy when entering a group situation in which every other person was a particular race/gender/age group to which you don't belong?

Even if you have, that's problematic on your part. Just because people look differently doesn't mean they won't be welcoming towards you, that's tribalism at it's finest and needs to stop.

The ones that do feel intimidated/uneasy about it need to work on their own perception of other people and not the other way around. You don't change the mindset of a group because there isn't any, it only exists on paper in your gender studies textbooks. Humans are individuals and everyone has their own mindset regardless of genitalia, skin color, age etc. Thinking otherwise is both disrespectful and racist/sexist/agist.

Anecdotally, yes. When I was younger, seeing women in tech roles made it feel like an option for me.

Yes. There is plenty of research on the psychological effects of representation. The effects are very real.

I was greatly pleased to see attention to gender was paid. I was worried when I clicked on this that women might be underrepresented - we are often invisible, for many reasons. It's a great site that I'll be happy to share as a mentor.

> we are often invisible, for many reasons

Like? I'd really like to know the reasons. Also, who is "we"? Biological women? Also please explain, as I initially asked, why it matters what gender you are. (Or race, hair or eye color you have, height or whatever attributes you think is "invisible" to others and hence underrepresented)

Take a really simple example. Say you are looking for a new pair of trousers. You go to the high street and you see lots of mannequins in the window that are the opposite (heterosexual-stereotype gender of you). You read in an ad that this shop also sells clothes for your body type— but how comfortable are you going in, as opposed to the window that has a variation of mannequins and outfits in the window? And that's how we encourage everyone to get involved, by letting them know there is no clique or stereotype they need to worry about being part of. We should work hard at this, especially for something as critical as technology, and its design and communication.

Not sure where you live, but where I do mannequins only come in one shape: The perfect shape. Judging by the people I see there it doesn't discourage anyone. Why would it? It's just a sample. Neither I think anyone needed an ad to tell them that they can actually shop and find something there. However if you get influenced by the shape of a mannequin that much, the problem is probably a different one within yourself.

From personal experience I know a women-only domain does not keep men from joining it. I've seen it the other way around with friends as well, unless you project something into that and start to think it would be a "problem" or discourage someone or something else. Would you join an office where everyone is a redhead but you aren't? Sure you would. I mean, why not? What would discourage you? So how is it different for a man to join an office for example with only women? Or just replace the attributes which whatever you think fits. If you care about other people's gender, race, hair color, height or number or functioning body parts (read as: "handicapped") much ... well, then there will always be an underrepresentation of some sort.

If the distribution of gender discourages you from joining a community or domain maybe you should stop putting people and yourself into categories of body attributes. To me it's the same pair of shoes as saying "too many/few black people". Ok, so they are "different" from other people in a way that would discourage someone? Interesting thought in 2019 for a pre 20th century concept.

What you are asking for is the ideal world scenario, the one we hope to get to as we teach our children exactly what you say here. But the reality is, advertising and patriarchal forces among other things have caused us to live in a gender unbalanced society. We need time and effort and to work together to acknowledge there are problems, then we'll get there.

Putting people into categories based on physical attributes like gender, race or physical abilities and putting artificial quotas on them is far from "acknowledging the problem". It's part of the problem. That's what gave us a "gender unbalanced society" in the first place. See every person as the individual they are, not as part of a group with a certain attribute. Then we'll get there.

We're completely agreeing! We are in an unbalanced society. So I'm with you, to work together to move onwards. That means not pretending that things aren't messed up, as a first step. Feminism has done a huge amount of work for this, as has post-capitalist and post-colonialism theory. One of my favourite theorists right now is Rosi Braidotti if you are interested, see for example the introduction on her here: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/philosophy/home/thinking_ou...