In honor of #FOSDEM rejecting our Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity, and Belonging (DEIB) track, and time permitting, I will be posting numbers about diversity in tech and my personal experiences in IT today.
Feel encouraged to share numbers and experiences as well ❤️
First of all, ✨ I was a DEI hire once ✨
Ya girl had studied PolSci, and didn't have the attention span yet for her big girl job as a policy worker in Parliament, so she applied for a junior dev role. I already knew some programming, because as students we were always protesting something, and protesters need a website (html, css, javascript, php).
Capgemini gave me a Java bootcamp. Quote: "this will look great for our diversity numbers." Despite the wording, I'm still grateful they hired me. ❤️
Without this DEI program, I wouldn't have worked in IT. Again, grateful to Capgemini ❤️
Unfortunately I now worked in corporate IT. I was the only woman in every team. A self taught junior dev. The micro aggressions that I had to deal were _insane_.
Daily:
- expected to get coffee and take notes
- ignored, side eyed or talked over
- expected to write CSS as a Java dev because "girls are good at that"
- SO MANY weird and inappropriate jokes and comments
- weird invites to a senior devs house
Me and the literal 6 or so other women in this giant engineering dept even teamed up and participated in a hackathon. There were like 200 men and us in our pink sweaters :')
We made a food tracking app or something dumb, so we didn't win, but I do remember being a bit uncomfortable sitting in a hangar with 200 men overnight. The guys didn't engage much with us. It was fine, but not necessarily welcoming.
edit: typo
Anecdotally, how not to do inclusive leadership.
I had a senior manager whose wife had broken both arms on a cycling trip and he was complaining NON-STOP about now having to do everything at home while working fulltime. When I pointed out that I also did everything at home while working fulltime, and I was fine, he said "yeah but it comes natural to you" (plural you, 'jullie' in Dutch). This was in a team meeting. The same manager would often try to give secretarial tasks. Fun times.
Anywho, after Capgemini I joined Mama Cash which, as a feminist fund, was a breath of fresh air. I got to build their open source stack and started going to #FOSDEM.
"A sea of white men" would be an understatement. It was intimidating. I felt like such an imposter. Barely anyone looked like me. I remember being super impressed by a talk by @onepict 🫶
I really liked the #FOSS ecosystem. Sure, there were a few awkward encounters, but overall @fosdem always has a great vibe.
@fosdem Now for some numbers.
Women are about 9.8% of OSS contributors; only 5% of projects have women as core developers.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.08777
The Covid 19 pandemic had a huge impact on female public code contributions.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.07278
For women who aren’t project insiders, acceptance of PR's falls from 71.8% to 62.5% when their Github profile made their gender identifiable. Aka documented bias.
https://www.scrippsnews.com/science-and-tech/gender-bias-in-open-source-coding-may-be-tech-s-latest-setback
@fosdem
These stats don't even mention other intersectionalities based on race, gender identity, sexual orientation, ableness, etc, which are equally impactful.
The #FOSS ecosystem might be missing out on incredibly talented contributors. Which were exactly the type of people we wanted to attract to #FOSDEM27.
And btw, I do have to note that I consider 99% of the white men that I usually work with to be well intended allies. I'm sure that many of #FOSDEM 's visitors would have proudly stuck our cool 'not a tech bro' stickers to their laptops. ❤️
Anywho, it is what it is. Lets see if we can organize something adjacent to #FOSDEM or with the Community devroom.
(I didn't really connect my years as a junior dev to the importance of an inclusive FOSS ecosystem and stats supporting it, but I'm a little deflated tbh)
Oct 21, 2026, 8:34 AM@Gina So you have worked for Cap Gemini? Me too. First 1990 and then at Sogeti which it was renamned here in 2017,
@Gina Expected to get coffee? What the actual fuck? That's terrible. I hope your former coworkers read this and are deeply ashamed. FFS.
@Gina bless them, they probably weren't used to seeing actual real live women in the flesh!
@Gina 😬
@Gina Try being the only “technical” person in an otherwise non-tech environment. Different reason. Same energy. Bizar experience.
@sandorspruit I've been this person as well, but it does come with a certain baseline of respect because they assume you know wizardry. 🧙♂️
Oct 21, 2026, 10:29 AMOct 21, 2026, 10:39 AMOct 21, 2026, 10:41 AMOct 21, 2026, 10:51 AM
@onepict
I'm still of the opinion that while I'm not like in the top 10% of developers, I sure as hell am better than a lot of the trash out there. But then I have a pretty low opinion of the tech industry in general :( hard to feel like an imposter when you feel so surrounded by cowboys.
Oct 21, 2026, 5:58 PM@MurrayWindripper @Gina @fosdem I literally cried outside the EU parliament building in the 31st of January.
I'm still angry about it myself.
Oct 21, 2026, 10:36 AM
Oct 21, 2026, 11:56 AM@onepict @Gina @fosdem
Yes OFFDEM is happening this year, and indeed Equity is at the heart of what we do, and we do have rooms.
The topics that interest you are discussed in the bonds workgroup, you might want to join it on OFFDEM forum: https://oxygen.offdem.net/g/bonds.wg
@Gina FWIW, your proposed track would have been a strong motivator for me to try to make space for fosdem in my already busy travel schedule. -- a white man.
Oct 21, 2026, 12:54 PM@Gina Thank you for this very informational (alhtough quite disappointing) thread!
I do hope the devroom rejection won't stop you from from submitting a proposal for the main track (and maybe even a stand?), I'm quite optimistic about such a talk being accepted AND able to fill in Jansson :)
Do these well intended allies stand up for you in the moment you're asked to get coffee or whatever, or do they just express how sorry they are for what you deal with, after the fact?
@Gina no "techsis" sticker?
@lutindiscret What's a techsis?
@lutindiscret Fair, but tech bro has some associations that I don't necessarily see on the opposite side, hence why I asked. But I see your point :)
@Gina it would be approx the concept of sorority for women/people in tech 🤔
Oct 21, 2026, 7:15 PM@Gina I wanna see if I can find some time to set up a landing page for a “FOSDEM Pledge” that speakers and rooms can take to make up for the miss. A speaker could devote a few minutes of their talk to a DEI topic, a room could dedicate a talk slot or two to a DEI talk, etc.
A bonus here would be that folks who need to hear about this have no chance but to do so :)
Oct 21, 2026, 7:26 PM
@Gina deep breath in. Deep breath out Gina.
The global anti DEIB backlash exists because it was making a difference.
Look at the great things your work has made possible. You yourself are testament to why it’s so important. You are a champion.
But even champions need to rest. So rest. And re-inflate when you’re ready.
@Gina I have always been little disappointed that the Community devroom is kind of hidden away.
I have been fortunate to go to FOSDEM a few times and have been really impressed by how that room has grown in terms of the size of audience it attracts with some really amazing and generally positive sessions.
@Gina seems like a good place
Oct 21, 2026, 1:02 PMOct 21, 2026, 1:14 PMOct 21, 2026, 1:16 PM" EIT Higher Education Initiative<https://eit-hei.eu/> invites consortia of higher education institutions, businesses, research organisations, public bodies and other innovation partners to apply.
The call is aligned with EU initiatives, such as the Union of Skills<https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/union-skills_en>, the STEM Education Strategic Plan<https://education.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2025-03/STEM_Education_Strategic_Plan_COM_2025_89_1_EN_0.pdf>, the Competitiveness Compass<https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/competitiveness-compass_en> and the Clean Industrial Deal<https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/clean-industrial-deal_en>."
Oct 21, 2026, 1:17 PM@Gina "
Selected projects will strengthen the capacity of higher education institutions by developing innovation, entrepreneurship and intellectual property skills among students and staff across science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and related fields most relevant to manufacturing and deep tech innovation.
Oct 21, 2026, 1:18 PM@Gina "They will also improve knowledge sharing, technology transfer and intellectual property management, while building stronger links with industry partners, investors and innovation networks. "
@onepict Sounds interesting, but knowing the EU, also really bureaucratic. I dont think we'd have needed more than 10k to fly a bunch of people in.
Oct 21, 2026, 1:23 PM
@alexadeswift @dianea I have many more examples of micro-aggressions like that. Just shitty comments, not big enough to do anything with, but enough to be death by a 1000 cuts. It's so disheartening :(
@Gina This does not surprise me. It drives me to despair, though.
@Gina My brain made a dream responds to his bs:
"Don't be so hysterical. How will you ever find a wife with this attitude? If you can't even handle this how will you ever become a father? And also smile more."
But sadly it wouldn't ever have the same effect on such douchebags as it has in my fantasy.
@Gina 😡
@Gina omfg
@Gina this is so unhinged. It's one thing to think weird stuff, but a whole other level to let that thought cross the brain-mouth-barrier.
Or maybe I'm to generous and this is actual incel stuff. Unhinged it is at least.
We're mentoring a young women in cybersec right now. She's doing rly well and so far I didn't sense any weird vibes towards her. That said: she hasn't been to the big tables yet. What can we - as colleagues and mentors - do, to support her when time comes and she gets shit on? Mind sharing what might have helped you in these scenarios?
@Gina addendum: weirdly enough (and as a former java dev) the CSS-part hits me the most :ablobcatpoprev:
@AwkwardTuring Lol and I was so bad at it too 😂 Design is an actual skill.
@AwkwardTuring The thing about the 'weird and inappropriate jokes and comments' part is that I don't think a lot of them meant any actual harm with them. They were just.. odd. You learn to awkwardly smile them away real quick.
Idk what would have helped. It being recognized and addressed by older coworkers? I was too junior to call anything out (and sometimes didn't even recognize these things until much later).
![Open source effects
Perhaps our GitHub data are not representative of the open source community; while all
projects we analyzed were public, not all of them are licensed as open source. Nonetheless,
if we restrict our analysis to just projects that are explicitly licensed as open source, women
continue to have a higher acceptance rate (χ2(df = 1,n = 1,424,127) = 347,p < .001)
Insider effects
Perhaps women’s high acceptance rate is because they are already well known in the
projects they make pull requests in. Pull requests can be made by anyone, including
both insiders (explicitly authorized owners and collaborators) and outsiders (other
GitHub users). If we exclude insiders from our analysis, the women’s acceptance
rate (62.1% [61.65%,62.53%]) continues to be significantly higher than men’s (60.7%
[60.65%,60.82%]) (χ2(df = 1,n = 1,372,834) = 35,p < .001).](https://cdn.masto.host/mmtlynchio/media_attachments/files/117/479/007/233/061/879/original/4f5d2a66fe397a68.png)