November 28, 2002 the Regina LinuxChix local chapter was formed. In the beginning we consisted of a small number of females. We are currently working at getting a mailing list started to better communicate. We are also working at getting the web page finished. Currently there is a local graphic designer working on creating a logo for our group. If you would like to join or learn more of our group feel free to email Stacey.

This is our first newsletter. If anyone ever wants to share a story or an experience in this newsletter simple e-mail me and I will add it to the newsletter. Also, if anyone wants to take this over that's fine too. Soon, when we will have our mailing lists set up you will be able to choose if you wish to get the newsletter in the mailing lists area of the webpage.

Oh, and everyone if you'd like to take a look there has been some work done to get the website up. It is located at http://linuxchix.losurs.org at present. Eve has done some work on making a logo for us. I'd like to thank her for all that she has done. In Eve's own word's, "You know I think it would be just super if anyone who wanted to took whatever they liked from what I produced and changed it to make it feel right. In a sort of true open source collaboration. :-)". So if you are so inclined feel free to e-mail me whatever you do or any suggestions you may come up with.

4. But I don't do that!

This is perhaps a good time for some introspection. At the LinuxChix BOF at Ottawa Linux Symposium, we finished listing all the reasons why women stayed away from LUGs. A man from the local LUG raised his hand and said that no one at his LUG did any of the things we complained about, but they were still having difficulty attracting women. A woman from the same LUG raised her hand and said, "Yes, they do." She went on to say that only a few "bad apples" were doing these things, but those few were enough to drive off most women. This is a very important point: if your group has nine helpful and polite members, and one rude, sexist, loud member, most women are going to continue to stay away because of that one member. I realize that this isn't fair to the other people in the group, but that's reality. If your group is stuck with one bad apple, try a little peer pressure the next time he does something that will drive off women. Reply to his email, disagree with what he says--establish that you don't share his opinions. Just knowing that there is one other person in the group who is willing to publicly disagree with the "bad apple" will help immensely, and will make women more willing to stay.

3. Do's and don't's of encouraging women in Linux

Encouraging women in Linux involves both learning what to do, and learning what to stop doing. We'll present our ideas in "do" and "don't" pairs, since having only a list of things to do or a list of things not to do is not as helpful as having both. Some of these suggestions may seem insultingly obvious to you personally, but for many other people, they aren't obvious. Each of these suggestions is based on multiple real-life encounters with people for whom these ideas weren't obvious. Try not to dismiss any of the ideas--these are real suggestions from real women, the women you presumably want to attract to Linux. Also, most of these suggestions are not gender-specific, and will help to attract all types of people to Linux.

1. Introduction

At the 2002 Ottawa Linux Symposium, I hosted a LinuxChix Birds Of a Feather session. During the BOF and throughout the conference, I heard the same set of questions:

"My girlfriend hates Windows, how can I encourage her to use Linux?"

"Almost no women attend my local LUG. How can I fix this?"

"Why aren't there more women in open source?"

Clearly, people in the Linux community would like for more women to be involved in Linux, but most people don't know why so few women are involved or how to change that. This HOWTO is an effort to summarize the explanations, recommendations, and opinions of the women who already are interested and active in Linux. This document began with the verbatim recommendations of the women who attended the LinuxChix BOF, and was added to by many more women in the months following the original BOF. In other words, this HOWTO represents the feelings and opinions of real women involved in Linux. While we represent the women who "made it," we still have fairly important insights into why other women left or never entered the Linux community, as well as being keenly aware of the pressures which are currently pushing us out of the community.