You can’t really take unfair advantage of a volunteer project by joining it (not talking about GSoC but the general case). It mostly means you get to do work for “just” enjoying it (or at least deriving satisfaction from it). The worst that can happen is that you don’t enjoy it, and wander off disappointed, and I wanted to avoid that. It would be nice if we -could- give talented but inexperienced newbies the start-up training that got them to repair all the “not for you, go away”, I just don’t see how.

Re why, (question 2 and 3 differ?) besides my ad having rather the reverse than the intended effect, from comments of other members of my project that work at universities, their female students advanced enough to tackle our suggested GSoC projects (typically second year CS or related field and later) have had their summer internships lined up long before GSoC. They’re just too employable (and organized). :}

That actually strikes me as taking responsibility. We took a chance on this developer, it didn’t work out, we’ll know better next year.

Here’s the thing. Each of your contributions to this thread has expressed your fear that people (and specifically, in this context, women) will take advantage of your project, will expect unfair treatment. Your job offerings, all of them, express that fear.

Here’s a writeup that focuses on getting qualified people, without the subtext of “Women expect special treatment, and we don’t do that.”

NetBSD welcomes developers to the Summer of Code; we’re delighted to see applicants of all backgrounds, including women, people of color, and other nontraditional applicants. [this bit needs wordsmithing, obvs.] Unfortunately, because of the nature of our work on the kernel and other close-to-the-metal projects, we don’t have time for handholding. We need our applicants to show up with a basic understanding of [] and ready to code. However, if you’ve got the chops, our existing diverse team will greet you with open arms (and a lot of work!)

You can say “We don’t have the cycles to teach you to do this work” without saying “I bet you want special treatment”.

When you put out an ad and get no women applicants, you can respond in any of three — at least — ways:

1. Given the workings of chance, *some* project is going to get no women applicants, even when they reach out to the community.
2. I wonder if there was something about our project statement that made us less inviting to women than other projects?
3. Women didn’t apply to our project. Why won’t they even bother to take the opportunity?

> Because really, “omg she was totally just accepted because she was female” is like an awful How To Suppress Women’s Writing flashback to me.

But it wasn’t that, it was a “don’t kick her she’s greener than we usually take and it’s not her fault”.

Re GSoC: I tried, not all too well considering how my attempt at attracting other women was received. Next year I’ll leave the marketing attempts to the native speakers again.

Does the person you’re translating know for a fact that someone was accepted specifically because she was female? Have they personally assessed the merits of her application, and do they know the extent of her qualifications first-hand?

Because really, “omg she was totally just accepted because she was female” is like an awful How To Suppress Women’s Writing flashback to me.

All that said – I was a GSoC mentor last year. We didn’t only assess applicants based on their current state of coding 1337ness. And I know that a lot of projects use other metrics as well – communication skills, a clear project plan, etc. Applicants needed to have a clear understanding of what they were getting themselves into – even if they didn’t know how to accomplish their goal right from the start. That doesn’t have any gender. Given that you didn’t manage to attract a single female applicant let alone participant to your project… I just have to call {citation needed} on what you’re saying.

I do have the impression (maybe I’m wrong) that some other projects are indeed “accepting” women and then putting them in a playpen (“since she only got accepted at her present stage to increase the number of women you can’t expect her to actually have the necessary skill already” is a literal-if-translated remark I read, by someone who doesn’t usually engage in sexism), doing lip service to diversity instead of being fair.
I would not be happy (upset? insulted? infuriated? sorry, missing the right word at present .. being considered 3/4 of a member because of the way I (might have) got in?) being the woman cited, -especially- if the observation was true.

And I absolutely do not understand why “I have to take care of a child” keeps being lumped in as a class issue. There’s no max income level to have sexual intercourse :P