Researching Debian: The effects of gender on the lived experiences of developers and community members

Dissertation available here: https://platypus.pepperfish.net/~dkscully/mres-sociology-impact-of-gender-women-in-debian.pdf

In 2016, as part of a Master’s degree in Sociology and Research Methods, I did a piece of qualitative research interviewing women involved in Debian, intended to investigate how they felt that their gender impacted on their experiences of the project on a day to day basis.

I would like to present my findings, with some added discussion as to how such data might be useful for the project when considering diversity and inclusion.

Hopefully, it would be interesting to anyone with an interest in the functioning of the community, both currently and in the future.

• Video