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Why Mark Shuttleworth Owes FOSS-Women an Apology

- - 14 comments
For the past few days, I've been reading several blog reactions (like here, here, here, and most recently here) against Mark Shuttleworth's controversial comments made from his keynote speech at LinuxCon, which turned into a huge sexism issue.

I refrained from immediately writing my own reaction since I'm still gathering my thoughts and have been waiting for the video of the said keynote address. And now that the video is finally up, here's what I have to say...


On Orgasm Joke

Shuttleworth said, "a release is an amazing thing. I'm not talking about the happy ending, I'm talking about a software release, the fresh meat."

I think only Linus Torvalds can get away with jokes like that one. But seriously, the Ubuntu leader needs to know when to be funny and when not to. He badly needs to learn the proper time to "release" a joke.


The Notorious Statement

..."How do we make this just awesome for end users" then we'll have less trouble explaining to girls what we actually do."

I can look at the statement in two ways:

The statement is not sexist if the word "girls" that Mr. Shuttleworth is telling us refer to some female end users who are not that interested in computers or in this case Linux and want it all easy and dumb-proof. I can understand him if that is what he meant since there are probably more men Linux users than women.

The statement is clearly sexist if the word "girls" that Mr. Shuttleworth is telling us refer to all the females in the world including women FOSS developers, advocates, and enthusiasts. If that is what he had in mind, then he should go back to space and stay there for good.


Why Mark Shuttleworth Owes FOSS-Women an Apology

From tons of blog posts and comments that I've read, majority of people think that Mr. Shuttleworth just made a sexist statement and should apologize. I don't mean to judge him or anything but I agree that he should make a sincere apology especially to all the women in FOSS. --I believe that it is the right thing to do at this stage even if he thinks that he has no fault and has no reason to say sorry. He must understand that there are girls who really love Linux and are very passionate about it who are offended by his remarks. He should take this opportunity to clarify a few things, like perhaps tell us that "grandmas" should have been the right word to say instead of "girls".


So Mr. Shuttleworth, be a gentleman, apologize, and give peace a chance.

14 comments

  1. Why FOSS-women, exactly? Who was the comment offensive to?

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  2. Great article. The women from the FOSS community and those that are mostly affected that is why it's only appropriate that Mark Shuttleworth issue an apology to them.

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  3. You are dead! you offended the ubuntu god :D

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  4. Sorry,

    but this is just silly.
    Oh, my god, oh, my god, he said girl. Really, girl. What will come next? He is so sexist. I mean, come on, are you really serious?
    Calm down and relax, linux guys. Mark loves all of you :-)

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  5. dont women have happy endings and releases? arent you being a sexist by suggesting that this statement is not applicable to women? ...women do release and women do look forward to happy ending when enganged in a sexual activity ..an attempt at denying this stament is a sexist and exists mostly to deny women sexuality ..

    mtz

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  6. hrm...on the "not sexist if.." part, I think there's still the problem with the assumption that non-tech-savvy people are girls. Many boys are also non-tech-savvy. Men and women too!

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  7. Woooooooot! Can't relate. I don't know Mr. Shuttleworth. hehe :)

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  8. But even if I don't know him, and as what I've read from your post... He really owes an apology.

    It's like he's smiting all women indirectly and telling them that they no nothing about open source and the like. tsk tsk tsk...

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  9. I switched from Ubunutu to Fedora and am waiting for the apology to return back :D

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  10. He is a socially inept nerd who was trying to make a joke. Remember the guy in high school who would make a joke, have nobody laugh and then say it again because he assumed nobody heard him the first time? That is Mr Shuttleworth, a few years removed from school but still that same. Sometimes you just have to let it go. If what he is saying isn't directly speaking of the next noobuntu release I could care less.

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  11. The man is not a Politician or a movie actor. He is talking about joys of software development and not about sex or gender. Just cracking a light joke. Understand his genuine excitement at the new Ubuntu release and leave it at that.

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  12. You're over-reacting. Especially with regards to the first "joke."

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  13. I think people are over-reacting , and taking it the wrong way totally. still he should issue a pulic "i'm Sorry if you took it the wrong way" I take this comment to mean the girls who are uninterested in computers not the ones in the Foss community who know darn well better then us boys alot of the time what linux is!

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  14. I think the sexism comes in the assumption that the subject is male, and the object is female. He's talking to the blokes here. There's also the assumption that the subject is male and tech-savvy and the object is female and a little dim.

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