IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021 - 17

operate, the practice of codeveloping social rules
and norms can be viewed as an extension of the
process used to create codeveloped, free software.
Through this lens, the hacking approach to diversity in open technology communities makes sense.
However, hackers tend to wear their badges of nonconforming antiauthoritarian behavior with pride.
Their words and actions are often at odds with
goals of establishing social norms around civility
and caring. How? The tenacious devotion to free
speech and free expression in open source communities frequently fuels uncivil and sexist speech
protected by a " veil of anonymity and freedom. "
The cultural and social norms of these spaces are
infused with the traditionally masculine and historically rooted prevalence of elitism, competitiveness,
and ritualistic hazing of neophytes. Adding to this
is an unwillingness to reject community members
who support, and even glorify, these behaviors.
Together, this makes working to embrace diversity
from within open technology spaces a very difficult task. In addition, working to advance diversity
in isolated open technology spaces means that
the culture in mainstream spaces experiences no
real shifts. In the end, these communities cannot
overlook the importance of marrying the concepts of free speech and antiharassment as supporting one another. The lack of progress to date
in balancing these twin ideals raises the question
of whether or not open technology spaces are
governable from within.
The author also discusses workplace policies
and procedures that formally support diversity
efforts. Some of these legitimize diversity work by
arguing that it is a solution to workforce needs or
a vehicle to create more innovative solutions to
problems, thereby increasing corporate profits.
The latter rationale can be problematic. Activist
technologists are often motivated by the desire to
right social wrongs or inequities. Diversity initiatives in technology motivated by increasing workforce and consumer markets, both political and
economic motivators, can be at odds with each
other. How? Not all IT jobs are high status and
high paying. Indeed, many of these-data entry,
call centers, telemarketing-are exactly the opposite. These low-level IT jobs are heavily staffed by
women engaged in " offshore pink-collar IT work. "
Pay and status are low. Dunbar-Hester notes
that FLOSS communities and events operate on

March 2021

volunteer time and effort, with the common goals
of workplace advancement for women, working
for the common good, increasing economic diversity, and helping people get jobs. Whether these
efforts are successful in helping participants transfer these skills into high-pay/high-status IT jobs is
less clear.
Lastly, the author devotes a chapter for acknowledging that diversity means far more than adding
(white) women to the open technology ranks. This
presents multiple challenges. First, how to change
the normative male culture without replacing it
with the normative female culture? Many women
in open technology spaces do not embrace the
latter any more than they do the former. Binary
approaches can exclude other genders that have
been well established in technology circles longer
than in society at large. Women also face a double-bind: the challenge of being viewed as competent and likable. People of color are often hesitant
to embrace the " hacker " identity because of the
negative connotations. When white males engage
in hacking, their behavior is often assumed to be
harmless or mischievous. The same behavior by a
person of color is more likely to be viewed as criminal. Because stereotypes of Asians paint them as
better at coding, and so on, they may not experience neophyte hazing when they first enter these
spaces. On the other hand, familial expectations
may pressurize them to pursue more prestigious
and lucrative careers in engineering or science. The
real goal of diversity is to let people be accepted for
who they are.
In conclusion, Dunbar-Hester notes that diverse
hacking efforts in open technology communities
have made some progress toward creating more
inclusive environments. But these efforts remain
limited in their approach and conflate technological participation with the social power that is an
outgrowth of it. Framing diversity in open technology communities as a problem of representation is
convenient and does produce some morally good
outcomes. But in doing so, we ignore the real issues
of culture, especially power and inequity, that lie
at the heart of the problem. Techno-politics has to
start by acknowledging technology's role in dividing people into the haves (insiders with social
power) and the have-nots (everyone else). It must
recognize the limits of technology as a vehicle for

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021