It’s turned out rather well, though! I knew it was more than eight, and I know it’s more than have commented, but it’s really cool to see all these women showing up and talking a little bit about how they use python. It’s equally cool how diverse their experiences and projects are: everything from “sometimes I use it at home to get links into delicious” to “I use it as part of my high-energy physics research.” Comments continue to trickle in, and I smile every time.

… well, almost every time. There have been, unsurprisingly, a number of trollish comments that I’ve deleted (and mocked, of course). There was also the dude who came by to give me helpful advice on how to ask a question in order to get a more definitive answer. “Are you a woman in python,” he claimed, was too broad, too open to interpretation.

And that, I say, is part of the point: I want it to be open to interpretation. I think the ways in which we interpret questions can be telling. What right do I have to make a list of things you have to do to be “in python”? I wondered how many people would comment to say they use python, but they’re not a “real” programmer. Why do we say that? How common is it for a woman to say, “well, I write a few scripts in my spare time,” and have that be brushed off because, in some way, “it doesn’t count”? I don’t know, but I’m not going to do it. If you’re a woman, and you consider yourself to be “in python,” whatever that means to you, then that’s good enough for me.

More later. This has stirred up a lot of thinky thoughts for me.

[By the way, if you feel like asking, "why does this matter?" or "who cares about gender when we are so awesomely post-feminism?" (as a few people already have) then I will direct you to this site and delete your comment.]

Except… who ARE the women in python? I can name eight, including myself. There must be more, right? There must be women using python who don’t participate in the larger community. There must be women who ARE active and whom I’m just not aware of. It can’t possibly just be eight. My Planet Python RSS feed shows me no regular female contributors (that can’t be right, can it?); three PSF members are female (out of 112) but none of them are officers or are on the board; nobody on python core is female.

My view is fairly limited in scope, so what I want to know is: are there really so few women using python in the first place? Or are there women using it who keep their heads down or don’t engage with the larger python community? It seems to me that those are separate issues, to be addressed in different ways.

So I am proposing a roll-call. Are you a woman using python? At work, at home, at school, in any capacity whatsoever? Raise your hand. Be counted.

(Men, please do not raise your hand on behalf of your female colleagues or friends. Send ‘em on over. Let them speak for themselves.)