metaprogramming and politics

from “Traditional family not in bible” (click on image goes to related article form gazette.com)

PSF’s code of conduct enforcement is a good step, but what about the many traditional family models in the IT world? I know many fathers which are busy fulltime with non-child stuff, and their partners have the main child responsibility. I heart three main reasonings for this situation and i don’t fully buy them:

• an economic one: the guy working brings more money into the household. This kind of perpetuates the inequality situation, doesn’t it? And is having less money really an issue? Is part-time working impossible? In germany you have a legal right to do part-time work, to begin with.
• a biologistic one: women can “naturally” or genetically care better than men for children. One, I’ve seen fathers doing just fine. Two, are we entirely determined by genetics? I see genetics as some kind of hardware, and software can do lots of different things on it. Culture is shaped as much as software. There is no such thing as “objective” nature.
• go away, it’s a family’s private business and choices. Nevertheless such choices are also culturally determined. Often there is no explicit discussion or choice but rather a fallback to the default, often induced by the facts of birth and breast feeding. How many fathers discuss the issue of child-care openly and regularly, offering changes to give a real choice?

Rest assured, I really like the projects i am hacking on as much as the other guy. Sometimes i feel that caring often for my child makes this harder. On the plus side, it gives me better focus because my time is more limited. And more often than not, i am grateful and have a lot of fun being with my little one.

Now, if more fathers in the Python communities were busier with their children, what would that change in terms of conference attendance of women? Not sure there would be any direct effect except maybe lower conference attendance of men, rising the percentage of women. It would set a good example, however, and help mid- to long-term, i am sure.

Sometimes i like to ask myself this question: when i am dying and wonder what should i have done rather differently? I doubt i am going to say “i should have released one more library, earned more money, become more popular”.