Which is actually wrong: http://women.debian.org/home/ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Women
Yeah, good examples on how not to do it I suppose? E.g. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-women-list/ shows why extra mailing lists for women is not adding anything good.
I admit I know next to nothing about Fedora-women project and about the reasons why it failed, but why not just use the former entry in the list (Debian-women) as an example how a women sub-project can actually add a lot of good? For almost 5 years of its existence of DW here's what they've achieved: * Significant increase in number of female Debian developers and package maintainers (don't have exact numbers as for the present, I think they've started with as much as 4 of those in 2005, today it's certainly 2-digit number, so at least 3-fold rise) * Greater visibility of female DDs and PMs * Greater awareness of specific issues women in FLOSS have to face (sexism, online harrassment etc.) and people actively speaking out against them * A woman (Marga Manterola) running for the most senior position of Debian Project Lead Would Debian community make all of those happen if it wasn't for Debian-women project? Well, maybe. And maybe not.
Honestly: to me these "sub projects for women" look like a way for men to keep the women out of the real thing.
Actually, their purpose is just the opposite - to integrate women better into the community. From DW's statement of purpose: http://women.debian.org/about/ "We seek to balance and diversify the Debian Project by actively engaging with interested women and encouraging them to become more involved with Debian." fB. -- \\\\\ Katarina Machalkova \\\\\\\__o OOo developer __\\\\\\\'/_ & hedgehog painter