Hi guys,
I think the problem is the old problem of privilege as much as anything. It's not a problem specific to women, but all "minorities". Actually I was thinking that open-source should/could be a very interesting thing in context of first peoples communities. I think communities like these would be very ideologically connected to the open-source concept. (from my white western "priviliged" perspective anyhow) Imagine if there was an open source OS (and there may be) that was centered around the ideology of a non-western community, a true fusion of spirituality and creative computing.
Interaccess was involved in something called the "Container Project" (http://www.container.access-it.org.uk/) that basically got funding to plunk a shipping container / computer lab into rural areas, in our case Jamaica, and taught workshops and so on there. Strangely there was little exposure to open-source software. People learned how to do HTML on old os9 macs and on windows98. I wonder if there is such a thing in the western world for first peoples communities.
I didn't read back the whole thread (sorry), but maybe you will find http://www.nabuur.com an interesting iniative. Its an online community based effort to solve issues in (Mostly) third world countries. But with a twist, first of, people can offer their wisdom directly without some NGO coming in between, and 2nd, local communites can get in contact with each other directly. I suggest you check it out for yourselfs because im very lousy at explaining the concept.
Cheers Anton