"Jenn V." wrote:
> Simon Britnell wrote:
> > <RANT>
... etc ...
> > On behalf of the part of <your favourite minority group> that aren't enough, I'm
> > appalled.
>
> More meat for the issues FAQ.
FAQ
> I am also a geek. I also dislike team sports.
>
> BUT. I am a geek with large breasts, a lack of penis, long blonde
> hair and big pretty blue eyes.
brag, brag, brag :)
I'm an ugly SOB with looks that are improved by sunglasses and poor lighting :)
Hence the sunglasses and poor lighting on the linuxchix profiles page.
> I am a geek who has answered the phone and been asked to pass the
> caller on to 'someone who understands technical matters'.
That sucks.
> I am a geek who turns up to geek parties and is automatically
> dismissed as 'someone's wife'.
So does that.
> I am a geek who constantly has to prove herself as a geek, rather
> than as 'the partner'.
That too.
> Think about how you feel about constantly having to tell people
> you don't like team sports. And they don't believe you.
This one only happens when talking to the archetypal xyy guys. Most people open a
"sport" conversation by saying "Did you see the game ...". I get the opportunity to
say "No, I don't like it." in a tone implying violence will ensue if the topic is
pursued.
> Now imagine that you constantly had to tell people you /do/ like
> computers. And they don't believe you.
That's also hard to imagine. Most people tell me to *stop* talking about computers
:)
> Now - please, PLEASE, help us figure out how to get people to
> believe us.
I can see that you're frustrated by people not taking you seriously. It's damned
annoying. I sometimes have this problem in a medical setting (I'm an ambulance
volunteer). I have very little in the way of medical qualification, but I keep up to
date on textbooks and medical articles. I regularly have people who've been around a
long time loudly proclaiming wrong "facts" they learned on the ark.
Here's a story to make you feel better:
When I was working in an ISPs call centre, I'd occasionally get handed calls from
irate female techs who just weren't being listened to because they were female. One
way I dealt with it was to receive the customers question and ask my female associate
( with the customer still on the mike ). I'd then parrot the answer back to the
caller. This resulted in a lot of spluttering from the caller on one occasion.
I don't deny that some female techs in some environments have difficulty being taken
seriously.
In some cases this has to do with other peoples stupidity and in some cases, peoples
egos. Many technical guys have their sense of self worth based entirely on their
technical ability. To the rest of us, theses people are annoying to deal with
because they have powerful emotional drives to be the technical top dog.
What I'm saying is that trying to remedy this by shoe-horning more females into geek
roles is a broken thing to do. For a start, it undermines peoples individuality,
yours included.
What needs fixing is the attitude of those who are giving you the problem. Calling
it a demographics problem robs you of the responsibility (and emotional power) to
deal with the real problem locally. The scale involved in shifting demographics is
enormous. A move to 50%/50% male/female split could take years, and even once it's
reached, it will still take time for those with sexist attitudes to shift their
heads. If the men around you already have bad attitudes, equal demographics won't
solve that in any reasonable amount of time.
So, what can you do. In an environment where you're always meeting new people,
you're always meeting new problems. This isn't usually a big issue as the opinion of
people you don't really know doesn't usually matter much anyway.
In your own world, you *choose* who you associate with ( if you don't, time to start
). You can choose to educate the problems, you can choose to associate with people
who aren't problems or you can choose to just put up with it. Do whichever one suits
you best.
A final note on education. Complaining about "rights", "equality" and the like is
worse than useless except when preaching to the converted. Most of the people who
need changing just add the "whinger" tag to their opinion of you. The only effective
was to change opinions is to be a strong example that the opinions are wrong.
Enforcement, on the other hand, changes behaviour and entrenches attitudes ( and the
behaviour only changes when the enforcer is watching ).
In the most carefully controlled environment, with nothing left to chance, any given
organism will do exactly as it damn well pleases :)
************
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