Issues FAQ repost
--
"Do you ever wonder if there's a whole section of geek culture
you miss out on by being a geek?" - Dancer.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Jenn Vesperman http://www.simegen.com/~jenn/
LinuxChix: Issues FAQ
Jennifer Vesperman
Copyright © 2000 by Jennifer Vesperman
Revision History
Revision 0.1 Apr 2000
Roughed out question set, early answers
Revision 0.2 Jun 2000
Roughed out answers
Revision 0.2.1 20 Jun 2000
Added answers from Sheryl Coe
Revision 1.0 12 November 2000
Full release.
_________________________________________________________________
1. Women's Studies 101 (or: What's all the fuss about?)
1.1. What is feminism - really?
1.2. Isn't the world fair now?
1.3. Why 'Political Correctness' stinks
1.4. 'Just live with it'
1.5. 'Gender politics scares me.'
1.6. 'I never intend to upset anyone, so it's not my problem'
1.7. '... but names will never hurt me'
2. Women and Linux
2.1. Women in Open Source
2.2. The Top Ten Women In Linux!
2.3. I saw this on slashdot....
3. Managing Geek Life
3.1. The Two-Hacker Household
3.2. Geek Isolation
3.3. Families
3.4. Housework & Clothing
3.5. Larval Phases
3.6. Strange things non-geeks say
4. Mailing List Stuff
4.1. List rules
4.2. Reply to sender, reply to all?
4.3. To HTML or not to HTML
5. Meta-Stuff
5.1. Who contributed to this FAQ?
5.2. How do I change this FAQ? (add a question, change an answer)
1. Women's Studies 101 (or: What's all the fuss about?)
1.1. What is feminism - really?
Feminism - sometimes called equalism - is an attempt to make the world
as fair as possible. Women should be able to do any job they are
physically capable of and qualified for - so should men. So should the
disabled. So should elderly people, young people, those of any race
and those in any location.
Well, that's the ideal. It is unlikely that someone will be able to
manage a Kenya game park from New York City. Ever. But within
reasonable, realistic limits, feminists want male kindergarten
teachers, female CEOs of major companies, wheelchair-bound presidents,
and poor third-world villages with clean water and schools.
1.2. Isn't the world fair now?
Many of the Linuxchix over about thirty report personal experiences of
discrimination. Many of the Linuxchix under about thirty report that
they haven't seen any. This is a very, very hopeful sign.
On the other hand, look around you. Look for local politicians of
whatever races are minorities in your country. Look at the gender
balance. Look at anyone in power in your local country, your local
city - whether that power is monetary, political, legal or military.
See for yourself whether the spread of power is even over race,
gender, and (within reasonable limits) physical ability.
Consider how your local community and legal system would treat your
younger sister if she was attacked, perhaps raped. How about your
younger brother. How about if you (and they) were of another race? How
about if they were disabled?
Would a male be welcome as a kindergarten teacher? A female? How about
head of a major newspaper? A bank? The military?
If they would be welcome, how would they behave and dress? Could you
imagine your female newspaper head pregnant? The male kindergarten
teacher as a body-builder in his spare time? Now think again about
race. Now about disability. Now mentally locate these people in a
third world country. Now in New York City (or if you are in NYC, try
London.)
Once you've thought about all that, answer this question yourself.
1.3. Why 'Political Correctness' stinks
Most of the Linuxchix who have spoken about it (at the time this is
written), felt 'political correctness' worked against what we're
after.
What we (most of us who have spoken about it) want is to be judged
fairly, on our skills and abilities. We do not want to be the token
female, to be hired to fill quotas, or to be the cause of
discrimination against a better-qualified person who happens to be
male.
This seems to surprise a lot of people. At least, one of the common
things new males who join the lists do is ask us why we 'want'
tokenism and quotas. And it seems to be extremely difficult to get
them to believe that we don't. Sigh.
1.4. 'Just live with it'
This ('just live with it') is a common response to complaints about
teasing, seduction attempts and other such crud in the workplace.
Now, I (Jenn) happen to work in a great place. It's a small company,
close-knit, where we all make a point of getting to know each other
and how we feel about things. In this environment, I'm perfectly happy
to tease my workmates and be teased by them. I know what they do and
don't mean, and I'm comfortable with asking for clarification when I
don't. I also have the skills to leave if I want to.
When I was seventeen, at university, we had a lecturer who had a habit
of discussing female students in the lecture room. He discussed
clothing, implied prostitution, and in at least one tutorial, asked
female students if they were available on the weekend. The women
(myself included) were, young and unsure of themselves, and (fresh
from high school) perceived him as an authority figure. Most had
little or no chance to leave if they wanted a degree - even
transferring to a different university would have to wait till the end
of the academic year.
In my current workplace, 'hazing', teasing and sexual innuendo have
little effect on my ability to work. I know that I am not being
belittled in front of others. I know that I'm not really being asked
out - or that if I am, it's purely social and will have no effect on
my pay or position.
At uni, I was being belittled in front of my peers, and there was a
subject where my marks were considerably lower than my average. I'll
leave it to the reader to decide which one.
Most workplaces are somewhere between the two situations. Most are too
large for staff to know each other well. Most have some staff in
positions of authority over others. Most people have reasons that they
can't resign a job on the spot.
In most workplaces, hazing, teasing and innuendo affect how well
people do their job, as well as how happy they are. Why should anyone
be asked to 'just live with it'?
1.5. 'Gender politics scares me.'
It scares me too. But I am a geek, and I want to be treated as a geek.
If I wanted to make the same amount of money and be treated as a
stereotypical female, I'd be a rich man's trophy wife.
I prefer dabbling as necessary in gender politics. It feels more
honest.
1.6. 'I never intend to upset anyone, so it's not my problem'
This is very hard to answer.
* A friend of mine is a very intelligent man. He's nice, he's
helpful, he's a tech manager of a company. When he's got a job
opening, he advertises on the lists he's on. There aren't many
women on the lists he's on, and he just doesn't think of the ones
they're on. So he doesn't get female applicants.
(He's not the only one like that. One list member complained on
issues that he hadn't had any female applicants for a position
he'd just advertised. He'd been on linuxchix for ages, so we asked
him when he'd advertised it on [EMAIL PROTECTED] He hadn't.)
* At one point, one list member said 'I know this list is supposed
to be full of geeks, but....'. Now replace 'list' with 'gym' and
'geeks' with .. say .. 'jocks'. Do you think you'd get away
unscathed? This list member had no idea what he'd said wrong.
Most of us do things every day which are based on unconscious
assumptions. I (Jenn) tend to buy shoes which are slightly tight on
the assumption that I'll be wearing stockings - and I wear socks. I
own casual, smart casual, semi-formal and formal clothing for both
summer and winter - and I know what each means.
These behaviours are because I am socialised female. It's part of what
and who society (not necessarily my parents) have taught me to be.
Everyone has socialised behaviours. If you're not conscious of yours,
you'll do them constantly. If you're not conscious of other peoples',
you won't take them into account.
It's these socialised behaviours which lead to the female students in
teams at uni being given documentation to do, rather than programming.
Or to women finding most linux mailing lists 'unfriendly', and not
being able to point to why. Or to men posting their ads only to those
male-dominated lists, and not to the places female geeks gather.
Creating an equal society isn't just about removing the overt, obvious
barriers. It's about figuring out the others. It's about noticing that
we've put the kids' computer in the boy's room. It's about producing
more games like Theme Hospital (as well as Command and Conquer). It's
about noticing that that smartly dressed female is just as geeky as
the sloppy male - or the smartly dressed male, or the sloppy female.
And it's about noticing that it is your problem, and you have upset
someone.
It's about thinking.
1.7. '... but names will never hurt me'
Then why are there slander and libel laws?
Oh, and by the way, I've heard something about your mother....
2. Women and Linux
2.1. Women in Open Source
Where are all the women in the Open Source community? Some are coders,
yes, but look further. Look at documenters. At artists. Sound
engineers. Project coordinators. List maintainers. Testers. Look at
the lower-key, less flashy jobs. Women are usually trained in
childhood to aim for support roles, even if they hate them.
And think about where Open Source would be without them.
2.2. The Top Ten Women In Linux!
Most 'top people in Linux' or 'top people in Open Source' lists don't
seem to have any women in them. We've considered reasons for that, and
determined that most such lists seem to be kernel-focused, or
coder-focused. So here's a list of some (not the top ten, just a
random selection) of the top women in Open Source - whether coders,
artists, writers, bug-finders, advocates, organisers, or anything
else. Contact the FAQ coordinator or mail to the list if you have
suggestions for others.
Laurel Fan
Worldforge
Telsa Gwynne
advocate, Gnome bugfinder
Deb Richardson
advocate, documenter, Open Source Writer's Group organiser,
LinuxChix organiser
2.3. I saw this on slashdot....
..... and there's this hideous mass of stereotypical guff about women
in the comments area. We know. A lot of us just avoid slashdot
completely, because of it. Which, of course, means we don't get the
same news as the male geeks, because so many news items are on
slashdot (or similar places which we also avoid.)
Which goes right back to the Feminism 101 section of this FAQ.
(I just read this answer to Dancer (Squid and Exult hacker, and my
husband). He says he thought slashdot was aimed at teens and kiddie
wannabe techies. He also avoids it. Andover, if this isn't the case,
you'll want to do something about that.)
3. Managing Geek Life
3.1. The Two-Hacker Household
Hire a cleaning service. Seriously. If you're anything like me, you're
too female-socialised to be able to just ignore the mess and it's
preying on your mind. Don't spare it the clock cycles - hire a
cleaning service.
Respect your own intellect, as much as you respect his (or hers). If
you tend to put the garbage out rather than interrupt his programming
time, treat your programming time with the same respect - call for a
pizza. And let the boxes stack up till the cleaning service takes it
away.
Have your own computers. Have your own computer desks. Build a LAN,
know how to maintain it, and let the router split the packets. Have a
router - use the 486 you bought from your cousin's friend who's had it
on a shelf for years. Keep the MTU reasonably down, so that if your
partner's doing a large download your chat packets go out promptly
anyway. Learn what MTU means, and how to set it.
Share the technical chores, backing up, upgrading hardware, choosing
utilities. If you find that the one of you is changing the printer's
ink while the other is changing the hard disks, you might want to
check if that's what you really want. After all, the technically
weaker partner might not want to stay that way, the other might
welcome a more equal partner. It's OK to carve out
mutually-agreed-upon territories, but if you let your significant
other become your 24/7 technical support department, you're missing
out on some serious fun.
3.2. Geek Isolation
First posts to the lists often include 'I've never met another woman
like me'. This is usually followed with a query - is there a LinuxChix
chapter near me? Can I actually meet anyone face to face?
If there isn't, another question is how to locate others. How to find
the other geek people nearby, who aren't already on LinuxChix. This
problem is made worse by small towns, island communities, or other
forms of isolation. The obvious start is to form your own Linuxchix
chapter, advertising it in your local Linux user group, local computer
user groups, at the school if possible, at the library, and everywhere
women gather.
I've thought of another way. Get a helpful teacher (or Girl Scout
leader, or anyone else experienced with children), and form a
LinuxChix or GeekGrrl junior. Not only does this help keep the next
generation from having the same problem, but the mothers of these kids
have already done some of your work for you. Many of them will have
already found their cousin's best friend's sister who is really into
computers.... Of course, this is only really suitable for those who
feel capable of acting as mentor to a bunch of teenagers. Which isn't
my cup of chava.
Other places where geeky women tend to gather include science fiction
or roleplaying clubs, library shelves and bookstores; medievalist
events and groups (such as the Society for Creative Anachronism);
science centres, museums and zoos (look for the people critiquing the
exhibits and talking earnestly to the volunteers); internet cafes
(look over shoulders. Find the ones who are programming, role-playing
or earnestly playing intellect-stretching games).
3.3. Families
If you have children and a geek partner, schedule your deep hack times
so that one of you is in deep hack mode and the other is minding the
children. Then go into a space set aside for deep hack and stay there.
Everything (short of a fire) is the other adult's responsibility. It
will take discipline to insist on this if this is new, but stick to
it. You have a right to deep hack.
If your partner isn't a geek, but does play golf, point out that your
deep hack time is your equivalent of golf time. Extrapolate to other
hobbies as appropriate. Make a deep-hack space, and use it. Do the
scheduling.
When not in scheduled deep hack time, bring young children into your
geekness (Invite teenagers, but don't force it on them!). Don't limit
it to computing - I've never met a geek who wasn't interested in a
broad range of things. Explore the range with them. Go to science
centres, zoos, gardens, museums - and explore the staff's knowledge,
don't limit yourself to the exhibits.
Use your children as passes to go to all sorts of places and ask all
sorts of questions that, as an adult, courtesy prohibits. Ask flight
attendants if you can see the cockpit in a plane. Find the 'tower
restaurant' in a skyscraper in your nearest city, and ask the staff if
your children can look out the window. Be brazen, but polite, and ask
all sorts of places. And use those opportunities to excite your
children's - and your - curiousity. Where possible, plan to spend the
rest of the afternoon in the city's main library, asking questions of
the librarians and researching answers.
And don't ever let anyone tell you that you 'should' be taking your
children to sporting events instead. This is your time, with your
children, and they get plenty of exercise hauling books around. (The
exception to this, of course, is if your childrens' interest happens
to be sports.)
3.4. Housework & Clothing
Your time is valuable. So is your energy. Your life is important -
you're the only /you/ there is or ever will be! Make the most of
yourself.
Plan your house and your wardrobe for minimum-effort. Efficient
storage, careful use of conveniences, and low maintenance materials
will enable you to spend more of your time at your computer - or
throwing snowballs.
Take the time and money to organise efficient storage, with space near
workplaces for the things needed at those workplaces. Use closed
storage, where feasible, to minimise time spent cleaning and dusting
(and to allow the storage to be messy!).
Make use of conveniences - dishwashers, clothes dryers, maid services
- which spare you time and effort, but choose ones which don't
conflict with your personal ethical views. When choosing not to use a
convenience, use that time as an active meditation and a form of
exercise. (Yes, you can tai-chi your clothes onto the line.) Use your
time efficiently, in a geekish way.
Let the dishes air-dry. Hell, just leave them soaking in the sink for
an hour while you figure out that patch. Detergent and hot water will
do most of the work for you. Do dump spilled-on clothes in a bucket of
water straight away, but leave them there till it's laundry day. Make
use of Martha Stewart - spend a couple of hours every so often to go
through the house and figure out just which 'Better Homes and Gardens'
tips will make the house even lower maintenance.
Mulch. Use groundcover plants. Do garden, if you happen to have one -
it's also excellent exercise and a wonderful form of meditation. But
do low-maintenance gardening - use plants native to your area, figure
out how to do a no-lawn or minimal-mowing-lawn garden, and mulch to
reduce weeds.
Buy men's (or boy's) clothing. It usually has better pockets, and if
you avoid suit-clothes, tends to be easier to maintain. Except for the
one-set-of-clothing-for-weddings (or for clothing just for the fun of
it), don't buy anything that can't be thrown into a washing machine.
If you work in a client-interaction field, this can be harder to find,
but the time saved day-to-day is worth the effort. Buy a minimum range
of colours, so they can all go in together. Buy good bras. Buy
looser-fitting, flat-heeled, male-style shoes.
If you find that housework is overwhelming you, or the mess is getting
out of hand, triage. Cut whatever you need to cut to make sure you can
manage in peace. If you remember just one rule, that's it.
In my (Sheryl Coe) house, I limit all the clothing in the house (other
than coats) to two laundry baskets per person. When we start to get
more I start deleting.items. Limit the number of toys your young kids
have, and go for the Lego-type toys over the pre-assembled toys. I'm
still struggling with this one. It helps when I don't think of it as
taking away toys, but as giving them a space they can manage.
Use defaults. Have a default meal and default cook for every day of
the week. If something comes up, be flexible, but don't be stuck. Have
a floating "Get out of Dinner Free." card tacked to the fridge with
money inside. Pizza, chinese food... local places give more food value
than chains for the money.
Teach the kids to use "defaults." Othewise known as good habits.
Cleaning up after themselves. Proper systems shut-down procedures ...
The important stuff.
3.5. Larval Phases
Whenever learning a new skill, it can be very helpful to immerse
yourself in it for a time. Shut the rest of the world out, and just
study. Computing is no exception.
So do it. If you feel the need to, make plans around it - save up
enough cash to have takeaway chinese every night, arrange for the kids
to visit their grandparents for a month - but do it.
3.6. Strange things non-geeks say
I've recently learned that under some circumstances 'I don't know how
to do X' actually means 'I feel isolated and left out of the
conversation, can we stop talking about computers please?' This seemed
really strange and wierd to me, and (in the conversation at hand) to
the other geeks present. Not that the person felt left out, but that
she phrased the request as what we interpreted as a request for
further information.
Non-geeks apparently talk around things, calling this 'courtesy'
(rather than by its geek name, 'obfuscation')(think 'obfuscated code
contest').
I'm not able to explain how to communicate with non-geeks, but one of
the major clues that they're circling the point is the complaint
'you're not listening to me' (or other, similar statements). This is a
cue to stop and try to interpret their comments in a non-literal,
non-intuitive fashion.
And they complain about our user interfaces!
4. Mailing List Stuff
4.1. List rules
Be polite.
Be helpful.
4.2. Reply to sender, reply to all?
There is a very useful article about why to keep the 'reply-to' header
in mailing lists set to the original sender.
This is not intended as a final-answer, but please be aware that the
issue is not automatic - it's not 'smart' to do it one way, or
'stupid' to do it the other. If you have a good argument for why to
switch, let us know... if we get enough counter-arguments (or the same
counter-arguments repeatedly), they're likely to go into the FAQ.
Whether or not they'll change Deb's mind is another mattter.
Even better, collect the counterarguments and write a counter-article
I can link to. Deb will read it. Whether she changes her mind is up to
her.
4.3. To HTML or not to HTML
This is a Linux list, and many LinuxChix (and LinuxChaps) use mutt or
other mail clients which don't handle HTML (but do everything else
just fine, thanks).
Even without that, there are many people (such as me - Jenn) who find
that HTML mail usually comes in a fixed font size that's too small to
comfortably read, or on backgrounds which are hard to read over, or in
some other way are damned difficult to actually use even if your mail
client can read them.
So don't HTML your mail, and don't include HTML attachments.
In Netscape or Explorer, you can check and remove HTML by going to the
Preferences or Options menu (in Edit or View), then to the Mail (or
similar) section, selecting Formatting. There is an option there to
send plain-text mail, or to use the plain-text editor - the wording
varies from version to version. Most mailing lists have people who
will breathe a great sigh of relief if you turn that on.
5. Meta-Stuff
5.1. Who contributed to this FAQ?
A lot of people. I had my first version completed, and managed to wipe
it out thoroughly. Lost the lot. That's when I moved the whole thing
to Sourceforge .. but it did mean that I lost, among other things, the
original contributors list. While they contributed none of the text of
this version, they contributed greatly to the spirit of it. Thanks,
guys.
The primary contributors to this version are Deb Richardson and Dancer
Vesperman, for inspiration and patience and proofreading. More
inspiration, patience and general assistance came from the LinuxChix
list members.
Additional authors: Sheryl Coe.
5.2. How do I change this FAQ? (add a question, change an answer)
This FAQ is maintained as a Sourceforge project, and can be edited,
added to or changed in the same way as any other Sourceforge project.
The URL is http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxchix-faqs/.
The FAQ is written in DocBook, which is a markup language similar to
HTML. Simple changes can be made by copying an existing question and
answer. More complex changes may need an understanding of DocBook - a
good URL for that is http://www.docbook.org/. Compiling Docbook uses
the 'sgmltools' toolkit, available in both .deb and .rpm packages. The
command is 'sgmltools -bhtml faq.sgml' for html format, 'sgmltools
-btxt faq.sgml' for text, 'sgmltools -bps faq.sgml' for postscript
(printable) format.
If all this sounds terribly confusing, just contact the FAQ maintainer
with your suggested changes, comment on the mailing list, or if you
want to help maintain the FAQ, join [EMAIL PROTECTED]
