On Sun, Sep 22, 2002, Orna Agmon wrote about "Re: Weman and Linux": >
The first step toward respecting *women* is to spell that word correctly :) > This essay is not just about women in Linux. Many of the points > are relevant to newbies in general, and to women in a mainly-male > environment in general. I haven't read the entire thing yet, but I find several very curious things in it. For example, one of the items is "Don't treat women stereotypically" and another is "Do treat women like everyone else". Makes perfect sense. Then come sections like "Don't micro-specialize or obsess about the same topics" (because "... most women don't have the endless interest in minutiae that men often display"). What is that, if not stereotypes about women, claiming that women's brains are somehow "wired" differently?? One might claim that this "endless interest in minutiae" is what gets people certain types of technical jobs. Does this mean that women cannot hold such jobs? > I think reading this and implementing at least some of the Dos > and Don'ts may make the upcoming events (Welcome to Linux, Renanim insta > party) more sucessful ones. Mainly about the importance of tolerance > towards newbies and otherwise not confident people. After all, the success > of the Newbies events are not really how-many-have-we-installed, but > how-many-more-are-really-using-linux-now. Sorry, but I don't understand what the "being friendly to newbies" has to do with women. It is a good advice on its own, but why mention this together with the issue of women? Does this imply that most women cannot be confident, cannot cope in unfriendly environment, or that most women come to Linux events for finding friendly people, not for the technical sessions? Again, I consider this a dangerous male-chauvinistic attitude (especially if found in employers, who *are* looking for confident, can-work-under-stress, technical people). Taking this question more down to earth, How many women do *you* know that could be interested in Linux right now (e.g., because they already like computers and care about freedom) but stay away from our meetings because of the atmosphere in those meetings? May I dare guess that most women have been unfortunately driven away from taking interest in Linux, or computers in general, or engineering in more generality, in a much earlier age? This is also true of most men, but I guess less than women. > Tal, thanks for the link. I have not yet had time to read all of it, > including the essays it links to, but in many aspects it describes exactly > the way I feel. Check out also http://www.linuxchix.org/, a mailing list (and site, groups, and so on) of (mostly) women interested in Linux. http://www.linuxchix.org/content/docs/faqs/issues.html is especially an interesting read. According to that FAQ, which expresses the opinion of at least one woman, women geeks aren't basically different from male ones, except certain issues that society is still forcing on women (sexual harassment at work, taking care of the kids, etc.). I don't see there anything about them being less technically inclined, more interested in making friends than in learning, not being interested in details, or other strange things I found written in that howto. By the way, people who have read the "chicks" thread in hackers-il: note how a group of women call themselves "linuxchix.org" taking the term "chicks" as slang, but not necessary derogetory. See also "geekchicks.com", which is also relevant to the hackers-il "consulting" thread. -- Nadav Har'El | Monday, Sep 23 2002, 17 Tishri 5763 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Why do we drive on a parkway and park on http://nadav.harel.org.il |a driveway? ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
