[issues] Skud's new article on geek chicks..
http://freshmeat.net/news/2000/02/05/949813140.html Well there I was just simply downloading some mp3s from napster... reading the news when ... BAM I got hit by wonderfuly written on women issues in the technical area.. which I'm deffinalty forarding on to my brother who just recently had a baby with my sister in law... anyways.. the thing that realy "hit" me was how much of the "turning girls into hackers" matched my childhood... I felt she was alittle more defensive then she needed twards the end.. end.. when she breaks out "roles available to women" I think it perpetuates the xy->do these things and xx->do these things... rather.. comming up with a range of areas where hackers "work" would flow better in my eyes.. (but thats just me :) ) To me the greatist hackers out there are the documenters It surprises me that orginizations like the Linux Documentation Project aren't given more "recog" awards... the list of tasks for "technically minded women" are needed... period.. doesn't matter if the person is black/white/deaf/blind/male/female/etc.. A warning to parents conidering raising a hacker.. regardless of gender.. they will tend to be unballanced through alot of thier life :).. which is not nessarly a bad thing.. just be aware you'll have your work cut out for ya ;) anyways, peace out, chris /"\ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign [EMAIL PROTECTED] X - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail http://www.curious.org/ / \ - NO Word docs in e-mail"This quote is false." -anon [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Skud's new article on geek chicks..
- Original Message - From: curious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 12:23 AM Subject: [issues] Skud's new article on geek chicks.. > http://freshmeat.net/news/2000/02/05/949813140.html [snip] > I felt she was alittle more defensive then she needed twards the end.. > end.. when she breaks out "roles available to women" I think it > perpetuates the xy->do these things and xx->do these things... Possibly. But she's right on the money when she says that the geek world undervalues these things, and that they are to a large degree missing. In my experience, the presence of women in responsible roles in any undertaking (my background before I became tech-ified is in the theatre, and it's as true there as anywhere) can go a long way to helping: * The overall cohesion of the project * Maintaining a much more... uh, human experience * Expanding the breadth and depth of vision, particularly in how actions etc. will be perceived by others. All this *on top of* the systemically-based factor that, as Charlotte Whitton (my home town's first woman mayor) once put it, "a woman has to be twice as good as a man at the same job."[*]. This means that in a typical business situation, a woman is likely to have at least as good -- and frequently better -- technical skills as a man in the same position.[**} [* "Fortunately," she continued, "that's not very hard."] [** I suspect that this dynamic will only change when men learn to rise to meet the same expectations as those placed on women. This is based on nothing but gut instinct, mind you. But, if we consider the difficulties women frequently face when they're merely competent, and consider as well that when equality arrives in a particular workplace, the standard of work will necessarily have risen, I think it has some likelihood of coming true. On consideration, the first sentence of the paragraph above could be open to contention. I expect that part of meeting expectations will entail making them realistic -- accepting, for example, that working 70+ hour weeks is not socially sustainable, regardless of one's gender.] -- Dan McGarry http://www.moodindigo.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Skud's new article on geek chicks..
Eeek, everyone's talking about me in the 3rd person! In article <049d01bf7131$b9fc0220$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dan McGarry wrote: >From: curious <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >In my experience, the presence of women in responsible roles in any >undertaking (my background before I became tech-ified is in the theatre, and >it's as true there as anywhere) can go a long way to helping: > >* The overall cohesion of the project >* Maintaining a much more... uh, human experience >* Expanding the breadth and depth of vision, particularly in how actions >etc. will be perceived by others. Sounds about right to me. >All this *on top of* the systemically-based factor that, as Charlotte >Whitton (my home town's first woman mayor) once put it, "a woman has to be >twice as good as a man at the same job."[*]. This means that in a typical >business situation, a woman is likely to have at least as good -- and >frequently better -- technical skills as a man in the same position.[**} > >[* "Fortunately," she continued, "that's not very hard."] An oldie but a goodie. And only too true. >[** I suspect that this dynamic will only change when men learn to rise to >meet the same expectations as those placed on women. This is based on >nothing but gut instinct, mind you. But, if we consider the difficulties >women frequently face when they're merely competent, and consider as well >that when equality arrives in a particular workplace, the standard of work >will necessarily have risen, I think it has some likelihood of coming true. I wonder if anyone's done any solid research on productivity, creativity, etc in mixed vs single sex workplaces? I seem to recall seeing something like that in either _Peopleware_ (DeMarco and Lister) or _The Death March_ (Yourdon), but it was probably anecdotal. >On consideration, the first sentence of the paragraph above could be open to >contention. I expect that part of meeting expectations will entail making >them realistic -- accepting, for example, that working 70+ hour weeks is not >socially sustainable, regardless of one's gender.] Don't I know it. *sigh* K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ "Alas, he wouldn't let me towel him off afterwards, preferring to do that if it would run on forever?" -- Megahal (trained on asr), 1998-11-06 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
