Re: [issues] The format of a resume.
On Thu, Apr 13, 2000 at 05:44:42PM -0500, Alexia Adams wrote: > (Excuse me folks but this is off the topic for a sec) > Kirrily, your name sounds really familiar and caught my eye, did you go to > UNE Armidale by any chance?(Austin college if i remember correctly) (replied to privately) K. -- Kirrily Robert -- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://netizen.com.au/ Internet and Open Source Development, Consulting and Training Level 13, 500 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9614 0949 Fax +61 3 9614 0948 ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] Issues FAQ
On Sun, Nov 12, 2000 at 02:49:48PM +0100, Magni Onsoien wrote: > Kirrily 'Skud' Robert: > > http://www.bodywise.com.au/ > > > > Check it out. Really. It's turned me into a bra-wearer. These babies > > are *comfortable*. I highly recommend them to everyone, but especially > > larger women. > > Looks very interesting. Leopard bras are very hard to find in my sizes > :) But what are the sizes like? I mean "large - 16" means very little to > me, I use 90DD or 85F or something like that. So I guess the sizes need > translation - but how? I think my sizes are the European ones or something > (I am in Norway). The number is how many cm I am around under my bra (i.e. > how tight it should be), the letters are the size of the cup but I guess > they are international. I think 36" is a size 18, and that they go in 2" increments, but I'm not entirely sure. I'll look around and see what I can find. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/ Unix *is* user-friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly. ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
[issues] women in debian
There's a thread going on on debian-devel about women in Debian, if anyone's interested. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/ "My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care?" --Marquis de Sade ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] Re: games for girls
On Wed, Oct 06, 1999 at 12:59:54PM +0800, Deidre L. Calarco wrote: > BTW, I've been with the same guy for eight years (we're not married, but we > own a house together). He's even more technically oriented than I am. I > think he would have a lot trouble relating to a woman who wasn't into > computers, although he does have many other interests. At the risk of running close the the issues/grrltalk line, I just wanted to comment that since I've become even more involved in the technical/ open source world (i.e. changing from "just a job" to running my own company) I've found it harder and harder to spend time with people who are less technical and/or don't understand open source. This has, predictably, impacted on my social and sex life (lives?). I've often commented that female geeks, on average (disclaimer! disclaimer!) tend to be less obsessive than male ones and more likely to "have a life". Lately, I'm finding myself to be an outlier on that continuum, to the point that my housemater/partner David is thrilled that I'm going out socially on the weekend -- to a friend's house to install linux distros *other than debian* (we're having a "let's see what the others are like" day with a few friends; no redhat, no debian, but we're going to play with suse and caldera and mandrake and so on, and see if any of them would be suitable for desktop boxes in his organisation). I don't think it's the gender imbalance in the tech world that makes it hard for male geeks to find partners. If this were true, all female geeks would be constantly busy and male geeks would be uniformly lonely about 95% of the time. Instead, we see a correlation between those with the time and interest and social skills and *lack of obsession* required to have at least a little bit of a life, and actually having a life. And as soon as you have a life, you're seen as less of a techie in the great dicksize war that is techiedom. People may envy you for a while, but then they'll start commenting on how you're only working 40-50 hour weeks and not pulling all nighters because you have a life now. Soon, you're seen as a light-weight, and you can't compete in the race. Every time the issue of women in computing comes up in slashdot, the comments from the male geeks fall into two categories: 1. female geeks are lightweights and don't code obsessively enough 2. I wish more females geeks were socially/sexually available to me They're going to have to pick one or the other. Duh. K. -- Kirrily Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://netizen.com.au/ - Internet and Open Source development and consulting Level 10, 99 Queen St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9602 2452 Fax: +61 3 9642 4955 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: Engineers and their wives Re: [issues] Re: games for girls
On Wed, Oct 06, 1999 at 01:56:33PM -0500, J. Myers wrote: > > This was something that particularly bothered me while I was in college. > Sometimes professors would ask about treatment by my male peers, and if I > had anything to say other than "they treat me no differently than other > males," I was told that "boys will be boys" and I'd better learn to live > with it if I'm going to succeed in "the real world." Fortunately, I have > yet to encounter workplace situations that parallel ones like the time a > fellow CS student told me I wouldn't succeed in the field because women > don't have problem-solving skills. (This was in a conversation in which he > was kindly explaining to me the differences in male and female abilities.) >From the other side of the fence... We recently interviewed people for a sysadmin/developer position. Our HR guy put on his list of questions to ask in the interview, "How would you feel working under a female boss" (ie me). Actually, he just pencilled the question in as one that might need to be asked, and didn't actually ask it of any of the interviewees, but he did mention it to me before the interviews and it made me stop and think. See, I've never had a female boss. Every job I've been in, it's been male bosses at least 3 tiers up the chain. It hadn't quite occurred to me how strange it might be for male techies to come into a company where half the bosses, and half the non-management staff (though admittedly the ones at the non-techie end of the scale), are female. See, I'd spent all my time thinking it was weird for females in techie environments, and hadn't even considered the flip side. At least I'm used to it :) K. -- Kirrily Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://netizen.com.au/ - Internet and Open Source development and consulting Level 10, 99 Queen St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9602 2452 Fax: +61 3 9642 4955 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
[issues] Geek-producing mothers
[Cc'd to my dad for his interest; Dad, this is part of a discussion on a mailing list for women who use Linux... I'd be interested in your thoughts on the stuff below] On Wed, Oct 06, 1999 at 03:26:53PM -0400, Blackjax wrote: > I know what you are talking about because I grew up with parents who were > much the same way. My mother is intelligent, but really lacks technical > aptitude or interest and my father views anyone with less technical aptitude > than him to be less intelligent, because they don't measure up to the only > standard that he considers important. He does not consciously realize > he does it and has trouble seeing it even when it is pointed out to him, > because to him, there is nothing wrong with his behavior. It is not really > a male vs. female thing, it is a technical vs. non-technical, he has no > problems I've noticed with respecting women who tend to approach things > the same way he does. Wrt to intelligent but non-technical mothers... My mother died when I was about 7 years old, after a couple of years of cancer, so I never knew her very well. However, she was a seamstress by profession, and I picked up a love of textiles from her. As a young child, I used to play with string and taught myself something like macrame' from first principles. I used to knit, crochet, embroider, and sew from the age of about 7. I still do many of these activities (especially sewing, as I make my own costumes for SCA things). Talking to another geek friend of mine recently, he mentioned what a mutual friend had said to him about Tauruses (we're both tauruses, though I'm not into astrology) -- that they like good sex, good food, and sewing. Well, my geek friend is also into sewing, also for SCA costuming purposes, and we got chatting about the way we sew. See, sewing is hacking. You have a problem which you have to solve with a mixture of intuition, design, mathematics, and concentration. Especially for those of us who don't use pre-bought patterns, the design process and the topological contortions required have a *really* hackish feel to them. My friend then pointed out that both his programs and his sewing projects share another common problem -- he has heaps of them lying round half- finished. Well, so do I. You see, we've *done* the interesting design part, and the rest is just boring fiddly implementation. I'd figured this was just an ADD thing, but I guess that's just giving a label to something, not explaining it. Now, whether it has anything to do with being a Taurus or not, I'm inclined to believe that hacking and sewing have a *lot* in common, and that I get bits of my hacker mentality (the creative bits) from my mother, while my father (who used to be a systems engineer for IBM when I was a kid) got me going with Lego Technic and electronics kits and my first C64. He doesn't have the creative hacker mentality, but he does have the underlying interest in technical things. What was the point of this post? Ummm. Probably something about what we inherit from mothers who might not *seem* to be technical, but who give us skills that we need to be good at what we do. (This ties in with my pet theory about female geeks putting their social skills to use in the human-factors end of software development, too). Anyway, nuff rambling. K. -- Kirrily Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://netizen.com.au/ - Internet and Open Source development and consulting Level 10, 99 Queen St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9602 2452 Fax: +61 3 9642 4955 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
[issues] stay on topic, please!
After returning from a brief busy period, I found almost 200 posts on the issues list, almost none of which had anything to do with issues facing women in the linux and open source communities. Interesting as the DOJ ruling is, and amusing as various jokes are, and as much as people do like to talk about things happening in their personal lives: please, take it to grrltalk, techtalk, or elsewhere! If lists wander off topic on a regular basis, those who are interested in the topic leave, and that's bad for the list as a whole. Just a friendly reminder... K. -- Kirrily Robert -- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://netizen.com.au/ Internet and Open Source Development, Consulting and Training Level 13, 500 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9602 2452 Mobile: +61 419 119 429 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] FAQ & Freudian Typos
In netizen.lists.linuxchix.issues, you wrote: > >When I saw the 10% figure I wondered, too :) You may be right about >the number of women who just aren't visible - one of the things I >love about linuxchix is that so many more have become visible to me >through it - but Australia must have many more women attending >conferences than has this side of the world. The conferences I've been to... CALU (the Conference of Australian Linux Users) where I only attended the BOF sessions, but found 3 or 4 women at (I think one of them was just someone's wife tagging along). That was out of about 80-100 people at a guess. The next one was the AUUG (Australian Unix Users Group) conference back in September, whose theme was Open Source. There were about a dozen women there out of a few hundred total. As far as user groups are concerned, the main one I have experience with is LUV (Linux Users Victoria) where 3-5 women at a meeting of about 80 is common. I've also attended SLUG (Sydney Linux Users Group) which had a lower proportion, but I certainly wasn't the only one there... there were about 4 or 5 out of 200 (it was the AGM night). At the most recent LUV installfest, there were 2 women actually doing stuff out of about 40 people, plus a couple of wives/partners hanging round. At the previous installfest, there were about 4 women involved and about 4 wives/partners and one booth babe, out of about 100 people actually in attendance. I'll avoid counting any group or event with less than 20 or 30 people in attendance (eg perl mongers, freebsd user groups) because my own presence there would skew the data too much :) So my 3-5% figure is based on various events and groups in this region. I figured it was safe to double it for the non-user-group-attending ones who actually have lives :) >On the subject of the FAQ, I suppose you could say, "Estimates by >different members of the list vary from (lower number) to (higher >number)" :) That works for me, if the numbers are about 1% and 10%. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ "My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care?" --Marquis de Sade [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] list of women in open source
In netizen.lists.linuxchix.issues, you wrote: > >> Basically, the idea is to set up a web page which lists women who work >> in Open Source in various capacities, such as: > >I think it would be a mistake to simply try to publicize women, >because many of them would have personal or professional reasons >not to have their names and credentials listed publicly. My thoughts were either that women should list themselves voluntarily, or should be sufficiently well known that having their name one more place on the web would be no big deal. Not to take our glorious leader's name in vain, but I think Deb falls clearly into the latter category, for instance. Two other examples I can think of are Elizabeth wossname who is an editor of LWN, and Telsa Gwynne, whose diary is extremely popular reading. Perhaps Telsa and Deb could give some thoughts on whether they'd mind being listed "Linuxchix and OSWG leader" and "famed diarist" respectively :) [Note that I personally dislike the idea of mentioning Telsa as "Alan Cox's missus" or similar... her diary is a resource in its own right, especially for those who want to hear what it's like for a non-hacker to try to come to grips with Linux, and I personally loathe the practise of defining women by their relationships with men, *especially* when there are plenty of other worthwhile attributes to define them by. But that's just my not-very-humble opinion :)] K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ What are you doing wrong with our bug-free product? [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
[issues] Position Vacant: Clue Installation Specialists (x 3)
(Why am I posting this to 3 lists? Well, it's on-topic for grrltalk and probably techtalk, but there was some talk about posting such things to linuxchix on the issues list, and anyway that's where I'm most active... Deb can LART me if I did the wrong thing. Please note Reply-to address of [EMAIL PROTECTED] and change it if necessary...) Clue Installation Specialists (x 3) Ref #0007 Netizen, a Melbourne (Australia) based Open Source and Internet development, consultancy and training company, need between one and three full time clue installers to work in our training group. The roles are fairly flexible, and include any of the following: - Development of training materials (Unix, Linux, Perl, Internet, Database, Web development...) - Training (standing in front of a class and talking) - Training co-ordination (planning upcoming training, resource management, etc) As a training organisation, we pride ourselves on our Clue. We expect our instructors to have at least 2 years' commercial experience (and suitable war stories) in the fields they teach. They must also have superlative communication skills, including the ability to explain complicated concepts to inexperienced or non-technical people. This job may appeal to you if you: - spend half your working day beating some basic knowledge about your field into into your workmates, bosses or customers - tend to post long, detailed Usenet or mailing list articles of a technical or semi-technical nature - answer any question with "If I can find some whiteboard space, I'll draw you a diagram..." - have a passion for getting people to do things *right* - could happily extemporise on the subject of "a technical introduction to my favourite software" for a lecture theatre full of people A bit more information about our training environment: We run courses in Melbourne, Sydney, and other Australian state capitals on a regular basis. Currently we're running Introductory Unix, Perl and CGI, and Internet Fundamentals courses. Courses due for development Real Soon Now include Programming and Database Fundamentals, Advanced Unix, and "Professional Web Development" (aka "HTML Done Right, Dammit"). Each course is developed by a small group of Netizen people, usually with one development lead driving the process. Our standard format for training materials is Docbook. Once a beta-level draft is available, the courses undergo "beta testing" with a group of volunteer trainees who roughly match the target audience of the course. After beta testing, any bugs are ironed out and the course is ready to go live. We also run corporate training on-site for companies around Australia, often developing custom material to meet their needs. A trainer can usually expect to spend about ten days a month actually teaching classes. Most courses are in blocks of two days. The rest of the time is spent revising, improving or developing training materials, or working on miscellaneous other projects of a technical nature. There is scope for "pet projects" of an Open Source nature, and trainers are encouraged to write papers and articles, present at conferences, etc. The training group currently consists of two part time trainers (one of whom is also currently the training co-ordinator) and a part time admin assistant. Training development occurs with the assistance of Netizen's technical writer and other technical staff. By the end of 2000, we hope to expand the group to approximately three FTE trainers, one full time co-ordinator, one FTE training developer/ writer, and additional support staff including sales and administration. We also plan to open our own specialised training facility in the Melbourne CBD. If you would like to join us in the noble endeavour of Clue Installation, then please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a resume in TEXT FORMAT ONLY. Other information you might like to know: Salary: $40k plus (quite negotiable) plus profit share etc etc Salary/Performance review at 3 and 6 months Other benefits: - very casual work environment - no dress code (exception: neat casual with Netizen tshirt when teaching) - near-total flex time/telecommute (except when teaching) - travel (2-10 days/month, negotiable) - good technical library, including Wall Of O'Reilly - beanbags, inflatable furniture, soft toys, lego in office - non-pointy-haired bosses - choose your own desktop operating system - et cetera et cetera We are planning to fill these three positions gradually between March and July-ish, 2000. Netizen are currently only able to employ Australian citizens or those with permanent residency status, but are in the process of seeking permission to employ immigrants. If you're not currently an Australian citizen or permanent resident, send us your resume anyway and we'll see what we can do. We are able to cover relocation costs within Australia, and may be prepared to partially cover costs for people who wish to come
Re: [issues] The format of a resume.
I wrote an article on recruiters and linux on Linuxtoday's local site. I've got a copy at http://netizen.com.au/~skud/writing/ if anyone's interested. It even has a hint for dealing with MS-Word-loving recruiters. K. -- Kirrily Robert -- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://netizen.com.au/ Internet and Open Source Development, Consulting and Training Level 13, 500 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9614 0949 Fax +61 3 9614 0948 ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] Useful(?) link?
curious wrote: >Here is a link to the ada project... looks like a project dedicated to >promoting women in the computer field I'll probably read in more detail >later.. just kinda happened across it while looking for views on >intelectual property.. not exactly sure what to two have to do with each >other.. but hey :) > >ohh the LINK.. here it is: > http://tap.mills.edu/ Ellen Spertus, who wrote a paper on women in computing that was published through MIT (and slashdotted about a year ago), is involved in TAP. She moved from MIT to Mills, which (if I understand correctly) is an all-women university. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Ask the next question. Keep on asking questions and don't stop, and sooner or later you'll be asking intelligent ones. If you live long enough. ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] "Female Hackers Battle Sexism [...]"
Fan, Laurel wrote: > >This is just one instance in the larger issue of widespread >misogynistic behavior in the criminal community. *snort* I'm *so* glad I didn't have a mouthful of something, or I would have been cleaning my keyboard. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/ There's nothing wrong with me; therefore, there must be something wrong with the universe. ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] "Female Hackers Battle Sexism [...]"
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >Of course, esr is also a sexist pig, so I don't know if we really want >him as a "role model" anyway. I think I have to take issue with this statement. I have met Eric and interacted with him for a few days at a conference down this end of the world, and while it's obvious that he enjoys the company of women, he is by no means discriminatory in his behaviour. If I had seen *any* evidence that he thinks women less capable of hacking, or that he would treat women differently with respect to technical issues, I would not be posting this. It concerns me greatly that people are being deprived of the opportunity to express their sexuality simply because that expression is considered "discriminatory" or "sexist". It will be a sad day when a preference for a certain type of sexual partner is considered grounds for calling someone the sort of name quoted above. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/ Being weird isn't enough. ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] At what point is it sexism...
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Alexander Sendzimir wrote: >"Jenn V." wrote: > >> 2. Power. >> If one party has power over the other - financial, managerial, >> uni-results, force of personality - then it becomes terribly, >> terribly awkward for the one without power. > > What do you mean by "force of personality". This sounds terribly general. > We're all personally distinct, some people being more forceful than others > in some things. I'm a tad concerned by this one too. As someone who has a forceful personality, it bothers me to hear that flirting with anyone could be considered "not fun", simply because I am who I am. Certainly I would try not to bludgeon someone with my extroversion to the point where they were uncomfortable, but I am *NOT* going to avoid social contact simply because some people can't cope with a strong, opinionated woman. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/ WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. HTML IS LAYOUT. - Tor Iver Wilhemsen, with apologies to George Orwell ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] names [was: Anyone know any more about this study?]
In article <00f901c0023e$645e3f60$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Christian MacAuley wrote: >> I have been working with a woman in the extended degree program >named >> "chris". I know she's a woman because I've seen her and dealt with >her for >> a while, but I can ONLY imagine how unnerving it must be to get >e-mail >> requests for support addressed to "Mr. Chris ...". It would drive me >> insane! > >You get used to it. Constantly receive correspondence for Mr. >Christian MacAuley and i basically ignore it. I even get mail for Mr. >Macauley Christian, whoever that is :). My membership to AUUG (Australian Unix Users Group) came through as "Mr Robert Kirrily". K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/ There's too much blood in my caffeine system. ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] Issues FAQ
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > 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. http://www.bodywise.com.au/ Check it out. Really. It's turned me into a bra-wearer. These babies are *comfortable*. I highly recommend them to everyone, but especially larger women. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://infotrope.net/ "...and Australia has the world's only venomous mammal." "Skud? Oh. No. I understand. Never mind." -- Peter da Silva and Carl Jacobs, a.s.r ___ issues mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/issues
Re: [issues] FAQ & Freudian Typos
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jenn V. wrote: > >So. Suggestions gleefully taken for questions for grrltalk >and issues. Either send them to me, or (if you want to get >answers fast) to the relevent list. OK... for the issues list... Q. Are there many women using Linux and Open Source software? A. As a proportion of the total population, not really. Perhaps 10%. In actual terms, heaps -- certainly thousands. The problem is finding them. Many women in the field do not make a point of mentioning their sex in online discussions, and may be assumed to be male until proven otherwise. Q. Is the Linux community sexist? A. Sometimes. While most female hackers will eventually get recognition for their work, they sometimes have to fight an uphill battle before their technical skills are taken seriously. However, the Open Source community is in some ways less sexist than the mainstream IT world, especially due to its meritocratic style and the Internet-mediated communications which help blur gender distinctions. Q. What about slashdot? A. Slashdot, while occasionally posting articles about women in Open Source or other technical fields, is notorious for its largely immature attitudes towards women, shown in comments, editorials, and elsewhere. Q. How can women be encouraged to use Linux or Open Source software? A. The most effective methods found so far are: 1. Visibility -- letting them know that other women use Linux too 2. Mentoring -- personally helping other women use Linux Q. Where can I find more information about issues facing women using Linux, in the computing field in general, etc? A. http://slinky.scrye.com/~lej/women/ (lots of links) http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/ellens/Gender/pap/pap.html (why are there so many women computer scientists?) http://www.cs.yale.edu/~tap/ (the Ada project) -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ You should see the ones we don't let out in public. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] FAQ & Freudian Typos
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Hi,Kirrily, > >> Q. Are there many women using Linux and Open Source software? >> A. As a proportion of the total population, not really. Perhaps 10%. > >Actually, whenever I've seen a number in print or estimated (generally >by people who should know), the actual number comes up at 1% or less. >Even if that's too low, 10% is way, way too high. Um, I was counting the people who, while not having Linux as their primary OS, may use a Linux-based system for web serving, samba, etc at work. Plus people who use their husbands/partners/etc systems to get online, but who don't "identify" as as a Linux user. The last place I worked (a large university's computer centre) had about 10% female linux users. Also, I'm seeing about 3-5% at conferences and user groups. I'm imagining that there are a lot of others hidden due to having other priorities than attending linux/unix/opensource activities (eg family, social life, etc). I'd say 10% of people who use Linux or Open Source regularly are female, but that a smaller proportion self-identify as linux users and involve themselves in the linux community. How does that mesh with what other people have seen? K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Putting heated bricks close to the news.admin.net-abuse.* groups. -- Megahal (trained on asr), 1998-11-06 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Red Hat/Be
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, J B wrote: >Okthe rumor mill is speculating that Red Hat is making moves to buy Be. >Any word on this? >How do you think this would affect BeOS? Not directed solely at JB, but I've noticed a few posts here lately just talking about open source issues and with no focus on women in open source. While I realise this list is relatively quiet and can probably cope with a few slightly-off-topic posts, I'd hate to see it turn into yet another slashdot, or other general open source forum. I've got way too much of that in my life already. So, um, this is not a big nasty "don't do it" but just a general "please think about it", OK? K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ What part of the word "YES" don't you understand? [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
[issues] list of women in open source
During that discussion about how many women were using Linux/Open Source, I had an idea which may or may not be a good one. I'd appreciate your comments... Basically, the idea is to set up a web page which lists women who work in Open Source in various capacities, such as: Open Source software development (coding) Open Source software testing and other development-related activities Training, education and documentation Community (user groups, mailing lists, etc) Open Source business (ie running a company, or working for one in a capacity not listed elsewhere) Advocacy, writing, etc Using Open Source software on a day-to-day basis I imagine the list could get quite large quite quickly. I'd probably stick a database backend behind it. It should probably store name, email (required, but choose whether to display it or not), URL (optional), categories, and a short (1-para) description or bio. Each entry should be verified by a human before being listed to prevent abuse. The point of this would be that when people say "yeah, but where are they?" you could point at it and say "There!" Thoughts? K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ On-line, adj.: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Attitudes in the workplace
Louise wrote: > >So I was pretty surprised to receive an email the other day, addressed to >three of us in IT (two of the guys, and me), which started > >"Gentlemen, " I went to a SAGE meeting the other day with two male friends (one of them was Netizen staff, one was just a friend). We were greeted with "Hello, gentlemen. I mean, and ladies." I think that people just have pre-programmed social actions, kind of like macros. I know at times I've responded to "Hi Skud" with "Fine thanks, how are you" because I've had my brain switched off. I imagine it's pretty much the same thing. >I'm not so much offended by it, it was a pretty minor mistake to make. But >I'm just really surprised that he routinely starts emails with >"Gentlemen", considering that he *must* be corresponding with women every >day. > >I'm wondering whether to address my next email to him > >"Ladies, " :) I've done this in the past :) If you have a friendly relationship with the people in question, it can be fun to do things like that. In the case of clients or potential clients to email me with "Dear Robert" or "Dear Sir" I usually reply to their email as if it was no big deal, but say "By the way, Robert is my surname. My given name is Kirrily". If someone refers to me as "he" on a mailing list, newsgroup, etc, I usually say something like "Not last time I checked!" I responded in this way to someone who wrote "WTG, Mr Skud!" the other way on a web conferencing system I use. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ "Even had to open up the case and gaze upon the hallowed peace that graced the helpdesk that day." -- Megahal (trained on asr), 1998-11-06 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] list of women in open source
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Telsa Gwynne wrote: > >I didn't think that you had originally meant, "trawl newsgroups and >credits lists for female names and just stick them up regardless", no :) That certainly wasn't my intention! >I wasn't sure about the idea at first, but then I thought of the pages >like the one where I found a list of satisfied Lynx-users and their >comments, and how encouraging I'd found it to see that I might be in >a minority, but it was not that small a minority. Yup, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of. >I am thinking that something along the same lines for women who >work with open source might be similarly encouraging, especially >if people who come across it can submit their names, too. In fact, >you might extend it (or add a different one) for women who don't >work with it, but who just use it. I am becoming more and more >convinced that there's a lot out there, but they don't advertise >their existence. *nodnod* >Laugh. I was going to protest "I'm not that famous" but I re-ran >Analog the other day, and for the first time that I know about, I >had been getting over a thousand hits a day. I suspect that's >because most people find it through Alan's diary and Alan's diary >was mentioned on Slashdot at one stage that week. Well, I found your diary when it was mentioned at our local LUG during a presentation about "where to find Linux information on the web". The presenter was basically just going through different websites and saying what was good about them, and Alan and your diaries came up. >(The things you learn whilst trying to document something you -thought- >you knew how to use are incredible, btw.) Don't remind me ... I'm trying to write a training course called "internet fundamentals" and I thought I *knew* this stuff, but sometimes you realise that you don't really know enough about it to write about it. >Have I posted my rambles about the diary to the list before? I >periodically think of doing so, but then hit 'postpone' or 'delete'. >So I can't remember whether any of them made it past my censorship >reaction. I don't think so, but I'd like to see them. >If I have, sorry. If not, now is a good time to say this: when I >put the mailto link in, I expected (and got) a lot of feedback from >non-hackers with hacker partners along the lines of "You too, huh?" >There was also a bunch from the hackers saying "Eeek, just realised >how my partner feels". And a noticeable amount of people who said >that reading my diary and my attempts to get things to work had got >them interested. My favourite was the one who was using it as ammo: >"Look! _She_ has the root password on his machines! I want it too!" :) > >I hope she got it :) See, I get a bit of this sort of email too from people who've reading my geek chicks articles or who just realised somehow that I'm female. It's usually "hey, cool, another female, nice to see that it's not just me". I'd like to make that reaction occur more often. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Manual? We've just been pushing buttons til it works... [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] list of women in open source
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Telsa Gwynne wrote: > >On the subject of editors: Marjorie Richardson is the editor of >Linux Journal, too. Cool, noted. >And here's an area where there's a huge amount of women: > >MUSHes. Yup, I agree with the crossover. I think the reason it's not more apparent is that the MU* community grew in parallel (actually, considerably ahead of) the Linux/OSS community, and isn't actually an *offshoot* as such. So they kind of diverged early, in a way. >Given that you need a unix-like machine to run a MUSH on, I'm >really surprised no-one here thought of MUSHes. Or are Linux, >BSD and MUSHes totally separate communities? Unacknowledged crossover, I'd say. I'll add another community that has a reasonably visible female component, which is the Perl community. Although I've got tied up in "why aren't there more female perl hacker" debates before this, I'll point out that heaps of the perl mailing lists and user groups are run by women, and that they're quite vocal online. Among them are Elaine Ashton (runs Boston.pm and MarsNeedsWomen.pm), Vicky Brown (runs the FunWithPerl list), Bek Oberin (runs the Perl-AI list), and yours truly (runs Melbourne.pm, the Mason mailing list, and the perl-trainers list). And probably others... I lose track :) K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] list of women in open source
Kelly Lynn Martin wrote: >Robert Kiesling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > >>Apologies for interrupting; I recall quite clearly from a previous >>exchange of messages that you said you were one of the guys, or words >>to that effect. > >I am definitely not one of the guys. :) Robert may be thinking of something I may have said, which is that it's often easiest to behave as "just one of the guys". But I could be wrong. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Bad hair life. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Re: Demographics - Reprise
Cat wrote: >The teacher (male) said, "Well, good morning and welcome gentlemen -- oh, >and ladies?" Extremely common, everywhere from schools to open source conferences. I just so love being an afterthought, don't you? K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] CPSR newsletter
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Telsa Gwynne wrote: > >I haven't had time to read all those articles yet, but they looked >good. The name of the submitter caught my eye: Ellen Spertus has a >mass of stuff online about this topic, and it makes for interesting >reading. Ellen's great. But whatever you do, avoid Dale Spender's drivel. She's a local (to me) and IMHO she's consistently full of shit. She wrote a book in 1994-1995 called "nattering on the net" which was all about how wonderful it was that women were starting to use the Internet to talk to each other, and how this was a giant step for womankind, etc, while completely ignoring all the women who'd been there for ages and were just getting on with it quietly. >I stupidly looked at the Slashdot discussion, which was a mistake. Oh Telsa, Telsa, you should know better than that. You've told *me* exactly the same thing, I'm sure! >(Someone told me I should avoid it because it would irritate me, >so naturally I had to look. How silly of me.) The link itself >might be a nice change from their usual stuff, but the discussion >there is the same as ever: "I'm a woman and I get no discrimination" >gets moderated to five, and comments about "it's true; I see few >women in my sci/math class" and "it's true; I have experienced >this" are down at one and zero with the trolls and flamebait. Ugh. Glad I didn't read it. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Re: Demographics - Reprise
Deirdre Saoirse wrote: > >Playing Devil's Advocate: > >Women ARE several times more likely to quit jobs than men for a variety of >reasons, some of which have to do with childrearing and some which do not. >Given that the costs of replacing someone in a position are high and the >expected tenure is lower, what do you propose a fair non-sexist way would >be to offset these financial risks to the company? 1) pay them as much as men, in order to give them an incentive to stay; 2) offer them (unpaid, if necessary) maternal leave so that they don't have to quit to have children; 3) encourage men to take a share of childrearing (probably by destigmatizing it in the media etc); and 4) allow flex time, childcare etc (which would benefit any childcarer, and flex time would benefit non-childcarers, not just women) to make it easier to work with children or other commitments K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Bertrand Russell [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Mr., Mrs., Miss, Dr. or Sir
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Sunnanvind wrote: > >Isn't this what Ms. is? In theory, yes. In practice, it gets translated as "rabid man-hating lesbian feminist". Which is not necessarily a bad thing. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ A witty saying proves nothing. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Mr., Mrs., Miss, Dr. or Sir
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Janus wrote: >At 02:16 AM 01/12/2000 +0100, you wrote: >>On Wed, 12 Jan 2000, Janus wrote: >> >>> and dislike the assumptions made about Ms >> >>Such as? > >That it is pronounced Miss, for a start I dunno, I think it's pronounced "Miz" or even "M.z" where "." indicates a little non-vowel "uh" sound. I know that if I'm talking to people on the phone and they give their title as "Ms" I can tell the difference in pronunciation. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ A witty saying proves nothing. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Re: Demographics - Reprise
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Emily Cartier wrote: > >This doesn't make any sense. One of my jobs is work in a small business. >I answer the phone, do catalog design, and manage the website. I have Speaking of websites, I used to be "webmaster" for an ISP. I asked my boss permission to set up aliases for either "webadmin" or "webmistress" and use them, but was told that I wasn't to do it. So I ended up getting an awful lot of webmaster mail addressed "dear sir". Now I run my own company and answer to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (with webmaster set up as an alias to point to webmistress, just in case someone makes assumptions...) I've also come to use the term "website administrator" in written and spoken communications when describing what other people might call a "webmaster". >Now, I was raised in a household with a fairly high income. I tend >(unlike some women raised in lower income households) to see a male >ignoring my expertise as a sexism/ignorance/religious belief issue. >However it's not really income that determines those sorts of >additudes... it's culture and upbringing. I'd actually point towards reading lots as the determining factor. The encouragement of intellectualism and access to a decent library (public or school library, whatever) seems to make people think for themselves about this kind of thing. There's a correlation between income and good schooling, hence good libraries and better reading patterns, so I guess there is a tendency for lower-income women to be less feminist in their attitudes. But I'm probably opening myself up for a flaming here... K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ A witty saying proves nothing. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Re: Demographics - Reprise
Deirdre Saoirse wrote: >On 13 Jan 2000, Kirrily 'Skud' Robert wrote: > >> Speaking of websites, I used to be "webmaster" for an ISP. I asked my >> boss permission to set up aliases for either "webadmin" or "webmistress" >> and use them, but was told that I wasn't to do it. So I ended up >> getting an awful lot of webmaster mail addressed "dear sir". > >I like the solution of the VA Linux web team: use webgoddess. Mistress, at >least in the US, carries a connotation of dominatrix. And what's the problem with that? :) K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ I think that a lifetime of listening to disco music is a high price to pay for one's sexual preference. -- Quentin Crisp. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Re: Demographics - Reprise
In article <016001bf5ef7$31e6b700$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dan McGarry wrote: >> >> Men's clothing is so _boring_. A dress every now and then would liven >> things up, methinks. > >As soon as they make one with lots of pockets, I'm there. I'm with you on that one. It's not just dresses either... womens jackets and trousers often don't have pockets in them at all, let alone numerous or capacious ones. Feh. Not that I'm the dresswearing type, much, but I might consider it if they came with pocketses. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ I think that a lifetime of listening to disco music is a high price to pay for one's sexual preference. -- Quentin Crisp. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Re: Demographics - Reprise
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jenn V. wrote: > >WHY are there no pockets in women's clothes? Are we assumed to not want to >carry things? 1) carrying things is unfeminine. Probably looks as though we *do* things, rather than sitting around daintily. Can't have that. 2) pockets ruin the line of the clothing, and fashion designers wouldn't want their clothing to be spoilt in that manner, would they? 3) see also: fabrics, washability of; skirts, degree of movement when wearing; blouses and jackets, degree of movement when wearing; shoes, non-slip soles, absence of. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ We're all in a box and the instructions for getting out are on the outside. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
[issues] women and training
As some of you may know, I work as a trainer teaching Unix, Perl and Internet stuff. Recently (the last 6 months or so) I've noticed a trend which is, quite frankly, astonishing: more than half my trainees are female. All of these courses are very technical and aimed at people in the IT industry. Any guesses as to what's going on? (I have my own theories, but will save them until I've heard some other opinions) K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ "Anyone out there who can transmit clues on where to find audio, video, and images with a sharp tool and put it on my left foot while being transferred to it." -- Megahal (trained on asr), 1998-11-06 [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
Re: [issues] Skud's new article on geek chicks..
Bad Mojo wrote: >On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, Telsa Gwynne wrote: >> > Maybe we should stop asking `Where are the female geeks?' Is it too early >> > in the new Open Source/Linux/whatever movement to be taking a tally and >> > trying to fix something that might be slowly fixing itself allready? I >> >> Ah, but is it fixing itself, or are a few people finally seeing fruit >> in their efforts to encourage other women to keep trying? I don't think >> it's so fixed that it's not worth hastening the process a little. (Um. >> Baaad sentence.) > >Very good point. I guess I might re-ask my question. To be honest, I'm a >sociologist at heart and I'm just asking questions because I want to know, >not because I think it's a bad idea. So take this as devil's advocacy, not >as an indication of my desire. Could hastening the change do more damage >than leaving it alone? I think there's a thin line. Walking it will be interesting :) >> Whether women are too bothered about attending the big expos is a >> question that came up on this list before, and I don't think there >> was any conclusion beyond "Perhaps we aren't so interested in expos >> and big events". > >I hate people, yet I love gatherings, how ironic. ;) Is expo attendance a >good measure of women involvement? Are there other ways we could measure >the female-quotient of the FSF/OS movement? Maybe I'm over-analytical, but >I'm really curious and want to know. I think we need to send out a snail-mail survey to the wives, girlfriends, partners, and female friends and workmates of male hackers, and find out how many of them contribute to the design, debugging and testing process :) My honest guess is that that's where a lot of the women in Open Source are. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ This webpage is designed to fade. Any irregularities are a feature, not a bug. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Gender balance in Skud's class--and a too-short intro
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Margaret Leber wrote: >> Any guesses as to what's going on? >> (I have my own theories, but will save them until I've heard some other >> opinions) > >Is it possible that word has simply gotten out that the class is being >taught by a woman, and you've released a pent-up demand amongst women >who are more comfortable being taught this tech by a woman? That's one of my theories, yes. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ This webpage is designed to fade. Any irregularities are a feature, not a bug. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Gender balance in Skud's class--and a too-short
Terri Oda wrote: > >Observations of a "token"[1] female... > >[1] I say "token" as a joke, generally. I'm there for other, more >appropriate reasons, it's just often seen as a benefit that I provide a >small bit of gender balance to some of the teams with whom I've worked. I was at a conference once where esr was giving his "Noosphere" talk, about what makes open source hackers do what they do if there's no immediate monetary reward. He was talking about 'scarcity tokens' in an exchange economy. Later, I found myself hanging round with him and another female friend, Faye. The term 'scarcity token' became a running joke with us, in reference to women in hackerdom. Just a token anecdote... K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it's a nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Skud's new article on geek chicks..
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Rik Hemsley wrote: >#if Sunnanvind >> Single-sex environments are very bad for society in the long run in my very >> humble opinion. > >I really can't bring myself to say that single sex schools are a >Good Thing, despite the obvious academic advantages. > >I agree with Sunnan. The costs of segregation are too high. I went to a single-sex school but had a lot of mixed-sex social activities outside, including everything from church-run youth groups to military cadets. I found this to be a good blend. The other girls I went to school with seemed to cope better with the real world if they also had mixed-sex outside interests. A few girls I knew who had none, or who had only single-sex hobbies (girls sports, etc) seemed to have more trouble dealing with men (or boys) outside school. I think it also depends a bit on what sort of school it is. My school was very, very feminist in outlook and pro-technology, which suited me just fine. I don't imagine that all single-sex schools are like this. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ "I have this horrible feeling that some of the less-readable works of James Joyce might just turn out to be early-release Windows/NT code." -- Tanuki [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jenn V. wrote: >One is a hacker - she does it because she loves it. She isn't paid a hell >of a lot, but that's because she owns a startup company. She's happy, if >overworked. Gee, that sounds somehow familiar :) >> On a completely different subject, what is a better, non-adversarial way >> of analyzing a design? The whole "you point out problems and I'll tell >> you why they're not" thing seems to work pretty well for me... > >I tend to get them to explain it to me, and I keep asking questions. >'how will this work', 'how will that work', 'what if X happens'. >So long as you give them thinking time and don't frustrate them >with too many questions too quickly, it seems to work well. That's a good point. Asking questions is less adversarial than making statements. So "How does this work?" is better than "This doesn't work." Which is something I know well enough to parrot, but which my male co-PHBs keep having to point out to me when I upset someone at Netizen by saying "this doesn't work." K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ The only unnatural sex act is one that you cannot perform. -- ALFRED KINSEY [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Mm? Quotas?
In article <00021103200805.00500@localhost>, Sunnanvind wrote: >Just saw something odd on http://www.windowmaker.org that I though we might be >interested in... >"In light of a recent article about geek chicks which was posted on Freshmeat, >I felt it was a good time to renew our call for volunteers. The current core >Window Maker team is comprised of males, and there are many areas that could be >filled (particularly by females)." Wow... K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Heavily armed, easily bored, and off my medication. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jenn V. wrote: >In my experience, I intimidate both genders. So I'm uncomfortable >around anyone of /either/ gender who isn't a geek. And I even >intimidate geeks sometimes. :( Feh. You'll have to try harder than that at Netizen. *I'm* the one that does the intimidating here, capische? K. -- Kirrily Robert -- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://netizen.com.au/ Internet and Open Source Development, Consulting and Training Level 13, 500 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9614 0949 Fax +61 3 9614 0948 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >} Only if she wants to date a man ;) > >Hear, hear! While we're at it, here's a random whinge... Occasionally (less often than I used to, for this very reason (among others)) I will meet an interesting-looking MOTSS and get chatting, until the topic of "what do you do?" comes up. I tell them what I do, and almost invariably, their response is one of: 1. blank incomprehension (you mean you're not a student, a waitress, a social worker, a drug dealer, or unemployed? uhh...) 2. political outrage (Computers are tools of the heteropatriarchy!) 3. fear and avoidance (Oh. Computers. I don't understand them. Bye.) To put it mildly: this annoys me. (Tangent: I just returned from 5 days interstate on business. Our technical director, who I also live with, informed me that there had been phone messages from someone I was dating a year or more ago, and that he wanted me to call her and get together with her in an effort to improve my general sanity and wellbeing. Now, I happen to know that she lives in a share house full of left wing greenie/hippy/queer types. Can you see me wandering in there after work one night and bitching about capital gains tax and its effect on the Australia stock market, or the cashflow forecasts for next financial year, let alone the difficulties I'm having abstracting the presentation layer in my web log analysis tool? I didn't think so.) Has anyone else experienced this? Any advice? If someone convinces me that there's sufficient crossover between the SF/Bay Area queer community and the IT industry, I'll... well, I'll have to try very hard to stop myself from swimming across the Pacific. *sigh* I need a life. K. -- Kirrily Robert -- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://netizen.com.au/ Internet and Open Source Development, Consulting and Training Level 13, 500 Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Phone: +61 3 9614 0949 Fax +61 3 9614 0948 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
Kelly Lynn Martin wrote: > >Some of the reaction you're getting is because you're in computers; >it's not all because you're female (or gay) in computers. Yeah, I know. But I get more of that reaction from women than I do from men. A random male who asks what I do is much less likely to freak out about it. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ "Jesus ate my mouse" or some similar banality. -- Megahal (trained on asr), 1998-11-06 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Helaine McFerron wrote: >Melbourne it is then. Let the migrations begin. Suits me. Cept that if I hire any more female geeks, I'm going to start getting accused of reverse discrimination. Actually, you recall what I said about training courses, that we're getting more women than men attending them? We're also getting more women than men applying for jobs with us. Or at any rate, more *qualified* women. I don't count the ones who think that Frontpage is a reasonable substitute for 2+ years Perl/Python, and similar. $DEITY only knows why this is. *shrug* K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Anything you say will be distorted and remixed and used against you. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Rik Hemsley wrote: > >If you have more (qualified) women than men applying for posts, then >you can hardly be accused of reverse discrimination. They can't take it to court and expect to win, no. However, it is not unlikely that we might get accused of it in less formal circumstances (eg Usenet posts) and I'd rather not have that sort of negative publicity. >We have reverse discrimination here. You have to employ a certain >number of disabled (don't know the pc term) people, even if none >of them have the skills, qualifications or experience. Hrm, that sucks. We've been employing disabled people *because* they have the appropriate skills and experience. It's amusing to mention to certain clients, vendors, etc, that "over 25 percent of our staff have disabilities that prevent them from using the latest Netscape/MS browsers on normal font size settings". >> $DEITY only knows why this is. *shrug* >Presumable that's an array ? ;) An array would be @DEITIES. I guess I should say: $DEITIES[rand(@DEITIES)] K. (too much perl training, argh!) -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ "Be pedantic in what you accept, and arbitrarily brutal in what you send." -- Malcolm Ray in a.s.r [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >(dyke: lesbian) Not quite. It implies a whole bunch of social/political overhead. Dykes (in Melbourne, Australia, anyway) tend to be less political, more butch. Dykes can occasionally get away with sleeping with MOTOS, but lesbians can't :) But this is off-topic. ObChix: the person heading up TurboLinux in .au is Nicole someone. K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ I think I'd like to see a Simpsons episode start up with Bart Simpson writing 'I will not attempt to undermine the Usenet cabal'. -- J.D. Falk [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
Re: [issues] Re; YAFGA (Yet Another Female Geeks Article)
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jeramia Ory wrote: >> Radical? Maybe. I guess the idea that I don't need to be this >> obedient, submissive little creature is radical to some of the more >> patriarchal elements in our society. If so, I'll wear that label >> proudly. > >Reminds me of the saying "Feminism is the radical concept that women are >people," or Gloria Steinem's "Women have two choices, to be a feminist or a >masochist." Unfortunately, I think "some of the more patriarchal elements >in our society" describes over half of our society. Some days I'm amazed >women put up with us at all. I'm probably misquoting slightly, but I like the quote by Rebecca West(?) which goes "I don't know what a feminist is; I only know that I am accused of being one whenever I express opinions that differentiate me from a doormat." K. -- Kirrily 'Skud' Robert - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://netizen.com.au/ Sysadmin (n): The untrained being underpaid for doing the impossible with the obsolete. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxchix.org
