Re: women in debian
> } Open Source is for many people about ego. "Look at
> what I did", or "I could write that better than they
> did". This is a very male tendency.
Josip, fellas don't have a copyright on ego. There are a lot of women
who, for various reasons, trade in it too -
but, like wizards (or sysadmins!), are subtle...and many have not
learned the value of the "direct approach" in their daily pursuits. And
sadly, everyone loses.
> If I had to choose between sitting through an
> argument between women and an argument between men, I'd
> choose men. Why? Because there's just as much of a
> fight for dominance in women-dominated lists/groups.
> It's not as obvious, there may never be an out-and-out
> flamewar ever, but the underlying politics and
> backstabbing is nasty, vicious, and merciless.
OK, but there's a third option: go have an argument with the computer as
to why the goddamned code won't compile.
The computer won't use it to score points off you -male or female -
later. <wry smirk>
> If men are the apes beating their chests and yelling at
> each other, and occaisonally fighting, women are the
> tigers slinking in the dark, playing a game of
> stalk-and-kill.
Except that women have opposable thumbs. All the better to code with, my
dears...8)
> It's all civilized and nice and pretty, <snip>
No, it's just that a great many women confuse blood with rouge, or vice
versa. <g>
There are both guys and women who will sell someone else down the river
for their own ends. It's not a specifically gender-based tendency, nor
is it without its place. But it's not best-used in general information
exchange, nor is it all that helpful in the school or the workplace on a
daily basis.
> I don't particularly care whether or not more women come
> in. I only care if *people* come in.
Absolutely!! although there might be a good argument to allow sentient
turtles in...(please tell me you've read Pratchett...).
It'd be a very cool thing to see more women getting into technical
anything...a good many don't for the simple reason that they've been
raised to believe it's not ladylike, or that they ought to be thinking
more along the lines of socially-related occupations, or artistic
pursuits, or any number of stupid and destructive beliefs about females
in non-traditional occupations/hobbies/
whatever.
The guys who want to see more of a balance between the genders in
debian/ tech in general might want to let their sisters, girlfriends,
moms, female acquaintances know that they *can* learn to do tech stuff,
that their company in such pursuits is welcome. Encourage confidence in
ability.
Show patience when they learn. Women might try to get each other turned
onto Open Source projects, or even collaborate to get some new ones
going. Whatever. It boils down to interest, and to a welcome environment
in which to exercise that interest.
0.02CDN
Alpha
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