Re: Some Comments on Sexism in #debian
Amaya dijo [Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 02:44:31PM +0100]:
> On a side note, other real life examples.
> - At Debconf @ Toronto, BDale used grannies as examples of the worst
> kind of clueless users Debian should aim at. Susan happens to be a DD
> and a grannie, so he stood corrected, but refused my proposal to use
> Bush as an example for that :-)
>
> - On a talk at Madrid, Miguel de Icaza who is a close friend of mine
> BTW, used female secretaries as examples of clueless users.
I don't really agree with this... Yes, I know there are grandmothers
and secretaries who are technically competent, or even more than
that. However, I do feel that trying to be politically correct in
order never to offend anyone is plain stupid. We tend to use
comparisons while speaking. We tend to exagerate situations in order
to make a point. And, yes, the stereotype _is_ objectively correct: We
have a stunning low proportion of grandmothers and secretaries being
DDs - or for that matter, being technically advanced users.
I agree, there is no excuse to make fun at an old lady because she
does not understand a debconf note - That note _should_ be changed in
attention to our users (among who she stands). But we cannot just
pretend that we don't have a strong majority of the population fitting
a certain profile. While being respectful to people who are not
majority, we _can_ use them as examples. I doubt Susan felt attacked
by Bdale, I doubt any secretary would have felt attacked by Miguel
(and BTW, I met a secretary using Solaris as a desktop for her day to
day work - But that does not make her the rule!).
Greetings,
--
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.cx - (+52-55)5630-9700 ext. 1366
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