Re: debian and women? from DWN #10
On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Monique Y. Herman wrote:
> I just saw this in Debian Weekly News issue ten:
>
> <http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200403/msg00067.html>
>
> I guess I just wonder.
>
-- snip --
> Any guys have opinions?
I guess I'm surprised that anyone even cares about gender anymore (as
pertains to interacting with people via email about technical matters).
I'm an electrical engineer with over 20 years experience, so I have an
excuse to be a reactionary pig. I mostly write software these days and
work for a large defense firm in the U.S. There are a LOT of women in the
software engineering business. A LOT, at least here! So, its not really a
novelty at all. I'm a little surprised by those that think that women are
rare in the computer/software industry, because I have just the opposite
impression.
In my experience I don't see a correlation between technical knowledge and
gender. I know men and women who are mediocre and men and women that are
excellent. Two of the best software engineers I've ever met are women. On
my team I value hard work, the willingness to dig in and figure things
out, and self-motivation. There are men and women I work with that HAVE
these qualities and men and women that I try not to work with that DON'T.
I've been on many technical mailing lists since the early '90s and the
Debian lists since about '96 and I don't recall seeing much flaming due to
gender. I'm not a woman so maybe I'm completely insensitive to it when it
happens, but I don't recall seeing much at all. I was a little surprised
to see mention of it in the DWN. Anyway, its really what you know that's
important, not your physical characteristics, particularly on mailing
lists where you don't even see the people you're interacting with.
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