Re: No goals, selective memory, be nice, red nose day

[Ricardo Mones <mones@aic.uniovi.es>]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 00:51:51 +0100
MJ Ray <mjr@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

> This is part of the problem with discussing whether or not a 
> debian-women list should exist. When I tried to research, explain and 
> form conclusions, I got flamed to a well-done crisp because it's not 
> the way it looked, or so I'm told.

  What conclusions did you form?

[...] 
> I have no interest in constructing a segregated space, so it shouldn't be
> surprising I don't act towards that.
[...]
> I am a prime example why groups like debian-women work against their 
> aim: I believe in equal opportunities in debian for all, regardless of 
> irrelevant characteristics like sex. I don't even know whether there 
> are any women amongst those I collaborate with on packaging, for 
> example (because I don't know some of the people well enough yet and 
> it's not that important). In future, I will try to avoid many of the 
> posters to this list on some things. I guess it helps that me to know 
> who you are: a purpose for debian-women!
> 
> The idea of parts of the debian project being closed to a particular 
> sex or race is offensive to me, yet some debian-women participants 
> support similar moves in other projects or call things like linuxchix 
> "a great community". The solution to running into a wall is to knock 
> it down, not build your own! The other likely offensive move is 
> promoting the idea that "friendly," "welcoming" and similar notions 
> are essentially linked with "women". Thank you carla for tirelessly 
> working to kill that myth. ;-)

  I think debian-women is an entry door, not any separated space, like any
other debian-somegroup-specific list. An Spanish user will be probably more
attracted  to debian-user-spanish or debian-devel-spanish than other generic
lists, but that doesn't mean she is going stay there forever. I see no fences
or walls here, but, as always, YMMV.

  BTW, my mental logic crashes when you say "I believe in equal opportunities
in debian for all" and "I will try to avoid many of the posters to this list 
on some things" on the same paragraph. So sex is an irrelevant characteristic
for discriminating people you're willing to work with but being subscribed to
debian-woman is not so irrelevant... interesting. FYI, I'm subscribed :-)

  greetings,
-- 
  Ricardo Mones Lastra - mones@aic.uniovi.es
  Centro de Inteligencia Artificial, Universidad de Oviedo en Gijon
  33271 Asturias, SPAIN. - http://www.aic.uniovi.es/mones