Hi On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 12:23:09PM +0100, Telsa Gwynne wrote: > On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 04:45:54PM +0200 or thereabouts, Herman Robak wrote: > > On Sun, 15 May 2005 14:40:26 +0200, Adeodato Simó <asp16@alu.ua.es> wrote: > > > > > > http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/1051 > [...] > > Thus it spurs a debate we may not really want: The importance > > of social skills, compared to other skills. Coding skills and > > social skills should not be regarded as opposites, but the linked > > article has implied that there is a negative correlation between > > the two. Now, what matters more to a free software movement? > > Clever coders, or well-rounded personalities that get along well > > with the opposite sex? > > Anne Østergaard made what I think is a really good point in an > email to Gnome's foundation-list: > > One of the main reasons that women are not attracted to IT might be > simply because we- not unlike men - do not like that all the things > that we know to do well are lower ranking and sometimes considered only > as services to the leading hackers. > > (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-March/msg00007.html) > I think this observation is quite true, but it's not clear to me if it is really specific to women or every newcommer is affected of this and women are affected to a greater extend. Do you think that the cited paragraph also applies to men newcommers? Is it harder to reach the "higher ranks" of coding for women? > She's right. I wanted to contribute and give something back to a > movement that has given me a lot. And it's a movement that probably > needs Telsa the writer or Telsa the bug-finder or even Telsa the > approver-of-posts-held-for-moderation a lot more than Telsa the > trying-to-write-code. And I understand that. > > But damn, the idea that all of this is completely and utterly subordinate > to your "clever coders" galls me. What's exaclty that galls you? Is it that you would be more interested in writing code yourself than finding bugs or writing documentation or is it that the work you know to do and that you like to do is not rewarded for what it is worth? I'm trying to find out if the problem is really only that some work is less rewarded and seen as lower ranking than other work (especially coding) or if there are other things involved that alienate women. Gaudenz -- Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. ~ Samuel Beckett ~
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