Re: "Debian women may leave due to 'sexist' post"
On 2008-12-22, Elizabeth Krumbach penned:
> I'm sure many of you on the list have already seen this:
>
> "Debian women may leave due to 'sexist' post":
> http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22320/1090/1/0/
>
> And much of the related discussion. I'm surprised there hasn't been
> discussion about it on this list. How are others feeling about all of
> this?
Hi Elizabeth,
I hadn't seen this article and don't read -devel, so thanks for the
pointer.
The article linked to the mail message, which baffled me. More than
anything, isn't the message simply off topic? I don't know, maybe I
live in a fantasy land, but given the response on other technical
lists to off topic messages, I simply can't fathom why a developer
would post a message like that.
Beyond that, maybe it's an in-joke, but I don't get the message at
all. Is it a serious advertisement / coupon for a real online store
with a tongue in cheek name, or is it a joke poking fun at ... whom?
Ah, on third skim, I finally see that it's a joke. I think. The
"About" part at the bottom makes me think it's actually some sort of
real store. Although I assume they don't really ship sex slaves.
Okay. So after reading the message several time, I have to say, as a
woman, I'm not offended. Maybe it's because he specifically accounted
for the possibility that the client is female =)
"If you are goth, transsexual, female or simply metrosexual, you also
need to buy make-up at the same place."
Or maybe it's because the message is just not very well written or
cohesive. It doesn't even make sense enough for me to be annoyed!
Mostly, I feel sorry for the guy who posted this joke, because I don't
think it was meant to be offensive -- it seems more likely to me that
the developer is perhaps a little socially inept and misguaged his
audience. Of course, something can be offensive even when the author
has no such intent.
If anything, I think it's a poorly done joke, and a waste of time on
-devel. But I don't know if the message needs to be taken in context
with many other messages. Maybe this one message is weird and not so
great, but taken in the context of other messages I don't know about,
the whole of it comes across as unwelcoming?
I'm much more offended by the somewhat-regular posts on
thedailywtf.com and slashdot.org that strongly imply or overtly state
that all women are awful at software, are stupid, are non-technical,
and/or are only hired as eye candy. Those have set me into such a
rage that I now and then stop reading them because they set my blood
boiling, even though there are usual many men (especially in the last
year or two) who post in response and point out the idiocy of these
claims.
--
monique
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