discuss: Re: Review needed of 'Encourage Women in Linux' HOWTO(OT)
Subject:
Re: Review needed of 'Encourage Women in Linux' HOWTO(OT)
From:
Mary Gardiner ####@####.####
Date:
9 Dec 2003 05:31:42 -0000
Message-Id: <20031209053134.GF9745@titus.home.puzzling.org>
On Tue, Dec 09, 2003, rahul wrote:
> If you want to lessen the impact of any discrimination get your female
> friends out there to the LUG's with you. Dont complain if you have to
> be the only woman in the group and people react differently. This is
> *not* sexism. Its a natural but uncomfortable reaction
It depends on what "react differently" is. I don't particularly like
people saying "my goodness me, you're the only woman in the room, that's
weird" but I don't regard it as sexism.
If they say "my goodness me, you're the only woman in the room, and a
good thing too, I hate women and think they're stupid," then that would
be sexism.
I think the reason I don't like "my goodness me, you're the only woman
in the room, that's weird" bares an explanation: it's boring.
By way of example, I'm extremely tall (190cm) and I'm even more sick of
"my goodness you're tall" discussions. There's not much to be said in
response to "you're tall." ("Yep I am.") Equally, there's only a limited
amount of conversation that follows from "you're a woman!"
I've heard an awful lot of "yeah, we don't many women here. I guess
women just aren't mentally set up for programming." This is bad enough
when they say "most women" (because it makes me feel like a freak), but
a lot of people leave out the "most" and just tell me that women aren't
good at computers. ("Oh. I guess I should be going now then?")
I think telling me my brain is wired wrong (or is unfeminine) is
stretching the definition of "natural reaction" and getting well into
"seriously impolite". It happens with my height too. I've had
strangers wander up to me and ask me if I have a genetic illness!
I really hate it that there needs to be a "howto be basically polite
when someone a bit unusual is in the vicinity". I'm still not sure the
place for the Encouraging Women HOWTO is in the LDP. Nevertheless my
experience as an extremely tall person in a world of shorter people, and
as a woman in very male dominated groups has taught me that basic
politeness is actually something that you can't expect from everyone.
I think a significant amount of confusion arises from this HOWTO,
although whether the HOWTO can help it I don't know. A lot of people
seem to think that it is responding to tiny things. But many women in
the Linux community have experienced either sexism or serious
impoliteness, and "just deal with it" or "you have to put up with it
until more women come" is a defeatist response when it comes to really
out-of-line behaviour. (And I think telling a woman she's probably not
capable of programming because she's a woman or asking a tall person if
they have giantism is well out-of-line but apparently a lot of people
don't agree.)
-Mary
