Subject:
Re: Review needed of 'Encourage Women in Linux' HOWTO
From:
Rick Moen ####@####.####
Date:
9 Dec 2003 06:26:24 -0000
Message-Id: <20031209062623.GN6238@linuxmafia.com>
Quoting Rodolfo J. Paiz ####@####.####
> Women are certainly subject to different kinds of discrimination. I will
> even agree that, since many cultures tended to treat all women as inferior
> up until not-long-ago, women may (don't know for sure, but may) receive
> more discrimination than many or even any other groups.
>
> So?
Rodolfo, I only know what I see among the Linux community. I don't see
the Hispanics at Linux events being automatically assumed to be
non-technical. Nor the blacks. Nor the teenagers. Just the gals.`
[Assumption of misbehaviour, just because one is male, not being present
in the text:]
> I feel otherwise. I would appreciate it if you would read and perhaps
> comment on my specific critiques made in a message last night. I would be
> very interested in your reading of those.
I'll see if I can do that. I've not been in a hurry to dissect people's
assertions point by point because, as the saying goes, I have no dog in
this fight. I merely speak up when I see a conversation going off the
rails because of people floating some notion that just ain't so.
For example -- getting back to my point -- I'm going on yet another
pass consecutively through Henson's text. I'm noting quotations as I
go. Commentary resumes at the bottom. (Mind the gap.)
Introduction,
"Frequently, men who want more women in Linux solely so they have..."
"But at the same time, studies also show that young women are rewarded
more than young men for verbalization."
"My personal opinion is that men and women do have some innate,
genetically based differences which result in tendencies towards
different behaviors, but I won't guess what they are or how strongly
they influence behavior."
"Maybe men will turn out to be better at computer science than women,
but history does not support that hypothesis."
Why are there so few women in Linux
"However, for various reasons, men usually tend to mentor and become
friends with other men."
"This is important because male classmates often assume their female
counterparts leave the field because they 'just aren't good enough.'"
"Preschoolers already have conceptions about which jobs are men's
jobs, and which jobs are women's."
"Once you realize that men and women are treated differently from,
practically, birth, it becomes hard to claim that any woman hasn't
experienced discrimination. Sure, if you're lucky, no one ever
explicitly told you that you couldn't work with computers because you
were a girl, but every time you raised your voice, an adult told you to
quiet down, while the boy next to you continued to shriek."
"The most striking example of a subtle bias against computing for
women is that, in the U.S. at least, the family computer is more likely
to be kept in a boy's room than in a girl's room."
"Since women are socialized to be more friendly, helpful, and
generally more interested in human interaction than men, computing tends
to be less attractive to women."
"We all know that most computer games are written by and for men."
"The next time you see a computer ad featuring a person, pay attention
to that person's gender. Most likely, the person is a man."
"Frequently, when I do see women in a computer ad, they're wearing
freakish makeup and some form of colorful skintight vinyl, or else
they're acting dumb and helpless and waiting for the man to show them
how to use the computer."
"Men and women are constantly bombarded with media images which [sic] say:
'Men use computers, women don't.'"
"I have more than once heard a man say that he doesn't make that kind
of joke, and then hours or minutes later, hear the same person
make a joke about pregnant women or PMS."
Do's and don't's of encouraging women in Linux
"Women grow up with the constant fear and awareness of being attacked
by men, and as silly as it may seem, it colors all her interactions, no
matter how safe or mundane they may seem to men."
"This isn't any better. Women new to a group often want the same
things men want - we want to feel welcomed, we want to talk about
subjects of mutual interest, we want to make friends."
"Several women have complained that all men seem to be able to talk
about with them is why women stay away from computers."
"Women are about as likely to cuss as men--don't do a double-take if
you cuss in front of a woman."
"Women are socialized to be far more sensitive to criticism than men,
as well as more critical of themselves. As a result, women are far
more likely to be driven off by heavy or unfair criticism than men. "
"Women have much lower self-confidence than men on average, and will
generally judge themselves far more harshly than any outsider."
"...for whatever reason, few women have the endless interest in
minutiae that men often display."
"Many women involved in Linux or computing are also dating or married
to men with similar interests."
"In my own experience, I have over and over again heard a man say that
he doesn't do any of these things, and then observed him hours or
minutes later doing exactly what he claimed he doesn't do. I don't
think any of those men were lying, just completely unaware. Making
sexist jokes or comments seems to be the most unconscious behavior -
many men just don't realize that what they're saying is offensive
to women."
"A man from the local LUG raised his hand and said that no one at his
LUG did any of the things we complained about, but they were still
having difficulty attracting women. A woman from the same LUG
raised her hand and said, "Yes, they do." She went on to say that
only a few "bad apples" were doing these things, but those few were
enough to drive off most women."
But I don't do that!
(Nothing from this section.)
The reason I went through that rather tedious exercise in cut-and-paste
was to collect in one spot _all_ of Henson's use of the words "man",
"men", or "male" in any fashion that could in _any_ way be argued to
sweepingly characterise all men -- which should suffice to catch,
among others, any instances of accusing all males of misbehaviour
merely on account of chromosonal endowment.
And... Rodolfo? I still can't find any. Not a one. Every single
example, quoted above from Henson's text, either is obviously intended
to be a statement of generality or is actually _explicitly_ qualified
with words like "most", "often", "many", "more likely", "generally",
"usually", "tends", and "frequently".
That's the main reason I said I was hearing the sound of knees jerking.
A number of people have complained bitterly about Henson attributing
this-or-that fault to all of us sworn-in members of the Patriarchial
Hegemony (a joke! a joke!), but -- gee -- that turns out not to be
the case.
My point? Please forgive a little bluntness (which at least I'm not
pointing at any specific individual -- and certainly not at you):
Critiques that aren't even getting that part right are probably pretty
dubious overall. Sadly, that calls into question about 3/4, in this
case.
--
Cheers,
Rick Moen "vi is my shepherd; I shall not font."
####@####.#### -- Psalm 0.1 beta
