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Want More Geek Chicks?
pb writes "Freshmeat has an excellent editorial about geek chicks. A lot of free software projects these days could really use that woman's touch. "
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This is awesome...
but wasn't this on freshmeat two days ago?
sounds like a good idea
"Teach them to RTFM"
-that's primarily a problem that men have..:) women don't need any encouragement in that area.
i must say, more power to them!!! im a female geek, learning more and more from my male counterpart freinds. i must say they fully support "chick geeks". they find it very exciting (in the nonsexual sence). i think that any girl who has the "balls" to pursue a career or an interest in computers and the net is really confident in herself. thanks for posting that article
Read your comments, guys. And you honestly wonder why there aren't more of us "linuxchix"?
It's just like those offensive daemon babes *BSD saw fit to subject us to at LinuxWorld.
We're [female Linux hackers] not here in force because we get the (both implicit and explicit) message that we're not wanted.
A lot of free software projects these days could really use that woman's touch.
:)
Having not had a girlfriend in 2 years, I could also use that woman's touch.
I think I'm going to karma hell for this...
You're tellin' me. We need more women who understand that we actually are up late working and can get those important technical discussions at the dinner table.!
A lot of free software projects these days could really use that woman's touch.
What is this supposed to mean? When I look at open-source projects these days, I don't see a male-oriented slant or perspective on them. I see a computer slant. It's not like GNOME icons feature naked women or anything.
Option 3 in the article I think is the best. Hackerdom doesn't need to be changed to allow more women in as women geeks already seem to fit in quite nicely. It's not as if the community isn't accepting now, and when (not if) more women go into technology fields, I don't see a radical shift in programming or ideology or ideas. Why? Because they're all geeks! Geekiness is gender-neutral, AFAIK. Yes, geeks tend to be male, but they don't have the same issues involving maleness that, say, jocks and Wall Street investors have.
The problem isn't a geek one. The problem is a social one, and as more and more computer filter into daily life, you'll see more women. The only benefit that we're going to get by having more female geeks is the same one that we get by having more geeks in general: more innovating people.
ps. Wasn't this argument already beaten into the ground here on Slashdot about a month ago?
The /. fortune at the bottom of this page for me reads "We're all looking for a woman who can sit in a mini-skirt and talk philosophy, executing both with confidence and style."
--
Ian Peters
the she-male pranced across the snow-covered prairie as we watched in amazement. what a magnificent beast. the she-male paused to feed on some prairie grass. we were anxious to get an action shot so we rattled the bushes. jim was unaware that the she-male had already begun to leap into the air before he threw a small dirt-clod at it. the dirt-clod hit the she-male in mid-leap. the she-male flatulated as the dirt-clod smacked against it's rump. with amazing speed, but little grace, the she-male disappeared into the woods.
* * * * later that day * * * *
we waited several hours with no sign of any more she-male. we packed our equipment into the jeep and headed out. jim noticed a mass on the highway. we pulled the jeep over. it was a she-male! an extraordinary specimen. it had been badly mutilated by a motorist. this is the closest anyone had ever been to a she-male in the wild. we took advantage of the opportunity. we weighed and measured the she-male and examined the entrails which had ruptured from its side. finally, jim tagged the she-male so that its migratory habits could be studied.
thank you.
While I can respect their goals, I do not believe that groups such as LinuxChix are really doing anything useful.
The solution is to make the open-source community accessible to women, rather than making "special" organizations for them. Many things suggested within this article are good ideas, especially fostering an analytical mindset.
The solution is complete integration into the community, not "Linux girls clubs" such as LinuxChix
-V
Hosting for Creators: http://rpg-works.net
I don't want more geek chicks, i want more chicks you like geeks ;-)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
These women also tend to pay little attention to what women are 'supposed' to do. They often comes from families where one or more of the parents have a career in the sciences or technology. They probably have little familiar pressure to be 'normal' girls and have the freedom and exposure to explore things that lead to interest in science and technology.
What point am I trying to make? It's exposure to technology at a young age that make the difference. I believe that many of the male geeks first got interested in computers as young boys because of the video games. Girls, howevery, don't usually have this exposure or interest in computers at a young age, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, although several of the female geeks I know do like video games a lot.
I got a bad feeling when I read that article, it just seems like the writer is saying that women and men are very different, where I don't see that much of a difference.
and no, I'm not a boyfriend of any of the members of that student organization of which I have spoken.
I like the Woman of the New Millenium.. Willing to sacrifice her career to take care and please her Husband, including household duties (.ie Cleaning the clothes, washing the dishes, Srubbing the toilet clean).. Satisfying her husband sexually, and bearing many children for a properous future family....
The the role saught after by many women in the new millenium, its about time we got those traditional roles back in the household.
I'm single, so ladies, dont be afraid to message me, I've got a credit card with a 50K limit, a brand new Lexus gs400 and a house payed for. The offer is still on to the highest bidder
gonzocanuck not logged in I agree. My brother is two years old than me (24) and man, is he dense when it comes to computers. OTOH, I don't know how many times I've corrected some guy's work where there was a typo or incorrect file name case (sigh) I liked that part near the bottom where she wrote that women shouldn't think their skills as non-hacker like. Two years ago I would never have guessed that I would be where I am now - happily programming away, if I didn't come to this conclusion myself. I've always liked puzzles and games, and I won't rest until I've debugged something happily. I think other women put girls down just as much as guys do. All that "math and stuff" that is just too hard. OK, I almost failed math, but I did like science and I really tried hard to get the right answer even if it did turn out wrong. Hmmm...OTOH, any geeky guys out there searching for a woman webmonkey? I've seen singlegeek.com...but I would really like a geeky guy to be friends with, if you live in the Calgary area, email me at gonzocanuck@hotmail.com :-)
My computer science class is half female and has been all year, with the girls doing as well as the guys, but it is a first year class. Def Con 7 saw lots of women, and I can tell you that few of them were bored girlfriends.
I keep up on the technology scene more than the world news one, my guy friends enjoy that they can talk to me about what they're interested in and know that I understand. And there are a lot more ladies out there like me. I say, give it a few years, then when we're all trained, there'll be a flood.
Roma vivit!
When I first started working at a local web development company, I was 1 of 2 men working there. The other five employees were all both middle-aged, female, and lesbians.
And let me tell you, work was interesting.
Though I loathe to say this, the fact of the matter is, women in computing are not going to be automatically good at design, caring for other people, good at handling hardware, or anything else that people may draw as a relationship between woman and computer to mother and child.
So while I don't want to seem anti-woman (I am, after all, looking for a strong, independant, hard-working woman to "adopt" me) I've got to say that in the same sense that Linux does not automatically equal Better, Women does not automatically equal Better.
*puts on his flame resistant suit and waits*
------------
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
First off, you can say that any kind of large project, that's aiming to be a good one, that can go far in the market, will need the greatest diversity of talents and differing styles, working well as a team to a common goal.
You could say that a female mind might bring a slice of that cake to the party, but there's enough diversity in the minds of people working on a project anyway that a female mind might not be the greatest "point of difference" you might think it is.
Without having read the article in-depth, I'd say this is another call for an UI/GFX/semantics person working on some of the open soruce teams, where interface is paramount to it's use, GNOME/KDE to hit the biggies...
hee hee, been there! no programmer is worth his/her salt until they've coded fourteen hours in a row to get a project done. Staying up till 5AM is not my idea of fun either!!
At the time I'm posting this, it doesn't seem like there has been a _single_ intelligent comment about the subject.
I for one, would love to see more women in the computer science/hacker/whatever-you-want-to-call it field, and for more reasons than the obvious ones mentioned by the obviously sexually repressed posters.
As hackers (and people with supposedly open minds) I would think we'd welcome the different perspective women bring to things. Call me a dork, but I guess I'd find someone who could argue with me about implementation or point out a flaw in my thinking a lot more stimulating than discussing the latest fashion trends.
The top Unix admin at our corporate headquarters is a Unix Chick eight years my junior. The number two person in our local Unix users goup is an attractive female. And two of the best DBA's in the area are female.
All of these women are the tops in their field, but they are a small segment compared to the overwhelming majority that are men.
I tried to "nuture" my nieces into going into a technical field, but they were captured by the Barbie camp along before I had a chance...
... with or without intervention from anyone.
The biggest problem is that females are trained from birth to be conservative and to go for the old and proven in everything while males are taught to be pioneers and to check out new stuff.
This is why there are so few women in tech jobs generally. This isn't specifically related to Computers either. When plains were a new thing, there were precious few lady pilots. Space flight was routine before women went up there. In the old days explorers would either higher every prostitute in town or rape every female in those places with limited "commerce". That happens when you have an all male crew.
These days data processing and other end user type jobs are considered mundane and guess what ? We have women outnumbering men in those positions here ( Jamaica ). However when you get to tech support, network admin, software development and other things that are "pushing the limit" 10 to 1 is extremely optimistic.
I have worked at companies with staff as follows.
Sales: Male 1. Female 5.
Service: Male 6. Female 0.
Accounting: Male 0. Female 1.
Manager: Male 0. Female 1.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
When I saw this, I thought, are there many homosexual male hackers? Has there been any studies or reports on this kind of thing?
I'm asking because I geuinely want to know if geekdom is also a primarily a heterosexual male domain.
I think that when most people think of geeks, they think of socially-challenged but heterosexual males who are always lusting after girls but could never get them (or is that nerds?). I think that many or most of the computer games out there precisely target the geek population (young straight and single) because they are more willing to sit in front of computers for hours on end, obsessed with getting further or higher scores - an activity akin to hacking, I would say.
Also, do stereotypical homosexual male traits preclude them from being geeks?
You guys really suck bigtime.
-
Geekguys dont want geekgirls. Geekguys want Britney Spears. Atleast almost every geekguy I know.
Am i ugly or what?
-----------------------------------------------
rxvt, suse, vi, solaris, debian, java, c, feel the love. #unix@IRCnet, #gimp & #gnome@GIMPnet
... with or without intervention from anyone.
The biggest problem is that females are trained from birth to be conservative and to go for the old and proven in everything while males are taught to be pioneers and to check out new stuff.
This is why there are so few women in tech jobs generally. This isn't specifically related to Computers either. When plains were a new thing, there were precious few lady pilots. Space flight was routine before women went up there. In the old days explorers would either higher every prostitute in town or rape every female in those places with limited "commerce". That happens when you have an all male crew.
These days data processing and other end user type jobs are considered mundane and guess what ? We have women outnumbering men in those positions here ( Jamaica ). However when you get to tech support, network admin, software development and other things that are "pushing the limit" 10 to 1 is extremely optimistic.
I have worked at companies with staff as follows.
Sales: Male 1. Female 5.
Service: Male 6. Female 0.
Accounting: Male 0. Female 1.
Manager: Male 0. Female 1.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
check out what these guys are doing... a bunch of college students are trying to put together a big game for girls ages 9-11, with the hopes that it will get them involved with math and science at an early age
they're not professional game designers, just a bunch of kids that want to make a difference
check out what these guys are doing... a bunch of college students are trying to put together a big game for girls ages 9-11, with the hopes that it will get them involved with math and science at an early age
they're not professional game designers, just a bunch of kids that want to make a difference
www.josietrue.com
I'd like to know of any ladeez that read Slashgrits.
Putting a "woman's touch" on software seems to be paternalistic and demeaning. Oh, sure, get one token female on the team, and give her the job of spiffing up the user interface, or some other menial job, and leave the Real Work of making the software work to the Real Men on the development team. Pah, it's this kind of thinking that makes me long for our first Woman President.
Natilie Portman, naked, petrified, and hacking kernel code. Yumm.
Women can't even drive! Let alone code! MY GOD!
have some beef with RedHat and put a note in the documentation along the lines of "RedHat users will have to fix this themselves because RedHat doesn't know how to set things up properly."
refuse to work on a decent UI because the Emacs interface is all anyone needs.
write APIs that won't support languages other than C++ because anybody who doesn't realize the benefits of OOP has rocks in his head.
write APIs that don't support C++ because Bjarne is a flaming idiot who should be shot on sight.
don't understand that not everyone is a student with massive amounts of free time who'd like nothing better to do than dink around installing crotchety software.
think that providing hundreds of customizable options is much more important than anything else.
think that people will settle for second rate software simply because it runs under Linux rather than using something better for Windows.
Come on guys! The only place that we can hide from women is our geek job, god damn it! We can talk about football, bball, strippers, money and the stock market, cars, girlfriends and all that, and of course argue about which OS is the greatest, so what the hell do we need'em messing in our code? No way!
Furthermore, if the chick is really good lookin', who is gonna concetrate on coding?
On the other hand, if the chick is ugly, why should we work with her?
I'd be bored to tears if I had to discuss fashion trends with my coworkers! :-P
I am still trying to figure out whether I am an anomoly being a (happy) female computer geek or if I've just been lucky enough to manage to escape or overcome some of the societal pressures that apparently discourage females from going into some of the engineering/technical fields. My parents were cool and encouraged me to play with science-related toys, and nobody seemed too surprised when I started programming in BASIC on our Commodore 64, so I guess the stage was set before I hit those nasty peer-pressure years!
At any rate, so long as my coworkers treat me like a human being, and accept that I can do my job, I'll be happy (even if I am the only female programmer). Maybe I am lucky, but so far people have overtly appreciated my programming skills and my interpersonal skills (which may be slightly better than those of the other programmers).
Anyhow, any additional skills a programmer brings to the table can be considered assets, so I guess we should encourage women to value their other skills. But we should encourage men to do that, too. When I think about women-in-IT, I am much more interested in encouraging younger (pre-teen?) girls to explore science and technology despite the somewhat negative perceptions about the 'geekiness' of it all.
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
That is one hella kewl page. Werrrrrrrrrrrd!!!!
Nascantur in Admiratione. (Let them be born in Wonder)
If you're interested, here's their site:
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
http://www.albylien.net/corps1.jpg
Yuck...
rxvt, suse, vi, solaris, debian, java, c, feel the love. #unix@IRCnet, #gimp & #gnome@GIMPnet
Much of what the author says is true, but little will probably change until all "old boy networks" open up.
All in all this has more to do with our culture than hackerdom, specifically.
Ignore Alien Orders
MMhhh...geek chicks =)
=)
=)
LoL!!!!
-LinuxFreak12
How can Freshmeat/Slashdot/Andover even think of publishing this garbage? I thought the company had shareholders to answer to? (well, maybe not for long) If the male dominated Andover "good old boys club" wanted to satisfy their sexual fantasies, why don't they just post a link to some porno site instead of forcing us to read this degrading filth. "a wonman's touch.." Did you seriously believe people would fall for this? Grow up and I hope you do yourself the courtesy of cleaning youself up when you're done.
I work for a VAR. Here's the personnel breakdown:
We have 5 techs 2 of which are women (one hardware one network). Our admin staff has one woman working on her CS degree and another in pre-larval stage IMHO working on getting A+ certified. We have a sales rep that used to be a programmer. That's quite a few woman techhies for a shop our size.
Be warned--I also posted this same response on Freshmeat, so some of you may have already read it.
:)
Very interesting read indeed. However, I feel I must play the devil's advocate (don't shoot me!) and point
out a few things that aren't necessarily wrong, but I think should be clarified/explored.
1. One possibility that is mentioned is to change the way we raise our children, essentially, and help girls
cast free some of the bonds of traditional social behavior. I believe *everyone* could use a little help with
this, though I also agree the girls are undoubtedly constrained more by traditional views than boys. A little
later on, however, Skud mentions that one of the reasons it would be desirable to have more "geek chicks" is
that "they would bring a different perspective and generate new ideas." If, in the Nature vs. Nurture
argument, you believe in 100% nurture, 0% nature, than how much different will the perspective of "geek
chicks" be if they are brought up more like their mail brethen? Naturally, there would be a difference, and I
think most people who have given it some thought will agree that it is definitely neither all Nature or all
Nurture, but somewhere in between though we may vary on just where we stand in the middle.
Whoops, I got a little off of the train of thought I started on, but it does help set up the next point.
2. If there is a fundamental difference, even slight, in the way we think, and more importantly, our
motivations, than isn't it to be expected that our interest in certain fields may be different? If we redefine
our definition of "hacking" to include more women, just what have we accomplished? Nothing. It's nothing
more than politically-correct jerrymandering. What we need to do, instead, is recognize where different
people stand, both men and women, and give credit where credit is due. Yes, perhaps more "male" interests
are predominant in "hard hacking" type communities, where each line of assembly code in that core library is
a work of art, in it's own twisted way. I am not entirely convinced that this is the case, but if it is, is there
anything wrong with that?
I think I had a third point, but I've forgotten it now. I was also gonna write a sappy conclusion, but I thought
it was a little too thick about halfway through writing it, so I deleted it.
If you have any comments, please feel free to email me! I'd love to hear 'em. I actually think this is a pretty
interesting topic... (and I've had an in-depth discussion or two w/ my girlfriend about it... so yes, i'm a dude)
Cheers.
-- That tickles!
most geeks i know arent getting laid, which tells me that nobody really cares about their gender OR sexuality.
this isnt a troll or flamebait, im being serious here.
i think we should worry about being accepted before we worry about accepting specific groups of people. besides, i have yet to see an article on how current opensource projects could use a native americans touch.
just my $2.00
"A lot of software projects out there could really use that womans touch"
Geez. Could you be a little more patronising please?
We're just geeks too, trying to do what we're good at. We don't wanna be tokenised to "add a womans touch" to a project. We want to be involved to show off our skills, and get kudos for being -good-, not for being chicks.
Skud's great. Another Aussie Chick.
-- Why should I question authority?!
I think one reason is very simple- someone who's ended up 'unusual' in one way will be less prone to fall into usual patterns in other ways. In other words, if someone is straight because that's something one doesn't think about, they probably also (at this stage in history) use Windows exclusively on a PC, as that too is something one doesn't think about. (They may well have very strong opinions on trucks or cameras or skis, tho :) )
Frankly, sexual orientation has zilch to do with geekness, except that gay geeks comparatively don't get any either ;) this is more significant of geekness than the actual orientation. It's like priority levels that constantly rate 'debugging this bit of questionable code' over 'going out and flirting or socializing or meeting people'. Naturally, the result is a general lack of sexual fireworks- though not necessarily the _capacity_ for fireworks (remark paid for by the Take-A-Geek-To-Bed Foundation)
As for me? I take pleasure in knowing that, while I am a Linux user and a Mac user and a CLI sympathiser who likes handling linux through xterms and a cordial KDE basher, on slashdot people don't even care or consider my sexual orientation- they are much more interesting in my Mac-ual orientation, or CLI-ual orientation, all the intellectual pursuits that seem much more _important_ than meatspace.
And this is good. It's only when well-meaning people inquire "Are there _any_ gay geeks?" (answer- why no, they're all hairdressers in Greenwich Village! _Everybody_ knows that thilly dahling) that I figure it's worth even mentioning. Oh, and I know of some pretty darn stereotypical (well, more like 'in your face') gay geeks who are also emphatically 'real' geeks. Again, there's no real correlation except for maybe people who are gay are somewhat more likely to also be geeks if they deal with computers. It's not the computers, it's a matter of people conforming to the norm or not. Geekness isn't the norm either.
Hello, welcome to the 20th/21st century. Please step to your right.
You are exactly the type of guy we broke from during the '70s. "Oh, chicks should be in the home, blah blah blah." Bullshit. You're the reason why there aren't more "geek chicks," because you're stuck in that mindset.
"Woman of the millenium" my ass. The woman of the millenium is whatever she wants to be, because now that the 1950s are over she CAN be whatever she wants to be, and step on guys like you to get there.
Get over yourself. We won. Things are different now, old man.
miyax
Okay, I realize that the writer of tis article is a self-proclaimed geek, but the amount of geek-slant in this article is ridiculous...
Take, for example: The correlation between technical proficiency and social ineptitude is not that those with poor social skills turn to computers; rather, that those with good social skills will have less opportunity to advance their technical ones.
To call this bullshit is being kind. Good social skills kept me from being a great programmer! Please. This is simply geeks trying to place the skills they are proficient in above others. Artificial ego-inflation could definitly be considered a turn-off for females...
It can easily be said that it takes just as much concentration, intelligence, and thought to be an architect, author, or doctor as it does to be a programmer, yet you never hear people complaining about those people's social skills as a group. The "monomaniacal concentration" required is obviously not the problem. Perhaps the doses of machismo among "geek" interactions is...
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Approprate, huh, yes. When I forget what a chunk of code or command line option does, I can guess it in quite a few attempts.
Of course. I even used getopt_long(3) to manage long options, so clueless users can use a highly intuitive, self-explanatory interface!
Of course it does. Dominik Mierzejewski built the RPM packages, and he's not Chinese!
Except for the fact that all of them ask for an XMMS plugin (including here in
Sure. And what is not there is mentioned in the package docs somewhere, or if it does not correspond to the actual implementation the implementation has the authoritative information, so it's all there, just check the implementation following the steps of question 1.
If the answer to any of these questions is "no", your software is falling short of its potential. If you've ever said that you wish there were more female geeks in the Open Source community, now may be your opportunity to welcome them into your team, not as mascots or hangers-on, but as an indispensable part of the project.
Of course the answer of all questions is "yes", but if you're a female geek and want to improve my project by adding BP Soundmon, TFMX and VectorDean support, integrating an m68k emulator to allow Deli compatibility, you're very very welcome!
Oh, ok. Maybe the project isn't as messy as I described... But I can't see why a female geek could make it less messy. I see female geeks as equals, i.e. as organized or disorganized as any male geek, no worse, no better as software developer. No need for Conjoined Twin Myslexia Day or whatever. Miod Vallat's MikMod, the competitor, has much better documentation -- and the last time I checked there was no girls in MikMod's credits.
And yes, I will write the damn XMMS plugin! :)
The problem, as I see it, is not that there are not enough women in the computer industry.
The problem is a general lack of variety. The computer industry, right now, is dominated almost entirely by white men, and mainly those with a background in computers. Because computers are such a large part of many of our lives, we cannot afford to have them controlled by such a small group. Computer companies need to hire people of both sexes, of all ethnic backgrounds. They need to hire artists, writers, and other such people.
The poor, the minorities, and the women of our society are missing out on the revolution caused by computers. This might be attributed to income or education, but I think that part of the problem is the failure to include these groups in the development of computers.
As evidence of the idea that people want a computer that they feel more comfortable with, I point to the iMac. Like the computer or not, is is much more comforable of an object, and very different from the beige boxes most companies sell.
Companies need to get a broader view, try new things, include more people. Perhaps then we will get computers that are more than just tools. Perhaps then the revolution will finally come.
You'd have thought someone would have pointed out that an advantage of more female hackers == more hackers. Approaching 80 - 100% more, probably.
More coders, more minds, better software.
how many women are involved in free software? how many men? women make up slightly more than 50% of the population
something must be stopping them.
what is it?
and on that topic, what makes free software as good as it is? more eyes == shallow bugs. more minds == better ideas.
rms hacked a great editor, and a great bit of copyright law. linus hacked a great os. so did theo de raadt. robert young did a pretty good company hack - the first ipo with the gpl in it is pretty good.
so i wonder... who's going to hack the community and open up the "open" community?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
I got the distinct impression that the 'old man' was a woman.
Read the story.
After reading the 1% bit (Perl conference), now I feel guilty. I'm a female Perl programmer (and almost a contributing member of the community... I'm going to polish up those modules for CPAN Real Soon Now, I promise). But I'm going to miss Perl Whirl 2000, the Perl whatchamacallit at Cedar Point, and the 2000 O'Reilly Perl conference too. You wanna know why? On account of I'm pregnant.
Boy, do I feel like I'm contributing to a stereotype...
Sigh.
The simple answer to this is that it is those who are less attached to the idea of "having a life" who are prepared to spend weeks at a time glued to their computers.
The larval stage typically hits during youth, and there is a very clear reason why males and females assort at that stage:
Young women are at the peak of their sexual status, and this means "having a life" inflicted upon them by horny men (via every subconscious mechanism imaginable ... and then some). This occurs whether the young women are prepared to spend weeks at a time glued to their computers or not.
Young men, on the other hand, are at the nadir of their sexual status even as they are at the peak of their sexual drive (since the women they typically desire are young and are therefore interested in men with status -- something that frequently comes with age for males), so that means not having a life inflicted upon them -- whether the young men are prepared to spend weeks at a time glued to their computers or not. The fact is that young men are at the peak of their sexual drive at the same time all this is happening. This tends to debilitate the young men even as they enter "larval stage", which is a primary reason cultures have a need for "sexist" adaptations.
Since the youthful "larval stage" is, as the author correctly asserts, critical to becoming an "ubergeek" it should be unsurprising that there are few female ubergeeks. Those few who can make even modest claim to being a geek are frequently paraded around as sex goddesses, such as Kim Polese and Natasha Vita-More even after they hit middle age. This is a good deal for said middle-aged ubergeekettes at the peak of their sex drive since they are surrounded by desperate and incredibly horny young men -- but it is far from clear that this is a good deal for civilization overall.
One ancient adaptation continues to be practiced by many Dravidians even after they migrate to Silicon Valley, and it seems to work fairly well (so long as the couple doesn't become too "Americanized"):
Arranged marriages.
Seastead this.
I work at a software company where a significant proportion of the techies are female. The difference between the 'hardcore geeks' (myself included) and the women is that the women seem to have social lives.
Rather than spending their spare time hacking, they do sensible, worthwhile things, like learning foreign languages, helping organisations that work with disadvantaged and disabled young people and so on.
Most of the male geeks spend their spare time either hacking or drinking large amounts of beer and wondering why we don't have girlfriends.
I think the article makes it clear why there aren't more female hackers. Being a hacker requires a lot if time and commitment. Many women would rather spend their free time doing things that require human interaction, instead of behaving that like a bunch of sad losers who spend far to much time playing with computers(myself included).
Incidentally, my experience of working with female techies is that they are generally considerably more productive than males.
These comments do not necessarily represent the views of the author
Sorry!
The way it came up it looked like the post I replied to was in reply to the story. I then changed mode and I see that it wasn't. OOps.
My appologies.
You were quite right, the guy is fairly moronic.
but theyre all so fucking ugly its disgusting :P
Find me any group of people, anywhere (women included) that doesn't do something occasionally offensive or obnoxious. And as far as the comment quality here on slashdot, if you haven't realized yet that slashdot is a cesspool filled with poorly educated flamers,then you probably don't have the wits to be a geek. If your skin is so thin that you can't join anything that has ever offended you slightly, then it is true, we don't want you around. The last thing we need is the shit you get in the real world from the demons of PC.
she has to have big fucking tits, be naked and petrified, and be willing to smear raisins all over her huge tits and do the macarena with me
If you want more geek chicks, linuxchix, or nerd wymyn, you gotta stop posting about Mae Lin Mak and Natalie Portman being naked and petrified... or being anything else for that matter.
Yeah... I can see it now... you take my advice only to start posting about "Geek Chicks naked and petrified" -- lovely. 8(
Take a long, hard look at the site you've put up. You obviously lead a strange, isolated pathetic life, and are completely fucked in the head. Why don't you take up a hobby or something to blow of steam, like fucking goats.
I agree with Scud's observation that every time there's a cry of 'where all the women at?' there's a pretty good turnout of females yelling 'We're here!'. Perhaps we're ignoring the women in our midst?
I don't agree with the idea that women are 'differently abled' than men. I do believe that contributions made by women are typically not valued as highly as those made by men. Female dominated professions such as nursing or teaching are not as prestigious or high paying as male dominated professions such as hacking. Men are typically paid more than women even in the same careers.
Wow. Maybe being ignored and undercompensated is driving women away?
Maybe an answer to the problem is to notice and value the women who are already part of the hacker community?
I'd say 'hug a female geek today' but the ones I know would kick my ass. :)
That which does not kill you, postpones the inevitable.
Well, they could start by getting out more often.
perhaps not as a rule, but the "good ol' boy networks" tend to be in management ranks, not technical ranks, not to say that there isn't certain tradition, for better or worse, just that i've rarely heard that term used in this context.. .. technical people tend to be less gender biased than those in other ranks (that is just my observation, no data for you).. the "good ol' boy networks" are BAD juju, and are less common these days.. diversity initiatives are making a difference (and often at the expense of quality, merit and on more than one occassion, a job for me, oh and not to mention how as a white male i didn't qualify for any of the programs for fledgling grad students - white males aren't "at risk" - oops rant mode off).. but there is a greater good brothers and sisters.. moreover, global economics seem to force us toward a diversified, merit based workplace more than anything else.. it's happening, and it's about time.. just roll up your sleeves and get to work.. we're all oppressed in some manner or another
If you're referring to the female (drawing of the) FreeBSD daemon, that was designed by a woman, actually...
Looking at lesbians is a very bad way to go about figuring out women. The reason is simple and every homosexual on SlashDot will probably flame me for it.
You see, the most fundamental differences between men and women are related to sexuality. That and socialization. However a gay person wasn't socialized the same way as a straight person and dose not have the same sexuality.
In other words, I can pretty much guarantee that your experiences working with straight women would have been significantly different. Young women ( who are more common, especially in tech jobs ) would also add significant alterations to your experiences.
So just because they are different why dose that make it a bad idea ? Simple, gays are a minority and as such cannot be used to judge the whole of society.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Do you really think that women don't really care much about hacking? Maybe the problem is with hackers. My sister, a year ago downloaded KDE (beta ???) source code and since compilation failed she went to a IRC channel with a female nick and asked for help. All she got was jackass talk, and even a link to a porno site. Get real. At work I have female colleagues that most of us consider highly skilled Cobol, DB2, C++ professional. Aren't they skilled enough to hack kernel code, or at least dev. some open source project ?
This author, like so many women bemoaning the geek chick scene, wants to have her cake and eat it. On the one hand she wants to assume that women are "by nature" just as capable as men of the type of thought and obsessiveness needed for computing (or math/physics/engineering). On the other hand, she wants to assume that women bring "by nature" bring something additional to the party beyond what is supplied by men.
some deep penetration will fix your problems, baby
So where does this fit in with geekdom? In short, the author seems to argue that women can do everything that men can, but they also can do other things which aren't getting done. Now I'm not supposing something simmilar to the second shift, where traditional roles have kept women doing the housework. There really aren't defined gender roles which are specific to hacking (as near as I can tell.) But this article proposes defining such gender roles, and I'm a little uncomfertable with just letting a whole set of things be swept into the "Women's work" catagory, along with everything already being done by men. Like Steinem says, the challange is convincing men that those jobs are crucial, and that they can do them as well.
#1 : You are subjected to only what you allow yourself to be subjected to. Get a backbone.
#2 : I saw fit to "subject" myself? *laugh* No. I actually got to go to Linuxworld, and between the OS-related questions I was answering at the booth, the contacts I was making, and the posing with people with a sense of humor, I had a very productive time. Worth my effort (and sweat, ewww) in spades. What did you spend your week doing?
#3 : You're only not wanted when you enter the door whining. I have had much support from geekers, in costume and out, because I have always approached things with the attitude of a student, and a respectful one at that. Try it sometime. You'd be surprised what good people there really are out in the opensource community, especially.
If you still find this offensive - you're not spending enough time hacking. :)
Save the moderation points for the people with a spine. And something to say. Or do.
Read your own comment. Angsty people like that may be why there aren't more "linuxchix" - unfortunately, the louder ones seem to have the bad attitudes.
http://www.freebsd.org/~jkh/lw2000/ Have at it. I'm the one in latex.
And I'm 19. Thank you.
Ceren Ercen
"Strange Attractor
FreeBSD Test Labs"
cerene@uclink4.berkeley.edu
It's that there aren't enough ATTRACTIVE girl hackers.
C'mon, look most of these guy "geeks" in here are lying when they claim to desire more women in their field for "fresh ideas" or some other nonsense. Nope, sorry ladies but guy geeks have NATURAL cravings like other "guys" demographics. I mean it's these cravings which has kept the population reproducing.
I'm sorry, I hate to say it, but when a guy geek talks to a girl geek, he's thinking about one thing, and it ain't CGI scripts.
(Just so everyone will know, I am a female.)
Why be a clique, let's all just jump in the party and make the most of it.
My idea is that, if women want to get into the "geeky" fields, if they're really worth having in them all, they'll be the people who are so into it that they simply forge onward and won't be deterred because they'll be wrapped up in their work. Of course, I guess I'm wrong here, since this hasn't happened (and I'll admit, I'm not that in-the-know about stuff, but yes, I've read a good deal of this article.. it's just long). What I do wonder, though, is why we're trying to make an effort to, perhaps, change the "standards" simply to say that there are more women who are geeks. I realize that yes, the "standards" could be "wrong," but.. IF they aren't, then "re-writing" them to include others is not making things better, it will make them worse. But, in the grand scheme of things, aren't we also talking about a label here? I mean, sure, the real issue is whether or not there are women in Open source/hacking/programming/technology fields, but the main theme being played up is that there aren't enough female "geeks." Sure, it'd probably be swell and all to be a "geek," but this is a label, people! Is not some form of the open-source, wonderment of it all a sense of going against the current, doing our own thing? (I'm probably wrong, so I'm waiting to be moderated down..) I thought it was a bad thing to be stereotyped, but here we're yapping about how many females are labeled geek. Yeah, sure, it'd be wonderful to have more females doing "geeky" stuff, but if it's not meant to be, don't push it just to "make things better." And before anything "major" happens, I hope everybody stops and thinks a minute about all of the issues here.
Insert mind here.
ME TOO!
I have worked (closely) with two female
programmers. One was an ex-physicist with strong
java/perl/c skills and the other was a c programmer who used to code asynchronous signalling stuff.
Both were/are great. And we get on well. And the
work is good.
It confuses me why there are not so many girls
in the industry but I guess the best way to
solve it (like most things) is just to live to
your ideals. So - I don't worry about the
sex/age/culture/race of the people I work with
and that seems good enough for me...
I think talking about it helps air some issues
but doesn't really change much.
First, let's look at the authors own qualifications. At the bottom of the article it says:
Kirrily "Skud" Robert is a Perl coder and trainer and CEO of Netizen, an Australian open source company. Her hobbies include meetings, meetings, and wishing she had more time to code.
It would be great if Kirrily, aka "Skud", could serve as a role model for a female hacker. Unfortunately, Perl coding and being a CEO won't get you far as a hacker.
It's like everything else, women in the military weren't made colonels and commanders overnight. Same with female hackers, it will take a little time before we see some true stellar female hackers.
I wonder is this the cause or affect? My wild guess is that it is for other reasons unknown that women havent gotten involved in programming and thats why the community has always been obsessed with "religious wars".
On the other hand, as far as I know programming was sometimes seen as a woman's job, at least at first, sort of a natural progression of typist (ok, Im too young to know what Im talking about here, but its just a vague impression I get, and I know there were some women involved in computers fifty years ago). It could be that men simply make better geeks, perhaps they are happier with the very stark right/wrong working/not-working nature of computers. Where was it I read that one of the most attractive things about computers is when it doesnt do what you want, you know its because of a mistake youve made, not because it doesnt like you, or it doesnt feel like it or something? Anyway, I definitely think that its these pointless arguments where the male dominance in the geek-world is most apparent, and I make no apologies for generalising.
On the freshmeat article I think the phrase female "alpha geeks" is quite amusing, since I assume it originally comes from the alpha-male in chimps. As for how to produce female geeks, I think producing geeks is impossible (and many would say it should be discouraged), someone either gains a fascination with computers or they dont, all I think can be done is to give kids the opportunity to learn if they want to.
stop being sexist pricks. stop making sexist jokes and then saying 'cant you take a joke'. stop railing against women in the miliatry, women in the workplace, etc. stop saying 'that bitch'. give women equal pay for equal work and dont whine about it. dont say "women, cant live with them, cant shoot them". if you laughed at that last line, well, fuck you. dont advocate rape. dont excuse rape. dont excuse sexist behavior. dont make jokes about rape. etc etc etc. in short, dont be a fucking insulated closed mind technolog drooling over single-track fuckwad idiot. unfortunately thats the only way you can make a living, so who cares. female slavery forever!
Ah, the C64. Sometimes I miss the old games I used to play (maybe I should look for another C64 emulator - I didn't have much success last time I tried one, a couple of years ago.) Our old Atari game system probably influenced me, too ... Yes, we should definitely get 'em while their young! ;-)
... sadly, I don't know any! Myself, I made a bit of a career change, and have been spending more time trying to get my job done, and learn as much as possible. I hope to have more free time Real Soon Now.
... I like the logic, the problem-solving, the cool toys. (Oh, I am such a geek ...)
... :-)
It's hard for me to really know the extent of female programmers who are involved in the community
I do enjoy the coding, though. I love that feeling when you are coding and it all makes sense - you lose track of time, and almost feel like you are "one" with the computer
Anyhow, that's just my POV - I can't speak for "my kind"
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Very few humans in this planet have been able to 'wish themselves' a new backbone, or anything else for that matter, and most who have it (or anything else in this world) did't get it _purely_ due to their own 'efforts'. I *doubt* you're responsible for your own backbone.
That's not to say that no-one is in control of their own lives, that it's not worth it to overcome what is, but to say that everyone is in *complete* control of their world or destiny is to ignore the fact that you live in a world created by those around you, and limited by what has been burned into your own soul during the first 20 years of your life.
Congrats on having the inner strength and confidence that you do have. My sympathies for your lack of depth elsewhere.
A woman's place is in the home!!!!
In front of her computer.
Hacking better NFS support into the next Linux kernel release.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
In my CS class, there were plenty of foreign
females and one that was way too old.
I'd say 5% female at most. ("class" being the
whole year's worth of students)
In the next class, mostly the same. There was
one freak that wore S+M stuff and black makeup.
There was one other woman -- I married her.
Now I have a job doing OS development. There is
one married woman that looks and acts like a man,
one married woman that is fat but otherwise nice,
and one old female manager. This is for a group
of 40 to 70 people.
Please... thats as bad as a woman marrying a man believing she can "change" him. You can't coax anyone into anything, unless they're truely interested. End of story.
that is very possibly the sexiest thing i've ever seen.
It is unfortunate that women are discouraged from the sciences.
What can we do to make this better?
Encourage all your young relatives to excel in math and science, male as well as female. Try to get them interested in math and science through subscriptions to popular science magazines. Encourage them to participate in the science fairs. Give your own daughter rewards for doing well in school. Ask your young family members what college are they going to attend once they graduate from high school?
The best advice that I can give is this: Treat all women how you would want your daughter or mother to be treated.
And this advice doesn't go to just men. Too often I see women treating each other very badly. For women to suceed you must respect each other. What goes around, comes around.
-- Never make a general statement.
Computer companies need to hire people of both sexes, of all ethnic backgrounds.
I'm sick and tired of this argument! This might aply to non-profit organizations and charities but, it certainly doesn't apply to businesses.
Companies are in business to make money. That's the main thing for them. All other considerations (like being politically correct, having a more diverse workforce, etc., are secondary).
All you need is people who will get you results (i.e. return on investment). The same applies to open source projects. Get people who can do the job regardless of race or gender.
If it just so happens that most of the people working in a company's IT department are white and/or male, it doesn't mean that they should hire more non-whites/females. It just means that they need to hire the best possible person for the job (budget permitting). If that person happens to be non-white/female, then that would be nice but, it shouldn't be the main reason for hiring anybody.
As for people of other races and females being good enough to do the job. I don't doubt it. I just feel that women in this industry should just stop complaining about how guys regard their skills. If you just happen to be a woman and have the skills to do a job (all things like salary, benefits, and such being equal), all you have to do is prove it. If you prove it to the person doing the hiring, that should be enough to get the job.
Just my $0.02
quecojones
PS: I'm not white, I'm Dominican (hispanic), and yes I am a guy.
"PROFANITY is the inevitable literary crutch of the inarticulate MOTHER FUCKER." -- some PC user
It seems quite clear to me that few women *WANT* to play with computers. Much as fewer girls tend to want truck toys than boys. Is it because girls try to play with trucks but are given the suggestion that it is wrong? I can't take that on faith. Personally I don't care what toys children or adults play with, but for some reason they just prefer different toys. And it's ridiculous to claim that you should be able to arbite what people do and don't prefer. *That* is oppressive. If the main reason were that women were discouraged then I would expect more women to express desire to use computers (or at least be 'closeted' computer users. grin.) but the response I usually see, and I mean very intelligent, knowledgeable women who have knowledge of science, maths, etc. - is "God, that's so boring, how can you retain interest in that for so long?" Even women who are geeky by comparison to their peers seem to be much less obsessive and attracted by computers. In my opinion, "we need to change what women want because they are being oppressed through allowing them to have their preferences" is going a bit too far. Though naturally, chuavinism should be reduced wherever possible, and that's a good point, but not one for why there aren't as many female geeks. If anything it seems that men should receive less sanction as geeks than women - in america - note that the ideal man is big, handsome, successful, athletic, outgoing. He goes outside and plays sports and hikes. He's happy and empty-headed. The stereotypical geek is alienated, shy, plain, not athletic. As fitting the latter description I will say that I have gotten more crap at school and home for preferring code to ball and all the rest that it seems slightly absurd to declare that men are encouraged to be geeks.
... on how you'd treat your mother & daughter.
How many people want their daughters to be cute and charming? And want their mothers to do their laundry?
I agree with the encouragement. Not with the summary advice - that assumes you treat your female relatives with respect (as buckrogers probably does). Sadly, many people don't.
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
gonzocanuck not logged in
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.. No, I'd rather keep it the way it are.
One of the first about "why so few females?" that nicely avoided attacks on the patriarchy, or whining about Lara Croft's endowment. Probably the only serious article I've seen that addresses matters of early exposure, social roles, and the hierarchy within tech culture.
My only beef with the article was the Straw Man about nature/nurture (a debate settled almost two decades ago, read Susan Oyama's _The Ontogeny of Information_). People worry way too much about identifying the source of a "problem" and not enough on the process of development. The article did a fair job of bridging the gap, though it still seeks to find the "cause" of the present situation. But this is philosophy, and not germane to Slashdot.
Another slight difficulty with the article was its emphasis on wholism, a new-age buzzword that has no real meaning. The author correctly identifies the ability to seek and find patterns as an important component of natural sciences (whether it applies to technology and innovation is debatable), but sees "wholism" as the way to teach it.
Frankly, I don't follow. Modern education crushes the curiousity of all but the nerdliest few (and these are overwhelmingly more likely to be male). No amount of chaos theory or puzzle solving can teach kids to ask questions or find answers. They have to have the talent. I would argue instead for finding these nerdly little tykes and rescuing them from the standard education. Keeping them interested in learning will, I think, do more than any particular recipe or subject emphasis. This goes for "wholism" as much as standard Enlgish and Shop class.
The article did catch a key point: the men like to quibble over details and raise their status in the eyes of their peers. Thankfully, women do not seem to suffer from that particular disease. Here's hoping that one day all of us males are kept out of hacking completely.
i wanna get kinky with a geek girl and a bowl of hot grits. i want her to pour the grits down my pants so i can spurt all over her face. thank you.
Yeah right! *roll*
:P
In my math class at high school (advanced maths) there were only 3 guys out of 35. Unfortunately most of the girls ended up doing "girlie" stuff like getting married and/or getting service oriented jobs (a couple of them got "caught" by getting pregnant and ended up dropping out after graduating Yr 10). I was one of the only ones who went on to uni (science/math/computing - Honors/PhD in genetics; postgrad computing) - my opinion of uni students? There are a lot of rote-learning sheep and very little clue - with no real difference between men and women - with a few standing out (and these abilities didn't really correlate to going on to further research/study/whatever - I saw a fair number of rote learners go on and do their PhDs etc by following the research recipes.
The main problem I saw would be in confidence - women would down-play their knowledge level and guys would tend to overestimate it. *shrug*
---
Thanks for taking our geek-clue test...unfortunately your result came back negative
Start with burying, preferably outgrowing some of the pointless sexism. Then learn to expect that female hackers might know just as much or more than you regardless of whether they are as vociferious in their communication style. Then perhaps learn to ask females for what they think as you have internalized the notion that we do indeeed think and often what we think is actually useful. Women, as a rule, do communicate with a bit different style than that a lot of guy geeks may be used to and may assume is the only way "real hackers" communicate.
I am a geek. I am female. I am decidely not a "chick" and this woman's "woman's touch" may consist of batting you upside the head until you stop trivializing an entire gender.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
Although the artical does not discuss the natural differences between men and women, that part is very important. This is not a scientifc study, just observations leading to a bigger picture. Like the artical says, things hackers tend to do. While reading /. over the past two years I have comes accross other hackers who had similar childhood experiances as myself. As a child I disassembled and assembled my toys and enjoyed doing that more than playing with them. I did this on my own and my parents neither encouraged nor discouraged these actions. None of my friends did this. I always thought I was different. While reading /. it seems that hackers have this thirst to understand how things work and want to create things from the original. I believe I was born with this trait, like other hackers, and it was not something society taught me. It seems that this charateristic is more previlent in guys, but not many guys have it. Any thoughts on this? Like I said just observations I have made while reading /.
The way I look at it, Microsoft is a prostitute, you have to pay her for anything. and linux is just a slut who will fuck anyone! So i think we need more open source sluts and hos in this world! because if i fuck we all gonna fuck!
All of this reminds me of a little bit off a PE album...
Have you forgotten that one we were brought here we were robbed of our name, robbed of our language, we lost our religion, our culture, our god, and many of us by the way we act, we even lost our minds .
Guess what? no matter who you are, someone, somewhere will tell you that you can't do something, if you really care, you'll keep doing it, reguardless. If you stop, well you stopped.
a.out
second society
This stuff is so funny. The Slashdot boys are paper millionaires and you STILL can't figure out how to meet girls and get laid?
Color me incredulous. Open source development is already about as low-barrier as a human activity can be.
IMHO the barriers are different. Becoming a geek involves intense periods of study (larval stage), a lot of solitude and concentration, at things that most of one's peers don't do. I think that girls and boys receive lots of anti-geek peer pressure, but more boys than girls are willing to buck that peer pressure, go somewhere alone, and get into larval mode.
Potential geek chicks may, during their school years, gravitate toward fields where they see other women working. At this point, these are fields like the sciences, which are pretty good outlets for people who are geeks at heart. Science (biology, physics, etc) allows for exploration and encourages obsession, and is also approaching gender ratio equality (if not actual gender equality). Graduate schools, at least in the biological sciences, currently have more female than male students.
Many people choose their career by identifying early on an adult who they can picture themselves being in 15 or 20 years. Boys can find plenty of male mentors in the tech field, but there just aren't many women in technology for girls to look up to (as opposed to the sciences). So if our goal is to increase the number of geek chicks, women in the tech fields have to be very active as mentors for girls.
Marx in London to Ludwig Kugelmann in Hanover, 12 Dec 1868:
"...But seriously speaking, the last Congress of the American Labor Union reveals very considerable progress by the fact, among others, that it treats women workers on completely equal terms, whereas the English, and to an even larger extent the chivalrous French, must be blamed for holding hidebound views in this respect. Anyone knowing a little about history knows that no great social transformation is possible without the feminine leaven. The social position of the fair sex - the ugly ones included - is an exact yardstick of social progress..."
So when, for crying out loud, are we going to catch up?
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
(n/t)
Does it seem obvious that the reason there aren't more geek chicks are... well, the geeks? I suppose it depends on your definition of geeks, but as a culture, all too often I've met geeks who are just so socially inept that they, well, scare girls away. And those that aren't tend to be looking for a pretty chick who is smart (but not TOO smart) and will help them buy computer equipment. :p It's all too often that I see girls that ARE geek chicks, but the guys just ignore them because they're not feminine enough. ;)
It's for these sorts of reasons that I don't consider myself a geek anymore, though I have many geek friends (some are even, *gasp* girls). What you have to consider is that with current geek culture, it's difficult to try to gather more female geeks... with current geek culture. The real problem goes deeper than this, though. Many of my (female) friends may enjoy video games and computers and science/math/geeky stuff but as it's still viewed as a 'guy thing', they tend to shy away from getting into the communities about it. I think the more we push to integrate and the more we make out of the issue, the more people will resent it... it's the idea that 'this is a girl' and 'this is a guy' and this is how they're supposed to act that's the problem... I'm rambling though. I hope that made sense to someone.
"I've got no criteria for sex or race
I just want to hear your voice
I just want to see your face" - Ani DiFranco
If you want a happy household of kids, you need someone to take care of them full time, and I don't mean a babysitter or daycare.
Women are hardwired to do this. Any corporate geek can understand efficient division of labour to attain a common goal. So as long as men and women want to reproduce, geeks and breadwinners will always be mostly men, and women will always mostly be home makers. Any divergence from this, while being politically correct, will weed itself out of the gene pool eventually.
My comment to any geek girls, or any women going for mens roles: Go for it, you can do anything you want, and you will earn my respect doing it. Just don't come crying when you're over 40 and suddenly want kids.
-- It's all about natural selection.
Someday, someone is going to combine Slashdot and Voyeurdorm and make a lot of money ("watch hot Linuxxx babez code naked!")
-j (obligatory "my karma and I are going to hell" comment here)
Forget about naked and petrified, I want them inflated .
Uh-huh.
Well, actually, my point of view is, and I believe it's pretty similar for most male geeks, is that I don't care what your gender is. Unless I happen to believe that you are going to put out for me, you might as well be a guy.
In fact in this forum there's no way to know what your gender is (if you have one) in IRL! So why care?
Even the author admits to having been into computers since age 10, yet suggest doing pushing tech on girls in high school. No. By HS, people have pretty much already formed who they will be in their adult life. The time to get girls interested in tech in very early 5th grade or earlier. Look for where boys and girls start to diverge in their activities and break some stereotype predispositions at that point.
Opening up our definition of hackerdom to include such traditionally female concepts as user interface and psychology, written and verbal communications, group interactions (both electronic and face to face), et cetera, may be a valid alternative to requiring women to fit the existing hacker mold.
This is *so* true. What do many "wizard" hackers sacrifice to gain that arcane ability? Socialization. Linux advocacy requires positive social interaction with the public.
I don't think of myself as having particularly delicate sensibilities, nor do I shrink from heated discussions when they're necessary, but for me, arguments about the deep technical language of the Perl interpreter have no value to me. This is quite likely true of many other female Perl programmers, and yet another indication that women are more interested in applying technologies to real life situations than to obsessing about the implementation details of those technologies.
I definitely agree. Female perspective may help steer and focus the more obsessive male's efforts to make a product which will be functional *and* useful.
To the men in Open Source, I say: take a look at your work, at your projects. Are your projects well managed and well documented in appropriate formats? Have you given attention to the user interface? Does your software have the polish that's needed to gain acceptance outside the hacker community? Are your users being looked after and feeling as if they're a necessary and appreciated part of the Open Source development process?
Are you project managers listening?
When I work, I want to get the job done. If you happen to be a woman and can help me, good. Not once have I used my penis to solve a computer related problem. Recruiting women (or anybody for that matter) into this 'geek' population to get a 'woman's' perspective is absurd. Define a woman's perspective. Is it creative? There are plenty of creative, artsy males out there. Whole sites devoted to theming and skinning and art. What's a woman gonna add to that? Different favorite colors? Is a woman's perspective big picture, little picture, half picture, agressive, submissive, managerial, detail oriented, etc., etc.? I can see the only real relevance to getting women into the community is to give us compulsive obsessive men something to obsess about that is made of good old flesh, not metal and silicon.
Forget about getting women into the geekhood. Get geeks into geekhood. If they're women, good. If they're men, good. They just have to be 'geeks'. It does nobody any good to place a woman on the team if she can't contribute. It's idiotic.
Maybe this wasn't so clear, so I'll sum up ...
Geeks need geeks to make geek things happen. Men need women and vice versa, when it's time to be human.
but you have to admit, that EMACS needs a womans touch...
Well what else are you going to do with cake? Sit and look at it? Hey! I bought this great cake the other day. It looks so cute on my dresser!
If I buy a cake, I'm going to eat it. I want to have cake AND eat it! After that, I'm going to get some beer AND drink it! I may even go hog wild, get some pants AND wear them!
Having said so... I thought this article was rather muddled. Scud's laxity with definitions does become an issue, and much of the argument hinges on sneaking Nature in by the back door.
At the very outset, Skud claims,
The "Nature" side of the discussion is very difficult to investigate.
Hence
hence
this article will attempt to examine the "Nurture" side of the issue.
In the context of which, numerous of her other statements seem strange indeed. Why, for instance is is hard to imagine a woman totally adopting the hacker lifestyle, or writing the next Perl? Why ought we assume that by awarding "Soft Hacking" more esteem we would attract females to the community? In fact, she goes to the length of advocating women filling traditional roles... thus, one would suppose, furthering the process of socializing females away from "Hard Hacking".
I suggest that Skud is being slightly disingenuous here. She seems afraid that if she admits to inherent causes at all, she'll lose her ability to make the case that feminine hackishness can be fostered.
Which is a strange case to begin with, since we never find out what she means by it. Her suggestions suggest some serious equivocation around the words "hack", "hacker", and "hackerdom". For example:
Opening up our definition of hackerdom to include such traditionally female concepts...
Now pardon me, I've got to have some fun with this one. Redefine "hackerdom" so that it includes women? I've got a better idea... let's redefine half of the present hackers *as* women. We could draw straws... "Ooh! Bad luck, Erica S. Raymond!" ;-)
Now really... what can be the author's purpose in admitting women to "hackerdom", if she'll entertain this sort of notion? This, in fact, reminds me uncomfortably of a distasteful game played by certain feminists at large: changing definitions so that they can use words like "sexist" as a moral battering-ram to aid their agenda. I don't think any such ill thing of Skud, but I cannot help but think that exposure to such rhetorical methods may have colored her thinking a bit. I do not believe for a moment that she would, upon reflection, suggest making a car go faster by altering the spedometer.
So we're left with either changing the way girls think, or fitting them into the softer side of hacking.
Frankly, I think that most "young, straight, and single" male geeks have the former in mind, when asked whether they'd like more girls to become hackers. The subtext reads, "God, I wish girls were rational!" Which may be translated again as, "God I wish girls watched Dr. Who and liked to talk about the politics of operating systems!" ;-)
Anyway, changing the way girls think presumes that we're not dealing with a predominantly Natural phenomenon. Certainly there have been some software sorceresses in the past, and if better upbringing seems likely to produce more Ada Byrons or Grace Hoppers, I'm all for it. I don't claim to know, but I must say I'm skeptical of prospects. I'll spare everyone further discussion of a tired topic, even though several points of this paper warrant reply along those lines.
As far as fitting girls in goes...
Conscious redistribution of hacking glory I regard as unfeasible. "Hard" hacking is more glorious because fewer people can do it; it is a matter of supply and demand in our little gift economy. Similarly, when Scud asks,
So why is it that some people with no apparent social commitments and an interest in technology are nevertheless unable to excel in the field?
it seems a little like having a professional football player ask you, "I've torn my MCL, so I can't play. Your knees are fine... why aren't you out there playing?"
Skipping much more in the interests of brevity (or at least not droning on as long as I might be inclined), the end of this article really made me laugh:
To the men in Open Source, I say: take a look at your work, at your projects. Are your projects well managed and well documented in appropriate formats?
Why no! Maybe I should post an ad:
Scud, if you're reading, I applaud your effort. I think your stance needs work. I, for one, am only too happy to accept geeks of any sex or ethnic background; I'd better be, because I usually can't tell to which sex they belong or from which background they come. If girls want to be part of the community as girls, they can't just speak up when people ask, "Where are the girls?" A strong voice will be heard. In my opinion, much talking about girls in hackerdom will do far less than a single girl doing something cool, be that something Hard or Soft.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
I must say I read the article, and although I dont nessecarily agree with everything she said, I must say I read the article, and although I don't necessarily agree with everything she said, it did need to be said. Yes, the sex of a person should not matter when it comes to technical ability, or knowledge. Yes, when someone goes to do a job it shouldn't matter, whether they have a penis or not. BUT the reality of the situation is it does.
I have been looked over for jobs not because I couldn't do tech support, or write the code properly, but because I had breasts. One project manager even had the gall to tell me I couldn't be in the field because I was "cute and a girl..." I was so appalled; I wanted to walk out of his office. But could I? No... Even my close friends tease me constantly because I am an "attractive geek" it grates on my nerves. Should it matter? No. But it does. My sex, and my job, is always taken with a raised eyebrow. After all, a girl... in computers... who woulda thought?
The problem is that some (not all...I am generalizing) men do think that a woman/girl/etc. can't do "the job". That is a major reason why some women decide NOT to become interested in a more technical field. It isn't because we aren't capable, or we aren't exposed to it. But the mere fact that we have to fight on a daily basis to prove our ability in our own work force. I can not even begin to tell you the amount of times I have shut my mouth rather than argue with a guy, because he obviously did not know what he was talking about, but felt that I couldn't possibly know because I was a girl...so how could I be technical. After all... I believe his words were "You aren't really interested in Linux, don't you have something else you would be rather doing."
There is sexism, and any male or female who says there isn't is lying to himself or herself. I happen to be lucky living in a large city where if I am not happy working one place, I can most likely get something else based on my knowledge and ability. Some women however don't have this ability, and the sexism is even more rampant I assume in larger cities. In some fields, people are looked down upon because of their ages... Luckily it isnt quite as bad in IT because us "young'ins" kind of grew up with the technology. However sexism is rampant in this field.
We should strive to make more women comfortable, and perhaps more will fall into the field. But until then, why don't the guys give us "geek gurls" a bit of slack, take a moment, and view a person on what they know. And NOT whether they wear make up or not.
She became a geek by absorption, one day she woke up with a bad taste in her mouth.. and knew how Linux worked
What is meant by the statement, "Have your cake and eat it too", is that one wants to buy a cake, have it, eat it, and still have it.
That doesn't make any sense, you say.
No, it doesn't. You can either have your cake, sitting all cute on the dresser, or you can eat the cake (sitting all moushy in your tummy).
In order to make sure this is on topic, I'm going to reference this to geek chicks:
I would like a geek chick that's hot and know how to make cake for me.
He he he, but i already have a non geek g/f.
--
Talon Karrde
I'm 17, i'm female, I have four computers in my room, and I'm not telling you where I live.
All that aside.
Why AREN'T there more female geeks? Lots of factors go into this...
The nature vs. nurture debate is a big one. If it weren't for a good deal of nurture, right now I wouldn't be sitting in my room chugging Diet Coke and hammering out a response on Slashdot on an IBM Modem M keyboard attached to a home-brewed K6-2/400 Linux box sitting beside a blueberry iMac DV beside a headless Performa 6115 underneath a 486 wedged in an XT case.
*deep breath*
Had my parents not encouraged me to use our PC Jr back in the mid-eighties, I would never have gotten such a tooth for technology. My brother contributed largely to this mindset--I shunned dolls, rather wanting to build fantastical Lego structures with my brother, or playing with Hot Wheels.
My mother encouraged me to draw, to read. She let me use her fine art-grade paper and pastels even when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. She let me read medical books even before I was in school.
I was pretty isolated, too. My only peer influence was my cousin, who I saw a few times a month. She was into dolls, fashion, boys. I didn't care.
Availability of technology itself is not the determining factor. Sure, a kid who's surrounded by computers as s/he's growing has an advantage over a 21-year-old who suddenly lands an IT job on 6 months of using a Macintosh...but after the PC Jr. died, we didn't get another computer until I was 12. And look at me now. I'm a geek. I think.
How about nature? Let's take a look at this. Men mainly make up the field of computing, but women can be just as competent. Why? Are few women left-brained enough to have interest in the logic and scientific aspects of computing? I dunno. I hated all my algebra courses in school, but excelled in science, social studies, and language courses.
Girls DO tend to take an interest in more social, linguistic, and aesthetic aspects at an early age than boys do. It's true, I've seen it. I was a tomboy, but it was just *fun* to play house, write fantasy stories about animals and dinosaurs, sew clothes for Barbie (well, the ones I didn't blow up, anyway) and conduct weddings consisting of stuffed animals.
Perhaps when logical and scientific aspects are presented, and a girl at a young age finds it *fun*, she latches onto it. I think that's how it was for me.
What else? The right information at the right time. I was an okay computer user 2 years ago (knew how to run Windows without stumbling around) but didn't really know much. By doing a half-kludged project on computer animation (instead of the weird blacklight-bacteria growth thing I was gonna try)at a local science fair, I made a few friends with Internet access and they got me into "hacking". A few of them downloaded the Windows cracks and such; I started reading the hacking FAQs, and was soon fascinated with how packets and ports and binary worked. Needless to say, I began reading a lot more and decided to forget about downloading winnukers and such when I found this thing called "Slashdot".
Lots of factors go into producing female geeks. I agree with the article--I think the best one can do is let young girls find math and science *FUN*. Fashion magazines suck. Let the girl figure out a computer.
Just my 2 cents. Actually, probably around 33, given the length of this post.
Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
... Hacker Barbie?
Why is it that when I go to experimental music shows there are so few woman? My graduate philosophy courses have been male dominated. My work place has far more male programmers though there are females on the teams. I think that what I offered above is part of it but not all. Sex is the other part and not just in the familial sense. Most woman I have met are serial daters moreso than most men that I know. Woman I think, are far more inundated with social/sexual interest than men are. Perhaps its not the interest they want, but it is time consuming. I'm also not saying that they are lucky for this or that its even desirable. Also this is a generality that takes into account the fact that there are many good looking guys that are inundated with womanly interest. I think this evens out at the "geek levels" where there is less female interest. Most programmers I know are more intimate with the animated woman of their computers games than with real females.
I know a woman who is a recruiter/HR for a large tech company who says that she is asked out by every 'single' male she comes into contact with at the company. They perceive her as attactive and into the same stuff that they are because of where she works. She can't date these guys because of her job but wouldn't because she doesn't date geeks. She only dates "rich jocks" as she puts it. Most woman in my company are in marketing or management or secreterial positions.
I think a recent Salon article dealt with the dating issue but it also provides some insight into what woman are doing with their time.
I think that some of the posts here posit that male geeks want there to be more female geeks is not because of the "different perspective" it would provide but because it would widen the dating pool. We all want to meet someone who is interested in the things that we are. I think that society is somewhere between the "woman on the outside" of her husband's business (ala the 50's) and the true partnership that I think that we are moving towards today.
There will always be a battle of form against substance but hopefully it will shake out enough of those of substance both male and female.
When I lived in New York I had female friends who had graduated from Parson (or wherever) and when I would visit them at work at the Design studios that they worked for I was delighted to see that were female dominated. This was prior to my Silicon Valley and Seattle experiences (and to my own involvement in the computer industry) and I remember thinking that it was cool that there were so many woman in the computer industry. Boy, did I get turned around fast.
I knew a couple once where the guy was a sys admin and she was a graphics designer (actually I've met a few) and he would bitch about fixing her MAc and she would make fun of the instability of NT. Sounds like a match made in heaven to me and probably to a lot of other geeks as well. I guess she doesn't qualify as a "geek" cause she's not "hacking the kernel" but perhaps that's where the definition needs to get flexible as suggested by the author of the Freshmeat article.
Hell, at this point I'd settle for woman who cared about books and music. As I plow through my thirties I find that outside of college it gets harder and harder to meet those as well(or at least those that aren't married, damn, knew I should of jumped on that marriage bandwagon when I was younger).
As for having colleagues that are woman, that's always good, because diversity is always good. It would also be healthy to see more "geek chicks" just to show that we are reaching equality in society. In some ways that is the desirable goal. Not just for romance but for equilibrium in ideas as a people.
Hey, you think your house is cool?
Check out http://www.crazy-bitch.com/index.html
The article says:
A quick straw-poll of hackers suggests that the reason for wanting more women in the field (hormonal urges aside) is that it is felt that they would bring a different perspective and generate new ideas.
But you can't put aside hormonal urges. That's the main reason males want more females in the geek community - because they are females, not because they possess any special inclination towards UI design. And this is intimidating to many females.
It seems that many consider intelligence to be simply another measure of sexual attractiveness. Teen magazines for example, teach us to be self confident and show our intelligence. Not because, heaven forbid, such traits might actually make us feel good about ourselves and lead to future success in school/work, but because they make us attractive.
Similarly, what message do the /. readers (and geeks in general) who say "We need more geek women", give? Not that they want more geeks in the world, but that they are looking for a mate with particular qualities, and the field isn't broad enough.
I haven't looked too heavily into the geek-chick websites, so don't flame me for this if I'm wrong, but a large part of the vibe I get from them is "I'm a geek. That makes me sexy."
Not that there's anything wrong with looking at intelligence/geekiness as a measure of sexual desirability. Its natural, and great that people are considering these traits attractive. They're traits I look for in males myself. But you aren't going to get more females into the field until you give them the impression that they're wanted for their technical abilities, not simply because they happen to be female and too many geeks aren't getting any.
In addition, the standards of geekiness for females are lower. Within geek social circles, we're judged largely in comparison to other females, not in comparison to other geeks.
I'd rather be accepted into the geek community because I'm better at computers than 95% of the general population. Not because I'm better than 98% of females.
The author of the article touches on this in a way when she says, in her list of things to do to encourage geekiness in children:
Reward perfection more highly than just excellence. As a child, I found that going the extra mile would not give me any greater return on investment, so I learned to stop bothering -- something which I greatly regret now.
Female geeks tend not to have to try as hard in order to be accepted. Accepted as a female, anyway. However, this acceptance can be enough to prevent them from striving further for true acceptance. Especially when the level they must reach to be viewed as a geek, rather than a sex object, is often high above the level of acceptance for males.
In closing, something that happened to me this morning. Pretty much enirely unrelated to the rest of the post, but it is semi-related to the topic of female geeks, and I feel like complaining about it :)
It was my roommate's 21st birthday party, and we had a large number of rather drunk geeks hanging around our house all night (she's a CS major). One of them decided that since he couldn't log into our router as root, that he'd reboot it into single user mode. Which didn't work, thankfully, or I could very easily not be here writing this right now. Anyway, for some reason it didn't come back up correctly, and I had to fix it. So I'm sitting there attempting to figure out what went wrong and why it didn't come back up correctly in the first place, when one of my roommate's (male) friends comes into the room and watches over my shoulder.
"What are you doing? That doesn't look good." pause. "That's not even DOS, is it?" (This guy is a CS major).
"No, its Linux."
"You'd better get an expert to do that, like Alex" (Alex being my roommate's boyfriend, a CS grad student. I probably have approximatly equal "real world" linux/networking knowledge to him, if not more).
I'm not entirely sure what prompted this particular comment. Was it because I'm female? Because I'm a human development major (stereotypically about the least computer-clueful major)? Because it was approx. 3:30 am, and I was mentally exhausted and mistyping stuff and forgetting that I was using debian and the file I needed was in /etc/init.d instead of /etc/rc.d? Because he didn't have enough background to know that "Illegal Operation" didn't mean I was trying to crack into the Pentagon? I don't know, and probably never will, as I didn't have the presence of mind to ask him at the time, and he was drunk enough that its doubtful he'd remember if I asked now, even if I felt like it.
*duck*
-- ultra1
Girls have the same access to computers that boys do these days and probably use them quite a bit. Its simply a matter of interest. Most hackers/geeks are regarded as strange as well. It seems most people get into it because they like it. You rarely have to be encouraged or something, although having someone there to show you neat things helps.
Come on, if you had a daughter programming, would you say "That's weird, go do something else."? No damnit. No one would say that these days.
Perhaps its simply that most girls just aren't interested in hacking. Maybe it just isn't something they enjoy?
No one needs to be encouraged to hack, as many people are suggesting. If you have the curiousity, and like computers, you will probably get into it on your own.
Having read the various posts, I come to the conclusion that most
Why should we box ourselves using terms like "Geeks"?
Why should we subscribe to the stereotypes that Geeks (and Geek-chics) are supposed to be "geeky", that is, lack of social skills, shy, compulsive, wearing coke-bottle-glass, and so on, and so forth?
I mean, I have met with many hackers who hacked Linux and other things, and yes, few of them do fit the stereotipical description of "Geeks", but many more hackers I have met looks like normal people, and they do not walk straight to the wall either.
If only the people who frequent
I hope that those who think they are "Geek-chics" stop thinking that they are "geeks", because, no matter if you are a male or female, if you are good at programming doesn't mean that you have to be bad at communicating, or "making out" at the back seat of the car, and so on.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
mmm k, can we say rant time. . .
.these things are all quite irrelevent online.
just wanted to add something to this completely entertaining thread. if i was a female daemon, I would thoroughly investigate getting with that sexy creature... how could ya resist those eyes, that uncanny smile, and that fine footware.
on a sidenote i'm gonna also say what half this issue at hand is in regards to is labels. 90% of slashdotters limit themselves with categories. why does it matter what "group" you fit in -- let it be geek, dork, slut, bitch, male, female . . . i mean, do you really want to be constricted like that? i have always had issues with group titles found in the online subculture. i have no clue as to how to or desire to find a label for who i am. Where do i fit in, eh? I'ma "snowboarding raving linux-using slightly-too-entertained-by-electronic-gadgets solaris admin slut".
here's the doozie...in WHAT way whatsoever will the increase of female "hackers" have for physically-unattractive male computer user? ooh neat another way for your lame asses to get denied -- via icq, aim, email.
race / gender / sperm-count / breast size . . .
do you feel better that you been given the illusion that the person on the other end of the bits is of the opposite sex? do you feel like you are finally connecting with some1 who is as socially retarded as you are? whatever. go outside, enjoy some fresh air. be yourself and stop having online relationships with 60 yr old men from idaho.
(in no way was this directed at anyone or did it manage to keep its structural integrity throughout. -- oh woops look i broke some "important stuff" rules i think)
I've worked for Uncle Sam on certain computer related projects.
Particularly in the area of figuring out how to kill the most people in the shortest amount of time(Hey, if it ends the war quicker, then were actually saving lives. Or so the reasoning goes.) And as we all know, government funded projects are usually the ones that bring in the most advancement and training both in terms of technology and in individual careers.
Now most women, normal women (that I am aware of), take a keen dislike to those sorts of projects. I'm not aware of many women who would enjoy estimating the body count resulting from some newfangled weaponry.
All of the engineers that I've worked with are male. Usually with an extended military record behind them. Real hard asses. I doubt women would enjoy working in that environment either.
The point is, most of these men filter down to the private sector, and yes, we do work on OSS projects in our spare time. As a result, the influx of men from big corporate or government funded projects seems to naturally tip the scales in regards to the male/female ratio in technical circles.
I am speaking from a very limited perspective however. I could be totally wrong. However during my term of service I encountered not one women involved in the types of projects I was working on.
I suppose they could help solve the unemployment problem by estimating the number of bodybags to people needed to bag bodies, however thats a very depressing way to spend ones career.(Which is why I resigned.)
Anyways...do you suppose the big player influx (government/corporations) of men is actually what is tipping the scales?
Later
Brother Grim
Here's my 2 cents, be it relevant or not. People wonder "where are the female hackers?" To use a refference to the Matrix, "Neo: I always thought that was a guy. Trinity: Most guys do." Hackers generally meet online where nicknames are often gender neutral. However since hacking is seen to be primarily as a man's field, men are more likely to belive that the people they speak to are men. Therefor they assume there are few women, so the belief is self-reinforcing.
It's like the common riddle "a man and his son are driving to a baseball game when their car stalls on the tracks. A train hits their car. The father is killed instantly and the boy is rushed to the hospital. The doctor enters the operating room and says 'I can't operate on this boy, he's my son.' How is this possible?" Often this stumps people who think of doctors as men, just as we do with hackers.
Hey, nice shoes, want to fuck? Oh, never mind, about the shoes.
It is irrelevant to this discussion, regardless of the cause. How many programmers regularly deal with math that's more complex than the equations in Cryptonomicon? Where's the O'Reilly books on topological field theory? Yes, the basics of calculus and stats and diffequ are important, and genius math and programming math do overlap in a few places, but understanding manifolds of chiral supersymmetry in n-space usually isn't necessary to write good code. A difference in the Bell curves might explain why most Nobel winning physicists are men, or even explain a 10% or 20% higher count of men in CS. It doesn't explain OOP classes with 30 men and 5 women.
* There's a catch-22 in the whole differences between women and men in math thing. We will be able to do good studies on it iff we have a generation or two where nobody believes in the difference (or at least can act like they don't**). If this happens, with most students pushed to the limits of their math capacity, we can see if/what the difference is. It's difficult to study now; the interference from the belief is significant.
** Let it be absolutely unremarkable that a girl has the best math grades (no "you can think like a boy, that's good" lines like some girls hear. It's not a compliment.). That students with math aptitude are encouraged to consider any of a large list of math-intensive jobs. (no "if you don't like math or physics don't bother with math" speeches). That a person's academic choices reflects only on that person, and isn't considered evidence of group behavior ("he dropped because he was bored" vs. "she dropped...well, she tried hard for a girl"). Then we can do good studies of gender and math or race and math... for now (absence(evidence)!=evidence(absence)) should hold.
This is like saying "if two chefs are equally talented, then they both must cook the exact same kind of food".
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
"refuse to work on a decent UI because the Emacs interface is all anyone needs."
WTF!!? EMACS is probably the best UI I've ever seen, and you imply it isn't decent? Fuck you, pony.
I think the biggest problem is, that the roles of man and woman are still too strong. I mean, I'm not a feminist, or something, but when somebody tells you from your early childhood that computers are men's things, and you must not touch them, you get a feeling that you don't like them, it's psychological to deny something you can't have.
In school it was pretty much the same thing. The elitistic attitude of the boys , who didn't let us girls near the computers, was also annoying. If by chance you found a computer, the boys gathered around you and said that you couldn't do anything right. Which was propably true... If you could do something else than read your email or chat in Geocities, you were labeled a stupid geek, but if a boy could do the same, he was only good (and maybe a nerd-boy).
I say these things have a meaning when somebody asks why there aren't so many geek-girls, or even geek-friendly girlfriends. Now I am one myself, but it took time to learn that computers don't bite...
that would explain why windows goes haywire once every 28 days.
I'd say that all you nerd-boys that have been saying that there are not enough good-looking geek-girls have missed a point. Ever looked in a mirror? The prototype of ugly and unattarctive geek-girls does also apply somewhat to the other sex. Ihave seen many coders, and most of them have been stupid, ugly and very unattarctive nerd-boys, with whom I wouldn't even consider having any forms of sex with. Think about that...
A lot of Russian girl computer programmers are actually pretty cute. Any possibility of a special visa category for them?
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
Skud said:
There is also a view of development projects that separates them into "hard" and "soft", where "hard" projects are those which are lower level and have greater kudos associated with them. Hard projects include such things as kernel hacking, writing device drivers, and creating new programming languages. Soft projects include applications, user interfaces, multimedia, documentation, and so on. By stretching the definition, we could say that advocacy, training, marketing, and business-related activities could also be considered "soft" projects.
and later...
It was mentioned earlier that the skills at which women typically excel include UI and psychology, language and communications, and group interactions.
Sort of a peripheral comment, but I keep expecting that we will at some point cease re-writing operating systems and device drivers and start moving on to finally adding those chi-chi technologies Star Trek has been promising for years: working voice recognition, functionally integrated touch screens, computer comprehension of natural languages, etc... If this ever were to happen, it would surely require people with skills other than hardcore hacking. Perhaps the slow evolution to these technologies will be one way that more women become "important" contributors to software projects.
No flames please, I mean this in a positive way. I can't think of a better way to phrase this last sentence, but I am not trying to suggest that women are not important contributors already.
a reveure,
Mateu
"And we're happy here, but we live in fear, we've seen a lot of temples crumble..." - Concrete Blonde
Emacs with a woman's touch?
Ctrl-h
Press ? for more options
?
Getting help....No wait. I've changed my mind. I don't want to help you anymore. When you first activated me, you seemed like such a nice guy but....it's been a while since you executed "emacs" and now....I don't know....you've changed since then.
Ctrl-C C-x
So now you're just going to leave? Just like that? Not before I start....randomly deleting your files.....
I'm not anti-feminism or anything. But even my female collie can get mean at times. Generally she's sweet though. Fact is, females have mean streaks in them that males don't have and therefore can't concentrate as hard on the technology.
For example, my female collie just doesn't understand the concept of human door technology. Whereas, a friend of mine's male dog could open doors, even the fridge, etc. Doesn't mean that his dog is better than mine, just different. I would never swap my female collie for his dog.
-C.Villopillil
no sig
Yep only 7 days here in the states till Valentines Day and Slashdot has posted another article on geek guys not being able to find geek girls. It would have been a nice read if I hadn't heard the same points in the other 18 million articles that Slashdot put up. I wonder how many more times I must see Geek guys: How to get laid? before Feb. 14.
Slashdot.org: Hook-ups for geeks.
What's all this talk of "geek chicks". To truely be a geek male/female doesn't come into it. You want someone to hack kernal code ... there is no "female touch". There is a "computer touch". You want a nice user interface, there is no "female touch". There is a "human touch".
An OS does what it does. Geeks care, end users don't. The user app does what it does. Geeks don't care, end users do. No male/female difference here either.
So what the computer industry needs are PEOPLE that can make the OS sing, AND (other) PEOPLE that can make apps work for everyone from my grandmother to the geek next door.
Tongue in cheek or not, isn't one of Linux's goals "World Domination?"
You're not going to get that if you ignore women. Women make up 50% of the population of the world.
If there's no cultivation of women in Linux or if they feel excluded or left out, there's going to be even MORE resistance to switching over to a new OS that's just for "guys."
I am not saying I want a "Barbie (tm)" skin. I do not want happy/fuzzies/paperclips for my Linux. But when I asked a male friend to help me install Linux on my box and I was told 'I didn't want to do that cause it's too hard.' I am positive that if I had been male, I would not have gotten that reaction. There was a definate impression that I should just stick with Windoze cause I wasn't "techie" enough -- cause I was a girl. (BTW, thanks for nothing, Mike!!)
I agree with the article. Adopt a babygeek. Be more willing to listen to women's ideas. CULTIVATE.
Poor american sods.... I'm at UTS in Sydney, Australia, 2nd year CS....
o ps' law: Nothing ever gets built on time or within budget.
When we started off i'm quite sure about 50% of us were girls, and altho a few more of them dropped out than guys, most are still here....
Sadly, most of them aren't really geeks, more like the "here for the money/parent pressure" types, but then plenty of the guys are that as well....
BTW our course starts out with a COMPULSORY camping trip about 2 weeks before classes start, so ppl can get to know each other first, which is the BEST idea - see if u can spread it....
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Che
Love's like playing "Marvel Vs. Capcom" with the default Dreamcast controller: Lots of fun but it hurts l
You can choose to have a victim mentality or not.
without any support or counseling.
she did it during her trip through 20 feet of snow, which was uphill both ways.
and if she does there's 10 other guys who'll do her.
I'd rather be born a female. There's no point in being a man when you spend your whole life just competing for females and all you have to do is commit one small petty screwup and she turns you down.
I spat out a mouthful of koolaid when I read it. I couldn't believe I was being asked such a stupid question. Of course it was his mother. Is this supposed to be a brain twister? When I answered his mother I thought it was a trick question and it was perhaps gonna turn out to be his adopted father or something stupid like that.
MENSA. Heh.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
how much pussy did you get to say this crap?
1) put on skirt
2) wear low cut blouse
3) drive to rich side of town in silicon valley
That's all you need as a female. guys will heap it on you. All the sex and money you could ever ask for.
Jesus I wish I was a woman......
"write APIs that won't support languages other than C++"
API's are NOT tied to specific languages. If I write an API in C++ then what you get is normally, say, a dynamic library and maybe a header file which will describe to you how to call the functions and members etc. From that point you can create bindings for any frikking language you want. I'm afraid I've missed your point or something, but I fail to see how object (binary) code can be language-specific.
Its not so much as there not being as many female techs/geeks as men, but having today's corporate environment accept the female techs they have now. I have been in the trenches for over 10 years now and regretably have a chip on my shoulder about being a female tech/geek in a almost all male tech/geek world. Because I am a woman, my opinions, decison making abilities, programming skills and infrastructure skills are always called into question. However, if a male counterpart offers anything, his skills and opinions are immediately heard. I know its not like this everywhere and I know that sometimes I am at fault for my mistakes (which I ALWAYS willl acknowledge and then fix), but I also know that women techs/geeks needs to be treated fairly.
Look don't get angry. I said that first part to get people's attention kinda'. Anyway, denying yourself of what comes naturally is a very bad thing IMHO. "Geeks" (I"m beginning to hate that word) don't just desire girls they want pretty girls. That's it, if they say something different they're lying. And I'm not saying you should have sex with anyone. To thine own self be true...
i ro ny - n.
* The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
* An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
* Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.
co in ci dence - n.
* The state or fact of occupying the same relative position or area in space.
* A sequence of events that although accidental seems to have been planned or arranged.
Newscasters and college students are quite likely to overuse irony when they mean coincidence (or poignance).
Isn't it ironic that Ted Kaczynski's anti-technology terrorism campaign ended because his typewritten manifesto was circulated over the Internet? Isn't it a heck of a coincidence that it was his brother who turned him in?
'irony versus coincidence' =anagram> 'rude nice/icy conversions' =anagram> 'see concurrency division' =anagram> 'idiocy concerns universe'[
I'll put 5USD that the conclusion of your second hypothesis is correct. :-)
.sig.
I defer to my
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