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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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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.
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
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
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.
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?"
I'd like to know of any ladeez that read Slashgrits.
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.
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
I agree.. there isn't anything wrong with a woman whose domain is the home. I have a lot of respect for women who do that sort of thing... and there are men who do it too.
I think the original point was, however, that women in general should stop going to work and just stay home, spending her "man's" money and raising children.
-nicole
"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.
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! :)
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!
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.
rule #1 of female hackers: if you actually stick around that long, you are good. not neccesary ubergeeken, but good.
:)
of course there are always a few exceptions, perhaps even including myself, but most of the women engineers I've known have been more than competent, becasue if they weren't, they would have gotten fed up years ago. (the best defense against sexist bastards is being good -- they have less to complain about)
Lea
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(
Well, they could start by getting out more often.
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 ?
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
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
/* 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. */
"The white man wastes the malloc(). He takes it for his own but does not release it for future generations to use. We of $TRIBE use every part of the stack, and free() it for the future of our children."
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
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?
>> 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.
:)
:) But I can see how a lot of girls with love for computer science could be discouraged from becoming a techie because their talents are not being recognized by their high school teachers or by their peers. At that age, this matters a lot. So don't be afraid to say "nice hack!" or "wow, you should do this for living" to a girl... it might be just what she needs to make a decision about her future. (I shudder to think that I might have wound up as a psych major.. i would have *hated* it!)
;)
That's not necessarily true.
Until age 12, I lived in a country where nobody I knew had a computer, so I was not exposed to computers as a "thing to do" until high school. Until then, I was not sure about what to do with my life.. I really liked math, but I had no idea how to make a career out of that, so I thought, maybe psychology or something? That's the kind of thing that my girlfriends were talking about doing.
Then, in Grade 10, I randomly decided to take an introductory computer course instead of Spanish. It was ho-hum until we got to the programming component of the course. The whole concept was new to me, but I instantly fell in love.
In the meanwhile, I also met some (male) friends who introduced me to the world of IRC, the Internet and programming. By the time I was in grade 12, I was the only girl in a programming class. I was never discouraged from taking programming because I was a girl, but I felt like an oddity. The guys were rather cliquish, and would show off their "skillz" in front of each other.. but neither they, nor the teacher, ever really acknowledged me as one of them because I didn't like playing Doom, or participate in their discussions about sports and the joys of flatulation. It didn't matter that I blew all of them away at programming and was as much of a techie geek as the rest of them!
I'm not easily discouraged, or I wouldn't be in the midst of getting a degree in math and computer science at a prestigious Canadian university.
... and btw, a girl won't think you any less of a man if you admit that she is possibly better at computers than you are...
"The reason that every major university maintains a department of mathematics is that it is cheaper to do this than
but you have to admit, that EMACS needs a womans touch...
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!.
And besides, with a site like that you would probably need/could afford T3 :) Based on an estimate I read that the average site "of that ilk" can bring in over $100k/mo
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
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 !
("watch hot Linuxxx babez code naked!")
Or failing that, watch hot Poser-generated babez overclock naked.
Oh, the rampaging hormones...
You don't have to be encouraged. You just have not to be discouraged, which many girls in fact are.- will-change-that"-attitude. Come on. Most differences stems from nurture!
No, I wouldn't say that. But I'm a hacker (at least I regard myself as one, but that doesn't make me one, but for the purposae of this argument, there is no difference).
That argument is the old "girls-likes-this-and-boys-likes-that-and-nothing
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
in many places, I've found what you say to be true. unfortunately, there are also a good number of places where that is not at all true. as I said in another post, I don't tend to see the hackers doing this -- but flip side of this statement is that many people who are doing this have quite a bit of power over you.
oh, and about the school thing -- I had the same experience. (this happened in Massachusetts, never seen anything this bad in California, where I live now) My teacher was EXACTLY the same way, and this was accepted, because "girls weren't as good at science" which is why they never got any A's. I did pull off an A by beating him over the head with it all semester ("um. Jeff and I have the EXACT same answer. why did I get no credit while he got full credit?") but the real debacle came when big science project came around. let it suffice it to say that I worked several hundred hours on mine, it was well documented, and actually uncovered something that the department of public works wasn't so happy about but did acnowledge (them big guys that work there are scary!). I got a B-. the girl sitting 2 seats away got an A on the project (stil a C in the class) for washing cloths with jelly stains in detergent the night before. I was, to put it midly, annoyed. I asked him about the grade. he said, and this is an exact quote --
"you made your results up"
hmm. that would explain the electronic balance I borrowed, as well as all the glassware, the litmus paper, the sample bottles, etc (yes, I brought the stuff back). and of course I just MADE UP all that documentation over a course of months. of course! it all makes sense now!
still makes me mad.
in any case, my point was that it does exist, and that in certain situations, you will probably be dinged for being female -- the only way to avoid this is being very good. thus, many of the not-so-good geek girls will not be around later. I've seen it happen.
Lea
I go to a public university. my upper division classes are 200 people... (lower div? think about 2-3x that) there are about 2000 people in the EECS department.
:P
:)
can you imagine a 2000 person camping trip with EECS majors? and this doesn't even include the CS majors (~200) and the minors (too many to count)
the EECS honor society does it, but that's about the limit of people to take. logistics starts interferring in a BIG way after that.
I'm still stunned you have that many female CS majors. in the US, female CS admissions are actually DROPPING, according to a few studies I read. oh well... I'm used to hanging around guys anyways
although training those money/parent pressure types is (I suppose) good since they can be code gimps, but is a real pity in a way, since they're probably not going to get what they think they are -- most of that's reserved for those who love it!
lea
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'[