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Girls Like Linux Too
BootHead sent us the article at ZD-Net that appears most designed to draw a link from Slashdot in quite some time. Its about Women and Linux. Course they call them "LinuxChix" (cough) but its just sorta the standard tirade on "Girls can be Geeks Too" (which no geek argues with in theory, we just never be able to find girl geeks of our own ;)Update: 09/16 09:29 by H :Check out the additional linkage about the debate of whether "Women need an OS of their own."
As far as I can tell, there are as many women in IT as really want to be in IT. I wish it were otherwise, but the aspiring techie women that I have worked with have typically lacked the "fire in the belly" that drives guy techies to be really successful in the business.
I don't think this is because women are stupid, or that IT is intrinsically hard. Women are just socialized with different values and priorities, and geeking out is not usually one of them.
That said, women who bitch and moan about the glass ceiling bug me. In my experience my advancement has been pretty much based on how hard I worked and how smart I am. If you are good enough, your gender becomes irrelevant. Sure, every now and then a poorly socialized male makes a stupid comment, but that's what a sense of humor is for!
I think that there are many geek women -- their area of geeky interest is just usually not computers and they are usually a bit more practical than we are. For example, This article from Alan Cox's wife was published in LJ a few years back.
Just thought you guys would find it interesting.
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This is essentially true. There was a very good BBC Open University programme on the history of computing which seems to be repeated annually which outlined this phenomenon. In the early days of computing when "coding" was very much a menial task, viewed in much the same way as data entry is seen today - often consisting merely of converting machine language into holes in a punch card (for example) - there were a lot of women filling this role. With the advent of assemblers, compilers and larger secondary storage, the need for these coders dwindled, IIRC, and "coding" became more and more the province of engineers and scientists. The original coders were eventually pushed out of the picture, it would seem.
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She's three, and right now her favorite computer activities are painting with Gimp or Paint (she prefers adding strokes to Teletubby images), searching the web for cat pictures, or posing for my parallel port camera.
The other day I captivated her by playing a wav of her crying at 2 months, she couldn't get enough of it.
Once she can read, I think I'll teach her to rebuild the kernel.
George
My girlfriend signed up to Linux chix a while ago, and signed off shortly after because most of the talk was about linux-unrelated matters.
She show me a few choice messages, and I sniggered mightily.
Of course, I haven't signed up to a mailing list yet that didn't have some non-zero signal-to-noise ratio, but I do like some of the messages to be relevant.
Another point: are nerd grrls really as marginalised as once they were? Most of the developed world is suffering from a shortage of qualified IT staff, and even the most entrenched chauvinist has to consider the unthinkable; females or even -- gasp! -- saggitarians.
....about how few women there are in I.T., but with the word "Linux" thrown in to make it sound trendy and up-to-date.
There's a simple reason why there are few women in I.T. A lot of the "alpha geeks" of today (to rip that awful phrase from the article) tend to be in their late twenties and thirties - which means they were first using computers, on average, back in the late Seventies or early Eighties when home computers started coming into the mainstream - and at a time when education was still so backward that even those schools which had any kind of I.T. curriculum certainly wouldn't dream of having girls on their course.
Geeks have to be caught at an early age. You want more women in I.T.? Get your four-year-old niece/daughter interested in how to code, and sit back and wait twenty years.
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On the other hand, and I'll use my wife as an example, they did care intimately about how the software worked. My wife is a software engineer at heart. She cares that the software is PERFECT. She will rake you over the coals for the littlest error, which is good. Other girls in the group followed a similar line, being programmers at heart. I know the program was wierd, because the math dept, which was linked to the CS dept, was also half women. One of my professors commented that that attittude of "women can't be geeks" had not gotten to that section of the world yet. Lets hope it stays out.
I think, though, that this illustrates an important point, that women geeks may not look like the traditional geek, but still are technically oriented. Work with it. Having that different view point will only help you. Girls out there reading this, do not be afraid of geek guys. They respect knowledge most of all, and will probably get all horny at the thought of a woman who can code them under the table ;)
BTW, my wife uses linux. Just last night we dicussed her doing her senior project on open source software and software engineering. She RABIDLY hates Microsoft. I mean RABIDLY. SHe was saying to me that when she gets her new computer (she has picked it out, yea she picked it because it was cute, but it comes with linux, from buypogo.com) she was going to put BeOS and OS/2 warp on it, and Linux. Oh yea, and she can Calculus me under the table any day.
If you are interested in the school, check my email address.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Look everyone, if you are a geek, then don't look for a geekette. That's a no-no. Oh sure, you'd have plenty of things to talk about first, but then... Two friends of mine are living together and they are both (good) sysops. When I discuss with them on monday, it's like:
/usr/src/linux/foo/bar.c? Let me explain, blah blah blah blah blah blah... :)
:)
- [Me] So what have you been doing this week-end?
- [Him] Oh. That was cool! We spent the whole saturday night debugging our new kernel driver! By the way, did you know that there was a bug in the file
- [Her] That's not perfectly accurate, in fact, it turned out that we found the bug by analyzing network traffic using the tool we developped last month and that the module was sending a bad IP header when blah blah blah blah
- [Him] Well yeah, it was lot of fun! [to her:] talking about networking, have you solved the network problem in our company, you told me that a box was loosing a very high number of packets.
- [Her] Well, no I spent the whole day yesterday to change cables but nothing, the problem must be coming from somewhere else. Any idea?
- [Him] mhhh
- [Her to me] how about you?
- [Me] err. I went to see a movie on saturday
Geeks are stereotypedly (what a cool word) supposed not to have a social life. I thing the stereotype would apply even more to geek couples
Very well said indeed....Anyway, as a girl, I find all the sexist attitudes towards technically inclined women very frustrating! But I won't rant and rave about that one since it's been said so many times. But I would like to let my fellows know that they need to take a look at their attitudes about girl geeks.
Everone knows that geeks tend to be very chauvanistic, and I don't think many girl geeks speak out about what it does to us ! Not only do we have society's hang ups about geeks to deal with-but our own kind gives us shit. Alot of girl geeks feel they need to sacrifice their womanhood and femininity to be accecpted as a serious member of geek society. Which is a motherload of shit!!! Most women don't talk about it but it's the truth Take a GOOD look arond at the girl geeks you do know, and you'll see what I mean.
I am one of 4 women in one of my classes and 2 of them are total mud-ducks. In the beginning of the class-the teachers took a bet on which of the students would fail-and of course I was in the list of do-nothigs and the two ugly chicks were said to do well. All because I have long red nails and I'm quite good looking(not to be conceited) and I REFUSE to give up any of my feminine traits to be taken seriously! Needless to say those ugly chicks routinely fall behind me, and one of the teachers actually apologized to me.
All this girl geek, boy geek stuff is ridiculous. We are ALL geeks, and should stick together!
Death to ZDNet for publishing that article.
~~
"Most of my heros won't appear on no stamps..." Chuck D from Fight the Power
Well, well. You wonder why there's so few female geeks? Hmm, just look at this /. post for example - it is rather typical of the system:
"it's just sorta the standard tirade..." means to me "stop whining, girls, it's not an issue anyway". You men want us to stop "whining"?
Well then start by taking an unfortunately still valid issue *serious*. btw: why is it that when women complain it's always viewed as "whining" while when men complain ist "protest" or "justified anger"? Could it be that that is because you just don't *want* to take us seriously? Because that would mean thinking about whether you have to feel guilty yourselves and maybe (gasp) having to change your attitude a little? Ohmigawd, that would be WORK - can't have that, right?
"which no geek argues in theory but..." means to me "they don't really exist anyway because _I_ (read: cmdrTaco) never had one let me have sex with her" Tell me: why's it that all the techies who surround me, even those who have far superior knowledge are scared shitless of me because I know my stuff pretty well ? They all LOVE to TALK with me about computers/EE/technology and stuff but when it comes to dating who do they pick up?
Some "barbie" to whom they can feel superior to because she'll come to him with the "please do this and that for me you big strong man I'm too weak/dumb for it" routine for each and every crap.
You want a geek-girlfriend? Here's the 3 step easy solution:
1. open your eyes. Chances are there is one around you already but everyone is playing her achievements down or she just doesn't boast about herself which makes her invisible between all the loud shouters
2. respect her for what she is. She's probably no "barbie" so don't expect her to spend 5 hours in front of a mirror every morning - that's not what you said you wanted anyway, right? And she's not in the world "to get laid by _you_" - she's not a target but rather wants to choose her mate among *equals*.
3. don't be frigthened yourself. As I said - most men I know are *terrified* to "loose their face in front of a woman" and therefore are damn tough to the geek women they meet. Result: many geeky women are very tough in return as self protection.
Just 2 cents from a geek woman.
I've been getting an overwhelming attitude among geek guys recently that women geeks are just a toy like their new 21 inch moniotr. with a "Where can I buy my own?" attitude. You guys go on about petrifying whatever female geek catches your fancy for the day, you talk about 'creating' your own linux nerd, you suggest female geeks as great beowulf clusters, you say "I wish I could show her my box, heh heh heh". You guys pride yourselves on your intelligence, and you want to be respected for your mind, well so do I. Geek respect is earned, no matter what gender you are, and you're never going to find a female geek if you can't give her the basic respect you'd give any other geek.
But just when you thought I was going to bash men my whole comment, let me say: Women are worse. They whine that there aren't enough women in management, that they can't get along with the male geeks, blah blah blah. Damn, get over it! I can get along with geek guys just fine, and so can you if you just stop thinking it as "us" vs "them". As I said before, respect is earned, and you're not going to earn any respect by talk instead of action. Oh yeah, and girls, if you're fat and ugly, stop trying to convince the guys that just because you're a lardball that all of the rest of us are too. "Don't expect us to be barbies!"
You'll never find any self respecting female geek in a group like "linux chix", for one, by this time they've gotten so used to male company that they often prefer guys to women, they don't want to talk about "how can we get more girls into computers! (I like having no competition), and they don't give a damn about how there aren't enough women in management. Don't try to look for us in groups like "nrrdgrrl.com" either. I can't stand that name, and besides, the whole board is about 13 year old girls complaining "Booh hooh! I'm so fat! I'm so ugly! I want to kill myself!" I really have a hard time resisting giving them some encouragement, heather style.
On a final note: As the Misanthropic Bitch says when people ask you "How can you be a woman and think the way you do?", "How could anyone but a woman think like me? Men rarely see the nuts and bolts of womanhood. I see it on a daily basis, and I'm expected to behave in a similar fashion because of my gender. Nothing can make one a misogynist faster than being born a woman. "
You do.
It's just that most geekresses|geekettes|geekgrrls use a nick that doesn't scream out "I'm female!" I know several female geeks that use male names and nicks to cover themselves against online abuse.
PS. if geek is male, then shouldn't it be fegeek? (joke)
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
One thing that I have noticed about women computer programmers as compared to their male colleagues, is that they tend to view programming as a job and an interest - not a lifestyle. Many male computer people, and especially wannabe ones live and breath computers, from hardware to software. For the average male geek it's reflected in the books that they read and the clothes they wear - typically cyberpunk and sloppy casualwear.
Obviously this is still a generalisation, but walk around any IT office, and the female staff will be less distinguishable from their counterparts in say accounts or human resources, than the males.
Maybe that's why women are a less vocal, but rapidly growing part of the IT workforce. As men tend to be more openly and loudly competitive than women in most walks of life, they leave the impression that they dominate the field.
On the eve of the twent-first century men do still dominate most walks of life. But given the massive advances in attaining equality for women in this century, I don't think it will be long before the issue of women in computing becomes a non-issue.
Chris Wareham