You assume that I have a problem with the very part of the arguments here that I really have no problem with at all. The only words of yours I disagree with are "and achievement", at least when it comes to intellectual and not physical pursuits. Very few women will stand up and tell you that men and women are the same with different bodies. Personally, I've only ever heard one person seriously posit that theory outside of the internet, and it was a guy. And I laughed in his face.
But yeah, if I wanted to invest the time, I could go through and pick out all the stupidity, all the hypocrisy, all the assholishness in the comments here. But that stuff really stands out on its own, so why be deliberately argumentative and point it all out? That's not going to increase understanding of the issues here, it will just make people defensive and less open to considering new ideas. Why don't I, instead of your suggestion of declaring what specifically I oppose, expand on a few of the ideas here that I think have merit?
I'll start with an idea you've already brought up.
Re:Men and Woman are different..... News film at 11.
Yes, men and women are different. We have totally different mental and emotional structures. Anyone who denies this has no hope of ever understanding a person of the opposite sex. Does this mean that intelligence in certain fields is related to gender? I haven't seen evidence that that's the case, but there are definite general differences in inclinations between the sexes--as pointed out in TF summary of the A.
Women still love working in science, programming, number theory, mapping the human genome, designing space probes, every damn thing. Women have mathematical and scientific interest and ability. A hell of a lot of them do. You'd have to live under a rock to say that women have not made great contributions to STEM fields.
It's also true that a lot of women do go into creative, socially-focused, and/or traditionally 'feminine' lines of work simply because that's truly where their interests lie. Also, a lot of women want to be stay at home mothers. My mother was. That isn't wrong, or backwards. Many also simply don't have the economic option of not working--and many fathers wish they had the option of staying home to raise their kids, too. But generally men have a wider array of opportunities, better pay and benefits, and more chance for promotion. Looking at these facts, it only makes sense that as it stands, fathers usually end up as the primary breadwinners. It isn't right, but there it is. And it isn't always wrong, either.
Speaking of fathers, there's a lot of insightful discussion here about them. Just a few excerpts:
But women have to stay home with kids, right? Well, this gets us to a more balanced conclusion: increase paternity leave and/or make it compulsory, and the effects of one sex happening to be the one manufacturing kids will be greatly mitigated.
I would vote in support of paternity leave legislation. Hell, I'd campaign for it. Parents ought to be able to spend more time with their kids. That option should be open for both men and women.
As a male in trying to start a career in the hard sciences I have to say that there is little or no leeway given to those trying to have kids, regardless of their gender. I find this incredibly frustrating because I do want to have kids before I am 40 (i.e. have a tenured position) because it is healthier and safer for both my wife and child. [...] Now with all of that said: the policy of departments should be gender neutral so that I can take of time to raise my kids as much as my wife can. There is no reason to make it woman specific.
Men with kids shouldn't be discriminated against in the workplace. Both mothers and fathers ought to have the ability to have fewer hours at work to spend more time at home. I think that there's a lot of moral decay in our society that
I would like to preface this comment by disclosing that I am a 'n00b'.
I love/., mainly because I enjoy the open and insightful discussion of topics and ideas that I have only recently begun privately educating myself about, being a longtime casual Windows user who is about fed up with the associated bullshit. I came here initially while trying to demystify Linux (which I am still working on). I was surprised and intrigued by finding this interesting aggregation of so-called 'geek news' articles, about a third of which are totally incomprehensible to me, but most of which I would never find out about from any major news outlet, including many about topics of great importance and influence on this world and the future. It was a real eye-opener, and remains an invaluable resource as I educate myself about things I'd never learned or thought about before, such as net neutrality, intellectual property law, &c.
But most of all I enjoy reading the comments. The 'mod' system was a little challenging to get used to, but I love the open discussion, the outrageous as well as well-reasoned arguments laid out intelligently and democratically. Much of the information and ideas I've come across here I never would have otherwise found, and it has dramatically influenced by own critical thinking. The information brought me in the door, and the insight, open-mindedness, and general spirit of free thought and intelligent public discourse hooked me.
But whenever I read an article on the front page having to do with women, I read the comments on it and my blood runs cold.
The males on/., in general, seem to me to be a very forward-thinking bunch most of the time. It's hard to wrap my brain around the response I keep seeing here when it comes to women's issues.
I think you're thinking of the Equal Rights Amendment, and the National Organization for Women.
The amendment was introduced in the twenties. Labor Unions opposed it, not women's rights advocates. The democratic party began supporting it around the eighties.
The National Organization for Women supported the amendment to the bitter end. They still support it, in fact. What killed all serious attempts to pass the amendment, then? The rise of conservatism.
Even if you're not going to do any actual research, at least have a rudimentary understanding of a topic before you spout off.
That's exactly what Linux needs. The only way to get respect is through an easy to use UI, which is what the "clueless users" need who, you know, drive the market for desktops. If Linux was easier to use and free/cheap (as in beer), it wouldn't take long for it to be adopted. It just isn't there yet. And the only way to get there is to listen to these "clueless users."
And another thing that affects the market is: advertising. Linux obviously doesn't need to have an advertising budget. Microsoft has a gargantuan advertising budget. So does Apple. People don't choose products based on what's actually available and what's actually best...you already know this. They choose the best of what they know is there. Until Linux advertises, other operating systems will garner a greater share of the market.
Until we reach a point in our economy where informed research actually drives the impulse to buy, expect Linux to have a lower percentage of the market share.
If it will help effeciency [sic] and reduce cost then private institutions will adopt it voluntarily.
That makes sense. However, what it makes sense to do is not always what gets done.
In the eyes of some medical institutions, they see a cost in changing the records, but no change in what they can feasibly charge per patient nor any promise of an increase in their number of patients. They see a definite cost and only a nebulous possibility of future gain.
But let's say you're right and even without government intervention, within the next two years most US medical institutions digitize their records. Let's give a high figure and say 95% of them do this.
That remaining 5% will still cause problems when patients realize that health care is better and cheaper with other providers, or just leave for other reasons, and have to deal with beaurocracy in order to transfer records that they might need immediately. The possibility that something in their previous medical records might affect their treatment from their new physicians might escape them entirely. The record either might not get there in time or they might not see any reason to request its transfer at all. The original record might be lost by fire or natural disaster or any number of things. Creating electronic records (SECURELY) makes sense, but businesses don't want to make sense. They want to make money.
Also, with the economic shitstorm, why not create some immediate clerical jobs? Not everyone can help build roads and lay cable.
Well, it's true that there aren't as many female nerds as male nerds.
But there is a vast and growing army of female dorks.
Probably about three quarters of all fanfiction is written by women. Go to a comic, anime, or other such dorky conference, and it'll be swarming with women. Even the gaming scene has been experiencing an influx of females in recent years. Clearly women have no distaste for pouring their time and devotion into socially-marginalized pursuits with almost unsettling gusto.
So why do so few women get into IT and computer science? Read all of the comments on this article for your answer. Be sure to also read 0 and -1 modded posts.
Some people are right, some people are wrong, some people are perfect illustrations of the problem itself. Here is a very elegant little microcosm of the IT gender dilemma.
So, how do you solve it?
History has shown that you can't wait for people to change their hearts and minds on their own. They never will. The behavior must change first, and then, little by little, people will start to realize: "Oh, those black kids actually do learn the same as our kids when given an equal opportunity to succeed. That social stigma was totally ungrounded in reality. I can't believe those racist people used to segregate our children, how awful."
If anyone wants to see more women entering into IT, first give them incentives to do so. Something that will offset the uninviting yet inevitable social unpleasantness that they will have to deal with in the workplace. Scholarships, sign-on bonuses, any number of things might help. Start with students entering college--become a greater presence at job fairs and the like, and give female students reasons to consider such a field of study.
IT guys aren't inherently unpleasant or bigoted. In fact, in my experience, and perhaps because of the nature of the work itself, people in IT are very open-minded individuals, even if some are a little socially stunted. In time, men will learn how to work with women--if not as perfect equals, then at least as well as they do in most other fields.
But that can't happen if hardly any women ever show up.
Give them a reason to join that outweighs the discomfort of overturning a social stereotype, and over time, you'll see more women in the field.
I generally assume that people are usually arrested for little to no reason. I know sometimes that's not the case, but I live in a rural area. My experience with cops has led me to conclude that they are just bullies, and they harass people just out of boredom. The job seems to attract only people who are belligerent, aggressive, opportunistic and nasty.
When I see someone in the back of a cop car, I feel a pang of sympathy.
Slashdot Mirror
Pay in postage stamps.
You assume that I have a problem with the very part of the arguments here that I really have no problem with at all. The only words of yours I disagree with are "and achievement", at least when it comes to intellectual and not physical pursuits. Very few women will stand up and tell you that men and women are the same with different bodies. Personally, I've only ever heard one person seriously posit that theory outside of the internet, and it was a guy. And I laughed in his face.
But yeah, if I wanted to invest the time, I could go through and pick out all the stupidity, all the hypocrisy, all the assholishness in the comments here. But that stuff really stands out on its own, so why be deliberately argumentative and point it all out? That's not going to increase understanding of the issues here, it will just make people defensive and less open to considering new ideas. Why don't I, instead of your suggestion of declaring what specifically I oppose, expand on a few of the ideas here that I think have merit?
I'll start with an idea you've already brought up.
Re:Men and Woman are different..... News film at 11.
Yes, men and women are different. We have totally different mental and emotional structures. Anyone who denies this has no hope of ever understanding a person of the opposite sex. Does this mean that intelligence in certain fields is related to gender? I haven't seen evidence that that's the case, but there are definite general differences in inclinations between the sexes--as pointed out in TF summary of the A.
Women still love working in science, programming, number theory, mapping the human genome, designing space probes, every damn thing. Women have mathematical and scientific interest and ability. A hell of a lot of them do. You'd have to live under a rock to say that women have not made great contributions to STEM fields.
It's also true that a lot of women do go into creative, socially-focused, and/or traditionally 'feminine' lines of work simply because that's truly where their interests lie. Also, a lot of women want to be stay at home mothers. My mother was. That isn't wrong, or backwards. Many also simply don't have the economic option of not working--and many fathers wish they had the option of staying home to raise their kids, too. But generally men have a wider array of opportunities, better pay and benefits, and more chance for promotion. Looking at these facts, it only makes sense that as it stands, fathers usually end up as the primary breadwinners. It isn't right, but there it is. And it isn't always wrong, either.
Speaking of fathers, there's a lot of insightful discussion here about them. Just a few excerpts:
But women have to stay home with kids, right? Well, this gets us to a more balanced conclusion: increase paternity leave and/or make it compulsory, and the effects of one sex happening to be the one manufacturing kids will be greatly mitigated.
I would vote in support of paternity leave legislation. Hell, I'd campaign for it. Parents ought to be able to spend more time with their kids. That option should be open for both men and women.
As a male in trying to start a career in the hard sciences I have to say that there is little or no leeway given to those trying to have kids, regardless of their gender. I find this incredibly frustrating because I do want to have kids before I am 40 (i.e. have a tenured position) because it is healthier and safer for both my wife and child. [...] Now with all of that said: the policy of departments should be gender neutral so that I can take of time to raise my kids as much as my wife can. There is no reason to make it woman specific.
Men with kids shouldn't be discriminated against in the workplace. Both mothers and fathers ought to have the ability to have fewer hours at work to spend more time at home. I think that there's a lot of moral decay in our society that
I would like to preface this comment by disclosing that I am a 'n00b'.
I love /., mainly because I enjoy the open and insightful discussion of topics and ideas that I have only recently begun privately educating myself about, being a longtime casual Windows user who is about fed up with the associated bullshit. I came here initially while trying to demystify Linux (which I am still working on). I was surprised and intrigued by finding this interesting aggregation of so-called 'geek news' articles, about a third of which are totally incomprehensible to me, but most of which I would never find out about from any major news outlet, including many about topics of great importance and influence on this world and the future. It was a real eye-opener, and remains an invaluable resource as I educate myself about things I'd never learned or thought about before, such as net neutrality, intellectual property law, &c.
But most of all I enjoy reading the comments. The 'mod' system was a little challenging to get used to, but I love the open discussion, the outrageous as well as well-reasoned arguments laid out intelligently and democratically. Much of the information and ideas I've come across here I never would have otherwise found, and it has dramatically influenced by own critical thinking. The information brought me in the door, and the insight, open-mindedness, and general spirit of free thought and intelligent public discourse hooked me.
But whenever I read an article on the front page having to do with women, I read the comments on it and my blood runs cold.
The males on /., in general, seem to me to be a very forward-thinking bunch most of the time. It's hard to wrap my brain around the response I keep seeing here when it comes to women's issues.
I think you're thinking of the Equal Rights Amendment, and the National Organization for Women.
The amendment was introduced in the twenties. Labor Unions opposed it, not women's rights advocates. The democratic party began supporting it around the eighties.
The National Organization for Women supported the amendment to the bitter end. They still support it, in fact. What killed all serious attempts to pass the amendment, then? The rise of conservatism.
Even if you're not going to do any actual research, at least have a rudimentary understanding of a topic before you spout off.
That's exactly what Linux needs. The only way to get respect is through an easy to use UI, which is what the "clueless users" need who, you know, drive the market for desktops. If Linux was easier to use and free/cheap (as in beer), it wouldn't take long for it to be adopted. It just isn't there yet. And the only way to get there is to listen to these "clueless users."
And another thing that affects the market is: advertising. Linux obviously doesn't need to have an advertising budget. Microsoft has a gargantuan advertising budget. So does Apple. People don't choose products based on what's actually available and what's actually best...you already know this. They choose the best of what they know is there. Until Linux advertises, other operating systems will garner a greater share of the market.
Until we reach a point in our economy where informed research actually drives the impulse to buy, expect Linux to have a lower percentage of the market share.
Lookin' kinda lonely there, handsome.
If it will help effeciency [sic] and reduce cost then private institutions will adopt it voluntarily.
That makes sense. However, what it makes sense to do is not always what gets done.
In the eyes of some medical institutions, they see a cost in changing the records, but no change in what they can feasibly charge per patient nor any promise of an increase in their number of patients. They see a definite cost and only a nebulous possibility of future gain.
But let's say you're right and even without government intervention, within the next two years most US medical institutions digitize their records. Let's give a high figure and say 95% of them do this.
That remaining 5% will still cause problems when patients realize that health care is better and cheaper with other providers, or just leave for other reasons, and have to deal with beaurocracy in order to transfer records that they might need immediately. The possibility that something in their previous medical records might affect their treatment from their new physicians might escape them entirely. The record either might not get there in time or they might not see any reason to request its transfer at all. The original record might be lost by fire or natural disaster or any number of things. Creating electronic records (SECURELY) makes sense, but businesses don't want to make sense. They want to make money.
Also, with the economic shitstorm, why not create some immediate clerical jobs? Not everyone can help build roads and lay cable.
Well, it's true that there aren't as many female nerds as male nerds.
But there is a vast and growing army of female dorks.
Probably about three quarters of all fanfiction is written by women. Go to a comic, anime, or other such dorky conference, and it'll be swarming with women. Even the gaming scene has been experiencing an influx of females in recent years. Clearly women have no distaste for pouring their time and devotion into socially-marginalized pursuits with almost unsettling gusto.
So why do so few women get into IT and computer science? Read all of the comments on this article for your answer. Be sure to also read 0 and -1 modded posts.
Some people are right, some people are wrong, some people are perfect illustrations of the problem itself. Here is a very elegant little microcosm of the IT gender dilemma.
So, how do you solve it?
History has shown that you can't wait for people to change their hearts and minds on their own. They never will. The behavior must change first, and then, little by little, people will start to realize: "Oh, those black kids actually do learn the same as our kids when given an equal opportunity to succeed. That social stigma was totally ungrounded in reality. I can't believe those racist people used to segregate our children, how awful."
If anyone wants to see more women entering into IT, first give them incentives to do so. Something that will offset the uninviting yet inevitable social unpleasantness that they will have to deal with in the workplace. Scholarships, sign-on bonuses, any number of things might help. Start with students entering college--become a greater presence at job fairs and the like, and give female students reasons to consider such a field of study.
IT guys aren't inherently unpleasant or bigoted. In fact, in my experience, and perhaps because of the nature of the work itself, people in IT are very open-minded individuals, even if some are a little socially stunted. In time, men will learn how to work with women--if not as perfect equals, then at least as well as they do in most other fields.
But that can't happen if hardly any women ever show up.
Give them a reason to join that outweighs the discomfort of overturning a social stereotype, and over time, you'll see more women in the field.
I generally assume that people are usually arrested for little to no reason. I know sometimes that's not the case, but I live in a rural area. My experience with cops has led me to conclude that they are just bullies, and they harass people just out of boredom. The job seems to attract only people who are belligerent, aggressive, opportunistic and nasty. When I see someone in the back of a cop car, I feel a pang of sympathy.
Thanks for the nightmares, man.