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Sexist forumlationSexist forumlationPosted May 2, 2008 4:20 UTC (Fri) by ekj (subscriber, #1524)In reply to: Sexist forumlation by jospoortvliet Parent article: The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment (Content Consumer)
That's simple. It is sexist to formulate oneself as if women are in GENERAL poor with computers even if the AVERAGE skill of women may be lower than the average skill of males. It is an insult to those women who are good with computers. It also -DISCOURAGES- women from becoming more involved with computers, because it sends the strong signal that this is the normal state of affairs. Read this: http://cacahuate.livejournal.com/518686.html It's a completely equivalent comment, from the photography-community (of which I'm also part) see if you can spot the problem. I get the same in reverse since I spend time off work taking care of my kids (a 3 year old and baby twins) People give me praise on HELPING my wife. Which infuriates me -- it assumes that by default this is HER responsibility, and anything I do is simply ASSISTANCE to her primary role. Which is plain bullshit. Nobody has EVER commended my wife on being such as nice HELPER to me when -she- is the one to take care of them.... Words matter. I am absolutely 100% positive that our editor didn't mean to come off sexist. I'm also 100% certain that he considers tech-skilled girls a GOOD thing, and indeed would love to have MORE of them. There are reasons, several reasons, why that isn't the case though, and comments such as this one is one of those reasons.
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Sexist forumlation Posted May 2, 2008 6:20 UTC (Fri) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link] You've got a point. So the issue should be formulated different - more like "As most girlfriends tend to be less geeky and computer-trained than their code-writing boyfriends, they can be very helpful in analyzing the usability of user interfaces".
Sexist forumlation Posted May 2, 2008 7:46 UTC (Fri) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] Why state even that ? It's irrelevant to the topic at hand, and as far as I see it serves no useful purpose to point out repeatedly the nongeekiness of many females. Why not simply say: "One way to measure the usability is to sit a less technically savy friend or relative in front of a Linux desktop, and see what problems are encountered" Is there some reason the -sex- of this friend is relevant to the topic at hand at all ? The relevant part is that the tester should be someone with less technical experience. So why not just SAY that then, rather than pointlessly and insultingly replacing "technically unskilled" with "girlfriend" ?
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