women, get into IT... or else

women, get into IT... or else

After reading most of this thread, I think there's a deeper issue behind
all of this.

The way I see the overall article, this seems to be more about men and
their egos and also about overall segregration and not about what women
want.

The fact is that most women don't tend to want to be computer
programmers, whether the soggy sheeted technogeek a.k.a. male computer
programmer want them to be or not.

Sure, I encourage women to start programming and honestly the first
programmers were women in fact with the ENIAC during WWII so yes, they're
quite capable of doing it.

Just like MOST men not wanting to be nurses, most women these days don't
seem to want to be computer programmers or in I.T..

I can think of a few good reasons as well.

Firstly, having been in I.T. for over 25 years (13 years as a
profession), it seems to me that there is a lot of segregation and double
standards within I.T. and it isn't just limited to women.

The way I see it, "normal people" in general aren't welcomed at all and
generally tend to be alienated by the "technical elite" as are women when
they want to and are willing to learn.

This is especially so in the Open Source and Linux movements.

With all the brain power that you guys have, have you realized or
wondered why there are so few women and "normal people" in the I.T.
industry and also business decision makers that are ready to take up the
banner of opensource?

I have an answer for those that can't answer it themselves: Most of them
can only handle being treated like idiots for so long before they've had
enough and begin to hate technology.

They want solutions, not whingers.

Its funny that these are the people you're trying to get to adopt your
open source software.

This attitude tends to surround Open Source and Linux as a whole.

It just seems funny to me that such intelligent people as yourselves tend
to alienate the people you want to adopt your software by using the
typical "dominant, egotistical, elitist stance".

Seems to me that the "revenge of the nerds" seems to be suffering from
the same malady as the jocks who originally bullied the nerds to begin
with; bullying, yet on a different front.

I know the technogeek can sit there on their throne of "3lit3dom" and
spout about how brilliant he/she is and that the mere mortal is only
capable of poultry feats, yet you may find that Obiwan's chef friend was
right about the difference between "knowledge and wisdom".

Kind of seems superfluous to want to make software and then not want to
promote it or teach about it.

I know, I know, who cares, right?

Next question: Why do women want to join the I.T. profession again?

Lets ask someone from the audience here.

"Anyone here ever asked an innocently stupid question in an IRC channel
or on the newsgroups and been flamed to hell?"

Sorry, we had to sensor out their response.

Anyway, overall, I'm sure you get the idea.

They'll be the first to encourage the "girl next door" to go and line up
for that job interview tommorrow.

Realistically, and to summarize my conclusion for you, the reason there
are few women and "normal" people in the I.T. industry is they won't put
up with being made to feel like idiots, even though they're willing to
learn and usually geeks don't tend to have too much tact most of the time
when trying to explain something in a few minutes that they've been doing
their entire lives.

Just throw the baby into the ocean after their first bath, I'm sure
they'll be able to swim after that, won't they??? :)

And yes, there ARE a few women that are very interested in computers and
a few that work in the profession for some very large companies so
although there may not be 50/50 in numbers, they do exist!!