SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 5, 2010 22:47 UTC (Fri) by speedster1 (guest, #8143)
In reply to: SCALE 8x: Moving the needle by forthy
Parent article: SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

>> suppose there were a big movement to change Free SW culture to attract the fashion-plate crowd, it really could be a big turnoff for lots of current community members (me, for one)
> Geeks in T-shirts and jeans (as if that was something bad)...

Sorry if you felt sterotyped by my example, but it was a complete misinterpretation!

My example stated that we should not be pressured into being "fashion conscious" in order to attract women who are into pop culture. Feel free to scold me for doubting that a group of people who have been trained to obsess over clothes are worthy recruits for a community more interested in creative problem-solving, but don't accuse me of picking on geeks. The last statement was meant as a contrast; there are also women who are more interested in learning than getting hung up on what people are wearing, and you can welcome them without discriminating against current members.

Try reading my comment again, in the full context of the thread. I'll summarize what I got from it.

golding: don't get hung up on female attendance, just be open to all coders independent of gender

paulj: golding is paranoid about having females getting favored over him; that's a non-issue in the real world

speedster1: maybe golding is not paranoid; some efforts to "balance attendance" really could be detrimental to the existing community, *insert hypothetical example of doin' it wrong*, so try to be sensible

forthy: everyone picks on geeks for being bad dressers and lacking in hygiene, and in general it's popular among girls to be man-haters nowadays

speedster1: Hello, hello??? I'm NOT picking on geeks for being bad dressers or lacking in hygiene; I AM one. Be nice to women like Sarah Mei who are interested in technology, but don't bend over backwards to attract women who spend hours primping every day and think what Vogue has to say is important. It probably wouldn't work anyways.

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 6, 2010 2:26 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

"Be nice to women like Sarah Mei who are interested in technology,"

WTF? No one is asking you to "be nice to women". No one is asking you to go out of your way to do anything, or put yourself to any trouble. The only thing you're asked to do, nay you MUST do, is just treat people *normally* and not be an arse.

Also, this quote of yours is mild WTF material, though I believe you mean well:

"That's a far cry from being welcoming to females who show up interested in technology and willing to learn about it from geeks in t-shirts and jeans..."

Can you spot the subconscious, but not very subtle, chauvinism in this comment of yours?

SCALE 8x: Moving the needle

Posted Mar 6, 2010 7:37 UTC (Sat) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

I suspect we'd get along fine if we met in person...

Obviously you are not all gung-ho about affirmative-action type of social engineering, which can backfire in various ways. So I really don't see where we even disagree on this topic.

"Be nice to women like Sarah Mei who are interested in technology,"

That doesn't sound like an unreasonable goal to me. I aim to be friendly to all who show up at my LUG. People generally seem to like it. Probably that fits somewhere into your definition of "treating people normally".

"That's a far cry from being welcoming to females who show up interested in technology and willing to learn about it from geeks in t-shirts and jeans..."

This is not patronizing if taken in context. Consider that the topic of this article was about attracting females who are not currently part of the community. So their first role would be that of learner. If Valerie Aurora were in town, I'd try to talk her into doing a presentation. If I asked the organic avocado farmer in my LUG to do a presentation on anything Linux-related, she'd turn me down in about 0 seconds flat.