[aur-general] "tower-girls", was Re: TU application for Sven-Hendrik Haase

[Xyne]

> >>> I suspect of all the places a girl could stumble upon in the net,  
> >>> this
> >>> one is the least likely to be it.
> >>
> >> Well, when they do, they'll be able to confirm the stereotype of male
> >> computer geeks and their attitudes towards them.
> 
> What stereotype? I'm a computer geek, and I'm fine with women, in  
> general and in computing. Stereotyping is bullshit generalization that  
> doesn't actually apply to anyone in particular.

[/snip]

> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 6:13 AM, Peter Lewis <pete at muddygoat.org> wrote:
> > But please don't assume you know my motivation for mentioning these projects.
> > I'm not "trying to make myself feel better",
> 
> I'm sorry; was I "stereotyping" you? Sucks, doesn't it? :)
> -- 
> Andrew


I think you misunderstood my message. My point was that a conversation
among TUs, i.e. people officially associated with the distro, about
keeping women in towers etc. conforms to a stereotype that people have
of male geeks acting disparagingly towards women. A harmless comment
here or there isn't really an issue, but diverting a TU application
into a conversation that ostensibly objectifies women on a public
mailing list will be seen as inappropriate and possibly offensive by
others. If you don't see how that might be offensive then I would say
that you're part of the problem.

This is relevant: http://xkcd.com/322/

Stereotypes are indeed stupid and so is acting in accordance with them.

I'm really not up in arms about this. I only made a fleeting remark
about it and had intended to avoid replying to your message when I saw
it, but that second remark to Peter above clearly shows that you
misunderstood my point so I felt the need to explain myself. Call me
"pseudo-politically correct" all you want, but somehow I don't think a
conversation about women locked up in secret tower belongs on this
list. At the very least it has nothing to do with the AUR.




Peter Lewis <pete at muddygoat.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 26 Jun 2010 at 01:42 Ng Oon-Ee wrote:
> > On Fri, 2010-06-25 at 17:47 -0400, Andrew Antle wrote:
> > > > I've always been quite proud that the free / open source software
> > > > world has
> > > > projects like these:
> > > > 
> > > > http://women.debian.org/home/
> > > > http://community.kde.org/KDE_Women
> > > > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen
> > > > 
> > > > I know the comments were just supposed to be a bit of fun, but
> > > > perhaps they
> > > > highlight that something like wouldn't be a bad idea in Arch too.
> > > > 
> > > Patches welcome :) , preferably from women actually involved in Arch,
> > > not pseudo-politically-correct males trying to make themselves feel
> > > better.
> 
> Absolutely, it would be rather odd and pointless if an Arch-women project were 
> to be started by men. In the absence of any women (really are there none?), of 
> course no patches will be forthcoming.

I think the best approach is to simply stop focusing on gender. What
difference do gender, ethnicity, age, etc make on the internet?
Obviously if you bring it up yourself and make it a part of the
interaction then it matters, but if not then it shouldn't even need to
be mentioned.

As for project and groups targeted at women, I would expect them to run
the risk of leading to some level of seclusion within the community.
It's like saying "well, they don't seem to be integrating, so let's
provide them with a little niche over there".

I could easily go on, but it would veer too far into politics and is,
once again, not appropriate for this list.