Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Communities for tech women

Author:Dori Smith
Posted:9/16/1999; 1:21:43 PM
Topic:Today's scriptingNews Outline
Msg #:11152 (In response to 11150)
Prev/Next:11151 / 11153

I think it would be very interesting to hear what you see. I think this group is ready to hear the story. Maybe then we could have a WiseMen's Web List without being seen as politically incorrect. It's worth taking a look at this Dori. You could help us all do some growing.

Uh oh, I'm being invited to rant...

Let me start off by saying that I, personally, don't have a problem with single-gender groups, of either gender. And I'd be happy to host a corresponding WiseMen's list, Dave, if you promise to join it & participate. If anyone wants to complain about political incorrectness, you can tell them to talk to the list host.

But back to the rant (version 8b, condensed):

I've been in the tech biz for over 20 years. Without a doubt, things have improved, but they've still (imo) got a ways to go. Here's a few experiences that I've run into, in the fairly recent past:

I'm not saying that these are all because I'm female, although I've heard (possibly apocryphal) stories of women posting under male or gender-neutral names, who find that they're then treated very differently online. However, these things just don't seem to happen in women's groups.

Also, I've seen it here a number of times (though not lately, thankfully!) that people have trouble disagreeing with each other without being disagreeable. It's extremely common in online communication that discussions quickly degenerate into participants, as Jeremy said earlier, "questioning ... ancestry, current intellectual level, and species affliation."

I've found that this tendency occurs less often in women's groups. They have their own foibles, I'll admit, but it's very nice to get away from this particular one, also.


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