weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (06/17/88)
In article <956@csccat.UUCP>, loci@csccat (Chuck Brunow) writes: > Since I had missed the postings which described the potential > topics, I am glad to see this summary. The posting of topics > seems to be the most direct way to address the issues and I > applaud this approach. You also missed most of the answers. Here they come.... >> How to encourage more women to enter the computing field? >> How do we encourage a higher percentage of women to go on >> for PhDs in the field? > What is the basis for these questions? What does it matter? There are people on USENET who are interested. > It appears to pass over > the question of intrinsic benefit: why is it desirable to > encourage more women to enter the computing field? Why is it > specifically women who need encouragement? A very interesting question. Take it up in comp.women. Note that the "actual" answer is irrelevent to whether the newsgroup should exist. The *topic* exists. The *interest* in the topic exists. That *INTEREST* is what is required for the newsgroup to exist. > It appears that these > goals could be applied to most people so I begin to detect > political motives when others are excluded. No one is excluded. Frankly, no one else has been interested. If there are side political motives, who cares? Usenet addresses what people are interested in, for whatever reasons that may be. >> Why aren't there more women hackers? >> Why aren't there more female backbone admins? > These questions are awfully artificial. To you maybe. And if they are, so what? If people are interested in discussing the so-called "artificial questions" and succeed in finding enough others, then they should get the newsgroup. > Hackers choose to be > hackers. There are no restrictions or requirements except > desire. If women chose to use their time on other things, > that's their choice. And if numerous women choose to discuss this question, that's their choice too. No one cares if you find it boring as hell. > Aren't you grasping at straws to suggest > that "female backbone admins" are desirable by virtue of their > gender? No one is suggesting that. And if they were: again, so what? If the discussion comes around in comp.women, you'd be welcome to tell us why this interest is wrong-headed or misguided or what-not. Meanwhile, there *are* people interested in this topic. >> Safety for pregnant women in computing occupations... > Now here's one I can support. This really is a topic which > involves computing, is primarily a concern for women, and > might belong. OK. >> Can flextime and work-at-home schemes work well when >> raising kids? (Question for both spouses, actually) >> What to do about harassment on the job and on the net. > > These issues aren't restricted to women. Everyone has some > involvement in harassment, sometimes from women. And everyone is welcome to express their interest in a group to talk about harassment. For whatever reasons, this goes over as a gener- ally dud idea: except when the question is about harassment of women. An attempt to create SOC.discrimination a few months back failed. As a topic, there is just not enough interest. But as part of a larger package deal, it fits in. > This isn't > a specific net problem. So? Why does harassment have to be "a specific net problem" in order to be a *topic* of discussion? > Why are we trying to artificially > and selectively give women a pulpit? A "pulpit"? Spare us the pejoratives. Anyway, the answer is simple: because of the strongly expressed interest. >> Why do so many netters think the name of comp.women >> is more important than the content? >> Do professional organizations like IEEE-CS and ACM show >> appropriate amounts and types of support for >> women's issues in computing? >> Ergonometrics and design issues from a female point of >> view...(ex. does the choice of the command name "man" >> instead of "help" imply something? Does it matter?) > Let's just clear the air and say it: This is a politically > motivated grab for attention. Let's just clear the air and say it: you're grasping at straws. If the topics just don't have the interest, then no newsgroup should be formed. If they do have the interest, then a newsgroup should be formed. Rather simple, I would think. Trying to diagnose the underlying reasons is, besides approaching rude- ness, completely irrelevent to whether there is interest in the question. > It assumes a negative thesus > that things are bad, and that women suffer more than anyone > from problems we all share. Why are so many netters bugged? This assumption seems pretty reasonable to many people. If you don't like this assumption, fine. But questions of optimism or pessimism are not part of the newsgroup creation procedure. Questions of read- ership interest *are*. > It's easy to see through the rhetoric: I don't look at the > name on postings, but content. If women don't call attention > to the fact that they want to be harrassed, it won't happen. And I suppose you furthermore believe rape victims ask to be raped??? Frankly, *YOU* are the first person I will call a sexist pig in this entire discussion. The above comment of yours is completely detached from any known reality. (As distinguished from "fantasy", like that of the Nazis and their three K's.) > The real point is that the name "comp.women" generates hostility > that we don't need. Everyone has quit listening, arguments > are rampant and that's not good for the net or anyone else. No, this hostility is quite revealing. The number of newsgroups that could be attacked vociferously with almost identical arguments is stag- gering--Rick Adams brings up the phoney "wait a moment, isn't this sup- posed to be comp.discrimination?" as grounds for halting the creation of the newsgroup--but not once did he bring up, "wait a moment, isn't this supposed to be rec.motor.sports?" or "wait a moment, isn't this supposed to be soc.culture.asian?" or "wait a moment, isn't this sup- posed to be sci.med.std?" Well maybe he or someone else did, BUT THE INTEREST TURNED OUT TO BE IN THE *PROPOSAL*, NOT THE COUNTER-PROPOSAL. Raising up a counter-proposal at the last minute as a reason to not create a newsgroup is repugnant in general. That it comes for this particular newsgroup, comp.women, somehow seems like no surprise what- soever. Again, a lot of the anti-comp.women have been saying, "what an awful proposal for group topics--you should make it <this>, or <that>, or <something else>, and since you DIDN'T propose WHAT I BELIEVE PEOPLE OUGHT TO BE INTERESTED IN, I vote NO NO NO!!" I have never seen such a completely pointless reason given for voting NO before--but it has apparently been an extremely popular one. THIS time around. How come? (Note that this is different from "you didn't propose what I believe people ARE interested in"--a quite valid objection to raise.) ucbvax!garnet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720