On (25/03/04 14:41), Emma Jane Hogbin wrote: > On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 06:10:56PM -0700, Monique Y. Herman wrote: > > <http://lists.debian.org/debian-vote/2004/debian-vote-200403/msg00067.html> > > I've personally found the Debian community to be an equal opportunity kind > of place. Help is given equally to all, and RTFMs are thrown out equally > to all. That said and done--I personally believe that women are better at > presenting their problem and therefore are more likely to get a useful response. > They've probably also tried searching for the answer before asking for > help and are more informed. This is based on my experience on-line as well > as a tech instructor at two community colleges. I teach classes where > there are 20 men and maybe 3 or 4 women--the women (on average) are much > happier reading manuals on their own than the men. A higher percentage of > men would rather that I read the manuals to them (they don't want to do > their own learning--they just want to be spoonfed). There are always some > on both sides of the fence--but the women tend to be a little more > self-sufficient than the men. Yep! I confess. My partner has been much better at finding answers to my Debian glitches than I (and she's not even running Linux). Generally she's much better at googling all round ;) Although, I like to think I'm getting better as I read more d-u posts.
In summary, I find d-u a friendly, egalitarian sort of list. Not that I have much to compare it with. I'm also on d-powerpc and I don't recall seeing many posts from women. Either they don't run Macs or stick to MacOS perhaps? ;) > > With the exception of one occassion I've never felt uncomfortable on *any* > Linux-related list (other tech lists yes, but never Linux related). The > one occassion was on the Debian IRC. Whenever possible I use my name as my > handle (emmajane)--I used to be Newt, but that raised more problems > because I was a Monty Python Newt, not an Aliens Newt or a Gingrich > Newt...sorry, I got distracted for a moment. So anyway, I asked if there > was anyone who could help me with XYZ, someone made a sexist comment, I > said, "Fuck you." And the sexist commenter was yelled at by everyone else > on the channel and then booted. So that's really as bad as it gets for me. > > Sometimes on software-specific mailing lists I have problems. I won't name > any names *cough*openoffice*cough* I had to send my original email back to > the list many times because people weren't reading what I was actually saying. I > quoted all of the FAQs I'd tried but not succeeded with, and their > response was to try exactly what I said I'd already done. I don't *think* > it was a gender problem though, I think it was just that the list is high > volume, and people are used to sending off-the-cuff replies to stupid > users. Or maybe I'm just naive. > > Yes, I do get a little entourage when I go to my LUG meetings; however, not all > the women do. I think it's because I engage with the presentation. I belly > laugh when people say funny things, I ask questions, I get involved. > > I think that Debian is one of the least newbie-friendly distros because of > the install process not being a pointy-clicky GUI. Newbies assume that it > will be too hard to run the distro just because they've heard horror > stories about the install process. I definitely get a *lot* of raised > eyebrows when I tell people I run Debian. Not because I'm female...but > because I'm not using RedHat, SuSE or Mandrake. Debian is the only distro I've tried and although it is a steep learning curve, the more I learn and read, the more I'm convinced it's the best distro around both philosophically and technically. > > > Just kind of wondering what others think about this. I don't find > > debian off-putting, but then, I use vim, so maybe my interpretation of > > "userfriendly" is a bit unconventional. > > Me too. Vim rawks! ;) Vim does rock but I've never tried emacs. It's going to be a while before I feel I really use vim properly ;) Regards Clive -- http://www.clivemenzies.co.uk strategies for business -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]