On Tue, Jan 18, 2000 at 11:38:02AM -0800, Larry Wall wrote:
>
> Which brings me back to p5p. I suspect the reason women avoid p5p is
> because it's thought of as a place where things are thrashed out, and
> tempers are lost, and common courtesy frequently goes flying right out
> the window. By and large, I think women are smart enough to know that
> when men get into a head-butting contest, they're not particularly
> interested in consensus. When boys are being boys, the girls
> rightfully say, "Oh, ick, let's go play somewhere else."
I never thought I was very much inclined to femininity (just ask anyone
who's met me) but you're right... that's exactly why I'm not on p5p. I
don't want to read flamage.
> I think a big problem with our culture is that us guys think that
> head-butting is the only way to solve problems. Perhaps it's okay
> that p5p is a head-butting place, but there ought to be other places
> that solve problems other ways. And perl-trainers may be one of those
> places--it's naturally about sharing "what works for us", rather than
> trying to get other people to bow to your invincible logic and/or
> aggressive persona.
Ah huh. And, dare I say it, people who train for a living (or even
recreationally) tend to be good communicators, and have to deal with
difficult situations (such as saying "no, you're wrong" in a nice way)
from day to day, which of course means that they're less likely to flame
elsewhere.
> Why would I be interested in limiting the use of Perl to 50% of the
> species? That's one of the reasons in my last State of the Onion I
> talked about "franchising the disenfranchised". I wasn't just talking
> about third world countries.
I think of Perl as being attractive to women because of its linguistic
nature. In fact, I use that whole metaphor (variables are nouns, arrays
are plural, subroutines are verbs...) when teaching, and it gets good
feedback from the women in the class who, I might add, are less likely
to have a previous programming language and may not know what you mean
if you make comparisons to other *computer* languages.
> The question to my mind is, what else can we do to build forums in which
> women feel welcome? I have this vision of a Slashdot in which women
> are given five times as many moderation points as men. I think it
> would be a much more civilized place. :-)
>
> Yes, we mustn't forget that the false stereotypes are based on true ones.
> The way forward is not to deny the differences between men and women
> (or anyone else) but to make practial use of those differences. TMTOWTDI.
As someone once said on a newsgroup I read, "One person's offensive
stereotype is another person's useful rule of thumb." The trick is to
remember that it is just a rule of thumb and can be broken if
circumstances so dictate.
> I agree that a lot of Perl culture seems like it should have a lot of
> appeal to women. Particularly if it can function as a "leg up" into
> other fields. If we can figure out the spots where we're turning the
> women off, maybe we can do something about it, and be more helpful to
> more people. Not to mention being an example to others.
I think the Unix/C-ism of many Perl people, books and courses is
offputting, because women don't tend to have that kind of experience.
And I'm saying this as someone who's a female Unix weenie and would much
rather be Unix-centric if at all possible :)
In my experience, what really turns female trainees on (shut up, you lot
in the back row) is the feeling of *finally* being in control of the
computer and getting it to do what they want. This is the greatest
cause of "squeaks" that I've ever seen.
What are squeaks? That's when someone in the course goes "Oooh! Oooh!
Look! It did foo!" -- and women squeak *lots* when they're excited by
learning new stuff.
Hint for trainers: if you can't make your female trainees squeak with
excitement, you're doing something wrong. And you can quote me on that.
K.
--
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