Category: Culture

Categories
Diversity

Girlism?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Halley Suitt wrote the following at Blog Sisters in response to the question, “Whatever happened to feminism”:

“There is no more feminism,” I explain. Game Over. But it took me a day or two to name the new game. It’s “girlism” — women want to be sexy girls and use all the tricks girls use. Crying, flirting, begging, winking, stomping their feet when they don’t get their way, general trotting around showing off their long legs and whatever else they decide to show off thereby distracting and derailing men.

 

It’s about power — the girl power we’ve always had, but forgot about, combined with all the stuff we’ve learned in the workplace. Needless to say, if you’re a man and you call us on it, we deny it. The new double double standard. We learned how to stop playing fair

In my computer technology field, which is one of the most heavily male-dominated professions, I have never once seen a woman use flirting, begging, winking, stomping their feet, showing off their long legs, dressing sexy, or anything of this nature to get their way. If anything, women are less likely to display emotion on the job in my field than the men. Why? Because of statements such as these, saying that there is a double double standard and that women are using ‘girly’ ways to succeed.

Once I was so frustrated at being continually undercut by a male co-worker that I shed tears. Another of my co-workers, a woman, said that I needed to stop crying, because I was falling into the ‘women cry, men swear’ stereotype. I have never cried at work since. However, I have learned to pound the desk in anger, and swear a lot. Are these better? Well, at least they aren’t stereotypical.

Girlism. A label to discount women’s human experience and expression.

When women cry, they’re resorting to ‘girlism’, but when men cry, they’re being sensitive. Men can be hurt and receive understanding and compassion, but when women are hurt, they’re being overly emotional. Is that it works now? Women dress for sex, but men dress for success. And when women get angry, they’re being ‘girly’, but when men get angry, they’re being assertive.

Categories
Diversity Technology Weblogging

Links at twenty paces

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Christine staged a Blog Debate, during which Ciscley commented about guys being reluctant to move to Moveable Type because it’s popular. She wrote:

I think (I *know* in my personal blogging circle and I’m generalizing from there) that most of the people that are uncomfortable with the popularity of MT are guys. It’s like it’s a dirty blog word to every guy I know. They use phpWeblog (though I still have to design their layouts for them cause the interface only goes so far). They use geeklog. They’ve thought about pMachine. They’re willing to try anything and everything but MT.

Is it because so many women use and love MT? Is it because MT, if you don’t actually use it and know what a huge part of it Ben does, appears to be the creation of a woman? Is it taking something away from the all male tech industry to consider that a product inspired by or significantly designed by a woman is the best option out there?

Jonathon picked up on it, writing:

There are so many things to like about Movable Type—reliability, elegant interface, customizability, MySQL support, vibrant user community—but what could be more intriguing than Ciscley’s hypothesis of gendered MT use? Has Mena’s contribution influenced the software to the extent that it attracts a disproportionately high proportion of female users?

Christine picked up on both Ciscley’s and Jonathon’s comments, so it will be interesting to see if there is any form of debate on this.

A gender bias with Movable Type just isn’t something I’ve seen. I would imagine that there is a strong gender bias with the other weblogging tools that Ciscley has mentioned, but not with MT.

Any initial reluctance to adopt MT is based on the installation, which can be a hassle for non-techies. However, this seems to effect both men and women equally, and is really dependent on how comfortable the person is with Perl and CGI. Once installed and used, though, MT users can be fanatical in support, regardless of gender. I know — I’m a fanatical MT user.

(“Hello, my name is Burningbird, and I’m addicted to Moveable Type.”)

Why do I like MT? Because it’s a lovely, lovely piece of software. Powerful enough for all my needs, hooks that allow one to tweak if we wish, and now it has the MySql backend, which for a data person such as myself, is pure heaven, with little chocolate sprinkles on top.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, if Movable Type is an example of software resulting from a paired man/woman collaboration team, then I think it’s time for the software industry to look at its development practices.

(Notice how I didn’t once use “—ism”? I’m getting better. And Christine, I have Trackback enabled. Do I get a cookie? Sorry for the double ping, but MT went crazy — it pinged you three times, blo.gs, weblogs.com, and my mother. It also scritched my kitty underneath her neck, and washed the dishes in passing.)

Categories
Connecting Weblogging

Can anybody hear me?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Anil Dash wrote about the battles he’s had with depression and encouraged other webloggers to discuss their own battles. Pretty gutsy thing to do, and smart — making good and healthy use of the increased exposure he received after his recent difficulties with the Little Green Football cartel.

Dorothea responded about her own fights with depression — not necessarily an easy topic to write about and the effort deserves quiet and thoughtful respect. And today Jeneane pointed to Anil’s suggestion, agreeing with his assessment that blogging can be good therapy.

I agree that weblogging can be cathartic, can connect us with others, and can open previously closed doors, internally and externally. However, weblogging as therapy isn’t for everyone.

The cathartic experience of writing our fears and troubles to a weblog can be accompanied by an increased vulnerability as we feel the pressure of such public exposure. And the experience of sharing our thoughts can be offset by the sadness one experiences when one reads about others’ happiness, family gatherings, companionship. Especially in the upcoming holiday season.

Ultimately, there’s the existential question that can take a weblogger down, and I’m not talking about web pages:

If I write a weblog and no one reads it, do I exist?

If this invokes laughter, it’s hollow laughter indeed.

Categories
Connecting

Good-bye Rick

Rick, I didn’t know you except through Chris, and I deeply regret that now I’ll never have a chance to know you, because you’re gone. You were only 39 years old.

My deepest sympathies to Rick Gleason’s family and friends for your incredible loss.

Someday I swear, we’ll find a way to stop these senseless deaths. Someday, we’ll find a way to not hurt each other.

Good-bye Rick.

Canada.com story
Sydney Morning Herald
CBC.ca

Categories
Connecting

Kudos to the Australian government

Jonathon just posted a note that the Australian government will cover the medical costs for Rick and the other victims of the Babli bombing. That’s exceptionally good news.

The Australian government has also said that it will depend on diplomacy to catch the Babli bombers. It will work with Indonesia rather than running in, guns blazing. By taking this action, by not letting the feelings of the moment carry it away, the Australian government has shown that it’s taking the long view to solving the problem, not the quick fix that only postpones the problems until another day.

We can learn from this.

In the meantime, Rick and his family will still face considerable costs for Rick’s treatment back in Canada, as well as costs associated with the family being with Rick now during this difficult time. Until a PayPal account is setup, please send donations to:

 

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