Categories
Diversity Technology

Geek out of work

Nothing like being an out of work geek in a technology recession. The only thing worse, is being an out of work geek in a recession who also happens to be a woman.

Gender bias — that strikes me as a hell of a good topic right about now.

On March 8th, Jonathon posted the following comment:

You and I both know, Dave, that the breathtaking hypocrisy of “Where Men Can Link, But They Can’t Touch” isn’t going to get “looked at” any time soon, not by the BlogSisters nor by anyone else in the blogging universe.

I was amazed that no one jumped on this. I didn’t at the time as I wasn’t feeling well. I also wanted to save this particular nugget for a weblog rainy day. And guess what! It’s sunny outside, but the rain is falling in weblogdom for me today. Splat. Splat.

Can women, a group that has been excluded longer than any other group in the history of “man”, exclude in turn without being seen as hypocritical? After all the whole concept of BlogSisters is that women bloggers — and only women bloggers — can post to the weblog. One could say that the entire weblog is sexist in the extreme. Right?

Bah!

Sexism is discriminating against the opposite sex in such a way as to prevent the members of the opposite sex from having equal opportunity of participation, regardless of the venue. This means that yes, you can have all boy clubs and all girl clubs and all green people clubs — as long as the participation in said club does not give said members of the club more opportunties for academic or professional advancement than people who are not members of said club.

That’s been the whole slam against the good ole rich cat boy clubs in this country; many have been avenues of networking that give men (bluntly, white men) professional advantages — advantages not accessible to non-members (i.e. women and non-white men).

You know, I could really care less about belonging to a club of men who spend their day huntin’ and spitten’ tobacco or comparing sizes of their penises or whatever boys do in an all-boy clubs (sexist nature of statement fully intended, BTW). But I do care about being a member of a club that opens up doors to employment and opportunity in my profession.

Unfortunately, most of the clubs I’m most interested in don’t have a charter or a membership drive, or a door that one can walk up to and bang on for entry.

Case in point: last year, I gave a presentation at O’Reilly’s first P2P conference. At the time, I remember looking at the speaker list and commenting to Andy Oram — an editor and one of my favorite O’Reilly people — that there didn’t seem to be many women in the roster. In fact, for the longest time, I was the only women speaker out of several men. It was only just before the show that a few other women appeared in the speaker list, primarily moderators of panels.

I am a geek. In fact, a friend persists in calling me an ubergeek. I feel comfortable talking with geeks, and love exchanging emails and weblog postings with other geeks. However, there are few things that can make me feel more of an outsider — a non-member — than walking into a room of other geeks or ubergeeks, and being the only woman present. There might not be a sign outside the door saying “No gurlz allowed”, but it’s there, buried deeply in the minds of the guys, in my mind, and in the minds of a a society that still persists in propagating a most blatant message — girls are nurturers, boys are geeks.

I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan. And never, ever let you forget you’re a man — cause I’m a woman….

Bah!

Back to BlogSisters and the “great hypocrisy”. There’s nothing about BlogSisters that stops any man from having an equal say within weblogdom. Or starting up a BlogBrothers weblog. Or preventing men from gainful employment, equal academic participation, religious opportunity, freedom from oppression, and accessibility to the masses. In fact (sorry a little metablogging here) that’s a great thing about weblogging, isn’t it? Anyone can say anything they want — weblogging truly is equal opportunity.

Hypocrisy? Sorry, bark up another tree with that tune, mate.

It’s interesting, but I had my own hesitations about BlogSisters, and still do, but not because I consider the concept hypocritical. I won’t post at BlogSisters for the same reason that I won’t join any of the women in technology support groups in the area, though I know I am depriving myself of the comfort of said support at times.

I won’t join any organization whose criteria for membership is based on sex because I want people to see me beyond something that is nothing more than an accident of birth — a random modification within the DNA that created me.

I love being a woman. I am so glad I was born a woman. But being a woman has nothing to do with my ability to create systems that can rock the house, code applications that make junior programmers run in fear, handle massive database systems, mega-user networks, and work with and discuss the most complex computer technology issues imaginable. However, being a woman can throw up barriers that prevent me from doing these things, and the work I love so much.

As for the BlogSisters — blog away ladies. And more power to you.

Categories
Connecting

Anger is good

Anger is good.

No, scratch that. Anger is good, healthy, natural, and, at times, even a salvation.

I’m not talking about the type of anger that makes you postal, has you clutch your heart and keel over, or that fills you with so much rage that you spit. I’m talking about the type of anger that fills you with purpose, gives focus to the undefined, and that empowers you.

Anger can find you in the center of darkness more quickly at times then the kindest words.

Sharon reads an essay by a “…impertinent little fucknozzle”, and exclaims with passion, “Shithead picked the wrong day to piss in my cornflakes.” I followed Sharon’s advice and sent an email comment about the essay, telling the publication that the author was “An impertinent little fucknozzle”. Let them work out the insult — I’m rallying to the cry of my friend who is angry!

Anger. It’s one of the seven deadly sins (along with sloth, lust, pride, greed, envy, and gluttony). Considered a sin, yet without anger humanity is nothing more than spiritless acquiescence. It fires the imagination as much as it fires our brains and hearts. Consider Shakespeare’s Othello:

Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
Than answer my waked wrath!

The anger that empowers one against injustice, hypocrisy, and ignorance can be no sin. Martin Luther King spoke of love and brotherhood, but it was anger that fueled the roots of the Civil Rights movement. It was anger that united a country against a war in Viet Nam.

And it was anger that pulled us out of despair after the events of September 11th, 2001.

However, as much as a healthy anger wakens us to purpose, an unhealthy anger pulls us into an obsession that can blind us to everything but the need to exterminate the target of our anger, regardless of the cost. In “Moby Dick”, it was obsessive anger that drove Ahab:

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Obsessive anger. Six months after an act of savagery that angered a world, I hope that in the midst of taking a moment to remember those who died from these acts that we also remember that meeting acts of obsessive anger with more acts of obsessive anger is not a fitting tribute, to anyone.

Categories
Diversity Weblogging

Blogsisters

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Steve at OnePotMeal provides his interpretation of a men’s blog in response to a challenge for same from the Blog Sisters weblog. Cracked me up, big time.

I’ve been following the initial efforts of Blog Sisters with a great deal of interest. A couple of times I even thought about throwing a posting or two into the stew; however, I refrained because me thinks the stew has too many spices, already.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Individually, the members of this new weblog are fascinating, well written, interesting, gusty, bold, and incredible women. However, I am finding that taken together, the sound is becoming overwhelming.

Question: Can a group weblog whose only limitation to membership is sexual classification survive without imploding under the weight of all the voices? The topics range in a dizzying spiral of sex and melted wax and vibrators and motherhood and death and RageBoy and Daypop — all in the course of an hour.

What happens over time as the membership continues to grow, the members become more comfortable, and, one can assume, consequently more verbose? Will weblogs.com finally meet its match?

I will continue to watch the metamorphisis of Blog Sisters in fascination, not sure if it’s because I’m seeing the evolution of a new way of communicating on the web, or because I’m about to witness weblogging’s first 100 car pile up.

Regardless, what a bold bold move.

Categories
Connecting

I beg to disagree

One last thing, on the subject of online discussions and disagreements.

People will disagree. And that is what makes the world interesting. And people will sometimes be very vehement in their disagreement. This makes things even more interesting. Occasionally this may result in Person A not talking to Person B. Hopefully not often, but this is going to happen.

And if people feel strongly about an issue, regardless of what we say, we are not going to change their mind unless we somehow take on the appearance of Divine Truth.

No, no. Just looked in the mirror. No Divine Truth here.

Unless the issue is one that you feel can’t be ignored, state your opinion, listen to theirs, and agree to disagree. If you can’t ignore their opinion, write the person off and move on. Such is life.

It is okay to agree to disagree. And it’s also okay to write a person off and move on. However, we should use the latter sparingly — if we surround ourselves by people who only agree with us, our lives will be deadly dull.

Categories
Art

Rock artists


Earlier in the week, I had posted a photo and then removed it because of download times on the page.

It was a photo of one of the rock sculptures that are unique to the waterfront of San Francisco, created by artists I call The Rock Artists.

These sculptures don’t last. Eventually, water and people will knock the work down. In the meantime, they are an absolute delight.

Liane asked where the picture was. I’ve re-embedded the original photo, and linking to some additional photos.

Here you are, the San Francisco rock art.