Category: Diversity

The importance of supporting diversity

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Diversity

Words, words, them damn words

Andrea wrote an extremely thoughtful discourse on why she doesn’t like to label herself as a feminist. Her posting follows from a link to another equally thoughtful posting on the “feminist” label at Anita’s.

As we’ve seen, the word “feminist” brings with it so much baggage, good and bad. When I say I am a feminist, and don’t explain what this means to me, you’re going to attach to me whatever baggage you attach to the word — so I better define what I mean by “feminist” if I use it.

And when you say you’re NOT a feminist, if you don’t provide a definition of what you mean by your rejection of that label, then I have no recourse but to think you must be rejecting qualities I hold dear.

Words. Words. Them damn words.

It’s interesting because I read Andrea’s posting just after I read some essays about words and their effect, pointed out at another posting. Steve Himmer linked to a essay on the language of terror, and quoted part of it:

Words are pivotal for keeping us in this mess. And words may be crucial for getting us out.

Words. Don’t try these at home boys and girls, you could get hurt.

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Diversity

On I am not a feminist

“I’m not a feminist”

Yesterday I provided two definitions of what a feminist is: one from Merrian-Webster and one of my own.

Since then, I’ve seen “I am not a feminist” repeated, in particular at the Blogsisters weblog. I’ve also heard people say that they prefer to use “humanist” rather than feminist.

Shannon did an excellent recap of much of this discussion, ending with a question:

To say you are a humanist inherently implies you are a feminist; as a feminist, does it imply humanism?

To which I answer by repeating my feminist criteria:

    • Anyone who believes that women should have equal opportunity for work, equal pay for said work, equal opportunity of religion, equal opportunity to education, equal opportunity to medical care, equal opportunity to speak, equal opportunity to vote, control over what happens with her body, equal say with what happens to her family and her children is a

feminist

    • .

The operative term in all of this statement is “equal” — feminism is about equality. And there is no concept more precious to the humanist than equality.

Years ago when I was much more aggressive about my opinions, I worked on a large defense project at Boeing. During this project, I shared an office with another woman and two men, one of whom just had his first child.

Now, when this co-worker, let’s call hom Joe for simplicity, was first married, he and his wife made the decision that she was going to stay at home, be a homemaker, take care of him, the house, and the kids. When I asked Joe what his wife did and he explained that she was a homemaker, I was appalled! I couldn’t understand this concept and this idea in the least!

Think of it: In this day and age, a woman choosing to stay at home, becoming nothing more than a helpmate for her spouse. Indeed!

Needless to say, Joe and I got into several very intense conversations on this issue, to the point where our working relationship was becoming strained. Luckily, the other woman in the office, let’s call her Ann, decided to get involved.

Ann took me out to lunch and talked with me about women’s rights, feminism, and equality. When I started going into my usual spiel about Joe and his macho superior attitude, and how his wife sold out our sex, and so on and so on, she stopped me mid-rant.

Ann said that equality had nothing to do with roles, or sisterhood, or whether a woman chooses to stay at home or not. Equality had to do with a person being able to make a choice about what they want to do with their life and then be able to follow that choice. She told me my actions were negating the things that I was fighting for; I was denying Joe’s wife her right to stay at home if this is what she chooses. I was denying her equality because I didn’t happen to agree with her choice.

Have you ever heard the expression, “It felt like I was hit in the face with a 20 pound Halibut”? No? Well, that’s about what I felt like when I heard, really heard, what Ann was telling me.

Equality has nothing to do with sex, or color, or race, or religion, or any other social or biological factor; it has everything to do with individuals being who they are, about making choices, and then being able to follow through with these choices, without fear, without hinderance, and without discrimination. The only pricetag for this freedom is that the individuals must grant this same freedom to others.

I am a feminist. This doesn’t mean I deny equality for men. This only means I seek equality for women. And as I see the world today, women have a way to go before they achieve that equality. And someday if I’m lucky enough to live that long, I may see true equality for all people regardless of sex, religion, philosophy, orientation, color, what have you. And at that point I’ll probably stop being a “feminist” because my goal of equality for everyone will have been achieved.

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Diversity Just Shelley People

Stand and Fight

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I received a BS in computer science, the first one within a specific sub-discipline (programming languages and compiler design) that was issued at the college I attended. I also received a BA in psychology — emphasis on industrial psychology. I took courses for both disciplines at the same time, usually having computer classes in the morning, psych classes in the afternoon.

One thing both fields required was that I take math, sometimes very advanced math, including graduate level statistics. I had little trouble in all my subjects, but my math grades were heavily erratic. For instance, I did fairly well with my first quarter of College Calculus, getting an A-. You can imagine the puzzlement of the head of the Math department when I almost failed my second quarter of Calculus, taken with a different teacher.

We had meetings on the topic. He was puzzled because my first teacher actually had an reputation for being a bit of a hard ass when it came to not cutting any slack to any students. So why did I do so well with him, when I didn’t with the second teacher who actually wasn’t as tough when it came to tests and requirements.

I wondered about that, myself. It wasn’t until later that I realized the big differences between the two teachers: interest in answering questions.

Mr. Knobel was a no nonsense teacher who was also extremely adept at explaining concepts. There literally was no such thing as a stupid question to this man. If you asked him anything, he would take the time to answer you, dispassionately and in detail. He wouldn’t stop answering until you could prove to him that you understood what he was saying. An incredibly patient man.

The second teacher, whose name I can’t remember, was passionately in love with math, and loved to talk with others who loved math just as passionately as he did. If you asked him a question he would quickly flip off an answer and then get frustrated if you didn’t catch what he was saying the first time. The only way to get the detail you wanted was to “weather” the frustration until you got the answer you needed.

I did very well with one, and almost failed with the other. I’m not stupid. I am capable of learning. I currently own several math books and have pursued math on my own, quietly, since college. I like math. So why did I almost fail with the second teacher?

Now, I bet your first reaction about now is that I’m going to start a long conversation about how the second teacher needed to change, to become more approachable, to learn to work with women differently and so on. Well, I’m not. You see, he wasn’t the one that needed to change — I was the one who needed to change.

Other students in that second teacher’s class also had the same problem I did. However, many of the male students would pursue the question regardless of the teacher’s frustration. They wouldn’t stop hitting at him with questions until they got the answers they needed.

As for me, I now know that everytime I hit the teacher’s frustration, his disappointment that I didn’t understand what he was saying, I backed off. I couldn’t face his disappointment, even though it really wasn’t personal. I couldn’t face his frustration, even though it really didn’t impact negatively on me.

Skip forward, modern day weblogging world:

Elaine posted a note about Opine Bovine at both her weblog and BlogSisters. She says:

Once upon a time, there was a clever young blogger whose address was www.opinebovine.com. She’s disappeared off the web as far as any of us know, and she disappeared purposely. She made herself disappear because, as she explained before she packed up her bags and blogs and moved on, that she was being cyberharrassed and didn’t know how to make it stop. It makes me so mad to think that all of that pain is following us here. Is there so safe place for women?

I also talked via email with Elise about the problems she had. I was aware of the harrassment she’s endured for a considerable time. However, I am also frustrated that she left. My first reaction was, and I posted this in a comment at Elaine’s:

I had discussions with Elise about this before she quit. I respect her quitting, but I wish she hadn’t. What I would rather have happened is her tell the world about it and enlist several techies to help her in dealing with it. Then she could have continued and we could have taught some asshole a lesson.

Isn’t the lesson we’re learning from this is to run rather than stand and fight?

Stand and fight.

My first impulse to some (not all, some) of the reaction to my postings this weekend about BlogSisters, and ultimately about sexism was to drop the subject as being too difficult a topic to cover. However, that’s an action that women have been taking since the dawn of time — when faced with disapproval, anger, disagreement, fall back, give up, compromise.

Kath was right when she said in my comments, “Sexism is NOT ‘percieved’ if you are on the receiving end.” She supports this statement by a posting that discusses this topic more detail. And her sentiment was echoed by Sharon in a comment when she says “What bothers me is when people say things like ‘this *perceived* gender bias’….perceived?? Like we make this shit up??”

Jeneane says in a posting at BlogSisters, “…I have noticed that the posts of women bloggers are often overlooked when it comes to linking and discussion in the greater world of blogging. And I think that’s wrong. We do have something to say.”

These are topics worth pursuing. This is a discussion worth having. And if you’re not interested in listening, then turn the channel because I’m just getting started.

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Diversity

I am not a feminist

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

“I am not a feminist.”

According to Merrian-Webster’s online dictionary, feminism is:

1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests

A feminist is a person who follows the principles of feminism, or one who actively promotes women’s rights and interests.

I learned the true lesson of what feminism means when I was once pontificating about being a “feminist” to a mixed sex group of people, only to have one of the guys pop up with, “Well, so what. So am I.”

Huh? A guy? But yes.

Anyone who believes that women should have equal opportunity for work, equal pay for said work, equal opportunity of religion, equal opportunity to education, equal opportunity to medical care, equal opportunity to speak, equal opportunity to vote, control over what happens with her body, equal say with what happens to her family and her children is a feminist.

If you don’t support these concepts, may I suggest that you read this story about the young girls who lost their lives in a fire in Saudi Arabia because they tried to run from the building and were beaten back because they were not wearing their headscarves.

And if that doesn’t turn your stomach, I can find you a hundred stories about the treatment and murder of women in Afghanistan.

And if that doesn’t get through, I can find you a thousand stories about abuse of women in this country. Matched by a hundred thousand stories of women not being paid the same as a man, even though women in this country head up over 85% of single family homes — a case of those with the most mouths to feed being paid the least.

And if that doesn’t enrage you, I can find you a million stories in history of rape and subjugation of the female of the species, touching every major religion on this planet, crossing every country border, and floating across every damn sea.

“I’m not a feminist”.

The next time you issue a dismissal of feminism, think about what you’re rejecting. And what you’ll get in its place if it were gone.

 

 

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.