BurningbirdNo, no. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to rise to this one. I’m still licking my wounds from the last time I let lose with my mouth about “s_x__m”.
I’ve learned my lesson. You don’t have to keep hitting this puppy with a rolled up newspaper to make me learn.
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Warning: Big time rant. Male/Female thing. Read at own risk.
Being a woman trying to find a place among the techie guys isn’t easy, particularly since the areas of technology of interest to me rarely have other women participants. Don’t have to believe me, take a look at the RSS-Dev group, the RDF interest groups, most of the W3C working groups and so on.
Sometimes the group participation has been good. I’m rather partial to the RDF working group because in the newsgroups, they always worked with me. However, in a lot of groups, particularly the RSS-Dev group, I am for the most part ignored. That’s not a lot of fun. It seems no matter what I do, I don’t have the respect of a lot of the players. Not all players — there’s good people here abouts that never ‘held’ me being a woman against me.
(Me not laying down a 100+ lines of code a day they might hold against me, but not being a woman. And I can live with this.)
The seemingly winless battle for respect over the last few years probably accounts for over 50% of my recent burnout. I’m not sure if any of you understand what its like not being sure if the reason you’re ignored in most of these groups is because you’re a woman, or an idiot. I guess I would prefer to think it was because I’m a woman. I seem to do okay on my jobs, and I’ve had some pretty tough technical jobs. But you just don’t know, and it eats at you. All the time. Takes your confidence and just tears it apart.
After I returned from my last trip, I felt renewed and ready to take on challenges again, especially after coming back to be met with the generosity of so many of you, helping me keep this weblog and my sites going. I started my work again with RDF, which I really do love. In particular, I started participating on Internet-related groups again — something I’m more than a bit wary of.
When things got bad at one email group I took the moderator up on his request to start another group, and started Bloggers Unlimited, and it grew. It’s now at 7698 members.
The conversations started out pretty good. There was a quiet time in the middle, but for most part, consistent discussion. It’s a bit too techy for the audience at times, but manageable.
However, I began to notice a distinctive behavior pattern with this group. There was a very strong dominant male presence, which I know left me feeling pushed out of most of the conversations. When the group fell silent for a few days, and then started up again, another member, a male member, was given credit for rejuvenating the group; and here is me, taking quiet pride in thinking I was the one that had sparked it back to life.
What was worse is that most of the comments I made were ignored. I began to feel invisible. The same old feeling of inadequacy. We had some crankiness among the male members a bit early on, but it smoothed out, and the group went back on track. Again, I hoped I helped on this and I suppose this is a nurturing female type of thing, but I didn’t want to be the nurturing female in this one act play.
I started questioning myelf: Is it just me? Am I asking dumb questions?
I decided to get another party’s opinion, and asked Liz today if she noticed this. Was I being paranoid? Did I have a valid concern? She responded with this posting after first giving me heads up and asking if I wanted to respond instead. I declined. Liz wrote:
Here’s how the story goes, so far as I can see:
a) Shelley posts an interesting query about the semantic web
b) A discussion begins, with posts from a number of people with interesting ideas
c) Shelley responds with questions and ideas, at the same time that predictable people begin posting predictable rants about predictable topics (RSS, for example. OPML. what constitutes an ad hominem attack. yada, yada, yada.)
d) Shelley’s points are essentially ignored in favor of the same-old-same-old peacocking and posturing among the boys.
e) Shelley gets mad.
f) Shelley gets noticed only because she got mad.
g) People like me unsubscribe because the signal-to-noise ratio is getting worse by the second, and they’d rather read blogs than wade through cross-posts and arguments.
I was somewhat relieved to feel vindicated in my read of the group responses, because Liz is not one to call out sexism, either lightly or easily.
On the other hand, though, I was more than a little discouraged to see her comment about me getting mad, because I’ve taken such care on the list not to be mad, to stay calm, even when baited. And I have been baited. Not just in the list but in emails.
Why won’t I take such and such down? Why won’t I hold such and such to task? Well, if I want to be walked on, that’s my problem.
When Liz talked in her posting about rather reading Jeneane and Halley’s comments, I know that she’s making a point about being among people that appreciate each other. And I understand this. However, the impact on me is that I feel left out among both the men and the women. That I have no place with either group.
So where does this leave me?
Most likely bowing out on the groups, though I’m continuing my RDF work here in my weblog, with just my readers who are interested. I most likely will not get involved in any of these groups in the future. I am disappointed at the guys in the list (not all, just some) who seem to have little regard for what I say (and I still have to live with that old worry, now, whether it’s because I’m a woman, or because I’m making stupid comments.)
But I’m also disappointed at the women in the group. Why didn’t they speak out? Why did I have to speak out, alone? Do they know how hard it is to be the only woman talking in these groups?
Where were they when I needed them?
I have some very bad stuff going on in my life now, which I’m not going to talk about here because its deeply personal and, respectfully, lovingly, none of your business. But I don’t have the energy to fight these battles now. I may not ever again in the future.
I’m not walking away from the tech again. I am enjoying my interaction with those who are interested in the RDF Poetry Finder. It may not be sexy lines of code, at least not yet; but this could be the first weblog-based group participation in a project that involves both technical and non-technical people, and it’s a really fun project. At least, I hope so.
When we’re finished, we’ll be able to offer it as a search engine implementation to sites such as Plagiarist and other literature, writing, and poetry related sites. Perhaps even the Guttenberg project. It’s a difference. A small difference, but a difference.
It’s not changing the face of the Web, or even of Google — but it’s a start. It may not be sexy, but it’s doable. I guess when it is up and running, and we can all look back and bask in the glow of our efforts, then that question I have about my worth in technology will be answered. Because it’s not going to get answered in email forums where the women stay silent, and the jerks dominate.
I will say this, though: social software is never going to fly if there isn’t some way to control the peacocks, as Liz called them, and the peahens don’t stop standing in the shadows.
Update:
I hope that the participants in the RDF Poetry Finder are not put off by this posting. Believe me when I say this wasn’t written lightly, and I’m aware it will make people uncomfortable. But it was something I had to say. And, note: I am also aware that I could be wrong in my interpretation — touchy I might be, but at least I try to be honest with myself.
Well, I think.
Caption: An old land mark (sic) that was razed in Marcus recently was the Immigration Station which was used by the railroad as a railway station since the removal of the regular station to the town of Kettle Falls three months ago. Marcus oldtimers remember boom days for the railroad thirty years ago when the Immigration Service had three and four interpreters, a doctor, and several inspectors to handle the large number of Hindus, Chinese and European immigrants coming into this country from Canada on this line.
My father’s family made its way into the United States from Ireland via Canada around the turn of the century. Though my grandfather and grandmother entered the country by boat through Massachusetts, many immigrants found there way into this country through small back woods immigration stations, such as the one shown in this photograph, the old Marcus Railway station.
In the photograph, the station is being dismantled, another casualty to the progress that was known as the Grand Coulee Dam.
So much of this area, its history and culture, was lost when Coulee Dam was buillt in the late 30’s, early 40’s. In its place was left the Roosevelt Lake, home to a modern, surreal Atlantis consisting of the communities that were drowned when the dam was made operational.
Just below my maternal grandparent’s home was a road that used to cross the valley, but now led underwater. We used to bring our cars down to the spot where the road just started to disappear under the clear waters. There, my father would wash the cars, while I and my brother walked the shallows, looking for Minnows.
My apologies to Doc Searls for defaming his good name with my unwarranted attack upon him, and my injudicious use of “sexist” in reference to his statement.
And I apologize to three fellow webloggers for getting on their case, and asking them, in quite strong terms, to drop this whole thing: Jonathon Delacour, Mike Golby and Dorothea Salo. I started to indulge in friendship censorship, and that’s wrong. In particular, Jonthon was extremely careful with seeing both points of view on this issue, as well as kind and generous with his understanding of what led me to my remarks; Mike tried to lighten the situation, to find the humor in it; and Dorothea was a staunch defender, of me, of my concerns, and of the principles behind which good debate occurs. Not one of the three deserved me getting in their face about this issue.
Sometimes one gets hurt and lashes out. The only problem with lashing out, though, is people can weary of it, and then one is left alone.
(Doc has a couple of current postings on this, but his permalinks aren’t working so you’ll have to go to his weblog and scroll.)
Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I have a cat story to tell you if you’re of a mind to listen. It’s a simple story because cats are, at heart, simple creatures. We exist to serve them, which pretty much puts an end to any issue of complexity.
Many, many years ago, I was living in Tempe Arizona with my soon to be husband who became my ex-husband and is now my best friend who just recently became my platonic room-mate….
Years and years ago I was living in Tempe Arizona with Rob.
At the time, I was working for a real estate company as an office manager, which is really nothing more than a glorified secretary and general do things person. However, my status was somewhat elevated because I had two part time people working direcly for me: a weekend secretary, and Maude.
Maude was at least 103 years old, tiny, hunched, and usually dressed in bright fluorescent polyester pantsuits. She was a chain smoker, and spent the day with a cigarette permanently dangling from her lip. To complete the look, she would change into slippers, nice flip flops, once she got to work. They’re for my bunions, she would tell me as she slipped them on. Since she sat at a desk all day, this wasn’t a problem, but she had to get to the desk first. Watching her walk cross the room was, always, a fascinating experience:
Shuffle, puff. Shuffle, puff. Shuffle…HACK! Hack! Gack! Cough, cough. Weeze. WEEZE! A moment of silence … and then a wry smile and a subtle wink, movement knocking an inch of ash to the ground.
Shuffle, puff. Shuffle, puff.
One day one of the realtors came in talking about a friend of hers having to find a new home for her cat. It would seem, said the realtor, that this friend wasn’t having the easiest time of it; though the cat was a lovely full grown calico female, she was also a few weeks shy of having kittens. If the friend couldn’t find a home soon, the realtor sighed, she would have to take the cat down to the Humane Society.
We called her Mama Kitty, since we weren’t planning on keeping her after the kittens were born and weaned. The plan was to find homes for all the cats as soon as possible because Rob and I just weren’t into having pets at that time. However, Mama Kitty was a wonderful cat. Gentle, quiet, intelligent, affectionate. She was no trouble at all, and we were feeling pretty smug about our humanitarian rescue.
A couple of weeks after she moved in, Mama Kitty came into the bedroom one night meowing at us, trying to get us to follow her into the hallway. We had set up a birthing area in the hallway closet and Mama Kitty was amenable to the location, but, contrary to many of the feline family, she wanted someone there to hold her paw while she gave birth.
We sat in the hall next to the open closet door, murmuring gentle reassurances as she gave birth, one right after the other, to three tiny, ugly little kittens. Really, they were wet, their eyes were closed, and they were all nose. They looked like seals.
The first born was Bootsie, so named because he was a gray tabby with white paws.
The second born was Blackie, so named because he was a solid black.
Finally the third was born, a gray tabby with no distinguishing features. Since we and Mama Kitty were tired, we decided to worry about a name for the third kitten the next day.
We went back to bed and soon to sleep until we were woken by the most awful racket — it sounded like something was killing one of the kittens. We ran out into the hallway and peered into the box containing the cats. Mama Kitty was on her side, eyes half squinted as if the sound of the kitten was hurting her ears. Blackie and Bootsie were each attached to a nipple, contented. However, the little nameless kitten was off to the side, hollering its fool head off because it couldn’t find its way to a nipple.
“Why you stupid little twerp”, I said with some exasperation, and nudged the little guy over until it was next to its mama, his cries soon stilled in favor of happy sucking.
Bootsie, Blackie, and Twerp were quite willing to stay in their box while their eyes were closed. However, once their eyes opened, it was a constant struggle to keep the kittens out of trouble. Bootsie was always getting himself into places he couldn’t get out of, Twerp had a knack for planting himself underneath a foot, and Blackie, well, Blackie was just plain weird.
Blackie didn’t walk, he ran, everywhere. He had small beedy yellow eyes, rusty matted semi-long, semi-short black fur, and looked just like a demented owl. When he wasn’t sleeping or eating, he was constantly engaged in furious, and exhaustion provoking, activity.
To help channel some of that excess energy, we hung a cat toy that came with an elastic band underneath the dining room table, and Blackie would play with the thing for hours. One day, though, Blackie played with the toy too hard and the thing bounced up and wrapped itself around his neck, literally strangling him. He screeched, clawing frantially at the band, bobbing up and down like a Halloween apple. I grabbed him to try and prevent further strangulation, while Rob went running to find a knife to cut the elastic.
Luckily, no lasting harm was done. Or at least, none that we could tell with Blackie.
The kittens grew, rapidly, and were soon ready for their first cat food, of which they seemed to need and want vast amounts frequently throughout the day. I had the evening feeding shift and Rob had the morning, and he would stumble out to the kitchen before the sun rose, opening cans and hastily shoving food on to plates and under the voracious maws.
One day, though, Rob was just a little too slow, and Bootsie, who had become quite strong and agile, took a flying leap and sunk his tiny kitten claws into Rob’s butt. Rob let out a yell and I came running into the kitchen just in time to see him trying to angle his hands around behind himself to grab at this kitten, claws hooked securely into the seat of his pants. To make matters worse, Blackie thought this was great fun so he started climbing Rob’s leg, kitten pitons making short work of the journey, each movement bringing fresh curses to the morning air.
I ran forward to help, prying one kitten paw off then another. However, each time I would free one paw, another would become attached. By now, Blackie had finished his ascent and had joined his brother, claws firmly into the jeans bottoms, and the flesh underneath, having the time of its short kitten life.
Twerp just sat on the floor by the food dishes. And cried.
It was then that we knew we would keep “The Boys”. There’s a special bond that forms when you have a cat hanging from your butt.