Geek Chicks: Second thoughts
- Introduction
- Environmental factors
- Turning girls into hackers
- The desirability of female hackers
- An alternative role for women in hackerdom
- Notes
- Acknowledgements
- Further reading
Introduction
This article explores some of the issues relating to females in technical fields, particularly in the Open Source/Free Software movement and among communities of geeks and hackers: Why are there so few of them? Why are there even less who achieve excellence and recognition in their field? What causes and correlations can we find that might tell us more about this? And does it matter anyway? The desirability of having female hackers is also explored, and a possible alternative role for women in the field is suggested.
Much discussion of gender inequality in certain fields revolves around the concept of "Nature vs. Nurture". "Nature" is the term used to describe biological and genetic influences that are present at birth, while "nurture" refers to the environment in which a person is brought up.
The "Nature" side of the discussion is very difficult to investigate, as it is near-impossible to examine biological and genetic influences in isolation. Any person who is the subject of such a study would already be "polluted" by their upbringing and environment.
Since we cannot address the issue of "Nature" with respect to female geeks, this article will attempt to examine the "Nurture" side of the issue, and changes to our environment which may encourage more women into technical fields, especially hackerdom and the Open Source/Free Software movement.
With respect to terminology, I will use the terms "geeks", "hackers"[1] and "Open Source/Free Software community" somewhat interchangeably in this article. I realize that they are different (though overlapping) groups, but since there appears to be a similar dearth of females in all three categories, the following discussion applies equally across the board. If you don't like my terms, feel free to mentally replace them with your own as you read this document.
It is also necessary for me to disclose my gender at this point. Those of you who have read my previous article will know that I am a self-identified "geek chick". I have been using computers since the age of ten or thereabouts, using Linux since 1993, and identify closely with hacker subculture and the Open Source movement. I feel it is necessary to explain this so that you will know where I'm coming from, and not misinterpret what I say in this article.
Lastly, I probably need to make it perfectly clear that this isn't an academic paper, and that this article is based on personal opinion and experience. And, despite the fact that I'm my own boss, the opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Netizen Pty Ltd or any other entity or group, including other female geeks.
Environmental factors
It's been mentioned time and time again (and again, and again) that environmental factors prevent girls from becoming involved in the sciences, and that there are strong disincentives which discourage them from pursuing career paths in technical fields. This isn't up for argument; studies have repeatedly confirmed this, and it is widely accepted as correct.
However, I was thinking about this this evening and tried to figure out why it is that some people (both male and female, but predominantly male) can end up being geeks and hackers when they have little technical background, and why it is that so many people with technical background end up not becoming geeks.
In all fields of geek endeavour (and possibly in all fields of endeavour, period) there are levels of competence. Anyone who is new to computers will struggle at first, then at some point they will achieve a revelation, and break through to the next level. For applications users, this revelation comes when they realize the similarities between applications and are able to apply the general rules they have learned (such as, "Cut and paste work similarly in all applications" or "Most applications have a File menu, an Edit menu, minimize and maximize buttons, etc.") to new applications they encounter. For a programmer, the first revelation comes when, after learning more than one language, they realize that most languages have common constructs such as variables, conditions, looping, and error handling, and that the differences between them are merely a matter of syntax.
It is the ability to step back and take a wide view -- to find patterns and irregularities, rules and exceptions, general cases and special cases -- which allows us to put one level behind us as solved, and move on to the next one. Inhaling large bodies of knowledge such as technical documentation is also required to cement understanding of specific fields, and it is not uncommon for hackers to spend an intense period absorbing information in this manner.
Unfortunately, doing this requires a level of dedication beyond what is considered "normal" for most people. In hackerdom, this usually takes the form of a period of obsessive focus known as a "larval phase", which brings any natural tendency towards a hacker to the fore, and teaches necessary skills to bring a neophyte to maturity as a hacker. Why is it that only a small minority of people are prepared to undergo this process and emerge from it into the next level of understanding, as a butterfly emerges from its cocoon?
larval stage n. Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration on coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers. Common symptoms include the perpetration of more than one 36-hour hacking run in a given week; neglect of all other activities including usual basics like food, sleep, and personal hygiene; and a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last from 6 months to 2 years, the apparent median being around 18 months. A few so afflicted never resume a more `normal' life, but the ordeal seems to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to merely competent) programmers. See also wannabee. A less protracted and intense version of larval stage (typically lasting about a month) may recur when one is learning a new OS or programming language.
The simple answer to this is that it is those who are less attached to the idea of "having a life" who are prepared to spend weeks at a time glued to their computers. The correlation between technical proficiency and social ineptitude is not that those with poor social skills turn to computers; rather, that those with good social skills will have less opportunity to advance their technical ones.
This leads us back to the issue of gender, and why there are few female geeks. One reason may be that girls are encouraged more strongly to be social, and to place greater value in social interactions and social skills. Also, many of the hobbies boys are involved in -- model building, sports, etc. -- reward obsession to a higher degree than girls' hobbies, and hence lead to a greater inclination and ability to focus during their larval stage(s). While girls also have some activities which encourage dedication/obsession (namely music and sports), they are far more likely to give them up during adolescence than boys are.
Those people who are able to obsess over technology for extended periods of time, to the detriment of "normal" social interaction, at least on an occasional basis, will be rewarded with greater depth of knowledge. It's as simple as that. A geek who realizes this will say things like "Sometime when I've got a week free I really have to get my head around such-and-such a topic..." and will try to find the time to go through another larval phase, even if it means spending their holiday time in front of a computer.
So why is it that some people with no apparent social commitments and an interest in technology are nevertheless unable to excel in the field? I believe that it's because people need to start young, and learn that there are new levels to be reached. I've seen people convinced that they are computing wizards because they can correctly build a PC and install Windows, and never realize that there is more to it than that. These people have never learned to look for the underlying patterns or to seek the next level. It would never occur to them to spend a week sniffing packets, reading RFCs, groveling over a core file, or banging their head against a desk trying to bring their code to perfection. They cannot see or appreciate elegance, and will never be able to produce it. They will move from the field of technology into sales or management, and they will not regret it.
It is a sad but true fact that, no matter how many more women are becoming becoming technically literate, there is not -- and will not be, anytime soon -- a proportional number of female "alpha geeks".
Can this be changed? Do we want it to be changed?
Turning girls into hackers
Assuming that we want it to change, there are several things can be done to increase the number -- and the quality -- of female geeks.
Encouraging students at high school age to study technical subjects may not be an effective measure. Sure, it will probably result in more girls studying mathematics and sciences, but the analytical mentality required to achieve excellence in technical fields must be encouraged long before high school age.
Here are some measures which may help foster an analytical mindset in children -- especially, but not only, girls.
- Encourage activities which involve puzzle solving, pattern recognition, etc.
- Encourage activities which promote a holistic or wide view of things.
- Don't consider puzzle solving or pattern matching to be purely technical/mathematical in nature -- there are patterns to be found in language, in history, music, nature...
- Teach mathematics and sciences holistically, tying it in to real life situations and showing relationships between theories.
- Allow obsessiveness to happen (within the bounds of mental health). If kids want to spend a whole day playing with Legos or a whole weekend reading, let them.
- Reward perfection more highly than just excellence. As a child, I found that going the extra mile would not give me any greater return on investment, so I learned to stop bothering -- something which I greatly regret now.
- Encourage an appreciation of quality in all things.
- Teach them to RTFM, and provide them with a good reference library.
- Give adolescent girls the support and encouragement they need to do things other than the social norm. I am not convinced that anything worthwhile comes from reading teen magazines, worrying about fashion, or trying to be cool. A questioning attitude and a good dose of common sense need to be instilled before adolescence and supported throughout the period.
- Encourage girls to have obsessive hobbies, weird as it sounds. Sewing and other textile arts, in particular, can be good for this.
- Nurture geekdom where you find it -- adopt a babygeek today!
Pushing women through secondary or university level technical courses will not produce hackers. Giving girls Tonka trucks instead of Barbies will not produce hackers. Only the early installation of the right kind of clues, and supporting the kids in question in their quest for knowledge and understanding, will achieve it.
Only a very few of my generation happened to be brought up this way (thanks, Dad). It remains to be seen whether the proportion will increase over the next couple of decades.
This can be described as:
Option 1: Change the way females think to fit hackerdom
The desirability of female hackers
But do we want more female geeks and hackers? Ask most male geeks -- particularly those who are young, straight, and single -- and the answer will almost certainly be a resounding "YES". The reasons for this should be obvious. Perhaps the question should be modified to: Why do we want more females in this area, and what benefits (if any) will this bring?
A quick straw-poll of hackers suggests that the reason for wanting more women in the field (hormonal urges aside) is that it is felt that they would bring a different perspective and generate new ideas.
If this is the case, our entire question needs to be turned around. Not "Why are there so few women?", but "Where are we drawing the boundaries of hackerdom, are we prepared to expand them to let new perspectives and ideas in, and would expanding them cause a greater proportion of women to be included?"
Currently, projects are considered to have more "hack value" if they are low-level (kernel hacking, for instance, as opposed to applications), general in nature (useful tools rather than specific applications), and require supreme efforts of concentration and dedication to complete.
There is also a view of development projects that separates them into "hard" and "soft", where "hard" projects are those which are lower level and have greater kudos associated with them. Hard projects include such things as kernel hacking, writing device drivers, and creating new programming languages. Soft projects include applications, user interfaces, multimedia, documentation, and so on. By stretching the definition, we could say that advocacy, training, marketing, and business-related activities could also be considered "soft" projects.
If females are wanted in order to bring new perspectives and ideas, perhaps the values we use to judge hacking projects, and the ways in which we describe and categorize them, will need to change radically. For instance, the value we place on "soft" projects may need to be reappraised, or we may find new and interesting ways in which "hard" and "soft" can overlap and interrelate.
Opening up our definition of hackerdom to include such traditionally female concepts as user interface and psychology, written and verbal communications, group interactions (both electronic and face to face), et cetera, may be a valid alternative to requiring women to fit the existing hacker mold. Additionally, it may result in communities and processes which are even more powerful than our current models. This can be described as...
Option 2: Change hackerdom to be more accepting of females
Do we want to change hackerdom to suit females at all? Or do we want to change female mentality to suit hackerdom? Both involve fairly massive social upheaval, and there is no way to tell whether either of them will be successful in the long run.
For the sake of the argument, let's look at another option: change neither. That is, make an effort to fit women (as they are, without trying to change them) into hackerdom in its current form.
Option 3: Fit women (as they are) into hackerdom (in its current form)
Women have, in the past and the present, demonstrated their ability to fit into hackerdom both socially and technically. Male hackers, as described in A Portrait of J. Random Hacker, are not particularly prone to overt sexism or other bigotry (at least as compared to the general populace or to men in the IT field in general) -- perhaps because "if one's imagination readily grants full human rights to future AI programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and gender can't seem very important any more." Nor are male hackers unwilling to accept new ideas and perspectives; rapid changes in technology and their inherent intelligence and ability to integrate concepts make it easier for them than for many other people.
Female hackers (for some definition of hacker which is not necessarily tied to "hard" projects) do exist. I know several of them. However, the geek/hacker community doesn't seem to notice or acknowledge them. I'm not saying this out of a sense of immature pique at having been overlooked, but in response to numerous articles on Slashdot and other fora saying, in effect, "Where are the female geeks?" Every time this occurs, numerous female geeks and hackers say "Here we are!" and, largely, get ignored or forgotten by the next time the question is raised.
Perhaps what is needed is an acknowledgement of female hackers and other geek chicks, a PR campaign to let other proto-geekettes know that we're here, in fact an active recruiting campaign.
This recruiting campaign would need to target women who have the latent abilities -- perhaps instilled by parents or teachers following similar strategies to those outlined above, perhaps owing to biology or genetics -- but who have not yet found a community of like-minded people to encourage them to extend themselves. It would need to teach them both technical and social skills relevant to the group, and show them the reward that can be found in hacking.
This campaign would need the support of both men and women who are already part of the community. Only the combined message of "We want your input" (from the guys), and reassurance that it's worthwhile and that a newcomer will be encouraged and respected (from the girls), can have the desired effect.
Forming the female hacker community
In the last year or so, I've seen several attempts to do exactly this, and been involved in at least three. The most active and recognizable of these groups is Linuxchix, a group formed by Deb Richardson as a forum for female Linux users.
Linuxchix boasts hundreds, if not thousands, of members both female and male, and several mailing lists from "techtalk" where technical questions are asked and answers found, to "issues" where the issues facing women in computing, Open Source, the IT workplace, and the Linux community are raised and discussed.
Linuxchix has received extensive media coverage from Slashdot to ZDNet to the mainstream press, and women are starting to realize that Linux is not actually a male-only domain.
Another, less formal, move towards gender consciousness and encouraging female hackers has been seen in the Perl community. While the "MarsNeedsWomen" Perl Mongers group is largely inactive, the Perl community is home to regular discussions on the topic of women in Perl, why there are so few, and what can be done about it.
The underlying issue in the Perl community is not that there are few Perl programmers who happen to be female (because, as far as we can tell, there are lots -- especially those who use Perl as part of the jobs as Web developers or systems administrators) but that those females (with a few notable exceptions) are not active in the Perl community. For instance, O'Reilly's Perl Conference in August 1999 is said to have had approximately 1% female attendance.
In recent discussions on the perl-trainers mailing list some theories were suggested to explain the lack of women in the Perl community.
One theory is that female Perl programmers tend to use Perl as a single part of their jobs (for instance, web development, data management, or systems administration) and not as an end in itself. These women don't "identify" as Perl programmers, and would be unlikely to attend a Perl conference, join a user group, or subscribe to a Perl journal, when they could find similar resources more suited to their wider needs (for example, a Web development conference).
A second theory suggested that the confrontational style of many Perl discussion fora (for instance, comp.lang.perl.misc and the p5p mailing list) may be offputting to women. I was personally going to discount this theory, until I realized that in fact the level of confrontation and flamage on p5p is my main reason for not being on that list. I don't think of myself as having particularly delicate sensibilities, nor do I shrink from heated discussions when they're necessary, but for me, arguments about the deep technical language of the Perl interpreter have no value to me. This is quite likely true of many other female Perl programmers, and yet another indication that women are more interested in applying technologies to real life situations than to obsessing about the implementation details of those technologies.
These insights suggest that the Perl community, rather than trying to find females within its ranks, should be looking outwards to people who are not already members of that community: Web developers (for instance, members of the webgrrls groups), Linuxchix members who may be interested in using Perl or learning to program under Linux, and members of industry groups such as SAGE (The System Administrators Guild, affiliated with USENIX).
By forming visible networks of female Open Source users and hackers, the Open Source community can reasonably expect to attract more females, who bring with them a range of skills other than technical, and who will find greater opportunities for personal growth and for improving Open Source software and community than would have been possible if they had remained in isolation.
An alternative role for women in hackerdom
Even with the support and encouragement of the hacker/geek community, it is possible -- even likely -- that women will not end up as Alpha Geeks, at least not without a massive paradigm shift regarding our definition of the term. It is difficult for even the most hopeful idealist to envisage women dedicating themselves to the hacker lifestyle and to producing general-purpose, widely used products with high "hack value" like Linux, Emacs, or Perl (all of which were initially developed by men working alone). Some people would suggest that women have more sense than this.
In that case, what chance is there for women hackers to achieve excellence and recognition?
It was mentioned earlier that the skills at which women typically excel include UI and psychology, language and communications, and group interactions. In conjunction with a solid grounding in technical subjects and hacker culture, female geeks may be able to use these strengths in an as yet largely unconsidered field: that of integrator, leader, and facilitator. Social skills which may be a barrier to hacking may in the end turn out to be what is needed to give direction and support to a project. In particular, the "bazaar"[2] style of development prevalent in the Open Source/Free Software community could greatly benefit from the input of technically-literate females, even if they are not actively producing world-shaking hacks.
Already there are indications that this is starting to take place. For instance, despite recent complaints of a lack of women in the Perl programming community, most of the Perl-related mailing lists to which I subscribe are administered by women[3], who act either as advocates, "den mothers", or both. The Open Source Writers Group, a network of writers, editors and proofreaders involved in Open Source, is run by the same woman who runs Linuxchix. And at least two major Web-based Linux news sites have women prominently featured in their editorial staff.
Roles available for the asking to technically minded women (or indeed anyone with the pre-requisite skills) include:
- Project management and integration
- Mediation and conflict resolution
- Documentation and Web site maintenance
- Advocacy and evangelism
- Usability and internationalization efforts
- Quality assurance
- Training and education
- Event organization (conferences, etc.)
These are tasks that need to be done, and which aren't getting done to a sufficient degree in the Open Source/Free Software community. Quite possibly it's because of the lack of women in the field.
I do not wish to imply in any way that because these tasks rely on skills which are traditionally considered to be "feminine", they remove the necessity of assisting girls achieve an analytical, hackish mentality from an early age. These roles require hacker knowledge and attitude, not only to understand the technical issues but also to be able to communicate with and understand the needs of the other hackers involved in the project.
Let me repeat this, as people seem to have trouble grasping what I'm saying: These are not non-hacker roles. These are roles for hackers who have additional skills. Super-hackers (in the mathematical sense of a superset), so to speak, rather than sub-hackers.
Now, I realize that I'm going to get ripped to shreds for even suggesting that women should take on traditional, non-technical roles. That's fine. If you don't agree with me, you don't have to do what I say. I don't claim that I have all the answers to anything, nor that I speak for other female hackers.
Before you completely write off what I say, I ask you to consider something that someone once told me: "One person's offensive stereotype is another person's useful rule of thumb." It is a useful rule of thumb (or "heuristic", if you prefer) that women, because of their upbringing, tend to have more skill, on average, in the areas mentioned above.
To women I say: Use these skills. Don't write them off as "non-hackerly". Don't presume that they're unrelated to technology or hacking. Don't think that they're not needed to bring a project to maturity. And most of all, don't discount their value to the Open Source/Free Software community.
To the men in Open Source, I say: take a look at your work, at your projects. Are your projects well managed and well documented in appropriate formats? Have you given attention to the user interface? Does your software have the polish that's needed to gain acceptance outside the hacker community? Are your users being looked after and feeling as if they're a necessary and appreciated part of the Open Source development process? Is your Web site up to date, and does it contain all the information it needs, presented in a consistent, logical format that makes it easy to find information? If the answer to any of these questions is "no", your software is falling short of its potential. If you've ever said that you wish there were more female geeks in the Open Source community, now may be your opportunity to welcome them into your team, not as mascots or hangers-on, but as an indispensable part of the project.
Notes
1. By "hacker" I mean an ultra-proficient programmer, not the sort of people who break into computer systems illegally. See the Jargon File for a full definition.
2. See The Cathedral and the Bazaar, a paper by Eric S. Raymond
3. MarsNeedsWomen.pm, Fun With Perl, Perl-AI, Melbourne.pm; the Perl Mongers group leaders mailing list is run by a male.
Acknowledgements
Effusive thanks needs to be extended to the following people for reading, reviewing, and commenting on the above article:
- Dan Shearer
- Eric S. Raymond
- Abigail
- David "thorfinn" Goh
- Innumerable regulars of EFNet's #perl channel on IRC
Further reading
Kirrily "Skud" Robert is a Perl coder and trainer and CEO of Netizen, an Australian open source company. Her hobbies include meetings, meetings, and wishing she had more time to code.
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Nice article :)
I have a couple of insights to add, true or not:
Hacking is a very antisocial activity, the intense focus is at the expense of time, and in my experience, its not just a "Where are the female hackers?", its more of a "Where are the hackers?" full stop. The only indication that the hackers exist at all is their presence in various, usually heavily isolated and protected IRC channels, or their quiet highly technical presence on places such as slashdot and various Usenet forums. In the general run of things, those females that can be readily idenitied by alias or name, rarely post on such boards, preferring I assume to absorb. Thus their occasional outbursts of "Hey we're HERE damnit!" on slashdot are largely ignored because despite that, they don't seem to make a dent on what few places hackers actually make a dent.
As also noted, Females tend often to utilise the relevant tools as part of their job, rather than as an end in itself. While highly effective and worthy of every bit as much praise, if not more, than the coding-for-its-own-worth philosophy, it doesn't tend to generate software that gets released. This kind of code ends up driving websites, backends, text mangling and database processing, but never gets released as a package under the GPL, or made public in other forms. This means that once again the male tendency to write stuff "for the hell of it", quite often totally unrelated to any jobs at hand, means that they're more likely to release, and more likely to be seen, than females.
I also disagree with your definition of soft and hard stuff :) Gimp is hard, Apache is hard, Enlightenment is hard. These are apps :) Although admittedly I can't stretch to calling device drivers and kernel coding soft :)
Good article though, good stuff in there about holistic training during childhood.
ug. Its 2:40am, damnit..
Geek Chicks (Females)...
On Geeknews.net (www.geeknews.net), there is a whole message board thread (geeknews.net/mboard.ph...) talking about Geek Dating and it goes into Geek of the female gender. I know this is a lil' off the subject, Ok! Way off subject - but it's still interesting non-the-less.
hard vs. soft and recognition
There is also a view of development projects that separates them into "hard" and "soft", where "hard" projects are those which are lower level and have greater kudos associated with them.
If females are wanted in order to bring new perspectives and ideas, perhaps the values we use to judge hacking projects, and the ways in which we describe and categorize them, will need to change radically. For instance, the value we place on "soft" projects may need to be reappraised, or we may find new and interesting ways in which "hard" and "soft" can overlap and interrelate.
I don't see this happening, and here is why: geeks place value based on how technically difficult or elegant something is. I don't know how many times I have heard the phrases "I could do that if I wanted to", or "that would be trivial to do", in reference to something that is very important, but which fell into the "soft" category. Of course the person who says such a thing is NOT going to do it, given that it would be so simple to do.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the reason many geeks look down on "soft" jobs is that the people who have these jobs are often the same people who ostracized us in junior high and high school. I'm talking about the workplace in general and not software, but I think it carries over.
Female kernel hackers
Currently, projects are considered to have more "hack value" if they are low-level (kernel hacking, for instance, as
opposed to applications), general in nature (useful tools rather than specific applications), and require supreme efforts
of concentration and dedication to complete.
Many Linux users have set up or at least used IP Masquerading. If you check /usr/src/linux/CREDITS, you'll see that it was written by Pauline Middelink (www.polyware.nl/~midde..., a dutch female Linux hacker (she's also in the Memory Management team).
It's easy to see that the number of male contributors to the Linux kernel is slightly higher than the number of girls -- and at a first glance it seems to support the "hard" vs. "soft" projects argument, but isn't this male/female ratio similar to those found in open source application development?
misnomer
I have a tendency to believe that the presence of females in the hacker community is largely discounted. I can relate that recently, while at a 2600 meeting, an attendee not only pointed out that I am a geek's girlfriend, but proceeded to compare me to that of a comic book collector's girlfriend who "tags along" to conventions and other gatherings. I am a technically minded female who works in a technical field; because I have chosen to date a geek, my position in the hacker community and potential as a female in said community may never be fully realized or appreciated.
Who knows what the right answer is
In 1910 most women were seamstresses, working 12 hours a day in dangerous conditions. In 1943 most women were geeks, working on the electrical and mechanical underworkings of wartime machinery. Today most women are secretaries, working 12 hours a day and getting carpel tunnel instead of burning in fires.
History has proven that in any industry where one person was able to provide the needs of two, the women have dropped out and the men have been expected to provide. That equation is obeyed in the IT industry as surely as the sun sets. The only difference between today and 1955 is that today's women are dropping out by their own choice. You'd think we'd be heading to some right answer but obviously women have assumed many roles, sometimes better than what they do now.
another reason?
i think something that wasn't considered and must be is the reason why many geek projects are undertaken in the first place. while the need for a piece of software is important to gettin' it written, quite often software is written to support "big dick theory." guys will write things that they can show off to other people, i.e. if i'm a kernel hacker, and i get in the CREDITS file, i have a big dick. so, as long as that is a large part of the ethos of open source software development (i think ESR says quite the same thing, less crudely, without looking at the reason behind it) than women largely will be excluded as they don't (seem to) have the innate need to exhibit this behaviour.
A few thoughts
This article addresses many of my own issues. I was encouraged into Science, but chose not to go on in Physics partly because of the maleness of the industry. There were so few role models for me, and I didn't have the strength to mold my behaviour to fit into the patterns you find in that kind of male-dominated discipline - so while male students were out drinking with their supervisors, I was hoping mine wouldn't want to pay any attention to me until I was *sure* I had what I was doing finished and absolutely faultless.
Since then, I've spent a lot of time on my computer as I try to decide on my next direction, and since my father and brother are kinda sorta hackers, and I've had a lot of fun with scripts as a Physics student, and I now run linux, I'd love to be a geek. But I don't know what to do - would uni turn out just the same way? Can I teach myself enough to get a foot in the door? And this article has been really enlightening.
Anyway, I have an interesting nature/nurture point to make. Just as you suggest that women are encouraged to be more social, I think I can extend that to say that in general women seek praise and credit for who they *are*, whereas men seek the same for what they can *do*. Who you are is bundled up with how you look, behave, etc. Obviously talent is a part of both of these, but it means we channel our efforts in different ways. And since praise, encouragement, acclaim etc. are important motivators for we humans, this means the work we do is to a great extent motivated by it.
This could be nurture-driven, but there is a nature argument. If you watch *any* nature documentary (wow, hard science here), it's always the female of the species who choses the male she thinks will provide the best genes for her offspring. This is demonstrated by strength, prowess, physical looks/display, etc. It may be the way some male bird builds a nest, or the way a baboon fights off opponents, but it's always the same philosophy. The male has to perform feats and demonstrations of what his genes could provide to her offspring.
However, the female's test comes when she has to raise her offspring. She has to know the nuances of the social group they are a part of, she has to be the teacher and the nurturer. Her skills have to be broad and many, and her communication has to be strong. Now we get into the realm of fantasy when we try to stretch these generalisations to explain the lack of geek chicks, but I think there's *something* there.
Politically correctness ad nauseam...
What the hell this kind of intellectual masturbation has to do with Linux?
Females are free to hack everything they want has anyone else. In case you missed the point. hacking is like breathing. You cannot encourage someone to do it.
Re: A few thoughts
I should first point out that being a geek isn't really a goal, it's more about who you are. You don't become a geek, you discover that you are one. (Beyond a certain point in your early childhood development) You either have the abilities or you don't, but you won't really know until you try. Books alone and educational institutions trail behind computing technology fields by far. They can't teach you everything in the first place, you have to teach yourself the rest no matter how you go about learning. I taught myself almost everything I know about programming. I've been programming since I was 7 years old and I never took a programming class until college (mainly because it was required :). I yawn at the projects they give me because the language is familiar (I know C, the class is about Java) and I'm used to learning languages. While other students were just learning the basics about computers and playing games, I was using BASIC to code games. All I started with was other people's code and a lot of curiosity about the abilities of the language (Apple II BASIC :) and the hardware. It's not about whether or not the material can be self-taught, it's whether or not you have the ability to teach things to yourself. Those that can teach themselves how to do things like program are going to be better in the long run than those who can't. You really shouldn't be asking whether or not you can teach yourself. You should be trying to actually do it, or at least asking where to start. There are some tricks and cautions to know about. You have to have a lot of curiosity. You need the motivation: "What can I do with it?" or even "What can it do?" Even simple silly things are cool to code. One of the first C programs I wrote was a windows program called "OK" that just put up silly System Error messages in real System Error fashion in a sequence just for laughs, such as "Coffee maker failed: no beans". Which doesn't sound like much but is funny to see from windows and especially when you know you made it do that. Another thing: exhaust some sources before you bother others. I don't mind answering questions from those learning to code, but constant how-do-i-do-this-how-do-i-do-that is trying to your, shall I say, "victim"'s patience and will ultimately result in a stream of "RTFM" and silence. Still, don't hesitate to ask questions. If someone doesn't feel like answering, ask someone else. Of course this is from a coder perspective because that's what I know best. This applies more or less to other things too. So, after digesting all of this, what's your next move? :)
The role of women in hackerdom.
Given the known strengths/and weaknesses of women, with
no strong opinion as to whether they are innate or
socialized, it seems to me that the perfect position for
females is as the team leader/project coordinator in
large projects. I have seen this work in a few times in
MIS. Especially as middle management on well defined
projects it seems to work out very well when the woman
has good technical background - she needn't have been
an "alpha" hacker, merely sufficiently competant to
understand the issues and how they relate to the project.
The lack of testosterone poisoning, that the hard techies
will not see her as competition, a woman's "common
sense", and the male's inhibitions against overly agressive
behavior in the presence of a female - aggression which an astute woman can often sublimate into more productive channels - can combine in many instances to make a team headed by the right woman more effective than would be
possible otherwise. Of course, the woman does need the
adequate technical grounding for the specific project plus
the social and interpersonal skills - and a knowledge of
the care and feeding of techies, to do this.
This poses an interesting challange for the Open Source
community where the prereq for team leadership is "show
me the code". A little Freudian substitution in that
demand explicates very clearly the nature of the hacker
community (ies) and highlights the reason why females
rarely become "alpha" hackers. It would be an interesting
experiment if someone with the core code for mid to large
scale (with multiple programmers required) would then
step aside and name a woman with the right skills to be
team leader.
-- TWZ
The role of women in hackerdom.
<pure subjective opinion>
Given the known strengths/and weaknesses of women, with
no strong opinion as to whether they are innate or
socialized, it seems to me that the perfect position for
females is as the team leader/project coordinator in
large projects. I have seen this work in a few times in
MIS. Especially as middle management on well defined
projects it seems to work out very well when the woman
has good technical background - she needn't have been
an "alpha" hacker, merely sufficiently competant to
understand the issues and how they relate to the project.
The lack of testosterone poisoning, that the hard techies
will not see her as competition, a woman's "common
sense", and the male's inhibitions against overly agressive
behavior in the presence of a female - aggression which an astute woman can often sublimate into more productive channels - can combine in many instances to make a team headed by the right woman more effective than would be
possible otherwise. Of course, the woman does need the
adequate technical grounding for the specific project plus
the social and interpersonal skills - and a knowledge of
the care and feeding of techies, to do this.
This poses an interesting challange for the Open Source
community where the prereq for team leadership is "show
me the code". A little Freudian substitution in that
demand explicates very clearly the nature of the hacker
community (ies) and highlights the reason why females
rarely become "alpha" hackers. It would be an interesting
experiment if someone with the core code for mid to large
scale (with multiple programmers required) would then
step aside and name a woman with the right skills to be
team leader.
-- TWZ
Battle scars
Interesting article, but in looking at my upbringing I have to admit that I am clueless as to how I wound up becoming a successful programmer. Don't get me wrong.. as I am admittedly the stupidest man I know, yet I haven't any doubt as to how I can apply my talent to get what I want.
Here's the relevant part; I have a couple of nieces and I wish that they could have the same feeling of complete and utter power that I achieved -- though I acquired it rather haphazardly through a series of monumental failures. Is it really possible to get to the "next level" without hitting your head against a wall for 15+ years?
It was a huge tradeoff for me. The projects that consumed my life for the most part only amounted to learning experiences for me. I mean I have shelfspace full of code that I've spent years on that I've never used because of that last 10% of a project that is so tough to finish. I really have to reflect on it sometimes and say "what the hell was I thinking" to waste so much time on things.
So in my opinion unless you are a natural braniac, unlike me, then you must have the correct temperament. You have to accumulate skills along the way and don't leave any questions unanswered. Learn to touch type, solder, weld, draw, debug, and other things that you need to know at a particular time. Just learn what you need to and don't go overboard and read a book from front to back.. rather just watch others and learn their shortcuts. But don't ask useless questions because god we hate that :) you must be perceived as needing to know something or the mentors that you bug will start getting PO'd.
You know we probably wouldn't be talking about all this if computers didn't become such a worldwide phenom. It's really just a bunch of related skills like any other. Too bad becoming a Doctor or Lawyer didn't have this much grass roots support.. or maybe we'd all be able to prescribe our own drugs or take out our own appendixes.
So what over-indulged hobby in this decade is going to empower the workers of 2010 with the god complex that us 80s programmers now have? And BTW it has just begun.. what with the PalmPilot coding being nearly identical to programming a C64, TI-99, or Atari. Though in the non-technical field I suppose that leathermaking will be a good cash cow -- something that I haven't picked up yet, though I wish I had with all of this handheld crap I lug around.
Re: Battlescars
An excellent article, indeed. On the topic of how one gets to be a "Geek" or, as I like to think of it, a problemsolver, is simple -- it comes from failure. Some of my most intuitive solutions come from some of my most monumental failures.
I think, however, I had it well when I was a kid. Both of my parents were ex-teachers, and both knew how to get a kid to think. WIth me, the excelled. I like to think of myself as an excellent critical thinker (though, I can't spell worth a hoot -- there's irony, eh?). But, with my sister, whom I can assure you, got the same "treatment" I did, to tell you the truth, they failed miserably. I think there is something to be said for the proposal that some people just aren't going to be as "smart" as others.
Good Editorial / My 2 cents
Very interesting read indeed. However, I feel I must play the devil's advocate (don't shoot me!) and point out a few things that aren't necessarily wrong, but I think should be clarified/explored.
1. One possibility that is mentioned is to change the way we raise our children, essentially, and help girls cast free some of the bonds of traditional social behavior. I believe *everyone* could use a little help with this, though I also agree the girls are undoubtedly constrained more by traditional views than boys. A little later on, however, Skud mentions that one of the reasons it would be desirable to have more "geek chicks" is that "they would bring a different perspective and generate new ideas." If, in the Nature vs. Nurture argument, you believe in 100% nurture, 0% nature, than how much different will the perspective of "geek chicks" be if they are brought up more like their mail brethen? Naturally, there would be a difference, and I think most people who have given it some thought will agree that it is definitely neither all Nature or all Nurture, but somewhere in between though we may vary on just where we stand in the middle.
Whoops, I got a little off of the train of thought I started on, but it does help set up the next point. :)
2. If there is a fundamental difference, even slight, in the way we think, and more importantly, our motivations, than isn't it to be expected that our interest in certain fields may be different? If we redefine our definition of "hacking" to include more women, just what have we accomplished? Nothing. It's nothing more than politically-correct jerrymandering. What we need to do, instead, is recognize where different people stand, both men and women, and give credit where credit is due. Yes, perhaps more "male" interests are predominant in "hard hacking" type communities, where each line of assembly code in that core library is a work of art, in it's own twisted way. I am not entirely convinced that this is the case, but if it is, is there anything wrong with that?
I think I had a third point, but I've forgotten it now. I was also gonna write a sappy conclusion, but I thought it was a little too thick about halfway through writing it, so I deleted it.
If you have any comments, please feel free to email me! I'd love to hear 'em. I actually think this is a pretty interesting topic... (and I've had an in-depth discussion or two w/ my girlfriend about it... so yes, i'm a dude)
Cheers.
You dont need to be a Brainiac
To reach geekdom, or even to just enjoy your life in the IT industry you dont need to be a brainiac. The most important thing that is required is a CONSTANT and never ending need to LEARN and develop. From that comes the the need to prove to yourself that you ARE learning and are DAMN good. (hence the 36 hour hack sessions...)
There can be nothing more important than education.
And there is no knowledge that is not power.
about some of us girls.
I could write a page-long rant about being a girl in this place,
someone people fear or respect some of the time, but I won't,
cause some of us chicks are just too busy coding.
Let me go finish my linux distribution and I'll get back to you.
about some of us girls.
I could write a page-long rant about being a girl in this place,
someone people fear or respect some of the time, but I won't,
cause some of us chicks are just too busy coding.
Let me go finish my linux distribution and I'll get back to you.
What the hell?
Skud starts off the article discussing why females aren't hackers and ends up by saying that maybe
they can't be and should write documentation, or work on administration, or some other menial task (as viewed by hackers). What is this? If you want to have female hackers, they have to do what the hackers do to be considered hackers. That's the bottom line. If you want to create a watered down version of what a hacker is so we can include women, count me out! I think women can be hackers, and not just the documentor's of these projects and history, in general.
I don't know why women don't excel as hackers. I do know that I have met only a very few women whom I think could qualify. I don't know if it has to do with "Nature" or "Nurture", but only that most of the women I have met cannot create the mental model of a computer or system (whatever that might be, physical or etheral) that is required to become a hacker. My feeling is that it is "Nature" because if it was "Nuture" then it would seem that all males would be capable of being hackers. This is obviously not the case, as some are only capable of being (or only want to be) construction workers or janitors, or whatever. For whatever reason, not all males are capable of this either. But, as I said above, I don't know nor pretend to believe I even have an idea.
My explanation as to why the female hackers (geek chick) that are out there don't receive the recognition they deserve is that that are not willing to "play the games" their male counterparts are willing to do. It has been my experience that if you place any group of males together, they will immediately begin to establish a "pecking order" or power hierarchy. Females do not do this, but rather just seem to work together to get a job done. The males will quickly establish who calls the shots and let them decide what should be done while the females will just try to work together. When males and females are together in the same group, the females generally let the males assume control and immediately assume subordinate roles. Where as, males will jostle for control. The female hackers I have know do not fit this description, they are willing to fight for what they think is right (or is better). This is just my experience.
I have played with this "for real" with my father several years ago when we were both working for grounds maintenance for a local university. We played around with this quite a bit. From our informal study, males could easily take control of a group of people on the same power level if an older male didn't contest. What you essentially have here is a group of people without an established hierarchy. I (as an a young, and 18 year old male) was easily able to move to a control position by jumping in and making decsisions (that were at least marginally correct). We are talking about a completely unimportant situation here; mowing lawns, cleaning gutters, etc. In my group there was an older man (a biker and prison guard, probably in his 40's). Because he didn't give a shit about this job, I was easily able to take control anytime I wanted. If he had challenged me, certainly a quite interesting power struggle would have ensued. My father (as an older male) could take control any time he liked, period. My point here is the difference between the behavior of the males and females in the group. The males established a pecking order while the females just followed along. Is this "Nature" or "Nuture"? I don't know.
Another poster indicated a similar idea (the "big dick" idea), wherby males try to establish who has the largest dick. While this may seem crude, at first, it is essentially the core of the problem. While, in hackerdom, no one can be sure who has the largest dick, it really doesn't matter. What matters, is who is in control. Skud even alluded to the fact that she knows this is the problem in her discussion of the perl mailing lists. This is the same as discussions that go on other mailing lists, it has nothing to do with the issue at hand, but it is rather a power struggle. A power struggle women are not (generally) willing to engage in. While even many males in the group acknowledge that this is a stupid discussion, they understand its signifigance. While some care and some don't, all understand who knows the most.
If women (geek chicks) want to become a part of this, they will either have to attack the situation head on and take on the males in the group, or establish their own projects and prove they are worthy (in proper male fashion :)). Note that males who lose or who are shunned from whatever project they attempt to contribute to, generally start their own project, that they are the leader of, to do whatever it is they wanted to do. Females MUST do the same. They MUST say that whatever they are interested in doing is as importpant (or more important) as other projects. If they are different in emphasis from male dominated projects, so what? They must prove they are worthy in the minds of others and that they are important in general (as would any male dominated project). And that what they develop is BETTER than whatever project they split off from, as would any male.
Unless we are hoping for some external god-like entity to jump in here and say "you must treat female hackers as equal" and that "all females will be treated as males" or that "we must treat all submissions from female programmers as better than all else" , the FEMALES MUST ASSERT THEMSELVES AND THEIR OWN VALUES AND IDEALS in the world that exists!
I am sorry that this is currently a male dominated world, but that is reality. Either you are going to have to conform to and beat the male dominated world, or create your own world. If you create your own world, I think that the male dominated current world will easily be able to accept your new world, as they are really interested in what works best.
Sincerely
Derry Bryson
Geek Chicks: Second thoughts
I've been reading some of these "Where are the Geek Girls?" threads on slashdot recently and wanted to make some comment of "We're over here" but then haven't. Part of the reason why not is because I have this nagging doubt of "Do I really qualify as a geekgirl?" and I suspect that others out there may feel likewise.
I work in IT (UNIX sysadmin at the moment), enthuse about my latest techno acquisitions and generally attract the title "geek" from people I work with; but I don't write open source code, or spend hours on my PC in the evenings, and I do have a vast range of other hobbies. So I'm not _really_ _truly_ a geek, am I?
I largely agree with Skud's piece about this. I think the female ability to multi-task, by defintion, reduces the likelihood of women obsessing with a single activity. Likewise our more gregarious social nature means we are less likely to want to spend too much time alone coding. Some time, yes, but not enough to gain a noticeable reputation within the various coding communities.
I'd also agree strongly that what the open source projects lack is the kind of things that women are good at. I've been annoyed for the last ten years, for example, that the free unixes are so unfriendly to set up and use. There's no need for that. It isn't difficult to make something more approachable for people, to explain in clear and simple terms how to make them work and to give them intuitive and clear interfaces; but there seemed to be a strong reluctance, or perhaps inability, to do any of that. Commercialisation of the products has helped here in recent years and things are improving, but there's still a way to go.
I don't feel that I can criticise these projects for their shortfallings, though, if I'm not prepared to help with them myself and I'm not in a position to offer huge swathes of time to help. So (today aside) I keep quiet, get on with my many jobs and wonder what it would be like if I were a _real_ geek.
Why people do this
I think people become as intelligent as they have to in order to survive emotionally. Teenage girls are more likely than teenage boys to be able to get approval for what they are. Boys are more likely to be left with no choice but to fall back on their wits for some sort of personal fulfillment. Why someone put themselves through the isolation and mental effort of learning to program when it's so much easier just to be attractive, nice, fashionable, etc.? During adolescence, more girls than boys have this option.
rampant mysogeny
I think it's extremely harmful to think that the ideas presented in this article aren't dangerous and regressive. In fact, to think that because the article comes from a woman validates the theory that women should be content to take back seat jobs to men only highlights our own sexism issues.
An interesting point, the author several times refers to a "rule of thumb". The historical origin of this terminology refers to the width of the cane (which should be no wider than the husband's thumb) that can be acceptably used to beat his wife. Wonderful!
The author should stick to programming because a psychologist she 'aint.
Hacker being a relative term, and female hackers in less developed countries.
I've had some experience with hacking away at code, poring over my computer two consecutive nights over one especially difficult project, and even passing through seemingly endless weeks of bug-hunting, just so I can get a passing grade on a college course. Now, I don't really think having done that qualifies me as a hacker. Sure, I've learned a lot of things, and I've been really proud of the programs I've coded (heck, in the end, they worked!), even if they were only "simple" college projects, like a real-time multitasker, and hardware handling of serial ports, disk drives and video cards. However, when I read of the things accomplished by hackers such as ESR, RMS, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, and others, I seem to be like a toddler compared to them.
However, in my country, Guatemala, there's not really much people involved in the technical side of computing. Sure, there's a lot of technician hacker-wannabees, but most of them are in the business just for the money they can make, not for a loftier goal. I'm not criticising them in the least; I'm just saying there's no people in Guatemala that could assume the title of "hacker". Because of this, I've a times been called a hacker, just because sometimes I dissappear from sight for two weeks or a month on end, coding away like hell at some project I have to deliver. To me, it's not hacking. It's simply the work I have to do in order to get an academic title. Hacking would be, to me, a person involved in it because he LIKES to do it. Now, that's not to say I don't like coding away at some project, just eating pizza a couple of times a day, and barely paying attention to my body necessities, heck, I love to do it when I get the chance... it's just that I'm not doing something I started working on out of curiosity and, well, hacker-ness.
As you might suppose, there's even less geek girls around here than in the rest of the world, since here we still have the typical "macho" stereotype, so women are not even "expected" to take on some technical career, and even less something as male-oriented as computing. I know of a couple of women really involved in the technical side of computing, but that's it! In the whole country, I know maybe some 100 males that could be tagged, somewhere along their life, as "hackers", but I know of only two or three women that could qualify as such.
One other thing I see is that, maybe a woman is capable, is willing, and has the expertise to become a world-renowed hacker... but, somewhere along the way, she meets Prince Charming, falls in love, and gets married... the rest of the story is universally known... she becomes a housewife, has children... you get the idea. Most men hackers, on the other hand, have a lot of trouble getting a date, in the first place, leave alone getting married! So, they usually have a lot more free time than women-hackers do, since they don't have much social life (if at all), and maybe don't even care.
Well, that's just my thoughts on the subject.... now, back to work! :)
Misc. responses, drifting off-topic
Hiya to Claire S :-) Looking at Hacksaw's "Definitions", maybe you (and I) have plenty of proficiency and interest but don't necessarily apply it 24/7 to one topic. I like to think of myself as a jack-of-many-trades hacker: I have a hackerish mindset but I apply it to things like software, singing, words (www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~q/ style=font-size: 90%; color: #000000), dancing and cardboard (as in the Christmas tree I literally hacked together in 1998 -- the scissors were kinda blunt ;-). There are too many interesting things for me to concentrate on being ultra-proficient in just a few :-) To me, hacking is largely playing and stretching your skills. Maybe there are lots of geek girls out there, they're just not computer geeks? Anyway, don't be afraid to say "here I am", just 'cos you're not a female Linus :-)
As to Pete's "rampant mysogeny": yes, society has a long way to go in terms of not unequally restricting men and women, and I'd've liked to have heard more on Skud's "Option 2". But suggesting that some women with a hackerish bent might like to bring non-hacking skills to bear in addition to technical skills doesn't amount to mysogyny (IMHO). She didn't say, e.g., "women should only write doc", she said "doc needs writing, and geek girls might in general be better at it than geek guys". I don't recall her saying geek girls shouldn't just hack if they want (nor guys write doc: a good manual is hard to find ;-).
Okay, random comments over: back to lurking for me ...
There are other things to hack in life than code.
I'm right there with you, Claire.
I was lucky. While I was struggling to keep up with the technology, my manager kept assigning me to do metrics, project management, documentation and general facilitating. At first, I was irritated, because in my mind, that equalled "secretarial work". However, he valued all of those things quite highly and reassured me that it wasn't because I was a girl, but because I was the only one on the team who could do them right (or at all!). I kept putting up a bit of a fight until he sent me to a career training class that makes you look at where you want to be and what you have to do to get there, and the light bulb came on.
I don't *want* to live, eat, sleep, breathe computers - which is what you have to do to be the ubergeek I'd want to be. I wasn't struggling because I *couldn't* do the work, but because it wasn't what I was really interested in. I don't hack code; I hack on a systemic level. Just about all the alternatives Skud listed were my domain.
I like bringing order out of chaos on a higher level. And I'm damn good at it, and my fellow geeks always appreciate that the work gets done, because it makes the team's projects better. Metrics that really help you improve, by measuring the right things! Documentation, so you don't keep reinventing the wheel, and can maintain your work and hand it off to support staff, so you aren't always doing support! Project management, so the customers can't keep shifting requirements on you!
But I was so determined not to "fail" as a geek that I was pushing myself in the wrong direction, instead of realizing that code is not the end-all and be-all of a geek. There are other things to hack in life than code.
Encouraging programs...
Here's a link (www.ael.org/nsf/voices...) to an interesting program
that seems to be at least slightly on-topic. I've been seeing more of these types of programs,
and there seems to be a general understanding of the need for creativity in the presentation
of material (esp. technical). I find it mildly discomforting, though, that so many
of these programs are for girls only. The assumption seems to be that the traditional channels
for boys are "good enough" and that the need is to "catch up" the girls. I feel both sexes could
benefit from good, creative programs like this at an early age.
Geek chicks
I think it's bizarre to assume that all women have social skills, and that those who do like to use them. I spent many years in jobs where I had to deal with the public on a daily basis, and one of the reasons I decided to pursue a technical career was that I was sick of people.
As for all the nonsense about "nature" v. "nurture", there's little point in arguing. Like everything else, it's some of each. A deficiency in one can sometimes be made up for by an overabundance of the other, and in other cases not. And what of it? Live and let live. If you want to be a hacker, be a hacker. Why worry about where other women find their fulfillment?
First kind encounter
Well, I just received a very nice e-mail from a women.
She told me I am a moron and I am not writing in a human readable langage.
That's the best definition of a hacker I ever found.
Thanks! XXX
You say to-may-toe, I say to-mah-toe
I guess I am in the OS junkie spectrum of this debate. I run Slakware, FreeBSD and Windows. I am a System Administrator for a large company that runs HPUX. I am more in the mainstream IRC viewpoint of *nix and *nix chicks with aspirations of achieving hackerdom and I am female.
There were a couple of points that I wanted to directly address and expand on. One came from Claire, where she discussed the interface for installing Opensource operating systems. How difficult they are to understand as well as, how there are no clear, concise directions for someone to follow to install it being a reason to blame for the lack of interest by women in this area.
Don't you think it is funny that when an Opensource operating system DOES release a user-friendly interface, like Redhat has done (Linus Torvalds uses Redhat at work). The majority of the die-hard, geek-luving, 'lets talking about *nix babeee' community has dejects it and calls it a blight on the Unix world. Granted, I don't think the interface was set up with Women users in mind, but when an Opensource OS becomes 'usable' by our friendly Window kiddies for status, instead of for the sheer desire and want to justify their natural existence, it seems that the Unix elite feel that this new influx of people dilutes the knowledge base and the existence of the not to elite Unix user becomes a farce.
I am still a newbie in this field (2 years *nix) and I find that one of my strengths in this area is my ability to 'break it all down.' I can take the tecky talk and instructions given to us in man pages, and be able to reword them for fellow *nix users to understand for any questions that I can answer for any friends of mine. When I help people figure out the problem, mostly men, it is funny how it is dealt with, which leads me to another point that LisaE touched on.
"...In general women seek praise and credit for who they *are*, whereas men seek the same for what they can *do*." I like to believe that I help people with relative ease. I feel a sense of satisfaction when I am able to help a person, who is unable to fulfill their goal without my help, I also appreciate the thanks that are given to me by them. For some reason I fail to acquire the same haughtiness about what I know and how I use my knowledge that falls so easily on men. I don't know why, but I really think that this is one of the main reasons WHY women hackers aren't in the forefront. I think they exist in many aspects of computers but they just don't act like assholes and brag! :)
Oh, and when women do brag or take delight in what they know …over men especially, they are ridiculed on very public levels and their knowledge is berated (at least on IRC). It is a men club, as most things were at one time!
Nature or Nuture
When "geek chicks" talk about reasons that so few girls become geeks or go to "hard" science/engineering (EE, CS, physics, math), they always bring up the nuturing and "role models". Please stop. What's your role model of a doctor? Yes, the doctor role model is male, there is an entire soft-porn (aka "love stories") industry about this role model. Nurses are female. What's reality? Doctors are 50%+ female, at least the younger ones. Obviously no role model can hinder girls to become doctors when they want to. The young female doctors I know look like geeks - they are pale, and don't seem to get out often, because being a doctor is hard work with lots of overhours, especially in hospitals.
Please try to understand your nature. If you don't fly, it may be because you haven't been encouraged to do so; but that's unlikely. It also may be that you don't have wings. That's much more likely. For million years, men and women not only had different role models, they had in fact different roles. Things like that engrave into genes, even if only lightly. There is no accident in hackers speaking about "hunting down a bug". If girls don't feel inclined to hunt down a bug all night long, maybe it's because they lack the hunter's gene.
The other issue is "social skills". You are talking about something entirely different, you are talking about partying. We hackers are constantly pissed of by PhBs, who have no social skills whatsoever (including, but not limited to not being able to listen). Hackers use their social skills as tools (like to motivate others to join their project, manage projects, solve problems, etc.), and therefore non-hackers often have communication problems (not used to the vocabulary, not able to use communication to solve problems, no discussion culture). A cultural shock on the non-geek side doesn't mean geeks have no social skills. In fact cultural shocks are a sign that the shocked person does have poor social skills.
As hackers are a subculture, they use their own vocabulary and have their own rules. It starts with the word "hacker". Most people use that for script kiddies, crackers, and other wannabies. They use the word "geek" for us, and it isn't a friendly word. Don't use those words yourself, it's like an afro-american calling himself "nigger".
Visualization
I don't want to delve into the discussion of nature-and-nuture,
although I had enough of those discussions to claim that there are
natural differences - atleast through self-nuturing. People are
instinctivly populating their social company with people they can
more easily get along with - so one's social environment is quite
biased with what one is in the first place. Although you could
push people, you should not ask them how comfortable they are.
Still the likes and dislikes of males and females are
not disjunct - they overlap for the most part. Stop.
So after all, the tech swamps will probably be heavily populated
with males anyway but that is not the only area of computer sciences.
The computer industry may have been built on database and
machine-control but has moved on since then. And the new age of
computer-driven visual-interface "appliances" is just dawning.
A vast field is opening and even today the industry does have
a major lack of proficient computer personal. Those areas
require a lot of work to make the user comfortable with the
device - and it is not just the "look" but "feel" of it,
lots of functionality, even core libs, and they need programmers,
geeks, hackers plus more.
So if one really wants to take actions to get girls into
computers, visualization techniques should be pushed. This
is not just GUIs (graphical user interface) or writing
Documentation. Ever seen Xerox' 3D Data-Mining Visualization
Concepts? Have a look at
www.parc.xerox.com/pro... - these
topics need highly skilled people, and I am very sure, that these
areas are of high interest to many girls that have no
actual interest in becoming a techie - it does better
"overlap" with their likings than with those of many males IMHO.
Yet, these parts of computer science have not been communicated
widely. Do it!
We love geek chicks ! ;)))
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www.chez.com/somekool/...
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somekool
Nice.
Great Article. I don't believe in puting a limitation on one's ability based on sex, age, race or specie. I respect the author's comments on the need for chicks who are geeks. But I sincerely wish that we as a community not base abilities on once sex etc.... The bigger picture is the need for competent Geeks (professionals) regardless of what theyre sex etc ... are. If a tse-tse fly can do a better job let's give him the job. Why put boundaries on Abilities ? Did'nt all this started from a person in Finland.
By the way I married a Hot Chick ( a non Geek) and have 2 great son's. My wife and I are hoping to have a Geek Chic in the future
Geek Chicks/ Social Skills
sbrilliant's post brought up an interesting thing that is often assumed about hard core geeks which I think transcends gender; that geeks have no social skills. She noted that she CAN deal with people, but chooses not to. I personally can sympathize with this, and know other people who can as well. I have worked customer-service type jobs before, including face-to-face ones, and not always technical support. I find if I put the effort forth is really not terribly hard to deal smoothly with people, guess what they are thinking/feeling and try to accommodate them accordingly. It is really not all that difficult even, I find, to be disgustingly adept at this. The thing is, I can barely stand to do so, because this is a big waste of time and effort that would be unnecessary if people would simply expend a small amount of effort to behave rather more rationally. Granted, I would be a lot better off in this world if I made more of an effort to 'get along' but it's disappointing that so many allow thinking to be subject to emotion rather than the other way around This also relates to the comments here about the amount of flamage online: it's not generally personal but rather a way of kicking around various viewpoints. ...not that it does not sometimes get out of hand, but overall it is just discussion.
Re: Nice.
> If a tse-tse fly can do a better job let's give
> him the job. Why put boundaries on Abilities ?
Yes. I've seen their code diagrams - now who's
developing the generic low-force arthropod-enabled
user interface ?