Women in IT (Aug 3). Online freedom of speech (Aug 5th)

[Evan Leibovitch]

Colin McGregor wrote:

>My personal theory is that a VERY large percentage of people in IT have trouble with human interaction and find machines easier to deal with.
>
That's putting it mildly. I've always maintained that the Linus 
Torvalds' genius is in his people skills far more than his programming 
talents, since people skills have traditionally been so hard to come by 
in this realm. After all, Stallman and the GNU Project indeed predate 
Linux by a long time, but the human dynamics did (and still do) keep a 
lot of people away from pure-GNU projects. (When is the first stable 
release of Hurd due?)

>This is not always due to choice.
>
It's often a matter of behavior and personality, which isn't easy to 
change; to this extent, I'd agree with Colin that choice is difficult if 
possible at all.

Having known both, I'd say that male hardcore computer geeks have more 
in common with women who own many cats than either would care to admit.

>For what ever reasons (and I think there are several reasons behind this), on AVERAGE women are much better at human interactions then men.
>
I wouldn't paint the situation with a brush quite that broad; IMO it 
depends on the nature, and the depth, of the interaction. All of the 
successful high-pressure salespeople I've ever encountered have been male.

Then again, I've never bought into that John Gray "Men are from Mars, 
women are from Hamilton" bullsh*t. I've met my share of sociable men and 
sociopathic women.

>Of further note, when it comes to the 10 women I e-mailed with details about the "Women in IT", some you could argue are not in IT. For example, I sent this info. off to Stephanie Cole, who ran the press office at the "Linux World Canada" show. Is Stephanie Cole in IT? Public Relations? Publicity? Hospitality? All of the above?
>
There's a difference between someone who is in the field of IT and 
someone who has clients in the field of IT. I consider being "in IT" as 
having -- at least as part of one's role -- the design or implementation 
of technology for its own sake. Simple use of a computer doesn't qualify 
as "working in IT" any more than driving to work making you a mechanic.

>Likewise, some of the women I e-mailed do human resources functions for the IT field. Of the 10 women I e-mailed, I would only consider 4 to be hard core geeks (women who have been at one or more TLUG and/or Unix Unanimous meetings).
>  
>
That's going from one extreme to another.

On one hand, I wouldn't consider someone in an HR department of an IT 
company to have an "IT job", considering that person could easily switch 
to a similar job at a non-IT company. On the other, not everyone working 
in IT is a hardcore geek. What about documentation, analysis, customer 
support, etc.?

- Evan

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