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

[Madison Kelly]

Colin McGregor wrote:
> I have heard a theory regarding why Canadians, Jewish
> Americans, and African Americans do well in US comedy.
> The theory is that each of these groups have some
> mental distance from the "mainstream" culture, and so
> have an easier time spotting the absurdities inside
> mainstream culture (the very close to, but not 110%
> part of the mainstream idea). Not sure if I buy the
> theory, but I do find it interesting. Is there
> something similar for women in technology?

I don't think I or anyone one person could say...

What I can say is that I have always agreed with a line from my 
favourite movie, Ghost in the Shell; "Over-specialize and you breed in 
weakness". The IT industry suffers from this, I think. Not enough 
minorities (as one posted pointed out) are heard in IT. Be it women, 
blacks, disabled, natives, whatever. It is heavily dominated by one 
culture, European males.

In my mind IT et. al. are weaker for this. "Mainstream" is simply the 
majority view, so if someone thinks it's helpful to get a non-mainstream 
view they need to not only tolerate the token outsider, they need to 
actively support and prop-up those outsiders so that others can see that 
yeah, you are in fact welcome and will in fact be taken serious. *Then* 
the IT world will start to diversify and benefit from new, 
non-mainstream ideas.

It's the same in business, politics and many other male-dominated 
industries, too. As it is now, the only women who succeed are those who 
most effectively mimic the behavior and attitudes on the mainstream 
class (your hard-ass female teacher, for example). Have you ever met a 
woman who succeeded in business? They are usually very much bitches, and 
they need to be to be taken seriously. The end result is that you have 
token women/minorities who don't contribute much in the way of new ideas 
because they couldn't succeed doing that. They had to assimilate.

Anyway, all this is my $0.02, take and/or discard as you see fit.

Madison
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