On Thu, Apr 11, 2002 at 11:05:16PM +1000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I am a guys - but would love to meet linux chix.
And comments like that are why LinuxChix exists, I suspect. > Computer groups are anti social enough, without having a seperate groups > for gals. It's like the Debian-SIG in my mind. If you're not interested in Debian, it doesn't matter. Don't go. If you have a special interest that you'd like to have get-togethers for, then go and organise one. Other peoples hobbies and interests aren't your concern. Women that go to SLUG are allowed to meet each other while you're not looking. It's not a crime, or even in any way unreasonable. You could always try to start a "LinuxGuys", but I suspect most people don't see any point in doing so. I certainly don't see any. There's plenty of men using Linux that a special support group and general social get-together would be totally redundant. I can however see plenty of merit in LinuxChix. If there's a problem, then it's not with LinuxChix. Calling LinuxChix anti-social is, in my opinion, a symptom of the problem that causes it to exist. Comments like "would love to meet linux chix" are hardly likely to make women feel welcome and feel equally respected in the community, and that is great shame. If everytime I went to a LUG meeting or posted to a list I felt that everyone was "checking me out" or thinking "he uses linux! And he's a guy! Phwoar!" or otherwise making my gender by the major issue in every thing I do in the community, I would be extremely uncomfortable. There's far more to me than the fact that I'm a man, and I suspect most women have a similar opinion of themselves. Put yourself in women's shoes; don't you think there's a reasonable chance you might be offended by people that posted what you just did? Doesn't that alone justify the existence of LinuxChix? I hope I'm not being too presumptuous in defending LinuxChix like this, seeing as I'm not a member and know relatively little about it and its motivations (heck, I don't even know if I'm capitalising its name correctly :). What I have heard about them has been quite positive, though. And finally, apologies for the length. I fear this has grown into a little bit of a rant :( Regards, -Andrew. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
