Ya know I thought of trying to snap off yet another funny quip, quiping is of course what I do best (well there are other things but typing gets.... nevermind) , and to my dismay I actually thought about what she and later Danielle were saying - and then I parsed the list of female co-workers I've had in the field to date (no pun - cut it out now - man this serious stuff is killing me - so much *good* material here - so much immaturity wasted on this serious stuff - anyway...) I thought of each of them and to be honest I can only recall 1 or 2 that was really *any* good (what definitions I'm using for good actually seems to be the problem here that we're all missing). However as I sat down and hummed my 'Opressions, suppression, it's OK...' mantra at my keboard - I then also parsed the men that I have worked with/hired - and to be honest they weren't all that much better - especially if dismissed the way that some of the grrls ( to borrow the term) were, and if applied to that same moshed up definition I tried to use whenI parsed the ladies... Cmon lets be honest - the same tags get applied - though the linguistics change - our terms were just as stoopid as any other of the Nerdolution's: the ole booth babe at trade shows, one of my favortie has always been 'pincushion' (you do the math) - but the point is I'm leaning toward these 'grrls' as having a point here - they have had it rougher than the us over thirty stalky pony-railed red-heads... and all the rest of you neo-hippie wanna-be's too... they started out in the hole catching deuces (man I love using that line in a sentence) - sure we usually trash the new *guy* but at some point the new *guy* becomes one of the company squaler - but the new *grrrl* is usually not allowed in all the reindeer games (mostly because they invlove the gents huddled around the big NOC monitor critiquing the latest mpeg - ah to be young, dumb and full of gum... Man am I an hr nightmare - this actually set out to make a point... Anyway - keep the faith sistahhhhs... -- I am nothing if not net-Q! - ras@poppa.thick.net On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Rachel Luxemburg wrote:
Until you've spent a couple of years being the only woman in the room at meetings and other business events, you really don't understand how different the feeling is to be someplace, even virtually, where everyone is like you.
I suspect that men who hold or have held jobs in overwhelmingly female fields have the best chance of grokking this issue. Or, of course, other minorities (you could count the number of black employees at my employer's HQ on one hand).
If you feel threatened or offended by the fact that some women feel a need to have some space for themselves, I'm sorry for you. But to call it sexist or counterproductive just shows how little you understand the issue.
============================================== Rachel Luxemburg rslux@link-net.com Visit SoundAmerica http://soundamerica.com
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of rdobbins@netmore.net Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 9:58 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Cc: ahuja@wibh.net Subject: OT: net-loss (was RE: attention net-grrls)
Gee, I thought that IP, BGP, DNS, ACLs, and so on worked the same for women as for men.
One of the main reasons I'm on this list is to learn from the experiences and expertise of others - male -and- female.
You're of course free to do as you wish, but I personally think the whole idea of a 'Women in Networking' list is absurd, revanchist, and sexist (to use the politically correct terminology currently in vogue amongst those who claim to be striving for 'equality', yet who seem to do everything they can to claim that they themselves have 'special needs' and so on, which of course undermines the rationale their supposedly egalitarian agenda).
Technology works the same for everyone, regardless of gender, race, creed, or color; that's one of the beautiful things about it. Consciously erecting artificial boundaries where none need exist strikes me as being laughably archaic, and ultimately counterproductive.
But, hey, what do I know? After all, I'm just a member of the oppressive patriachy, dedicated to keeping females barefoot, naked, and in the wiring-closet, right? Talk about your stereotyping.
Sorry for the rant, but this sort of thing strikes me as being inimical to the spirit of the Net in general, and this list in particular. I'll shut up, now.