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Wanted: Geeks with Boobs
Submitted by Roy on Tue, 2008-02-12 15:27
This article suggests that high tech products would be better designed if more women were recruited to the information technology field. It recycles some traditional feminist myths about women’s natural abilities to enhance teamwork and understand “user interfaces…”. Excerpt:
'Women control more than 83 percent of all consumer purchases, and they outpace men when it comes to buying consumer electronics, but they hold only 27 percent of computer-related jobs...
"One of the biggest criticisms of technology today is that user interfaces are poor," explains a professor of information systems at the University of Arkansas. Men, he says, largely don’t do a great job making the products easier to use because they concentrate more on the "geek" factor of technology. "I think women have more of an intuitive sense of designing interfaces."'
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Comments
Insulting
'"With the men sometimes, they’re trying to see who can pee the highest on the hydrant," she says, speaking metaphorically, of course. "Women are much more matter-of-fact, more collaborative."'
God how insulting and utterly false. Competitiveness is part and parcel of collaboration, among women as well, when a paycheck is at the end of the tunnel. And to suggest men have any more trouble cooperating than women? I guess it was a team of women who came up with the microchip. I guess it was a team of women who designed and built the space shuttle. I guess it was a team of women who designed the roads, cars, buildings, and damn near everything else we use on a daily basis. Hell, the founding fathers must have in fact been a group of women-- how otherwise could any nation be formed? The idiotic blind-spottedness of people like this is absolutely stunning but alas all too typical.
But what's most outrageous about such a statement is the crudeness of the analogy she uses and the casual brazenness she shows in using it. Predictably MSN has no trouble gleefully printing such a quotation.
God, MSN sucks. I really and truly despise them.
Err... Microsoft Bob
Err... Microsoft Bob anyone?
That was "designed" by Melinda Gates...
Sometimes focussing on functionality for a tool it's such a bad thing.
User interfaces may be "one of the biggest criticisms". If it is, that's because it's easy to criticise as a large part of it is aesthetics, which is subjective. Anyone can have an opinion, and believe they're experts, even when they're not.
V-Day is Almost Here
post deleted ...
it was way over the top....
Heard it all in the 90's...
Most of that crappy article are lies that feminists made up in the 90's with some newer lies about women making most of the purchasing decisions.
Is it a surprise that a woman wrote that article?
Women are like super heroes
Women are like super heroes and gods to desperate men.
Quoted for truth. Intuition = Superstition
Women are like super heroes and gods to desperate men.
This man speaks the truth. Men praising women enables this kind of rhetoric.
The funniest part about this article is it's selling point -- "Women's Intuition" -- is largely superstitious bullshit propagated by women and junk science looking for a way to excuse women from having to deal with facts and reality. Many women are extremely superstitious and as a result are more likely to believe that fairytales are more real than hard facts.
"Women's Intuition" is right up there with black cats and such other inane things. Superstitious, ideological bullshit doesn't make for good technological design hence why so many women are NOT in the field.
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Mr. Reality's new story - Sir Alan: Why I have to think twice before employing a woman
V-Day!!!!!
I'm searching for a good restaurant to cater my V-Day party. I've also put up a V-Day tree. Its decorated with tampons. [most of them are unused]
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"Time Is An Ocean But It Ends At The Shore"
[Bob Dylan]
Other reasons why women aren't in IT
"Women's Intuition" is right up there with black cats and such other inane things. Superstitious, ideological bullshit doesn't make for good technological design hence why so many women are NOT in the field.
I'm in IT and I can see a few reasons why there are less women in IT.
1. Hours: Most IT shops of any significance are 24 by 7 operations. One can be woken up at odd hours, have to work weekends, work all night, etc...
2. Difficulty of entry: Computer Science and related disciplines are not necessarily easy. Various Engineering majors are much tougher but I think about 1/4 to 1/3 of my class switched majors... Math and Programming requirements were what got most people.
3. IT requires sound logical thinking. Emotional reasoning doesn't work with a computer.
Ideology verse Facts
3. IT requires sound logical thinking. Emotional reasoning doesn't work with a computer.
You hit the nail right on the head there. Computers don't understand histrionics.
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Mr. Reality's new story - Sir Alan: Why I have to think twice before employing a woman
In Search of Interface
The post I deleted was a confession about the only human "interface" that women possess that interests me.
In its initial version, it was vulgar.
Because this rephrasing is indirect, I can make my point and all the gents here will not be offended.
Hooters RSVP
I hear that "Hooters" has a great V-day special!
(PS - Anthony you've abandoned the Stones and endorsed Dylan for your sig line! That is going to cause you no end of problems...)
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"I was born very far away from where I was supposed to be..."
Stay focused clowns.
What the fuck does V-Day have to do with the article in question?
I mean come on don't be a clown every damn day of your life.
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Mr. Reality's new story - Sir Alan: Why I have to think twice before employing a woman
The Expense of Romance on V-Day
V-Day is a metaphor for how feminism has successfully captured and co-opted the gender arena and public discourse ....
Like everything else that feminism touches, the issue at hand gets deformed into a contest, a struggle, an us-against-them competition.
"Valentines Day vs. Vagina Monologues Day."
And Valentines Day is a huge financial source of retail profits -- thanks to all the men who believe they have to spend money on the vaginas they have already paid for over and over and over...
The romance is pretty much over, right?