Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 23:55:12 04/19/98
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On April 19, 1998 at 16:06:07, Fernando Villegas wrote: >Hi all: >well, I knew this kind of things produce an automatic broadside from the >good guys, all those that just close his mind to any kind of debate >where non correct political issues are in discussion. I had been told of >how strong is that kind of attitude in anglosaxon countries, but >anyway... So, let me insist in the following points: I have to react this way, because I closely compare racial issues with gender issues. If someone where to come in here and say that we don't have more black programmers because blacks are as a rule dumber than whites, I think that this would be a very bad thing. Even if some form of proof is cited that the contention is true, and even if the proof really is proof, in my opnion. We have enough troubles in this world without binning people by race, even if it is possible to do so "accurately". It is hard to think if a neutral reason to do this, and in the case of race it seems likely that all you are measuring is the effects of differences in living conditions. Enough about race. Anyone who has raised kids knows that boys and girls think differently from the outset, although there are people who will argue strongly against this, but I have noticed that these people don't tend to have kids. Where there are differences there are going to be strengths and weaknesses, but there's no need to bin women either. If a person is interested in something and contributes, that should be good enough, and it is not necessary to make any allowances either way. I think we don't have women in this field for the same reason we don't have white guys writing chinese chess programs -- there isn't enough overlap between computer knowledge and chinese chess knowledge in the average white guy. Perhaps this will change. I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but here there is a lot of effort being put into getting women into math/science areas, so maybe it is a question of time until they start kicking our butts in this field. And perhaps we white guys will eventually learn chinese chess. But I'm not particularly threatened by brain chemistry arguments either. If women don't play chess because they tend to think chess is stupid, big deal, this doesn't change anything I've said. One thing we can and should do is not allow our field to be openly hostile to women. If someone asks a question about computer chess, they don't deserve to have their thread break down because people are commenting on their gender, and they certainly don't need to be openly picked on and devalued. I don't think it is fair to brand someone as PC just because they consider this stuff. Last year a woman wrote an innocent comment in r.g.c.c., and the response was completely amazing and disgusting. Folks condescended to the poster, felt obliged to open up the thread for a general discussion of women in chess programming, questioned the extent of Kathe Spraklen's involvement with Sargon, and wrote delightful statements such as "the female brain is not suited to programming, let alone chess programming". I criticized this and got accused of being PC, and was told that there were more effective ways of getting laid than by getting on people for picking on women. Awful. If I haven't made my points by now, I won't. So I will wait for the next round of this before spending another hour writing a post like this. Perhaps eventually the next round won't come, but I think we're going to have at least a few more between now and then. bruce
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