[Foundation-l] Introducing a new mailing list

[Corum O' Fallamhain]

Since women have the ability to contribute here the same as men, I really
don't see why this is needed. Surely the scepticism being shown to this idea
from many men is proof positive of the fact that no-one is being opressed.
How ironic to have women in this day and age proposing their own seperate
mailing list from men, since so many feminists fought so hard for gender
equality. This looks to me like a step backward.

On 05/12/06, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
>
> Ilario Valdelli wrote:
>
> > I don't understand the problem...
>
> This is a large part of the problem, isn't it?  To take just one
> example, white Americans feel equal and democratic, and pride
> themselves of this, but black Americans still feel oppressed.
> Very few whites understand the problem in full but even fewer
> blacks understand how little the white understand.  How many white
> men know what it is like to grow up where none of the presidents
> in the history book has your skin color?  How many black know what
> it is like, never to have asked that question?  It is so easy to
> shun the difference and so hopeless to try to make a change.
> Women, of course, are not a "minority" in real numbers, but often
> in perceived power.
>
> All of us wikipedians are also a minority of this kind, underdogs
> under the vast dominance of traditional printed, commercial
> encyclopedias.  Perhaps Britannica, Larousse and Brockhaus feel
> that it was sad and unnecessary to take the disruptive step of
> setting up Wikipedia, instead of building on their existing base.
> They were willing to listen to the young generation, weren't they?
> Their experience in quality control and profitmaking should have
> been useful, so why on earth didn't the wikipedians apply for jobs
> there instead of being unpaid for reverting edit wars?  From their
> perspective, our obsession must be plain incomprehensible.  And
> yet there is nothing wrong with us, only with their perspective.
>
> Self-identified subgroups will find ways to communicate, whether
> it is women, skin colour, or operating system preference, and this
> is nothing we should try to stop.  Now the women have formed their
> own subgroup within the Wikimedia Foundation.  Hey, that means we
> have women here!  Compared to Linux kernel hackers, that's great
> progress.  And unlike the United States, the Wikimedia Foundation
> does have a female president.  How long will we have to wait
> before the black people form a subgroup?  Did they have a meetup
> at Wikimania?  (I guess not.  I heard it was an almost exclusively
> white event.)  And will we one day see a special interest group
> for black female Linux kernel hackers?
>
> Funny, perspective is what Wikipedia is all about, the NPOV.  We
> pride ourselves of being able to see beyond our own perspective.
>
>
> --
> Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
> Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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