Women and Linux - an inertesting article

[Pupster]

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/index.html

Cheers
Martin

[Pupster]

G'day,
It occurred to me a week or so back, as I was contemplating why there
appears to be limited take-up of Linux by women, that perhaps it could
be more of a case of social conditioning and differing perceptions
than something more esoteric.

Form vs Function. Warning a blatent generalisation ahead! Men tend
to perfer function over form (or else why do we bemoan the decline of
the Terminal). Women tend to prefer form working with function. It
was highlighted while trolling forums and letters in IT mags that some
things caught my beady little eye. Men have had better uptake of
Linux by their partners with a fully functional (plus the social-
desktop) version of KDE 4.4. Too often comments like "Oh! It looks
and works much better than Windows" was posted as reason for
switching.

This could be way too simplistic, but there may be some truth here.
If this could be "a reason" then it would benefit us by have a fully
functional version of KDE 4.4 available for viewing. Anyway, guys who
like a "kewl" desktop will be "wowed" by this and be pushed towards
Linux.

Cheers
Martin
PS. Aim for the Target on my back!

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[Loren W]

Well I'm going to do some blatant generalisation too, so don't worry!

 

Women generally like pretty stuff with features over function and efficiency.  Women are less into specs and more into the way things look and what they can do superficially.  They're also often less technical.  Like buying a laptop because it's pink (not joking, a salesman in Harvey Norman said it happens a lot) instead of buying it according to specs and price.

 

I'm a slightly odd woman in that I like things to be functional, uncomplicated and efficient.  If things aren't useful, used often or liked by me I get rid of them.  Who wants to store useless clutter?!  But think about how many women do!  Just this evening hubby and I were discussing how Win 7 has gone ultra user-friendly and has ended up utterly horrible to use - can't find anything amongst all the pretty clutter, let alone work out how to manually fix a problem.

 

Women often are not interested in IT beyond the basics.  Not generally interested in the merits of different operating systems and especially not often interested in installing and fiddling with them.  That would be classed as antisocial, boring and pointless.

 

I reckon it just comes down to basic wiring of men vs women and how our likes and dislikes are formed (not entirely though) by that.  Yes I agree there's an element of social conditioning - for a start women are supposed to be stupid creatures who shop, amongst other things.  A woman who is interested in IT is assumed to be a secretary or interested in a business stream, not the technical level.

 

We're all different.  Generalisations only go so far. :)

 

Ironically I'm typing this while using Vista... ;)  It came with the cheap Dell and I need it for assignments.  In this instance, efficiency and function won. 

 

So, for women who are NOT into experimentation, fiddling with technical stuff or trying to get a new operating system to work (or learning it), Linux would be rather unappealing.  I can see why it would be more appealing if their partner had done the techy part and handed them a functioning OS to use, without the pain beforehand.  Then again, if you have a techy partner you're more likely to be into techy stuff yourself anyway I guess!  (I married a tradie).

Oh and some people are just the sort who don't like looking for alternatives in life - it has to be all laid out and put under their nose before they'll even consider it.  That's just how some work. :)  Actually, that's how marketing works isn't it??!!

 

Just my 2c. 

L.