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Viv wrote: > genuinely interested in what people think about this. > > We don't seem to have very many female members - off hand, I can't think > of more than Clare, Gemma and myself (I apologise if I have missed > anyone). However, certainly we are in a significant minority. Hi Viv, I'm not sure of the exact reasons, but I suspect they are the same as the reasons that there are no women at all on my BSc Software Development course. In this case I think the education system is partly to blame for not getting them interested at an early enough age. In fact I can only think of three girls across the four courses that are taught together. One of those builds and repairs PCs for friends. It's probably a combination of things IMHO: 1. Girls are not encouraged into IT in school as much as guys are. Mistake IMHO.. I think a woman is less likely to give a recalcitrant bit of kit a damn good shoeing and have the patience to fix it. 2. Girls *generally*, and yes there are many exceptions I agree, are not as technically minded as men. 3. Offices have MS Windows and when buying a PC for home women *and* men just want what they are familiar with. Against #2 is the fact that in the tech support callcentre I worked in, roughly a quarter were female, so I think the true figure for Linux probably lies somewhere between the 5ish% in the LUG and the 25% I worked with. Heh... I do recall one amusing incident. Our Senior Mac Tech was called Tonia. A guy rang up for help with a Mac.. came through to her. Wouldn't talk to her as she was a woman! She transferred him to me and mentioned it, I said 'Oh aye.. hang on..' He explained the problem to me and the conversation went like this: Me: I'm sorry I've only been here a couple of weeks, and I don't support Macs.. let me put you through to our Senior Mac Technician..... Him: OK thank you. Me: ....Tonia *click to HOLD* Me: Here ya go Tonia he's been told you're our Senior Mac Tech Me: *click to TRANSFER* I don't suppose he did that twice :) I didn't and still don't put up with that sexist BS at all :) Kind regards, Julian -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html