On 2004-03-04 14:00:33 +0000 Jenny Hopkins Jenny@toby-churchill.com wrote:
Don't you think it would be a pity to take something away from the women you will benefit from the course? As I say, they have had an unfair time of it over the last 50 years, women in IT need a break.
I think it's as much a pity to take something away from the men who would benefit from a course. Surely the aim is to give it to the people who will benefit the most? I doubt gender is a very reliable indicator for that. You really can't remedy past unfairness by being unfair to more people.
Looking at this problem more generally, there are "women" free software projects, like women.kde.org and linuxchix. (Interestingly, I don't think there are any GNU projects?) Introducing division like that doesn't seem a good way to try to fix any bugs: concerning yourself with only one aspect of discrimination often suggests discrimination in the opposite sense.