October 2007

Every now and again whilst trawling my linux feeds, I come across the question ‘Should there be a linux distro for women?’

What a ridiculous question. I can’t imagine why anyone would want or need this, and as a woman myself I find the concept more than a little patronising. Can women not use the regular distros? Of course we can! I’m living proof of that. I’m no linux guru by any means, but I manage perfectly well, just as my male counterparts do. The last thing I would want is to be told by some guy ‘Here you are, here’s a dumbed down version, just for you!’. I imagine they’d want to put in a pink GUI to go along with the stereotypes too.

While we’re at it, why not propose a distro for gays and lesbians, or blacks, or….you get the idea. I mean hey, these ‘minorities’ obviously aren’t capable of using anything the rest of the tech world is.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for helping people where it’s needed, but why must we segregate in this way? I’ve heard the argument that women find linux an intimidating field to get into. I sympathise with that to a point, but generally that’s crap. I’ve had no problems finding help and information. There may be the odd occasion where women feel intimidated, but this isn’t limited to linux and certainly doesn’t justify this idea. Women are under represented in the linux world (as they are generally in technology), but stupid proposals like this honestly don’t help. A support group for women I can understand, this I can’t. I mean you don’t walk into a store and ask for a TV for women do you?

Seriously, get a grip people!

Now I’m off to play with my new Ubuntu installation under VMware Fusion (which incidentally didn’t have to be coloured pink for me to use).