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Lissa Story (lstory -at- internet -dot- kronos -dot- com) says:
> I disagree with Steve Owen's comment that the current line
> of discourse is inappropriate for a tech writer's list.
You subsequently stated reasons suggest you may not have fully
read the portion of my post that explained *why* the current line of
discourse is inappropriate.
> My reasons include:
> - Gender issues in writing are considered appropriate
> topics for classes in my tech writing master's
Indeed, and if you go back and reread my post you'll see that
I invited Andreas to start an *appropriate* line of discourse on
gender issues. His current line of disource is *not* appropriate.
> - I've only been a tech writer for a year and I occasionally wonder if
> my career change was a good one. I was pleased to see that other
> writers had read the same book I had (Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't
> Understand") and that they were interested in discussing the issues
> the book raised.
Again, go back and reread my post; I didn't say a word against
Deborah Tannen's book, nor against discussion of it (in fact, in
earlier posts I'd mentioned discussions I've had with others about the
book, and my intentions to read it as soon as I have time - I'm in the
middle of Rubinstein & Hersh's _The Human Factor_ right now). Again,
these topics are appropriate, it is Andreas' current line of discourse
that is not appropriate.
> - I find this topic to be the most interesting since I
> subscribed to the list several months ago.
Interest does not define appropriateness. I might find a line
of discourse on, oh, the problems involved in compiling and installing
the GNU texinfo product simply *fascinating*, but that does not make
it appropriate to this list, even though the related topics of using
texinfo to create hypertext might be appropriate.
> I also disagree with Steve's comment that there is not a causal
> relationship between the techiness of documentation and the number of
> women in the field.
Wonderful! I'd like to see some replies to my earlier posts,
in which I explained why I felt there is no causal relationship.
> - One thing I was taught in the gender discussions in my classes is
> not to use language that leaves out part of my audience. For example,
> sports analogies. Exclusive language doesn't help your audience, and
> it may alienate them. (Alienation contributes to fewer women in the
> field.)
The use of language that Andreas pointed out has nothing to do
with sports issues, or anything so obviously gender-centric, but
rather with procedural, detail-oriented, highly technical writing
styles. His claim is that such writing styles are biased against
female readers. He points to the low female readership of such
documents as proof of a causal relationship.
My reply is that such writing styles are mandated by the
topics of discussion (e.g. programming, engineering) and the field
itself, and that low female readership is attributable not to the
writing style, but to external societal factors (acculturation and the
societally traditional definition of masculine and feminine pursuits
and personality traits) affecting the interest of females in the
field.
Just because two factors are both high (indicating a
correlationship) does not mean that one causes the other (a causal
relationship). Both may be high because of a causal relationship
with a *third* factor, which affects both of them.
As an example, just because a particular culture has a high
number of death sentences for crimes and a lower incidence of reported
rape, does not mean rape is rare in that culture - it may mean that
"rape" is not defined as a crime in that society, or that the crime is
narrowly defined and does not include many definitions used in another
culture. It may mean that women are more discouraged from reporting
it in that culture. And so forth.
(To anybody reading this: the point here is not to define
rape, nor to examine its occurrence in other cultures, but to
illustrate a correlation without a causal relationship - topics like
rape, abortion, gun control, and favorite text editing programs can
take off and get way out of hand in even the most appropriate forums -
please use self-restraint).
> - I'm a woman who is interested in reading about computers and who is
> professionally involved with computers. Yet I am regularly discouraged
> from learning more about them and getting more involved in the field
> by language that is too techie and too sexist. (What does that say
> about members of an audience that may be less motivated than I am?)
I'd like to see some specific, widespread examples of sexist
language in computer documentation - sexist in more than the sense of
"task oriented, unforgiving, challenging in their poverty of
information" and "a lot of hidden complexity."
Until somebody points out such evidence, I'll stick with the
far more likely (and logical) conclusion that females are discouraged
from entering the computer field because society teaches young females
that they shouldn't be interested in developing or being interested in
the "masculine" traits that the computer field thrives on.
