When the whole Mark S/Ubuntu comments went live the flame wars regarding sexism in the tech place, in linux, on mars, etc etc really came out. I hate doing this but, I feel a preemptive strike is in order just to set the tone. My wife has a Masters in CS and when it comes to coding/design she is by far my superior. The number one in my graduating EE class was a women. One of my former cube mates' wife is an engineer. At the vocational school where I subbed last year there is a women in the Engineering Shop. Can you see the pattern here?

So let's just make the statement. Unless women are presented with barriers that men do not have, I don't see the need to convince or encourage or whatever word works, women to get into tech. If a women is interested then by all means join the club. Sit down, grab an area (EE, CE, CPE, CS, etc etc) and have at it. Just whatever you do don't get in to it because some bean counter says we need more women. I don't see tons of public school programs encouraging more male students to get into Child Care so why should we do the reverse?

One of the quotes from the article sums it up nicely.

"Whether OS development needs more women "is debatable," he added. "I believe a woman should do what she loves, same as a man. If that is Linux development I say welcome to geekdom, here is your pocket protector. But unless there are obstacles being placed in the way of women developers, saying we need 'more' of a certain race or sex in a chosen field just smells too much like quotas to me." "

And we all know what quotes get us? Exactly. ;-)

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