Point of View

I went to a coeducational college. But when I arrived the senior class was still all male, and being a woman had to be tough. But I'm not a woman, how do I know it was tough? I could sympathize, I could use my eyes and ears, but it's reasonable to assume I didn't experience things the way a woman did -- I'm not one.

As we develop a new introductory course in computing/programming, we're trying to be attentive to making the course attractive/palatable/doable by different types of people and students. We're trying to broaden participation. Can we do this for under-represented minorities and groups without being an under-represented minority and group?

CRA-W, the branch of CRA (Computing Research Association) is
an action oriented organization dedicated to increasing the number of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) research and education at all levels (http://www.cra-w.org) Its board consists only of women.

Can we have a valid point-of-view about issues we don't "experience"?

My questioning any of this will create many responses that I'll glibly label "WTF" responses. How dare I write that? What am I trying to say?

So here are some folks I think are saying it much better.

http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2010/04/17/why-i-dont-work-at-google/

http://compscigail.blogspot.com/2010/04/not-all-womens-groups-are-harmful.html

http://terriko.dreamwidth.org/28709.html

http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/stop-talking-start-coding/