Grete and all,

It is almost impossible for me to snip out bits of Grete's spot-on, 
careful and important post.  

Grete, this was said beautifully and provides an extraordinary 
opportunity for everyone to think about:  

1) whether or not your personal observations are important enough to 
warrant systematic research in order to see how widespread they are; 
and

2) whether or not the profession could/should bear the consequences of 
this (both the decision to do/not do the research and the findings of 
any research that is done);

3) the proposal that we should always work together; and

4) (okay, I can snip here)


***
My way of writing here is according to Tannen?s text, typically 
feminine: I
want to share my experiences with you ? a positive audience. If I 
thought
you were more negative, I would keep silent. 

...Most women and many men think best in a caring and generous milieu. 
Why do
more men than women write on this list? What kind of forum do women 
need to
wish to participate in public discussions? 
***


For everyone's information, 6 people have written to me on this thread 
off-list.  One of those individuals decided to incorporate and make 
public *his* astute comments shortly thereafter.  I was glad he did 
because they were smart and should have been shared, just like the 
others.

The other 5 who wrote off-list were women, incidentally.  Several of 
whom are very, very obviously extremely expert (and correct!) in this 
subject and - unlike me - specifically regarding the design 
profession.  The others were intensely interested and quite possibly 
well on their way to such expertise.

All of these women remained silent on the list - with one exception.

By the time I realized what was going on, I actively encouraged one of 
them to please post publicly as well.  She most graciously did, and I 
am grateful.  By way of an account, however, she also told me how she 
has not posted in years, since the hostile response to her first, and 
only, post by one eminent individual on the list all that time ago.

I only wish I had known to cajol the rest of the off-listers as well, 
because, holy cow, have I learned from them -- and that means everyone 
else could have, too. 

Grete opens the door to discuss something I have thought for a long 
time:  that we should all be worried about this list community, where 
such a systematic, masculine gendering of the interactions so 
effectively silences so many others.  

This week had at least one classic, piece of garbage exchange that 
absolutely did not have to happen, nor did it have to flood 1240 
mailboxes except that, of course, from a hypermasculine standpoint, 
there is no point to insulting another unless the insult is delivered 
as publicly as possible.  

But stay tuned.  This was just one of a stream of exchanges that 
alienate people on this list.  I don't know how many, but I personally 
know of some, and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't much bigger than 
what I know for a fact.  The metamessage here is that unless you think 
this sort of thing is fun -- or a known risk worth taking in order to 
have a bigger conversation about something you're really interested 
in -- you ought to lurk, but never speak up.

Eviatar Zerubavel's most recent book, "The Elephant In the Room:  
Silence and Denial in Everyday Life" points out that the Hebrew root 
of the word "silence" is the same as that of the word "paralysis."

This list is supposed to be devoted to the encouragement of research, 
researchers, and the design profession.  The fact that it is (and has 
been) potentially inducing both participatory silence and paralysis in 
even a portion of its community is not good news.

I continue to appreciate Kevin's most enlightened standard-waving for 
all these matters.  And on the matter of "What kind of forum do women 
need to wish to participate in public discussions?" I must also add 
that Noemi Sadowska's paper from Lisbon, "Are we designing female 
audiences? The case of BEME.com a women’s commercial online portal" is 
a must-read.  It's about how false assumptions about what women do, 
want, and are, led to the failure of this portal.  It's also a 
fabulous primer on much of what we have been talking about here and 
how it matters to designers.

Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving holiday here in the States and I will be 
off-line.  If anyone is expecting more from me but getting silence, 
this is why.  :)  I look forward to seeing what other intriquing posts 
await when I return to my email -- and some treasured new colleagues.

With my very best wishes,
Christena

Christena Nippert-Eng, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
Illinois Institute of Technology
312-567-6812 (office)
312-567-6821 (fax)
http://www.iit.edu/~socsci/faculty/nippert-eng.html