[ubuntu-uk] Age and gender

[Mac]

London School of Puppetry wrote:
> In a conversation recently someone said to me that Ubuntu is only for
> techies.....and blokes at that- and young blokes at that!
> Out of interest, as a middle-aged woman- I rarely see any other female names
> on the forum- but I really like Ubuntu but could not do without the help
> from the Forum
> -what is the general format of the forum?and could anything be done to
> change the age/gender profile to make Ubuntu more accessible to others-OR
> are there lots of middle-aged females out there?

Caroline >>> There was a poll of this list last December, which turned 
up some surprises about the age distribution of this list's membership - 
IIRC, there are a lot more older members than you might expect, and a 
significant number of retired folk.  I can't find the data any more, but 
the thread included this post:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/2007-December/010282.html

(Anyone know how to recover the results?)

But, as you say, there are very few women on this list (four or five 
max???).  This is not unusual, is it?  I took my wife to Stallman's talk 
in Manchester a little while ago, and she was not at all surprised to 
find herself one of only three or four women in a packed meeting of a 
couple of hundred or more.  (BTW, she's not a computing/technology type, 
and only came to indulge me;  but she enjoyed the talk enormously, and 
was deeply impressed with RMS's wit, diamond-sharp intellect and 
unyielding insistence on people using language precisely.  She is, by 
the way, a psychologist! ;-)  )

With regard to women in Linux, Val Henson's wonderful article remains a 
classic:

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Encourage-Women-Linux-HOWTO/

Mac