[Actionchix] Stepping out of magazine process

[Clytie Siddall]

On 20/09/2007, at 10:50 AM, Strata R Chalup wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I think it's great that there's so much enthusiasm for the magazine  
> idea.  The general consensus that's emerged has been to make it  
> more inclusive, rather than woman-centric.   I get fired up  
> thinking about putting in a lot of volunteer work explicitly for  
> helping other women, but feel ho-hum about a more universal  
> project.  I didn't realize I'd feel so strongly about it.
>
> I'll certainly keep the magazine in mind when doing writing on tech  
> topics, but am going to drop back off the actionchix list for now.

Strata, I think the idea is to influence more people. Whom do we  
really need to change? A woman-focussed magazine will preach to the  
converted in some ways.

While with a wider focus, we can spread the word to those who really  
need to hear it. Both women _and non-women_ need to hear our message.

We will certainly be supporting women in technology, both by  
highighting rôle models, and by providing information to help women  
in the FOSS community and in their workplaces. We will mostly publish  
work by women.

But by accepting work from non-women,  and carrying some general  
material, we will reach a wider audience. I envisage this sort of  
reaction:

Non-woman 1: Hey, have you seen that new ChixBits mag online?
Non-woman 2: That's just a chick flick mag, isn't it?
Non-woman 1: No, it's got some great stuff on X, and [non-woman] Y  
from Z project wrote an article on A.
Non-woman 2: Really? Might be worth a look.

I believe our aim at Linuxchix has been to encourage wider activity  
for, and acceptance of women in computing. Our magazine will do that.

from Clytie

Vietnamese Free Software Translation Team
http://vnoss.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=projects:l10n