[-empyre-] Lists, softwares and gender roles

["arteonline" <arteonline@arteonline.arq.br>]

Dear Sue and all,

Sue wrote:

"The difference between these two streams of discussion reminded me so much
of the gender divide I've seen all around me since I was growing up in the
50s that it has made me feel quite depressed.

After all that we've gone through in virtuality, have we really not changed
all that much?"

It is really a very interesting question and I have no answer but only some
comments. In fact there is much time that I have being observing this gender
division and the preponderance of men comments on the net. It is strange but
sounds much more strange if you think that the leaders of some important
virtual communities are women: Trace, Empyre, Rhizome.  Here in South
America, the same occurs, the two of most important virtual communities
leaders are women: Isabel Aranda, from Chile (http://www.escaner.cl  ) and
myself, from Brazil (http://arteonline.arq.br ). Without any doubt it is a
very interesting subject to be studied.

Sue wrote:

"I would say though that in our experience, the 'form of human association'
has changed over the years. I think people have a different relationship
with online communities now than 5 years ago. Am still trying to work out
the detail of that."

I would like to tell you a little bit of my experience. Since the begining
of April I have been trying to produce a different way of communication:  a
mix of newsletter and forum. I am using Yahoo Groups and a website.

Why do not I use a blog? Well, I  think that a blog do not go where the
person is (mail box) and my "invention" goes and it is very important for me
because I am just starting.

Why do not I use only Yahoo Groups? Because I want that our material can be
known and read for everybody that have interest in it  even though not be
interested of  joining the group.

Why do I use Yahoo Groups only as a newsletter? Because I am trying to join
people that do not speak English and people that speak English. So that, I
received the message, translated it from Portuguese or Spanish into English
or from English into Portuguese and send the two versions to the list.
Perhaps in the future I will work with French too, the problem to do this is
only my time.

Which is the content of the Museum Newsletter? In fact what we are doing
which I consider very important are the collaborative reviews of the Museum
of the Essential and Beyond That's works. These material are on line at
http://arteonline.arq.br/newsletter. It is very important because give life
to the museum's  works. I also realize that people like to be the guest of
the month and to have his/her work commented in a serious way, it makes me
feel happy although up to now I have not had all the collaboration I have
waited, but I am not worried because it is just the beginning. We are now
finishing our fourth collaborative review. It is interesting to say that
since April the two genders are participating in the same way, there is a
balance there.

I also use the newsletter to send the news of the museum, divulgation of
newsletter's members works and some interesting calls too, but it is not the
most important for me.

Well, in fact what I am telling you is that software is important but the
way you use the software is important too. So that, I think I am using Yahoo
in a creative way. In fact, we, that do not belong to an Institution, do not
have any kind of fund, or do not have a deep knowledge of programming  have
to create our own ways of  using network, here in Brazil we call this "dar
um jeitinho".

It was nice to meet you again Sue.

Best regards to all,

Regina