[Kde-women] Researching the gender differences in participation levels on the Internet

[Josine Vos]

Hi,

I'm a student at the university of Utrecht, Holland. At this moment I am 
working on a research about the differences in participation levels on 
the Internet between men and women./ / The views on this subject differ 
a lot from each other; it varies from extreme positive feelings to 
extreme negative feelings. At one hand they consider new technologies as 
a liberation of the "oppressed" women, but there are also individuals 
who seem to have created a very negative picture on the differences in 
participation levels on the Internet between men and women. It appears 
that women still share the opinion that they are treated by men as being 
inferior to them and not capable of using the computer, let alone the 
Internet.

I'm researching the different positions that people take in the debate 
regarding the exacerbation of the differences in participation levels 
between men and women on the Internet and in what way these differences 
are being represented in the different parties.

The reason that I contact your community about this is that I would like 
to hear from you how you feel about this matter. I would be very pleased 
if you could provide answers to these questions:

1. Why did you choose to create a community explicitly for women, and 
not just join the 'whole bunch'?
2. Are there, regarding the KDE project, typical men's jobs and typical 
women's jobs? And if so, why this division?
3. To what extend do you feel excluded from general Internet users 
public, which is sometimes called to be mainly masculine? Or do you feel 
this to be a biased point of view?
4. Can you provide me with other useful information or personal opinions 
that might be of importance in my research?

Thank you very much!

Greetings,
Josine