purplecat

This is the most coherent summary of what is going on that I have seen. It isn't unbiased or neutral, but I'm not sure anything could be at this particular moment in time.

I have also personally been impressed by these four posts, among hundreds:

I Didn't Dream of Dragons
RaceFail: Once more with Misdirection in particular the attempt to redirect the discussion into more profitable channels.
sees fire (which stands alone but is a response to the sadly less admirable, due to a couple of profound missteps, cease fire)
March 6th 2009 - because she continues to try to engage with and refuses to explicitly write off her critics, both of which I can see must be strong temptations.

I almost disabled comments on this post, but decided that would be cowardly. But I really think there is very little to be said about any aspect of this from any of the myriad sides to the multiple issues involved that has not been said a hundred times, often in a more eloquent and informed manner than I could hope to match. This is one of the reasons I'm restricting myself above to linking with minimal commentary. This post is, in no small part, intended for my personal archival purposes. So for once, commenting not really encouraged, unless you feel you have something burningly important to express which is best expressed in response to this particular post in this particular journal.

How would the UK IT industry run if there were suddenly no men?
Mammoth Screen are an independent television drama production company and they are currently developing a new idea for an ITV television drama series for which they need to undertake some detailed research before the screenwriter can get started.
The project is going to explore the question of how the UK would function if society underwent a sudden demographic change whereby there were no men: only women. Whilst this is obviously a hypothetical scenario, they are hoping to take current research and expertise on demographic breakdown to create an informed and realistic picture of how Britain might work in such conditions.
One area they are investigating is how employment in key areas of infrastructure is divided between the sexes e.g. given that the majority of long haul lorry drivers are male, would petrol forecourts dry up and would supermarket shelves go empty if men were taken out of society?
Similarly, would the national grid fail because the majority of its operating engineers are male, or does it work on a fairly automated basis?
Another area they are looking into is the sociological, emotional and psychological side of how people would cope in the aftermath of such a traumatic and shocking change to their lives. They're hoping to take studies and research from other recent scenarios where society has been faced with trauma or sudden loss of men to create a picture of how the characters in our drama might respond.
With regards to the IT industry, what they would love to know is how you think women would cope with the increased amount of pressure at work as there are so few women in technological services. Do you think some areas of technology would collapse altogether due to lack of staff?
They are also interested to know if there's anything else that leaps out at you after reading the premise of the show.
They are looking for your input asap as the writer would like to start work on the screenplay within the next month or so.

I can't help thinking this idea could work but is more likely to be the most horrendous sexist drivel.

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RaceFail'09

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