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Takora Fisher

Professor Spitler-Lawson

Rhetorical Analysis

10 May 2017

Word Count: 694

Scaffolding Exercise: Rhetorical Analysis

Authors Camp who wrote the article We Are Geeks, and We Are Not Guys the Systers

Mailing List and Borg the author of On the Mailing List Systers, from Computing Research

News, September 1994 both write about an emailing list for women who work in the computer

science field and consider themselves geeks. They call themselves Systers and their emailing

list is only open to women reasoning being because as the article metaphorically uses the internet

can be a rough sailing for women. An emailing list as Author Borg defines it is a group of emails

all saved on one computer so when one message is sent out it is sent to everyone in that list. Borg

plays the role as the moderator meaning, who sift and sort the stream of messages This

emailing list was created for women who voices are always being suppressed by men in either a

workforce or as Borg used as an example a parenting class. Borg feels as if women are always

talked about and not talked to. This emailing group also serves as a support group for women in

their rare occupation. For example, a woman in the emailing list had a conference in one of the

biggest areas of research in her city but she had just recently had a baby which she had to take

along with her. Luckily her husband came along with her but the confidence she had going into

the conference was very low because she had to breast feed which she felt was impossible to pull

off. She felt as if she was the only women in the world who had to face this kind of milestone.
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After sharing this feeling with the group, they came to her rescue and let her know that she is not

the only who had to take their newborns to such an importance of a conference and to know that

you can both be a mom and a computer science geek with success.

I feel as if this kind of online community is beneficial to womens self-confidence but it

contradicts their purpose as women who feel that men suppress their voice or make them feel

they can argue facts about women when they are not one. This same kind of support that is

giving to women should also be implemented into their workforce and their every-day lifes by

closing the computer screens and getting up and out to make a change with their voices and not

just their fingers. Stand by not letting men come into a woman dominant area of life and be able

to have a negative opinion on women. Just how the Systers stood up to Mattel for making a doll

for young girls that promotes complex studies should not be reached for or attempted. The online

community called day in and day out to get those dolls off the shells. This kind of head strong

hand in hand organization can be used from outside a computer desk. Just how Dr. Borg is a

moderator on the online community, women can metaphorically use that same kind of

enforcement with men. Instead of arguing with men and using negative words to argue their

opinion state facts and talk to them as you wish they would talk to you and not to you about you.

This way men can see how their opinions is inaccurate and how silly they sound arguing with a

woman with facts that cannot be questioned. It is important to build a woman self-confidence

because in a society where she is picked apart and made decisions for by men it is hard to

maintain the woman that you and I are but we cannot build such high confidence and not put it to

work. We cannot say men suppress our voice if we think that it is okay to sit behind a computer

desk and talk about change and how we feel about decisions made about us if we dont truly
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make a change with our voice that was given to us and protected by the same men who made

amendments to protect our natural rights.

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Work Cited

Camp, L. Jean. We Are Geeks, and We Are Not Guys: The Systers Mailing List. Pop

Perspectives, edited by Laura Gray Rosendale, Lisa Moore 2008, pp. 603-612.