Speakers Wanted, Women Need Not Apply: Is this the brave new world technology brings us?
Anne Zelenka shares her thoughts on technology's glass ceiling in "Business in the Men's Room, Or Maybe on IM":
"In my first job as a software engineer, I was the only woman in a group of about fifteen. I told my husband Rick that I figured all the important business was getting done in the men's room. At the company Christmas party, Rick snuck me in. I was relieved to see there weren't any conference tables or projection devices set up, no stashes of snacks and soda for long strategy sessions… but I still wasn't convinced. They probably cleared it all out before the party just in case any women had the same idea I did!"Zelenka then points to Allied, where Jeneane Sessum advocates the Instant Messaging (IM) approach to breaking down barriers.
In "Girl Cooties", Sessum acknowledges she's looking "at the micro-level here". But she does seem to emphasize that women who want to be on the inside track need to adopt services like Skype, Yahoo IM and AIM.
She has a point, but what about the earlier part of her post, where she writes:
"Why is it that whenever you see Mike Arrington on a conference site you can be pretty sure there are no women there?This hints at the pervasive nature of this problem, and this is the meat of her post, not the IM solution.
I mean, it's starting to look DOWN RIGHT WEIRD."
The danger of the "IM meme", if it catches on, is that it can provide conference organizers with a ready excuse when they don't reach out to women for industry opportunities. "Well you weren't available on Skype, so you weren't around to network with us." Then Conference Organizer Guy can still be viewed as Nice Guy in the eyes of his peers and a wider audience.
What's wrong with good, old fashioned email? Or—heaven forbid—the telephone?
Yes, instant messaging may be superior to email or the telephone because "the parties know whether the peer is available", but the person on the other end still has to want to contact you. Whether it's picking up the phone, looking up someone's email address, or checking to see if they're available on Instant Messaging, the bottom line is:
the person at one end judges whether the person on the other end is worth contacting
As Dave Rogers says, technology changes how we do things, now what we do. Institutional sexism and racism will remain intact no matter how much technology is in place. Therefore, we cannot afford to rely on technology to create equality.
Shelley Powers, in a comment to one of her posts at The Bb Gun, underlines the systemic nature of this problem:
"There's a thousand links at this site and not one leads to a woman.Anne Zelenka is available on Skype as annezelenka.
The Future of Web Apps conference? Fourteen speakers, none of them women.
The Ajaxian Experience? Twenty-five speakers, 50 sessions, one led by a woman.
AjaxWorld has how many women? I didn't even know about this one until today.
The few appearances by women cannot survive the flood of maleness that sweeps this particular land. There now exists an almost absolute absence of women from Web 2.0. Something is broken. Something is badly broken.
The future of the web is being decided by men with virtually no input from women. This is the brave new world that technology brings us?"
Jeneane Sessum is available on Skype as jeneanesessum.
It is unknown whether Shelley Powers is available on Skype, but informed sources are skeptical.
Related link: "Culture isn't dying", Sour Duck
Update: Jeneane has responded at her blog.
Image: Anne 2.0. Also posted at BlogHer.
1 comment:
This issue is at the front of my thoughts this weekend. My 16-year-old son commented that out of 30 students in his Cisco certification class was female. He blamed it on lack of interest - I don't agree. The field is incredibly hostile to women; witness Digg. Hmmm... probably a post in this later next week.
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