Hi, my name is Kimberly Blessing. I'm a computer scientist, Web developer, standards evangelist, feminist, and geek. This is where I write about life, the Web, technology, women's issues, and whatever else comes to mind.
More thoughts on gender in the Web world
Wow. This whole gender diversity thing really took off, but I wonder if it’ll continue, or if it’s dying. If you haven’t gotten in on it yet, read Virginia DeBolt’s summary at BlogHer. Some opinions I’ve enjoyed on this topic come from:
- Shelley Powers
- Meri Williams
- Rachel Andrew
- Megan McDermott
- Janice Fraser’s comments on Brian Oberkirch’s blog
I also thought more about Eric Meyer’s comment about publishing, and it took me back to the publish or perish concerns that many scientists and researchers have. Am I a woman scientist? pointed to this paper, which, while relating to the biological sciences, reiterates what I’ve learned about academic paper publishing both in general and in the computer science field.
There is a clear difference between men and women in science with regard to the quantity of their research output. On average, males publish more papers than their female counterparts, a trend that is consistent across scientific disciplines and exists even when obvious mitigating factors are taken into consideration. The causes of this difference are mysterious … However, it may also be a consequence of social factors.
I believe that all of the above is true of publishing in the Web world.
The study also goes on to state that while women produce fewer papers, their papers are generally rated as being of better quality than those produced by men, and are more often cited in other research. I don’t want to extrapolate this particular statement and apply it to the Web world, but it’s something to think about.
Getting back to quantity, however… if the bulk of publications are produced by men, one might assume that the tendency to publish is more male than female. And thus arises another concern that I have — that, in order for women to gain more prominence in our field, we’re expecting them to behave like men. Is this fair? Is it right?
Robert Scoble said on Shelley’s blog that one has to learn to beg [for links] via email and/or face-to-face meetings… men do this far far more often than women do. I also took issue with this, because, again, the expectation is that women should do what men do to get noticed.
I know it’s been done already, but I’ll again ask all of the people involved in this ongoing conversation to to stop and think not about what women can do to get noticed or be seen as an expert, but what they can do to help identify, encourage, and support women. The confidence to ask for links or the opportunity to publish or speak may need to be socialized more with women first — you can’t just expect them to be told to do something in order to see change.
And I’ll ask the women out there to think about what we can be doing to help raise awareness of what we do as individuals, about what we contribute to the field, and how we should be promoting these things to the industry. What can we do to promote opportunities to contribute, what opportunities can we create for ourselves, and how do we foster this ongoing dialog?
While it was a man who helped to reignite this discussion, I ultimately think that women need to own it. I don’t want to say that we’ve all been happy to take a back seat and be content with what we’ve got, because I know that’s not true… but unless we continue to fuel this discussion, and unless we take ownership of steering it and educating others, we won’t see many gains made.
Comments (7)
Hi Kimberley
I had the same thoughts — what we need to do is to help create the inclusive, supportive environment whence more diverse speakers can come.
And so, in the geek way, I have created a website to help:
http://www.makemeaspeaker.com
Would love it if you could help spread the word and possibly even come and contribute :-)
That’s an interesting point about academics. I’ll have to forward this to my sister and see what she thinks (she’s a professor). That relates to my ideas about lack of confidence too – low confidence means you think you have to be better so you get to be perfectionistic about your work, and therefore publish less. Scoble’s quote is a good one too.
I’m really glad this topic has gome up again because it’s given me the chance to make a lot of new connections with women in the field. I will be adding a lot more blogers to my feed list and will try to keep making connections and linking around etc. :)
Thanks for mentioning my BlogHer summary. Every day could bring a new summary, there is so much being said about this.
I decided to make a personal commitment to try to change the gender percentages by stepping away from my usual hidey-hole and sending proposals to at least two new conferences and at least two new publications.
http://www.webteacher.ws/2007/02/i-decided-to-quit-complaining-and-take.html
I like what Meri did as her action step. I mention it in the post linked to above.
In 1992 I was part of a university task force which said that the Internet of the time excluded women and non-whites, and that needed to change. While the Internet as a whole has improved in 15 years, software and web development still have some work to do.
Very interesting discussion. I’ve often wonder if, because men and women view things in a different light, we tend to do things in a different way and interpret things differently. As we make progress in one area, we realize that things in another area are being thrown off balance. So, while we have responded to the lack of females in certain disciplines and choosing various careers, we have paid little attention to young males. Now we see fewer males than females going to secondary education creating a different dilemna that will need to be tackled. As for the comment, I take exception to your interpretation of the remark painting all men as “one” with the undertone that “we” all do that and to get somewhere you have to be like “us”. I don’t agree with the comment nor do I agree with your position. I take the comment for what it is, his point of view much the same as I take other bloggers comments and posts as their point of view – not male or female. By the way, I’ve met women who do this sort of thing as readily as men.
My comments are a generalization, but I still stand by them. I’m getting tired of men telling women, or women telling other women, that their perceptions are wrong — they may not be your perceptions of the world, and there may be others out there whose perceptions don’t match, but that doesn’t mean that the way a person feels is wrong. (Didn’t you ever watch Sesame Street?)
I also don’t understand how anyone can truly say they’re gender blind in cases where an individual refers to their sex, or their name gives it away. And even if one does remain blind to the gender of a writer, how does that help one’s understanding of what the person is saying?
Over at Anne 2.0 » Blog Archive » Working with the Architecture of the Space on February 28, 2007 at 6:31 PM EST, someone said:
[...] Is it a gender thing? Who knows. There are plenty of women blogging frequently with attention to popularity (I do so–on Web Worker Daily, but I don’t do it out of a personal urge). But it does seem to me that women publish less frequently than men and may be less likely to post on something just because it’s news and might get them noticed. This behavior means they’re less likely to get linked to, less likely to become more visible, and consequently less likely to be invited to events targeted at influencers like this one. [...]