Apologies for the lack of blogging here today - it's all been going to The Social Enterprise.
But I'm switching back to here for the gender issues seminar.
Stephanie Booth kicked off the session by getting the audience to think about situation in which they either had felt restricted by being a woman or, in the case of the men, had been glad that they weren't a woman because it would have been harder if they were. She also raised the issue of quotas.
Janet Parkinson presented some really interesting facts and figures about the gender bias in consumption and production of online services, which she did without slides, so I have nothing to crib the figures from. I'll get them from her later, hopefully. The main gist was that there are areas - like e-commerce, social networking and (to some extent) gaming, where women are a majority or a significant minority, while the producers of those sites are almost exclusively male. It seems to make simple commercial sense that more women be involved. Otherwise you run the risk of following the "make it pink" school of marketing to women, which is just patronising.
Lloyd, as the token male, raised a handful of ideas (as well as putting up pictures of what appears to be German testicle shampoo and a large gentleman in a small French Maid's outfit - which made me think of Janet's point about men marketing to women :) - to illustrate them)
Suw suggests that sometime the fact that some many of the most high profile bloggers are men means we get caught up in their linking patterns. Do we challenge our own networks for bias? Or to see if we're exposing ourselves to a range of opinions.
Ian raised the issues of events which are male or female dominated, and how male-dominated events can become off-putting to women. (Lloyd raised the issue of the sometimes les-than-rigourous hygiene amongst male geeks). The gender division possibilities of Geek Girl Dinners came up, but Lloyd pointed out that these are more female-friendly than female only, as men can attend if invited by a woman.
Other issues raised from the audience:
- The stalker aspect of some social sites can be off-putting
- Women not putting themselves forward for jobs even in environments that would seem to be female-orientated.
Steph the tried to steer the discussion towards career aspects.
Nancy raised the issue of women being unwilling to put themselves in the line of comment fire on blogs. Suw pointed to the Kathy Sierra situation. "I can't think of a single man who has been exposed to that sort of attention," she said.
Lloyd, with some support from the audience, argued that men are worried about negative comments and hostility as well, but Steph pointed out that when women are attacked it is almost always of a sexual nature. And that's a whole different complexion of attack.
Janet pointed to the Tuttle Club in London, which has much more of an even gender balance. Is this because it's a new invention, as the web moves away from the harder-core techies?
Women are actively taking on community management roles - it's different from blogging in that it's a many-to-many relationship. Something that yu can do from home, fits into the family thing.
Is community management a motherly role? Yes, seemed to be the consensus.
Are women less prone to the confrontational part of the web? And do they need to have good connections with IT people to know their stuff? Or should they know it themselves.
Steph pointed out that it was annoying that people assumed she can't install WordPress of hack php just because she's a woman.
Perception of gender roles. Strong woman = bitch. Strong man = good leader.
Alan: small companies are run in a more female way (research shows)
Upcoming event: Finding Ada - a conference about bring women forward in technology
(Apologies to the contributors from the floor whose names I didn't get)
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