Massey Media is sponsoring the Women Who Tech telesummit next week; because, as a woman-owned business, we are aware of the challenges faced in any area of professional life as a consequence of gender. What I didn't fully appreciate is just how behind the times the tech industry is in terms of not appreciating or sometimes not even including women.
Statistics vary, but estimates of the percentage of female industry professionals range from five to 20 percent. In the 21st century, these numbers would make me laugh if they weren't so tragic. What's worse is that there are still debates out there over whether these numbers reflect nature or nurture. The truth is that technology is a field that continues to sideline women, to its own detriment. Tech culture plays its own part. For example, a recent presentation at the Ruby on Rails conference in San Francisco is an appalling illustration of the kind of attitude women in the industry have to deal with every day.
The net itself is often a gendered space. Internet culture has subdivided into male- and female-oriented spaces on the web. Witness the recent creation of Dreamwidth Studios, a social networking site designed for and by women. Although this is not the way it would describe itself, and the fact appears nowhere in its literature, easily 95 percent of its users are women. They felt unwelcome at more traditional social networking sites and created a space for themselves. Perhaps this is progress; perhaps it is not. The need to acknowledge gender issues in the tech universe is the reason the Women Who Tech conference is so important.
Massey Media is doing the "traditional media" outreach for the conference. We're contacting radio shows, newspapers, and TV. Our pitch is essentially: "90 percent of your tech stories are about men. That's a problem." When you read about the telesummit in the news, know that Massey Media placed that story because we believe in the social change represented by Women Who Tech.
- Janaki Spickard-Keeler