Girl Tech

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira,

on March 22, 2008,

women in tech I generally don't consider myself a raging feminist, but I have had days, like today, where the gender divide seems so wide as to to be insurmountable.

Let's take the past month, for example. Within just the past few weeks, we've seen the launch of WoWoWoW, or however you want to attempt to type that, a “Huffington Post” just for women. Now, let's forget that The HuffPo is one of the biggest political (and just about anything else now) sites out there, passing up the Drudge Report in eyeballs no matter which metrics you are viewing. Why on earth, when we have such a widely read site that was created by a woman, do we need one geared specifically to women? Never mind that, as the Jossip link above so succinctly put it, that WoWoWoW is written by “famous white ladies, plus Whoopi Goldberg.” Why do we need these sites at all? Yahoo also thinks this is a trend worth following, readying their own site for women, tentatively called “Shine.”

Not long after reading about these two sites, I had the privilege of being informed by Forbes that, apparently, as a woman, I'm not a “real” gamer. After all, women aren't playing “real” games, but the casual games market is booming thanks to, you guessed it, women. Forbes does take the time to state about halfway through the article,

“To be sure, classifying casual games as “games for girls” would not be fair. But casual female-targeted gaming hits with female heroines, such as “Diner Dash” and “Wedding Dash,” make it clear that casual game developers are attacking far broader swaths of the population than the traditional 18-to-35-year-old male demographic coveted by makers of hardcore games.”

The problem is that the title of the article, which is about casual gaming, is “Games Girls Play.” Last time I checked, I was a girl, and I wouldn't touch Cooking Mama with a ten-foot pole.

I was nearly over this virtual segregation of women until today, when two articles came across feeds. The first was Guy Kawasaki's review of Sk*rt, which some are calling “Digg for Chicks.” It has topic areas that sound like something out of a 1950s home ec class, including “Arts & Entertainment, Design & Crafts, Family & Parenting, and Food & Home.” Wow, between that and the small blurb at the bottom of Mr. Kawaski's post about a FABULOUS shoe tree, I could almost die and go to Martha Stewart heaven.

Still, I might almost have stayed in a calm state of Zen were it not for the comparison in Mr. Kawasaki's tweets between his post and that of Duncan Riley over on TechCrunch. I realize that this being a holiday weekend for a good portion of the web, we are in for a few slow news days. However, posting several links to women doing tech podcasts and the associated commentary from the TechCrunch reader base were just enough to set me off.

When it comes to viewing women in tech, there seems to be an extension of the Madonna/whore conundrum. We have the Madonnas who love home and hearth and flock to anything under the Martha Stewart umbrella (I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Sk*rt's exit strategy). We have the whore example perpetuated by the TechCrunch commenters, where any relatively pretty girl talking about tech on video is enough to send most of them men back to the mentality of a 12-year-old where someone's looks are debated rather than their knowledge or content. And TechCrunch wouldn't be TechCrunch without commenters like JosefVirek demanding that “Techcrunch should hire an attractive lady blogger.”

I must have missed the day when all the TechCrunch male bloggers (and for the record, most of the male tech bloggers) turned into something I'd want to see shirtless. I haven't seen any women begging for an Arrington or Scoble calendar; have you?

Yes, tech is dominated by men, and the comments on articles, ridiculous 12-year-old boy comments about whether or not a tech podcast is worth watching based on whether or not the podcaster has gained weight, and the relegation of women to sites dominated with casual gaming, scrapbooking techniques, and parenting advice isn't going to change the status quo.

In the meantime, I'm going to start lobbying to get some beefcake hired around here. Enough with the pasty tech geeks I find in every single Qik stream. I want some podcasts of Brad Pitt talking about the latest social networking business model while he's working out. If he'd like to invite George Clooney and Taye Diggs along to discuss the future of semantic web applications, I'm all for that as well. After all, it's only fair.

Women in Web 2.0: You Can’t Have It Both Ways

Give Up Boys, We’re Outnumbered!

Social Gaming, not the Wii, Should Hook Casual Gamers

Women in 2.0: Be a Blogging Armadillo

16 Comments (Subscribe to rss)

Nicole Simon - March 22, 2008 at 03:26 pm PDT

While I am more in the casual gamer fraction - a stylus is a requirement for a mobile phone in order to run bejeweled - the only reason I could see for having a specific women version of games is simply that the original ones are so annoyingly build towards eye candy for guys.

And while I do not use sk*rt because the topics do not really interest me, I see it not as a “female digg” but a topic oriented digg.

Regarding the non existing eye candy … I find that most of the times women do not give the same kind of feedback as men do because it is below their standards to react this kind of way, but maybe we should do it for some time. Demand pretty photos, sexy appearances (no matter what the content), demand speech training to be less sloppy and slow and and and.

But when you get Brad Pitt or George Clooney, let’s do something useful with them and not have them talk about social networks or anything.
Corvida - March 22, 2008 at 04:37 pm PDT

BRAVO!!!! **ENCORE ENCORE***

Damn, I felt like I was at a rally or something while reading this. I definitely stand behind you on most of these issues and articles. Some of them shouldn’t have even seen the light of the internet. It’s very petty of a lot of them, especially TechCrunch.

I actually found out about Sk*rt earlier today before reading this post. I read Guy’s review of it too and I thought it was blah and to some extent I think Sk*rt is blah. It’s way too girly for me and its UI is a testament to that. So, I can see why Guy would say what he said because that’s exactly what it looks like. But I saw it as a pointless site and very exclusive which is not what I’m about.

As for the WoWoWoW site…why is Whoopie the token black woman on there? I’m not feeling that at all. They should’ve just left her out or hired more black women. It doesn’t make any sense to me and most of those sites that you mentioned are pointless imo.

This was a great read though!
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - March 22, 2008 at 04:58 pm PDT

@Nicole Any time people start referring to a site as the female anything, it’s doomed. And odds are that the topics are geared away from the male mind set, which, apparently, is confined to World of Warcraft, first-person shooter games, beer, boobs, and “things that plug in.”

I’m just boggled that we are supposed to respect some of these people as great writers or developers or founders, and yet underneath, their focus tends to revolve around the above. I’m not looking for who’s attractive or looks like they work out when I add a feed. I’m looking for content. Sometimes I wonder if we really are just wired that differently. The problem however, is that they don’t respect the attractive women either. Remember what the TC commenters did when Natali del Conte was writing there?

@Corvida I think maybe you should ask Whoopi that question. Along with why she’s the only woman of ANY color on that site. I mean, we should OWN social media; there is such an opportunity out there for women to really do something in this space, and yet so many of the efforts seem to end up back in the same pigeonholes we were in when Susan B. Anthony was fighting for women’s right to vote.
Trina - March 22, 2008 at 07:58 pm PDT

Thank you for the writeup. I run GamingAngels.com which is a site that focuses on giving women a place where they can talk about games/tech/gadgets/Japanese culture freely and without harassment.

The site has been going for a year and three months, and we are growing steadily. I have a great staff of women that are writing for the site to get experience because there are so few females writing about games (compared to men). At conferences, I am still one of maybe three women in the press room.

I joined a mostly male site the other day. My friend is one of the people on staff and I wanted to support her. Immediately after joining, about 15 posts were asking for pictures, what my breasts size was, my myspace/facebook, and not a single question about my gaming interests, or what I think of the current political climate concerning games. I called them on their behavior and stated how disappointed I am that a predominately male gaming website would be completely void of game talk and instead focused on my looks.

That is why I run GA. I want to provide a place where women can talk freely about anything on their minds. Unfortunately the gaming community is still a bit too juvenile to deal with the fact that more and more women start to play every day.

My hope is that one day, my site and it’s slant won’t even be needed. Or it will morph into something else. Because my hope is that we will live in a society where women are welcomed into tech-based careers and have their opinions listened to.

Thank you for your article. I agree about that wowowow or whatever site. It’s a pity that something that should be strong and powerful, looks like a Junior High School student made the site and the content is weak. Until more women are hired for tech blogs/sites we will need to create sites of our own to showcase our voice. At some point, men will either listen or get lost in our dust.

Trina ^_^
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - March 22, 2008 at 08:07 pm PDT

Trina, when I initially posted the Forbes article on Facebook, I actually had a male friend ask what games I actually played. Does anyone ask MEN that question to qualify them as gamers?

Every single console that has crossed my threshold was purchased by ME, not my husband. And I play all the games except Halo 3 (I find dying every 2 minutes as boring as Cooking Mama) and Madden (too much work for too little gratification). Sure, I still play some of the “typical female” games like The Sims franchise, but that doesn’t define me as a gamer. Nor should my breasts or lack thereof.
Trina - March 22, 2008 at 08:20 pm PDT

Cyndy,

I’m only a small person, with a small website, but what more can I do to help? What can we do to assist change? Last month I launched the Women in Gaming Wednesdays where we interview women that work in different aspects of Tech and Gaming. I am trying to accumulate and highlight various scholarships for gaming and tech careers. I will be launching a job board in a couple of months.

But what else can we do? As a female that works in IT, I feel this more and more in the professional world and I feel like I’m fighting all by myself. I’ve been fronted with male bosses that accuse me of leaving the job the first instance I get pregnant, I’ve always made a lower salary than males in my position, and I feel like companies stick me as the front person in IT because I deal with people better than my male counterparts but I’m not included in major system matters. Yet, I have to fix things when things go wrong.

I want to work to change things. WITI seems more like a networking party, than a group of women working together to bring about change. Women 2.0 is up north (in California).

Instead of being mad at men for having such a small world perspective, I want to work to empower women. But what can I do?
Nicole Simon - March 23, 2008 at 02:14 am PDT

Trina, the problem with empowering women is simple - it will not change a bit how men think or act. :))
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - March 23, 2008 at 05:21 am PDT

@Trina, Nicole is right; it won’t change a thing. Generally, the only thing that seems to work is women who have opportunities sharing those with other women. But the thing about leaving jobs when you get pregnant is on the money. The problem is that they don’t look at the underlying cause for it.

I’m one of those women. I left development when I had my first and switched to writing. But the reason wasn’t so much because I had a child but because I weighed my options. After a string of jobs that were much like you describe, Trina, where I had more knowledge and more experience, but was paid less and had less authority, was it really worth it to continue or did I want to shift gears, change what I was doing, and spend time with my child? In that case, family won, hands down. But my husband was the first to point out that if I hadn’t felt boxed in I probably would have continued in the same minimum 60-hour weeks.

What does have to happen, however, is women need to quit undermining themselves. The two things I see most often that I think stand in our way pop up frequently. One is the adoption of the “whore” version; that by acting in such a way that draws the boorish behavior exhibited in the TC comments, you get attention. I won’t mention any names, but you’ll see a few examples frequently in the articles at Valleywag. I don’t think that type of attention is something any woman should aspire to. The other, however, is the victim card. Oh, look, woe is me. I’m just a little woman here who needs help from a big, strong man.
Jen - March 23, 2008 at 11:27 am PDT

I was active with Sk*rt when it first launched, thinking it could be a Digg-like resource without the raging misogyny, and then it turned into Martha Stewart/gossip mag lite, and I lost interest.

Anyway, fantastic post. You’re right on.
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - March 23, 2008 at 11:51 am PDT

Jen, that is depressing to hear. My husband hadn’t actually seen WoWoWoW when it launched, and when I showed it to him yesterday, the first words out of his mouth were “WHO is involved with this? Candice Bergen? Whoopi Goldberg? They are party to a site where the weather forecast includes what kind of HAIR DAY it’s going to be?!” Where are the sites without the misogyny but with more than crafting and banana bread recipes?
Desmond - March 25, 2008 at 06:37 am PDT

Heck, the post and comments are turning out to be a no holds barred girls brigade on the roll!

I couldn’t help but LOL on reading the original post. Very well written. Very funny. But the GuyKs and all have to make money out of churning out BS - that is what they thrive on - so my advice is - don’t go overboard by their comments.

Rest, if you want a neutral site - check out mine!
Joel - March 26, 2008 at 06:06 am PDT

I am all for you geek girls finding geekish stud eye candy to look at. Provided that geekish stud eye candy is me.

I’ll write bash scripts with my shirt off. I’ll put provocative pics on my Flickr account. I’ll drink Diet Pepsi at the same time every day so you can all crowd around the window and watch.

I am all about equality. While those guys are ogling podcast chicks, you all can ogle me. That’ll show ‘em.
Mile - April 28, 2008 at 11:04 pm PDT

I’m playing Dinner Dash. I’m a man
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - April 30, 2008 at 04:21 am PDT

Now see, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m sure there are just as many guys playing Diner Dash and Cooking Mama as there are girls like me who wouldn’t touch them with a 10-foot pole. It’s the stereotypes I can’t stand.
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