Feb 26 2007 at 3:05am
Where are all the Women in Web Design?
Eric Meyer had a post last week about gender diversity in the Event Apart conference series. What he’s saying, basically, is that he doesn’t believe in recruiting female speakers just for the sake of gender diversity. They want to get the best people, and I totally agree with that. I certainly would not want to be part of any project or conference just because I’m a minority.
Midway through the article Eric asks: ”So is the gender imbalance in the eye of the organizers, or is it in the very fabric of the industry?”
Think about the sites you visit to learn about web design. They’re probably all run by men, right? What about the blogs you read, or the forums you post to. If you’ve been to TWF you’ll know who I am but I’m guessing the majority of others are dominated by men.
Why is that? Why is all the web design help and information created by men? Granted, you can pick out a few exemplary women in the field but it can be a bit of a stretch to find them.
I’ve been thinking about this off and on for quite awhile and I have a couple of thoughts on why this could be:
- Men just outnumber women in web design – this is probably partly true, but I don’t quite buy it as a reason for this problem.
- Women have less spare time than men – creating a name for yourself through blogging and writing articles and such requires spare time. Spare time that women have less of. Why? Because we need to care for our families, do the housework, exercise, and take some time for ourselves. Societal expectations are higher in the non-professional sphere. Sometimes you’ll hear that women need to work harder than men to do as well in the workplace. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it could apply here. In her post on this topic, Rachel Andrew mentioned that women can’t always leave their children for a few days to go to a conference. Unfortunately, lack of time probably applies to a lot of people, not just women!
- Women have less confidence in themselves – making a name for yourself also requires some confidence in your own abilities. You need to believe that you have something worthwhile to contribute. Tantek says to “stop waiting for a speaking invitation handout.” For a long time I resisted the idea of having a blog because I didn’t think I had anything worthwhile to say. One of Rachel’s commenters mentioned that she’s shy about attending a conference on her own, which is something I can definitely relate to.
Many others have posted their own thoughts on this topic. Some believe that the whole issue is irrelevant, while others continue to stress the importance of encouraging diversity. Dave Shea mentioned that with Web Directions North they intentionally invited diverse group of speakers and saw that reflected in their audience. Unfortunately I don’t have time to read all the great posts on this topic 
Disclaimer: All generalizations in this post are simply that: generalizations. They are not meant to apply to everyone!
Edit: BlogHer has a good summary of the debate on this topic.
Fiona helping Women with Confidence December 2nd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I’d never really thought about the lack of women in web design! I think you’re right, but it shouldn’t be like that.
I’ve recently been trying to help a friend design his website. He’s a wedding musician and I found that his website was very short and to the point. Basically he was aiming at men – “here’s what I do, get in touch to book!”
Eventually I asked him whether most of his enquiries come from men or women. Of course it was women. I’ve rewritten most of his site but expanded it a bit. My favourite part is the top of his wedding music page…
“Planning a wedding can be incredibly complicated, so why not make things easy for yourself and book one musician for the whole wedding? Job done!”
Women can add a whole different element to webdesign, maybe talking around the subject more rather than being strictly factual.
And yes, it is very difficult to get everything done around a family and other committments!
Fiona
Susan October 15th, 2010 at 5:25 am
Hi
I read your article with great interest. Here in the UK there is exactly the same problem. Men think they have complete control over anything remotely technological, so I set up a website (1 of several) to teach women in business HOW to design, build, update, maintain and keep control of their own personal or business websites, blogs etc. I learned the hard way how to do all these things for myself because I found men to be somewhat patronising and unwilling to treat me as an equal rather than female but now I want to share this information with other women. We are no longer underdogs.