You are currently browsing the daily archive for April 24, 2010.
In honor of my final official blog post for Gender and Computerization, I thought it would be nifty to look at some women blogging technology out there in the interwebs. I’ve visited some of these over the past semester for ideas. And then I found some other neat things that need mentioning. So for a smorgasboard of gender tech fun, read on.
Chip Chick: Tech and Gadgets from a Girl’s Perspective Lot’s of talk of cute and ugly on here in relation to gadgets. Though it does feature some ridiculous items you might not see elsewhere, like the Crystal Lipstick Mouse and the Toilet Sound Blocker, I wouldn’t go here for solid tech info. There is also a girls site called Chip Chicklets which again just seems to feature gadgets for kiddos without any solid reviews. I suppose I would say if you’re looking for a strange gadgety gift to buy someone, check here.
SheGeeks: Keep Up with the Best in Social Media Corvida Raven does social media commentary right. Her most recent post is on tweeting and the interplay between humans and data. The lifestream as city diagram is hot.
aliza sherman rants and raves subtitled “Rants and Raves from Web pioneer Aliza Sherman: the Original Cybergrrl and founder of Webgrrls International, co-founder of social media marketing consultancy Conversify. Topics include social media, business, marketing, gender issues, work, life, and more.” Check out this interview with Sherman.
Girl Geek Dinners. Food and tech talk. Brilliant. And they’re worldwide. The mission:” Our mission should we choose to accept it:
- To break down old fashioned social stereotypes.
- To identify routes around barriers to entry for anyone to get into technology.
- To encourage and nurture those interested in technology.
- To work with local schools, colleges and universities to encourage more women into the technology industry.
- To support those currently in the industry and work together to figure out the issues and the solutions.
- To include men, women and children in this journey…. and not exclude men from Girl Geek Dinner Events
If I’ve missed something off of here then do let me know and I’ll be happy to add it… this is part of the Ethos of Girl Geek Dinners.”
GirlyGeekdom a “fun location where girl and guy geeks write about anything that captures their geeky imaginations.” Inclusiveness with this one as well as the Girl Geek Dinners, which reminds me of the studies where girls designed games with girls and boys in mind, while boys designed games for boys.
5 Tips for Raising your Geek Girl from Wired. Mary, they mention Felicia Day!
Girl Geek Chic a girl’s guide to technology with Nikki Moore. Gadget reviews mostly.
Nerd Girls Blog This has fun stuff for teen girls like how to make music on the web and social media response to disasters. The blog is part of a larger website started by an engineering professor at Tufts. Nerd Girls “are a growing, global movement which celebrates smart-girl individuality that’s revolutionizing our future.”Okay, so I guess they had a reality show a couple of years ago? Not sure, but here’s a clip about who the Nerd Girls are. It annoys me on a few levels, but it does make the field (at least engineering) look glamorous and if that’s what it takes…
Knitting + computers = captain capacitor
This timely article from the NYT DealBook looks at the small number of female venture capitalists. And now for the requisite grim statistics: “Women account for just 6 percent of the chief executives of the top 100 tech companies, and 22 percent of the software engineers at tech companies over all, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology. And among venture capitalists, the population of financiers who control the purse strings for a majority of tech start-ups, just 14 percent are women, the National Venture Capital Association says.”
Yes, another tech area lacking women. The article interestingly notes, “Women now outnumber men at elite colleges, law schools, medical schools and in the overall work force. Yet a stark imbalance of the sexes persists in the high-tech world.” Why, oh, why? Here we are ~24 posts in and still no real answers.
Why not invest in women? They cost less than men on average. “Venture-backed start-ups run by women use, on average, 40 percent less capital than start-ups run by men and are increasingly involved in successful initial public offerings of stock.” So, they’re a good investment.
The article boils down to the fact that there is a lack of women role models leading the way. “There aren’t enough women entrepreneurs because they don’t see enough women entrepreneurs ahead of them and successful.” While 40% of private businesses in the U.S. are owned by women, only 8% of venture backed tech start-ups are run by women.
On that note…some successful tech women: Carol Bartz, Yahoo CEO; Meg Whitman, former ebay CEO; Carly Fiorini, former HP CEO…it’s a start at least.
The article looks specifically at one young woman, Poornima Vijayashanker, who has started her own company for making software for small business called BizeeBee. She voices many of the concerns we have read about repeatedly in class. One example, timing motherhood. “The tech start-up lifestyle isn’t hospitable to child-rearing. That’s why, she says, many young women prefer working at big companies to starting their own.”
Karen Watts, the CEO of a business accounting software, also repeats a commonly heard theme: “It just never dawned on me to do it [engineering],” she says. “You’re just sitting there pecking away. I need more human interaction.” Interesting because she is in a field that would be seen as lacking in human interaction, but she’s putting that tag on yet another profession. Why are we so obsessed with careers that have human interaction? Because I would venture to say most do, to varying degrees anyway.
The article goes on to relate the statistics on the low numbers of girls studying computer science and it revisits the nerd image that so many are afraid of. Comp sci Barbie gets a mention.
Then we get to a group at Stanford, Women in Computer Science that mentors other girls in CS. The co-president of the group says, ”It helps to show a human being who does computer science and says, ‘I also really like going to the theater or listening to music,’ so younger women can see you still have a personality and do technology.” Again the same stereotypes persist.
One last time, for the record…maybe we should look at overcoming these stereotypes and inequalities by making computer science and technology interesting and accessible to girls from the beginning. It couldn’t hurt.
