Women and Web 2.0

I just sent this email to Carson Workshops, the organizers of an upcoming tech conference, The Future of Web Apps. I feel a little bad picking on them - it's all too common for me to look at speaker rosters and see a dearth of female speakers/presenters.

From: Ms. Jen Bekman To: Various People at Carson Systems Bcc: Various Kick Ass Women Knee Deep in Web 2.0 Stuff Date: Aug 6, 2006 10:48 AM Subject: is there no future for women on the web?

Hi

Someone just pointed me to the site for the Carson Workshops Summit which looks rather interesting except for one glaring omission: You have 10 speakers and not one of them is a woman!

You might consider rounding out your speaker roster. It'd be nice to see a woman's face here:
http://www.carsonworkshops.com/summit/?utm_source=deck&utm_medium=bann

Stumped? I recommend checking out Misbehaving to start. Or maybe inquire over at Adaptive Path, Ruby Red Labs or Flickr - they seem to know a thing or two about the next generation of web apps.

You don't need to look too hard to find women who are developing cool 2.0 products.

Thanks,
Jen

Comments

[Ryan Carson]

Hi Jen,

Thanks for bringing that to our attention. We weren't intentionally ignoring women speakers.

We specifically tried to get Caterina Fake (Flickr) and Mena Trott (Six Apart), but they were too busy!

Kind regards,
Ryan

[Lisa]

Well, I really ought to count to ten and be all professional and calm about this but I'm sorry I can't. I really DO give a SHIT. As do all five of us here at Carson Systems. Oh yes, and here's a percentage for you - 60% of us are female (I know, CRAZY! And we're a web company and everything)
Here's another fact. In the 9 months I have been editing Vitamin - a site for designers, developers and web entrepreneurs - I have received precisely zero submissions from women who want to get published. In fact the only women who have been published on the site is because they're among the ones I have specifically gone out and approached.
We care PASSIONATELY about the industry and would never discriminate against people speaking at our events.
Never mind the fact that Mr Kottke didn't know all the facts about who we had/hadn't asked to speak (which Ryan has now made clear to him), we have just come to the end of 2 days of conference and 1 day of workshops on web application development. Out of an audience of 800 about 20 attendees were women (for the statisticians among you that's 2.5%. I spoke to lots of them - they had had a great time.
Frankly I can't cover off in a comment all my thoughts about why the industry is at it is today (but would be happy to do it over IM) but all I can say is we can't magic up women developers out of nowhere if they simply don't exist. I would ask what percentage of your excellent list of women speakers would be appropriate at our web app events? Honestly, we have looked for them in the interests of diversity and because we know that providing role models for the next generation of developers is an important part of redressing the balance, but frankly (and again I refer you back to your list and our attendee statistics) it's just not easy.
If women are being held back from positions in the web industry then I would seriously be pissed off about it but I have never felt that this community is anything more than a meritocracy (you're only as good as your last job) and that is a rare thing (no matter what your gender).
To compare the FOWA with SXSW (an excellent show which I'm looking forward to attending) is a false exercise. How many women are there talking about PHP, Rails, JavaScript and other development issues? Not many I think you'll find.
Our future of web design and future of online advertising have more women simply because there are more of them doing good things in those spheres.
Maybe it's true what Tara Hunt once said that women are less likely to want to be out there and publicly pushing the work they've done so we don't get to find out about them. If anyone does know any talented ladies who've worked on successful web apps then please add them to the Personism list.

[Jen Bekman]

Note: comments are closed here only because I want to funnel conversation into and around one specific topic, which is the List of Women Speakers for Your Conference.

Please post your additions and comments there and keep in mind my policy:

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