Dopp Juice Archive

A recent Facebook-based conversation with Susan Mernit got me thinking about my place in feminism and technology.

I started to argue that “I’m not a feminist tech geek.” I play along with the male-dominated industry by adopting the behaviors of the men around me. I have a history of working on all-male teams and being treated as “one of them” rather than as “the woman.” You’ll find me in a button-down shirt, but you won’t find me in a dress. I expect the same respect and treatment as any man, and I nip any potentially sexist situation in the bud before it escalates. I have a firm handshake, I look people in the eye, I speak with confidence, and I refuse to be pidgeonholed by my gender.

And yeah, okay, I guess that could make me a feminist tech geek.

Argument lost.

BlogWorld Expo is coming up this week in Las Vegas. Being a blogosphere devotee myself, I’m intrigued by blogging conferences and I like to see what’s going on. So I took a browse through their site and landed on the “sneak preview” speaker list:

(Click for full view.)And without even stopping to read the names, one insulting fact jumped out and slapped me in the face: These are all men! No wait. There’s one woman. Down there in the bottom left hand corner.

Contrast this with the SXSW Interactive flyer I just received in the mail yesterday, which has a very similar tiled-thumbnail promotional sampling of speakers. (Please forgive the crappy Treo650 photo quality…)

(Click for full view.)Hey, lookie there… Four men and four women. What do you know? One of the most prestigious tech conferences in the country has a completely equal representation of men and women on their conference promotional materials. How fascinating… Maybe they’re trying to reach their audience?

Now, I’m not (yet) accusing BlogWorld Expo of sexist advertising (or even of having a sexist lineup of keynote speakers… which, it appears, is 100% men). I’m all about strategic marketing and accurate representation of demographics, and maybe they have good reason for their choices. Maybe they’re only interested in targeting men.

Because maybe all of the important bloggers out there (who would be interested in a conference) are men.

And maybe, let’s face it, maybe the only good public speakers they could find were men.

Because, really, let’s get to the point here, women have nothing of value to say in this arena.

That’s it. Of course.

I know it doesn’t always travel in writing, so let me make absolutely clear that the above four statements were said with angry sarcasm. Because they’re prominent assumptions in the tech industry, and they’ve all been proven wrong over the last few years by many organizations, not the least has been BlogHer — an annual bloggers’ conference that features only female speakers. And according to June 2007 statistics, it’s the largest bloggers’ conference on earth. Period.

To pre-empt another counterargument, yes, many of those women blog about “serious” issues, like world news, economics, technology, politics, and finance. And some of them have even become absurdly famous through their blogs, bearing a massive fan base asset that would boost ticket sales just as much (if not more) than any man on the lineup.

And to address the matter of public speaker quality… (SXSW, I love you for your flyer and I mean you no harm, so please forgive what I’m about to say…) BlogHer’s panels, on the whole, were far better than those at the much-acclaimed SXSW. They carried a consistent quality that I haven’t seen at any other conference. Every single one was well-curated with tested speakers who gave the audience what they were looking for.

We’re no longer buying the notion that women bloggers don’t have an intelligent voice, a valuable presence, and a hunger for conferences. Not representing them in keynote lineups and conference promotional materials is both irresponsible and insulting.

(Okay, now somebody else please pick up on the fact that all the speakers on that page appear to be white and take it from here…)

This news article is giving me nightmares. In China, they are treating Internet addiction like drug addiction, and addressing it with mental health instititions and electric shock therapy. From a syndicated Washington Post article (this stuff quoted from the Boston Globe)…

‘The Chinese government in recent months has joined South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam in taking measures to limit the time teens spend online. It has passed regulations banning youths from Internet cafes and has implemented control programs that kick teens off networked games after five hours.’There’s a global controversy over whether heavy Internet use should be defined as a mental disorder, with some psychologists, including a handful in the United States, arguing that it should be. Backers of the idea say the addiction can be crippling, leading people to neglect work, school, and their social lives.’But no country has gone quite as far as China in embracing the theory and mounting a public crusade against Internet addiction. To skeptics, the campaign dovetails a bit too nicely with China’s broader effort to control what its citizens can see on the Internet. The Communist government runs a massive program that limits Web access, censors sites, and seeks to control online political dissent. Internet companies like Google have come under heavy criticism abroad for going along with China’s demands.’In the Internet-addiction campaign, the government is helping to fund eight in-patient rehabilitation clinics across the country.’

And then, looking at one of the clinics…

‘Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis, and mild electric shocks.’

I’m sure there are some really thoughtful responses to this article somewhere deep in my brain, but for right now… I have no words. Well, I have a few. But I try to keep this a family-friendly site.