Interesting that the same topic I wrote about at the end of last year (Who/Where are the Women?) is resurfacing. Well, actually, it’s always a topic, but one that seems to be getting hot again:
- Templates and Women
(Eris Free, 11 May 2004) - Boys Boys Boys
(Helen Jane, 23 June 2004) - Where Are the…
(Whitespace, 29 June 2004) - Shadow of Self-Doubt
(Eris Free, 5 July 2004) - Design, Gender and Equity
(Red Polka, 6 July 2004) - Where Are the Women of CSS?
(Molly Holzschlag, 7 July 2004) - Feminine Design, Continued
(Red Polka, 8 July 2004) - Where Are the Women in Web Design?
(MetaFilter, 9 July 2004)
For what it’s worth, yes, I am the same person who asked “Where are the Women?” last December. (Note that I didn’t ask “WHY don’t I know more of them?”) And I’m also the one who selected individuals to help design the Blogger templates. If you fill in a few more blanks, those two may seem in opposition to each other. But they’re not.
The issue still exists for me. (I’ll avoid calling it a problem for now, as some are offended that the topic is raised in the first place.) The majority of people I know in the standards-aware design space are still mostly male. I selected the team I did because I knew them, and knew their work. Not because they were male. I didn’t know very many female designers (personally) at the time, and I still don’t. But I’m expanding the circle of those whose work I know. When I say (or said) standards-aware designers, I specifically mean (meant) visual designers who spend a majority of their professional time designing, and are also actively using CSS beyond fonts and colors.
It doesn’t matter to me whether someone is male, female, black, white, older, younger, straight, gay, asian, jewish, buddhist, sight-impaired, wears funny glasses, enjoys regular piercing, or anything else. A designer is a designer, and they should be able to stand on the merit of their talent alone, not based on whether they fit into a particular census category.
However, that said, I’d still like to know a more diverse set of designers who bring to the table different perspectives on life, culture, sex, religion, and politics. Since I posted that original entry asking the question, I’m slowly meeting and becoming familiar with a broader spectrum of designers. Not only those who are female, but also designers from Russia, Brazil, Japan, Germany, and designers who don’t even speak the same language as I do. That’s cool.
At the time I asked the question and wrote that entry, designers who happen to be female were just one of the things I noticed was missing from the sites I frequently read and linked to, and the circle of designers I would get to see and interact with at conferences and events. It’s not that I wanted to single any designers out just because of gender. But I did want to expand my circle of awareness and influence, and I missed the different perspectives that female designers sometimes bring.
As anyone can note when in a room or a place where it’s suddenly noticed that it’s filled with mostly (or all) men, there’s something strange about it. Something missing. It can become stuffy and boring. And it smells funky too. The same can be said when one realizes the sites and places one goes are mostly dominated by males. It becomes redundant, and the same things are said over and over again. In those situations, I end up craving the perspectives that diversity can bring. While, socially, I’m not very good at seeking out those who are different from me, I enjoy getting to know someone different once I’ve been introduced by whatever means.
When I was working at HotWired, the company seemed to be about a 50/50 split in gender. (Well, ok, maybe a 49/49 split with ~2% going to gender-neutral.) I enjoyed that environment. It felt balanced and right, and no one sex or race or background dominated through any of the hierarchy. (The acquisition by Lycos later on changed that, but that’s a different topic.)
So all this to say, a designer shouldn’t be singled out because of a certain characteristic or societal category. But a designer shouldn’t be overlooked because of the same criteria either. I knew there were a lot more female designers out there, and I wanted to find them. Whether they wanted to be found or not is a different issue. Hopefully (as is slowly happening) I’ll continue to have more and more opportunities to meet them and become familiar with their work and thinking.
I wish I hadn’t needed to close off the comments on the original entry so early. No one who reads this site during the week even got a chance to leave a comment. Links to a lot of great resources were quickly building up. But I was getting tired of deleting chauvinistic comments that strayed too far off topic. The signal to noise ratio was dying too rapidly. Perhaps, if I leave the comments open here, a more civil conversation might ensue this time.
As for those who accused me of being sexist, or choosing from a “boys club” for the Blogger template designs. Those criticisms were surprising, and they were hard to read. It was frustrating to see comments like that build up. Because as anyone who knows me and has worked with me, that’s the furthest from who I am.
I wrote that post (Who/Where are the Women?) in December 2003. And I sent out an email asking for help on the Blogger templates in January 2004. That’s only one month later. The circle of people that I know well doesn’t expand that quickly. Sure, after writing the Where are the Women post in December, I had URLs to a lot more sites than I had before. But a nicely designed site doesn’t tell me much about a person when I’m in a pinch, and need to pull in designers quickly. I had a limited budget from Google to design and produce the templates, and a short amount of time. So I went straight to those that I knew, and to those I knew could turn around a template design (and code it on their own with XHTML/CSS) within a limited period of time.
If, when on deadline, going to those that I know to help me on a project, and those few that I quickly choose just happen to be male… if this solely is what constitutes a boys club, then I can’t win, and am guilty as charged. I thought a boys club is one that favors men over women, and one that actively dismisses (or looks down upon) involvement from women because of their sex. If my Blogger team selection conveyed that, the team being all-male certainly wasn’t an intentional factor.
I will take the blame and fault that, at the time, I didn’t know as many female designers who create strong, standards-based design. But I’ve been trying to change that. I’m actively seeking other types of designers. The post last December is just one piece of evidence. I’m certainly getting to know more work from female designers in a virtual way. But in terms of knowing them well, and talking with them face to face? Who knows? When it comes to social situations, maybe it’s my shyness and the fact that I’m still single that inhibits me from getting to know more females, period — let alone female designers. Or it could have something to do with Joe Clark’s opinion. Either way, I still wish I knew more of them.
Ok, this went on entirely too long, and probably should have been kept as an entry in some sort of personal diary or blog. But I react emotionally when I see accusations of being sexist. Either I must not be as transparent as I think I am, or some people are just too quick to make judgments about those they don’t know or understand all the circumstances in which they operate. Regardless, I thought a public post in response might be a good thing for people to read.
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My Friday night web surfing excuse is that I’m right in the midst of packing a move, and am taking a break. Well, that’s not much of an excuse, but oh well.
At any rate, I just finished a stint teaching Web / graphic design (read: print) at a local tech college, and I can attest that the number of women who applied for Web design was rather low: something like 1 women for every 5 guys.
That said, in the graphic design program, it was 60/40 women to men, or even higher. The 3rd year advanced program was 15 women and 5 men, and the women students were very, very strong designers.
I don’t know why there aren’t more women involved in web design. I guess a part of it could be the standard cliché that women tend to be drawn to more creative careers (thus, graphic design) than the more “techy” positions?
I mean, both graphic design and web design involve technology, but web design still tends to have the reputation (rightful so, at least currently) for being more technical and less creative. I’m not saying I agree whatsoever with that perception, but that’s what I’ve seen.
Here’s an example: in the web design program I used to teach design fundamentals are stressed heavily; we consider graduates from this program to be designers first, but for the screen. Whenever I used to tell people (employers, HR folks, etc.) about our program, a surprising majority would say, “That’s great, but I don’t need another programmer.”
I’m not saying it’s right, but I do believe this is the general public perception of web design, and I think this could contribute to the gender-gap.
Design is not a male-dominated field but engineering is. Walk into the creative department of an ad agency or design firm in New York and you’ll see equal parts men and women. Walk into a web design firm in Seattle or San Francisco and you’ll see mostly men.
I am not smart enough to know whether or not this is nature or nurture, but surely it is not even disputable that men tend to be more drawn to engineering than women are. That’s not even to say men are better at engineering… they aren’t. They are just more drawn to it because of either their genetics, their upbringing, their friends, or their culture. My opinion is that the XHTML/CSS side of web design is at least as much engineering as design and that explains the imbalance in males and females. As tools like Dreamweaver mature and let us designers concentrate more on pure design and less on engineering, I think we will see more females drawn into the field.
Before anyone flames me, let me clarify that I’m not saying females are less able at engineering. Only that, in my experience, they seem more interested in what design is really all about: visual communication. Yes, this is a generalization, and of course there are exceptions to this rule, but I’ve found it to be true from the many males and females I know in the design field.
That said, I definitely feel your pain with regards to not having gender equity in this field. If you’re like me, there’s nothing you’d like better than to meet a woman at a bar or party who speaks the same professional language as you. This is tough to come by in San Francisco, where you live, and Seattle, where I live… and probably everywhere else as well for the meantime. Most women I meet who are in the design field barely even touch the web.
So what’s the solution to this? Probably just getting out there and being more social. You can’t force more women into the field, but you can help foster an atmosphere where we all talk to each other more. I may be in the minority on this, but I actually *like* talking shop when I’m out on the town. D. Keith Robinson and I met up before a Calexico show in Seattle last weekend and we talked so much shop we almost forgot about the show (which was great by the way… if you’ve never heard of Calexico, grab a CD as soon as you possibly can). The design and engineering industries are so full of introverts that I just feel we should all make concerted efforts in our towns to organize informal meet-ups from time to time. The more people that attend these meet-ups, the more we will all get to know each other, and the more we all get to know each other, the easier it will be to encourage all sorts of other people to enter our field.
* Note: Yes, weird to post at 10:30pm on a Friday night, but I’m heading out in 10 minutes, I swear!
Doug, you’re also leaving this open for the people in Europe who are up early in the morning and notice that one of their favorite blogs has updated whilst they were sleeping. But that aside…
On the topic of being accused of sexism - or being accused in general of things you know are wrong - I think it’s good that you posted a little explanation on how the situation was, but then you took it too far and went completely on the defensive. The paragraph starting with “As for those” should’ve been your last, if you ask me. Those who don’t know you (one bit) and can’t figure out that you’re far from a sexist from the first few paragraphs already, are people that won’t be convinced by all the paragraphs that came after “As for those” - they’ll only feel some joy about seeing you take the blame.
If people can’t open their minds enough to see truth from mere fact and logic, then going out on a limb in the defensive and responsible area won’t help. Not until those people open their minds a little to accept the possibility they MAY HAVE been quick to accuse.
At least, that’s all in my experience (from being accused of things I’m not many times over).
Hey, if you think, you are to say (express) what you think, say it! You’re always right, expressing your opinion. Anyway mentioning such a gender-related topic proves your commitment to find a “solution” for yourself. So:
Go Doug!
Go girls!
As some probably noticed from the title, my recent “where are the women of CSS” post was a take-off on Doug’s original post. I was just drilling down a bit into the CSS portion of things to see if anything could be unearthed along the way.
I’m beginning to gather my thoughts about this issue:
- Women are new to the workforce in many ‘first world’ (gosh I hate that term) countries. In the U.S., with the exception of a brief surge of women going to work during World War II, women were not encouraged to pursue higher education or careers until well into the 1960’s and even later. Our history simply has to have influenced the issue, especially with such a specialty field as ours is.
- As Gary from Nemesis Project suggests women often leave the jobs that they do have to focus on raising a family or dealing with family needs. He asks that we not get mad at him for this comment, and I believe we shouldn’t because it’s true! I’ve only had one male that’s ever worked for or with me ask me for time away due to the birth of a child, while I’ve experienced 20 or more women doing the same. So yeah, women often will put their families first, and that’s another part of the issue. Would better social support (day care, stronger communities) help counterbalance this issue with the very real need that most families have to have two bread-winners in the family? It’s possible. But I do believe that expected, social roles are a factor.
- Education has typically encouraged people to focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses. For example, I’m very poor at math. I remember an incident where I was in fourth grade and I went to my teacher (a woman) and was crying in frustration over my math homework. Her response (this was over 30 years ago, I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen today) was “don’t worry about it honey, it’s nothing you’ll need in life.” In my early twenties, I had an interest in becoming a research biologist. This was just at the rise of AIDs and I wanted to do something about it. I began a pre-med program and promptly failed Organic Chemistry. The struggle was too difficult, and I ended up defaulting to what I had always been good at: writing. You see where I am today - well and good, but maybe I’d have been a better research virologist - who’s to say? So I believe how we are educated is a factor, too.
- Stepping away from these more ‘meta’ possibilities, I think that blogging has played an enormous role in bringing attention to people in our industry. When I started out with web stuff, oh, 13 years ago now, we didn’t have the mass media power we do today. Between comments and pingbacks we have a constantly humming community. This has helped bring a lot of people up to the top more quickly than others, and that many of those people happen to be men might just be a matter of timing. These conversations exist precisely because we can have them, and I believe blogging will help even the playing field for all people, not just based on gender, but race and nationality as well.
Doug, you certainly have nothing to defend or apologize for. The irony of this entire discussion has been that the majority of the “boys” “lads” and “men” (choose your flavor) perceived to be in the “in” club have never, ever been the problem, at least in my experience. As a woman in the industry, I’ve been treated not only with great respect by the vast majority of peers, but perhaps even moreso because I’m female. No matter, I don’t believe for one minute that it’s the boys dragging the girls under, not in our community. And anyone who does experience that should take a second look at the boys they’re hanging out with and maybe find some others. Today’s young men are generally more comfortable with women in the workforce because they’ve been raised by a mother who probably worked, or have seen it. I’m 41 - it wasn’t all that common in my childhood for a woman to have a career, and when she did, it was something unusual and circumspect.
History, education, social expectations are all part of why we aren’t a more integrated community just yet (let’s start counting black and hispanic faces in our industry - the gender issues just scratch the surface). I do believe that the democratic nature of blogs and the willingness to host these uncomfortable but critically important discussions does make a difference now, and will for the long term.
I hesitated to comment, but there you go.
I agree with much of what Molly says, but I have to disagree with her when she says she sees blogging will help even the playing field. If anything, I have found that blogging tends to promote stereotypes rather than take them down.
In the world outside of blogging, there were only a couple of times when I was discriminated against because of my sex, and one ended up being a legal matter, under anti-discrimination laws (one guy testifying about the abuse I suffered in the most miserable year of my life, spent over two hours detailing it). However, considering that I have worked primarily in engineering and in fairly male-dominated areas of work, that’s not bad in 20+ years. Not good, but marginally acceptable.
But I have seen, time and again, in almost four years of weblogging: men acknowledged for saying the same thing as a women, while the women are ignored; women accused of ‘inarticulate rage’ when men are just seen as angry; men saying things such as ‘calm down’ or ‘there there’ to a woman in a comment thread when they wouldn’t say the same with a man; women stereotyped into being these ‘nurturing’ cheerleaders, while men are treated as leaders; women accused, by leaders of the community no less, of being man haters just for disagreeing with a man; women bloggers stereotyped as only writing about family and personal matters, while men are seen as the political or tech bloggers.
I have seen women offer help and tips and get virtually no recognition while men doing the same get fawned over like heros from some norse legend.
I look at the top women in the Technorati 100, and a large proportion of these women’s sites are related to sex.
Saddest of all, I’ve seen women apologize to men for even bringing these issues up; or feeling like they have to assure men that they ‘like’ them, just to address what are obvious inequalities.
But I don’t entirely blame men for all of this — women tend to help contribute to this situation. But I won’t give men a ‘get out of having any responsibility for this problem’ card.
http://tantek.com/log/2004/07.html#d10t1042
“I have seen women offer help and tips and get virtually no recognition while men doing the same get fawned over like heros from some norse legend.”
So it’s not just me then? I had the same experience in a programming paper I took. Whenever someone asked for help, I’d offer, only to be ignored. When a man later offered the exact same help they’d be gushed all over. Strangely enough, it was the women in the class who were the worst offenders.
It’s difficult to explain the rage and frustration when things like that happen. What are you supposed to do? It’s not enough to prove yourself capable in certain situations, you apparently have to strap on a Y chromosome as well.
I’m currently trying to teach my autistic brother a little bit about web site design. As you know, autistic people are very good at one thing and usually bad at everything else. He picks up things quickly, it’s a shame however that he’ll probably never be accepted as a designer, because he can’t communicate, can’t socialise and would be rejected on the basis that he has Autism anyways.
I’m also currently doing research on young women in all girls schools in London. I’m basically trying to find out why or why they don’t want to get into IT, what sector if they do, reasons if they don’t etc and hopefully that will provide a greater insight into society today and why IT is still “dominated” by men. I mentioned this on Molly’s web site and the research will be available on my web site in the not too distant future.
I was talking to my mum today, we barely have much time to talk to each other usually. I was talking to her about the recent “where are the women” discussions and the state of the world today. She suprised me by saying she used to be so happy with the way things used to be, that women actually enjoyed their usual daily tasks (in the good ol’ days) and it’s what they wanted to do - but a minority of women destroyed all that and now it has been taken to far.
She also went on to mention that men were brought up to treat women with respect, but those same men are confused now because in a lot of cases, if you open a door for a woman, bend down and pick something up for her or order her food - she’ll ask you what the hell you think you’re doing! (This applies to that minority in either gender).
I believe that being politically correct, feminism and other such things have gone too far these days and i’m glad my mum opened my eyes a bit. There was me thinking that women used to be opressed all those years ago, when in fact it was quite the opposite.
I’m glad that Angie Mckaig and the votes on Molly’s poll are in favour of the “gender isn’t an issue” side, as it really isn’t.
If you go around thinking you’re stupid, you’ll believe that you are. If you go around thinking you’re a victim, you’ll believe that you are. Why not try believing that you’re a brilliant designer? Who cares what 2% of a certain gender think - keep designing, keep pushing and don’t give up.
As for women taking time off for family things - I do that too and obviously from my name - i’m a guy. Family is more important to me than work, it always will be - that will never change. In my life family comes first, then work and then myself.
In the end people should stop generalising, just because 2% of the male or female population did something to you, doesn’t mean you should treat the other 98% the same as them.
Angie summed things up perfectly: “Believe in yourself, work on your craft, go after what you want, do good things.”
As discussed above in a few other posts, the field of graphic design collects an eclectic bunch. I have a feeling that once web design becomes a more intregal part of the experience of design — if it becomes just as important as being able to understand and design logos, work effectively with typography, understanding the culture and history of design, then we might see more equality and diversity within the field of web design.
From my experience, I’ve found that web design seems to be straddling the line between Computer Science and Design. I so far haven’t seen a design school [in Canada] that is really jumping in there and making web design with W3 standards a part of their Bachelor of Design program.
(Please don’t eat me? ;D )
Robert, you’re basing your judgement about much of this on what your mothers says, which, according to what I think I’m readin is that all of us women wanting careers and choice ‘ruined’ things for the rest of the female sex. Did I understand that correctly? Forget for a moment that rather worn example of opening doors and strident female responses.
(And order her food — good lord. Yes, a man doing this without asking my leave would lead me to become quite strident. Guilty!)
I have to ask — in what official capacity are you going into these schools and talking with these young women? I hope they aren’t just letting you in without credentials.
What is your background to make you qualified to create effective surveys, or even to understand how they’re to be interpreted? Or how to do so without negatively impacting on the young women so being surveyed?
The reason I ask this is that Molly’s little survey is nothing more than an unscientific ‘wadda ya think’ pushbutton question — nothing more, nothing less. Yet you’ve extrapoloated from this to cover an entire gender’s concerns, and problems, and worries, and experiences. I would rather that Molly not have put something like that up, for just this reason — such off the top of people’s heads belief that the answers there represent a populace larger than it truly does. Or that there was any legitimacy to the results. It’s no more meaningful than the latests meme quiz making the rounds.
And before you ask me what do I know about any of this, as you did with my writing over at Molly’s, in addition to a computer science degree, I also have a degree in psychology — specializing in industrial psychology, the branch that does, among other thing, survey creation and interpretation.
Spinning from what Molly said (among other things) here are my observations. These are entirely personal and up for dispute. No actual facts were harmed in the typing of these paragraphs.
1. Women web designers seem more likely to have to design/web as a secondary topic mixed with something else or at least a equal topic among many. (more traditional blogging, education, family, pychology, art.. etc.) On the other hand, popular design blogs seem to be run by people completely (or at least primarily) engulfed in web design. I’ve seen less blogs run by women that like that. Whether this is because there is a lack of them or if I just don’t know where to look, I’m not sure. Outside of the blogging world all of the women web designers I have known or worked with did it as a hobby, night job, or as a sideline to something else. i.e. I’m really a librarian/public relations rep/grant manager/educator - but I also do (or specialize in) web design.
2. All of the previously said things (not neccesarily in this conversation) about women less likely to blow our own horns/be competitive/write about rather than read about etc. are all valid, especially in my own case.
3. Dangerously thinking aloud for this one and shelley, you may be able to help me with the pychology behind it. Women may be more likely to prefer structured education, mentoring, and / or a solid foundation over self-teaching from a collection of articles spread across the interspace or the web design section at Borders. But web design, let alone designing with web standards is still so new that a educational program that effectively provides a diving board is hard to find if not non-existant. Places that teach web design, tend to do so haphazardly making it hard to get the big picture. (Very frustrating when looking for a masters program) Possibly, once there are more formal programs exclusively for web workers, more people (including women) will realize the calling.
As a woman who designs websites for a living, and one from a purely technical background (working and managing large ISP helpdesks) I understand where you are coming from.
I don’t believe the original attack on your choices for the Blogger templates were valid, but I do believe some of the concerns raised are applicable across the industry.
Personally, I know around three other female designers - two of them only do graphic design and do not understand HTML, let alone CSS. The third is a guru of CSS and is very standards aware and believes (as do I) that standards-awareness is vital in the structure of any web site or document.
On the flip side, I personally know more than two dozen male designers - most think standards are a fad, only about half a dozen understand their importance and practice what they preach.
The funny thing is, in most online discussion forums I am treated as an equal in discussions regarding standards, CSS and technology - that is until it is known I am female - that’s when old fashioned values and ingrained sexism still seems to exist. It seems I lose credibility in the eyes of a good proportion of the men in these forums simply because I was born a girl, nevermind that I may have assisted the fixing of a tricky layout issue with CSS, or helped design a new standards compliant GUI for a multinational company.
It is a sad fact that currently many men give little credit to women in the web design arena. Even fewer give due credit to women who design and develop websites.
I’ve seen this view slowly turn around however, and discussions such as this (and on whitespace etc) may be the cause.
I applaud you for stating your personal views and supply a much needed debate area.
It’s been very interesting reading this discussion. I’ve been fooling around with html for a couple of years. When I started talking about making a website, my brother said to me “you should learn html” and I laughed and said “you’ve got to be kidding, can’t I just use the program that comes with Word?”. So, of course, a week later, a wiser person, I went out and bought Molly E Holzschlag’s book - short order html. And she taught me how to code. Thanks Molly! thanks Peter! (my brother).
So I was using tables for layout, and CSS for fonts, and it looked quite nice I thought. Then I read a bit on one of the Guardian’s discussion boards about using CSS for layout, so I investigated that. And ended up making a site for some friends with all of the layout in the style sheet. Then I got Zeldman’s book about standards (forget the title). And finally I loaded my first valid xhtml yesterday - and I am so proud of myself.
Basically I really enjoy making things work. And most of my close friends, male and female, have been encouraging, giving me good feedback. Also it helped that I was coding on a PC and most of them were looking at my pages with Macs, so they’d say, why doesn’t this work? why does it look different? so I’d have to find some way of getting it to look pretty much the same.
So the whole thing has been cumulative, I’ve gradually been learning things and putting them together - tinkering - and learning from other people. I only found out about Doug and stopdesign because of his blogger templates. So thanks everyone!
Sunshine, no real danger is putting out your hypothesis. That’s all psychology is: originating a hypothesis, testing it in the lab, and then seeing if it survives on the street and doesn’t increase the number of people going mad.
But I think your suggestion presupposes that there are fewer women in web design and working with HTML and CSS; from what I’m hearing, this isn’t necessarily true. Out in the ‘real world’ of people doing this for a living, there does seem to be as many women as men. However, as I’ve seen myself, men do tend to get more notice of their work then women. And all things being equal, gender does play a significant role in this.
As Natalie mentioned, when her sex isn’t known, she was listened to in the help groups. However, when her sex is known, then she finds that she’s loses some credibility.
If you’re not given as much credibility, your answers and efforts are more taken for granted, and you don’t get as much positive feedback. When you don’t get as much positive feedback, you don’t tend to focus on the subject because, frankly, you get discouraged (both men and women get discouraged when their work does not get notice).
If you don’t do the work as much, you don’t get more notice, and without the notice, someone like David Bowman isn’t as aware of you when it comes to handing out assignments that will provide even more notice. Without these assignments, women continue not to get the notice they deserve. And without this they continue having to do other work, or write on other things in their weblogs.
And so on. And so on.
The only way to break this cycle is that people have to actively look beyond the small groups of somewhat self-aggranzing men that tend to float around each other and notice, hey! There are a lot of women with talent out there, too.
It’s not enough that women promote themselves — you can wave your arms about all you want; does no good if you’re invisible.
I am not a web designer, as I’m sure many people assume from my own site design; I definitely don’t follow the current look that seems to be highly popular. But I was one of those critical of Blogger coming out with templates designed exclusively by men. (And for coming out with that “Barbie Babe” look, given a name of ‘Ms.’— how many stereotypes can we promote in one release?)
But you see, even I, in my own non-web design aware server-side corner, knew of at least three women in web design who could have contributed at least one Blogger template design. If I knew of three, it was rather surprising that web design related folks weren’t aware of at least one.
Let’s just say after the conversations this week, and then — they’ll never be able to use that as a reason again.
Sorry, Doug Bowman.
I doubt that the number of standards-based CSS visual designers are disproportionately male. However, the number of them participating in activities and making career choices that lead to individual recognition in the field are no doubt male. That’s typical of a number of professions. Even in the female dominated world of librarianship, the majority of leadership positions, those in library administration at individual libraries and holding high profile posts like The Librarian of Congress, are held by males.
I’ve had too many experiences where the whole career/children thing wasn’t a complete enough explanation for me concerning the lack of females in leadership roles in a variety of situations. So, I’ve reluctantly started to read a little bit about it although I often feel as Angie McKaig does. I think our just asking “why” is a really good start. Angie is certainly right to grimace at the thought of being recognized for her work because she is a woman instead of solely on her work’s merits. However, that speaks more to our not rushing ahead to solutions. It’s an uncomfortable discussion but a necessary one. It’s good that people like Molly and Doug have brought it up and framed it with such earnest questions.
I hate to come across as an uber-geek here (which I’m really not), but there was a passage in Neal Stephenson’s book Cryptonominicon, between two of the main characters, that struck me as ringing particularly true…here it is:
…
“Like, for example…female people?”
Randy grinds his teeth for about a mile, and then says, “If there is any generalization at all that you can draw about how men think versus how women think, I believe it is that men can narrow themselves down to this incredibly narrow laser-beam focus on one tiny subject and think about nothing else.”
“Whereas women can’t?”
“I suppose women *can*. They rarely seem to *want* to. What I’m characterizing here, as the female approach, is essentially saner and healthier.”
“Hmmmmmm.”
“See, you are being a little paranoid here and focusing on the negative too much. It’s not about how women are deficient. Our social deficiencies, lack of perspective, or whatever you want to call it, is what enables us to study one species of dragonfly for twenty years, or sit in front of a computer for a hundred hours a week writing code. This is not the behavior of a well-balanced and healthy person, but it can obviously lead to great advances in synthetic fibers. Or whatever.”
…
Now, I’m not saying that I think women can’t have the kind of focus many men demonstrate (my wife, for instance, is quite possibly the *most* focused person I’ve ever met, and I’ve met quite a few people in my time); but there’s an element of truth to what Mr. Stephenson’s character says, I think. To the point where I *try* to not focus like that so much and focus more on what I feel is important, namely my family (and before you ask or make assumptions, focusing on my family is *not* a Christian fundamentalist thing for me, it just makes sense) and my hobbies, i.e. life.
I have worked with a number of women during the course of my career as a coder, and honestly I’ve found no difference between skillsets (at least one was one of the best I’d seen in the field). But I would suggest that some of the more unhealthy aspects of this field—namely the expectation of coding 80 hours a week to meet an unrealistic deadline—make the field unappealing to a lot of people.
I suppose that means I agree with Molly.
None of the entries I have read by female designers on this topic have said, “notice me because I’m a girl.” So, it bothers me some to see a few people think that is the conclusion some of the women are coming to.
Nobody wants to be given an opportunity simply based on their gender/race. I wrote an entire entry on how horrible it made me feel as a Designer when that happened to me. So small and so horrible, in fact, that I very nearly turned down the opportunity on that principle alone. And I still have doubts about whether or not I should have accepted it.
As I said in Molly’s comments: to make notice of the issue is not the same as to make excuses. No women discussing this are making excuses or asking for any kind of “special treatment”. Nobody here is a victim.
The simplicity of it is that we look for our faces in any group, in any crowd and circle. We notice when our faces are missing. Or, like Doug said, we notice when we only see our faces. But, it is assumed that to mention what we’ve noticed is equivalent to looking for excuses or someone to blame. It is not. I have far, far more respect for myself to ever blame anyone else for what does or doesn’t happen in my life. And, I have respect for myself to not keep quiet when I notice some things that may be “taboo” to talk about. I have far too much passion and stubbornness as a Designer to even entertain the idea of not getting ahead on my merits and abilities alone.
Doug felt that he was being called sexist, which I can understand how he got to that conclusion. But, in all that I’ve read and written, I don’t recall anybody calling Doug sexist. To be sexist implies that you intentionally made a segregation, and I do not think that was the case with the Blogger templates. But I noticed that despite Blogger’s users being more female than male, and despite Doug’s previous post on the topic, he simply went with who he knew. And, Shelly, in comment #15, illustrated that correlation much better than I could have worded it. I don’t feel that my notice of the issue was akin to an “attack” on Doug because I wasn’t attacking him. That kind of action would have been too counterproductive and mis-applied.
I am in amazement at how this topic has taken off through the community, everyone with their own personal take on the issue. Some say it is a “non-issue” and others of us feel that it is good we’re discussing this in an open and rational manner. My opinion is that if this is such a “non-issue” and like Angie said, doing more harm than good for women, then I don’t believe it would have taken off like this with so many women and men coming into the discussion and further opening that door to discuss race as well.
If anything, this has created an awareness that I am proud to be a part of. And in this discussion, not only have I become more aware of more women designers, but I’ve gained more respect for some of the men and how they’ve approached this discussion. I wish I had more to add to this discussion right now, but I think overall I’ve done enough damage.
We are all Designers and Developers first and foremost, but that doesn’t mean we’re only that and nothing more. It is encouraging to see an awareness of the differences, not an excuse for them.
I find the gist of your topic surprising, in that I tend to think of CSS and standards as being mostly recognized by women, not men.
Maybe it’s mostly because my first experience with really learning CSS and my actual introduction to standards came from a book by a woman, Molly E. Holzschlag, a book I read over a year ago which has prompted me to write my code in XHTML 1.1 (still not supported well by browsers). She also seems, through her own website, to be the most persistent pusher of standards of which I am aware.
However, it is also because I’ve been put in the position of trying to keep my web design up with women who, for whatever reason, seem to just love CSS. They always seem to want things different, or more stylish, than they need to be. While content seems to top the priority list for men, coupled with simplicity of design, it seems to me that women like to show a highly skilled design, yet frequently have very superficial or flakey content. In many cases, their sites seem “all dressed up with nowhere to go”.
sometimes people create issues where don’t exists
I am far from innocent of this habit, all of us are, but I can’t help but notice that in your comment #15, Shelley, you latched onto the post which reinforced your hypothesis (Natalie’s #13) and completely skipped the one which described a successful, gender-agnostic learning experience (Lynn’s #14). I’m just sayin’, a skewed sample set does make conclusions less convincing…
***
Doug, Molly and Shelley, you’ve been following this discussion all over. Do you have a “if I was doing a project like the Blogger templates now, here are the people I would approach” list? Like you, Doug, in fact, like most everyone who has contributed to the conversation, I’d really enjoy some links to get exposed to more good designers.
***
Robert, your mother may personally long for the “good old days”, but I think that’s a) just one view & hardly the mold everyone should still be forced into and b) rose-tinted glasses. Talk to more women her age - particularly those who’ve been in the workforce and who’ve raised children on their own - and see what views you get on chivalry as a tradeoff for opportunity and respect.
I consider myself human first, a whole bunch of other things next, and, rather farther down my list, female. I do not wish to be constrained in my options because I happen to possess a womb. I do not describe myself as a feminist because that can sidle over into “reverse-sexism” territory. I believe gender is largely irrelevant to everything but sex and child-rearing. Culture, the way we’re raised and who we choose to be, makes the difference, but I think very little really boils down to biology.
I do rather worry about the wording of your survey and its possible influence on the kids taking it. Please don’t fall into the trap which I alluded to in my post on this whole topic of including “even though you’re a girl” as part of the “you could do this” message. The same would be true of anyone talking to boys about a skill that goes against the traditional masculine role (e.g. nursing).
To be honest, Dineh, I wasn’t sure that Lynn in comment 14 was reaslly responding to the topic—other than by the name, Lynn is probably a woman who is working with CSS, or learning CSS.
I don’t think the topic was related to women being able to learn this, or even being encouraged by ones friends; the topic is being recognized professionally.
So, no, I didn’t feel compelled to respond to Lynn. I won’t be responding to others, either, unless I’m specifically addressed other than to say that, generally, there’s been some extremely good comments in this thread.
I’m a woman, and I think I was only slightly off topic.
Doug started this off again with this statement:
When I say (or said) standards-aware designers, I specifically mean (meant) visual designers who spend a majority of their professional time designing, and are also actively using CSS beyond fonts and colors.
What I didn’t state in my post is my background: I’ve studied architecture, I’ve been a weaver, and garden designer, I paint, and draw and make collages, I crochet and knit. It’s all visual, it’s all got structure happening. I’m fascinated by trying to communicate across vast spaces using tiny points of light on a computer screen.
So, in many ways I think of myself as a “visual designer”. (I just don’t spend my “professional time” designing, instead I answer a telephone for a living.)
First of all my name doesn’t tell (since it’s Dutch), but I’m a woman, a Belgian professional graphic/web designer who’s been designing for quite a while. Just to give you a bit of background info: I started my own business in 1992 and started with webdesign in 1996. So I’m quite experienced, although I did just start learning XHTML/CSS since December 2003. My first real CSS based website is my own blog (online since January of this year).
As for the discussion about men vs women I must say that back in 1996 I felt indeed a bit of a loner on that field but years later that did change a lot, more and more women have become web designers. The way I feel it is that I don’t feel discriminated in any way, people always judge me by my work…
My work is mostly the point of discussion, people see me as just “the designer”. A lot of the time I’m working on big projects were I have to work with different partners, developers, and I’m the designer in that process. I deliver the GUI and the HTML template (since this year XHTML/CSS). Most of the time I get the feeling that the developers are getting all the credit at the end or even during the process, design seem to be such small part in the entire process.
Secondly if I’m new to these partners they sometimes give me the feeling that I know squad about code and they think they’ll get some crappy code delivered, since some of them have this fixed idea that graphic designers can’t handle coding, they only stick to layout and that’s it. Alright, I know a lot of them do, but it’s sad that people jump to conclusions too fast. Luckily my skills are good enough to prove otherwise. My feeling is that it is harder to prove yourself as a graphic/web designer, the fact that you are a woman doesn’t make any difference (at least not for me). But it’s still true that there are less women then men in the IT world.
FYI: I’m trying to do my bit in the “CSS-world” by spreading the word. I just started a “basic” CSS tutorial on my blog to learn it in an easy step-by-step way and a few women already have complimented me on this, so they are out there! ;-)
This has been a great thread. Thanks Doug (and Molly) for getting the discussion going again. I think there are a lot of truths in the comments above that can seem diametrically opposed to one another. But what is true for us is really based on our own experience. And our experiences are all over the map.
I personally haven’t felt “kept down” due to my gender. In fact, I mentioned (late) on Molly’s thread that I felt the need to “hide” and keep my picture offline when I started out because I wanted to be respected for my mind, ability and work ethic… I didn’t want to get jobs based on how I looked. I would be completely uncomfortable with that.
The other thing I can say based on experience is — I live in a small beach town (about 125,000), I know ZERO other female web people here. Every web person I’ve gotten to know, and I’ve met all the main companies here, are male. I’ve never gotten anything but respect from any of them. That said, none of them seem to be into Standards, CSS or much more than cranking out the web sites as quickly as possible to get the dollar. But I can’t run my business that way, so I don’t. There are two other web people on my sand volleyball team. They’re always asking me questions about how I would recommend handling certain aspects of a job. They don’t seem at all bothered that I’m a gurl.
When I started writing, I only had one male web person who shocked me. Strangely, it was someone that I had gleaned a lot from as I was learning and that I had shown great respect to (and sent MUCH business his way). I had met him in person and considered him a friend on some level. It was very painful when he went “on the attack” and not something I’m used to dealing with. It was as if, though he had told me in person how smart I was, he couldn’t “allow me” in his own mind to excel. He wanted me to be learning at his feet forever. LOL Or something. Who knows. It may have had nothing to do with gender since I don’t pretend to know what is going on in his mind… and it’s “his issue” so I let it go. Luckily, that’s been my only negative experience professionally.
I’ve had nothing but respect from Macromedia. I’ve had nothing but respect from my coworkers where I write at Community MX. I’ve co-authored a book at New Riders, written for MX Developer’s Journal and for Gary over at Nemesis Project. All have been great and there’s been no issue with my femaleness. At a DW list where I’ve been for years, and answer questions like crazy, there’s never been an issue with me being a woman. All that said, I’m likely not very well known either.
I think my lack of being well known is more related to my choices. I don’t blog (and rarely have time to read others blogs) … there’s no way I could do that and take care of my clients. In general, I have about 5 web sites in various states of completion at all times with a four week or so wait list. Some of my newest sites are CSS-P, but in general, the companies I develop for are not large enough to pay the additional development time it takes to build everything CSS-P… nor do they see the value (though you can bet I’ve told them… LOL). So I am, many times, stuck asking myself the question, “How much of this job can I afford to eat in order to build it like I want to?” But I digress … that’s another thread. ;)
The amount of writing I do already taxes me with my workload and my attempt at having a family life (I have two boys). There’s no way I could go over and answer posts at CSS-d as that list has enormous traffic (but it is certainly one way to get known). I would adore having time to play around, post test cases and figure out a new way to break the back of a CSS bug. I love “puzzle thinking,” but there are only 24 hours in a day. Dang it!
I realize I’m rambling, but I think what I’m trying to say is, I think I am where I deserve to be. I have done much in this industry that I’m proud of… especially for the small amount of time I’ve been in it (about four years) and I am completely self-taught (no degree in anything related). I don’t feel kept down or passed over. Yes, someday I will likely take the time to become more well-known. But it’s less of a priority for me right now. Taking care of family and clients is my priority… I see life as an opportunity waiting to be made into what I want. You have to make continual choices that further the direction you want to go. I continue to learn and teach and give… At some point one of my favorite quotes will come into play — “Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. And opportunity is everywhere.� — Earl Nightingale (Likely Earl was quoting someone else, but I don’t know the original author.)
When the opportunity to take my business or reputation to the next level comes, I will be prepared. Do I have rose colored glasses on? ;)
Re: my inquiry above about the names that have arisen out of this great discussion, Eric Meyer has posted a summary of the names that came up in his CSS Luminaries comment thread.
Where are the women? And then, “Where are the women of color?” and then “Where are the queer women?” and then “Where are the queer women of color?” and then “Where are the differently abled women of color who are great at CSS?” - Where, I ask, does this tallying stop? Why does it matter what someone’s gender or other, random -ism is? What does that have to do with making sites? Must we always give in to identity politics?
When the opportunity to take my business or reputation to the next level comes, I will be prepared. Do I have rose colored glasses on? ;)
Maybe yes, maybe no, but I think you bring up a good point in that your priorities aren’t aimed at “getting ahead”. Maybe your perspective would be different if that was your priority? I’m not that old, but I would like to think that I’ve learned enough to know that opportunities don’t always just magically fall at our feet because of the good, hard work we do.
From my perspective, for the longest time I thought that if I produce good work, I’d get some notice for it; if I write some thought-provoking entries about being a web designer, I’d get some notice for it; if I create a PHP-based template generator that spits out standards-complaint code for multiple CMS’s, I’d get some notice for it. I would say to myself, “well, eris, you’re not getting noticed because obviously you aren’t good enough to warrant any recognition. So, okay, then I will work harder and get better.” And my thought-processes cycled like that for a very long time and it was rather discouraging.
Up until about 2 months ago I didn’t think I was any good at all. I thought I was a horrible designer, a joke of a designer. I didn’t think that I was even worth $20 an hour. Because, obviously, if I were good I would have been noticed. And then one day I’m talking to a fairly popular designer/blogger here in our sphere, debugging some stuff and cleaning up some css and he said to me, “You know, you should be bigger than I am.”
So, why wasn’t I? Because it’s not enough to just do your best. Self-promotion is still an issue I’m struggling with, I still have the habit of playing things down. Is this because of any ingrained gender issues? I think it is a valid factor, but maybe not a prime cause.
I know that a part of me will never think I’m good enough. But every now and then, a little notice goes a long way. And, I’d be the last person to want to admit to that.
Saying that you have a boys’ club network is not the same as calling you a raging sexist pig. It just means we/I think you need to step out of your comfort zone a bit.
Judging from what you’ve said above, you’re stepping out of your zone. Most people don’t do that much.
(I’m also co-signing what Molly, Shelley, Sarah and Eris said.)
I just noticed that Eric listed the names he received. Of course, given that list, the publisher is going to pick…
And the beat goes on. These conversations happen again and again, but nothing seems to change.
Even if we were to have a blind contest of web designs, as long as the judges are all men, chances are a man will win. Why? Because a man tends to design for himself, and there are subtle gender differences in visual preferences. Doesn’t mean either is better or worse — but there differences. For instance, just from the web sites I’ve seen related to designers from this last week’s conversation, I find that men tend to be more anal in design, more constraining, and a bit more conservative. Women tend to open the box more — let the items on their page flow out to fill the page. But that could be just a coincidence.
But it does prove a point: there has to be a start made somewhere, a crack in the wall letting women into the top positions, the known position, the positions from which to judge. It would be nice to think this discussion might have led to this. Something positive to come out of these conversations.
But then I look at Eric’s list — all those guys— and I go over to Dave Shea’s and I compare the number of comments he gets per tweak compared to the number of comments per tweak for any number of women developers/designers I know — and I don’t see change happening. Even with these talks.
And this week, there will be all new memes to talk about, and this topic will fade away—until the next time someone asks, “Where are all the women…”
Maybe, just maybe, men and women are different. Not better, not worse, not everyone, just most men and women are different. Since I started programming in 1980, programmers have been predominately men. In looking back over the last 23 years I can say that the people that have had the most influence on my life in the programming areana have been evenly divided among men and women.
I think that part of the problem is that we don’t understand or think like the opposite gender. That makes it difficult to come to a common ground. Just look at what married couples go through (http://www.marriagebuilders.com) to become more compatible. I don’t think that Doug is sexist, just that he gravitates torward what he knows. Maybe because it feels safer, you’ll have to ask Doug.
Maybe I gravitate to men more because it’s easier for me to communicate with my own gender. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s really wrong, it’s just the way it works and it isn’t fair.
What do you think?
It’s not about men not getting on with women, this has been true since the beginning of time. Men and women are different and don’t always share common ground. But when the workfloor is more mixed it makes for a better product and not for a poorer one. This is one thing I really believe to be true. A company that’s is a more like a old mens club will suffer because it can’t or rather won’t make use of the advantages mixed environments bring. Knowing and more importantly listening to others not like yourself will enrich your work more than you can imagine.
spam alert: I ‘d better continue my rant elsewhere
Maybe yes, maybe no, but I think you bring up a good point in that your priorities aren’t aimed at “getting ahead”�. Maybe your perspective would be different if that was your priority? I’m not that old, but I would like to think that I’ve learned enough to know that opportunities don’t always just magically fall at our feet because of the good, hard work we do.
I suppose I wasn’t clear enough. ;) I certainly want to get ahead and I’ve certainly worked to that end (I don’t actually love writing like some. I do love teaching/helping and writing does get my name out there.) …
I suppose a clearer way to say it is that I’m getting ahead at the rate I can afford to do it… and keep my family priorities straight. My boys won’t be home much longer (I AM “that old”… LOL) and at the point that they fly the coop, I am prepared to be completely out of balance. (smile) I also have a husband that has been in the midst of a career change (which I’m very supportive of) and so, doing things to promote myself, which may not pay well, are really not as attractive to me now. Feeding the family is. ;)
That said, his new career is well nigh about to “happen” and so, I might even have a chance to redesign my own 2 year old site and refocus it in the direction I want to go (standards and such). I might even get a chance to take some time to “play” and create again… (I can dream!)
I don’t expect anything to “happen to me”… I will definitely make it happen. But I intend to continually prepare until I CAN make it happen. Thus my quote about “luck” — no such thing. (And yes, I believe that many men are somehow more prepared psychologically to self-promote.)
As to the issue of feeling worth your weight — I totally understand that. I think it’s highly common in women as a whole. Good for you for identifying it. My comment about not having a picture up was related to that very issue. (Remember, I’m old and thus have been through many permutations of “working on” issues. LOL) At that time, I wanted to prove myself — to MYSELF… as a person, not an attractive woman. I had other women laugh at me — literally. They told me (in their exact words), “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” and, “do whatever works.” Sad that that’s how some think we should get ahead. And no, that doesn’t work for me.
Anyway Eris, you should feel confident and proud of your abilities. You’re very talented. Charge what you’re worth. Take no prisoners. ;)
Don’t forget the fine balance of pushing for recognition and change without coming off as less professional.
Regardless of your gender, saying “Why bother trying? I’ll never get picked.” doesn’t make you look good.
Eric didn’t edit down his list. He accurately reported who appeared in the comments and he raised the visibility of all those whose names appeared.
Okay, by this exceedingly small sample of an exceedingly small and new field, only 20% of the top 10 people voted best at CSS AND best at writing about it are women. But notice that there aren’t a whole lot more down in the “everyone mentioned” section. If she was interested, Eris could have gone and said “Not to toot my own horn too much, but I think I could do a good job of that.”
If other people aren’t handing the job to you and you want it, apply for it.
And why make the sexist assumption that the publisher making this hiring decision is male? Eric’s original post was carefully gender neutral and he wasn’t the judge here; anyone could have posted to that list. We drew a fair amount of attention to it, too.
Maybe there just aren’t yet a whole lot of women doing top-of-the-line CSS work who are good at writing about it and have the time and inclination to try to get to write a book about it. I don’t think there’s a gender conspiracy going on here. There are undeniable cultural issues surrounding women and recognition, but they are not insurmountable and they are going to be solved by productive change like these discussions sponsored by women and by men with the cajones to invite a bunch of irked women to rant all over their blogs (Thanks, guys!).
Just a quick point. You use the phrase “sight-impaired” in your article. It is generaly accepted, in both the general and accademic sense, that “visualy-impaired” is the correct term to use.
Nothing big, about as relivent as the difference between using <abbr> or <acronym> for the term JPEG. But it does help to get a general concensus on things like this.
Dineh, no one said here the words, “why bother trying”. What was said here is that these discussions have happened in the past, but also re-occur, which leads me to believe that there’s a disconnect between the discussions and positive outcomes. We’ll continue to have these, but it would be nice to start seeing some action based on these conversations.
You say there may not be a lot of women who are good at CSS and can write on it and have the inclination to do this. You put the onus on the women to make the positive moves, when I and others are saying that recognition of women contributors is a responsibility of both men and women — and it’s difficult to want to continut to contribute when you do not receive any recognition. I believe, strongly, that women do not receive the same recognition for the same work as the men. Pure and simple.
But I also have a feeling you’ve not read what a lot of people have written here. If you did, you would not have ended your note with a thanks to the guys for allowing us women rant all over their blogs.
Thanks to the guys for allowing us women to rant. Indeed.
As for others in this thread who talk about women and family priorities— I think we can safely assume that men also set family as a priority—it’s just they don’t talk about it as much as the women do. It’s as if we feel we have to justify that we’re not neglecting our families. Or justify that we’re not contributing as much. No justification is needed.
What we should be doing is assuming that men and women both may have family priorities. Same as both men and women may not have these family priorities and can contribute technical assistance and writing, for which both deserve the same recognition.
“I am woman, watch me code!”
Perhaps if there were more prominent female web designers out there, then there would be more of us. When I think of CSS and Web Design immediately I think of Zeldman, Meyer, Cederholm, and Shea - all men. Do I feel gender plays a role in web design? Absolutely not. Could I name any female web designers as _prominent_ as Zeldman or Meyer? Not off the top of my head.
I don’t feel that men have any advantage over women when it comes to designing with standards- it’s a matter of sitting down and learning how to do it. Some women may not want to stare at code all day, but some of us don’t mind it one bit. I agree with what has been said about female web designers not actively seeking recognition, and I feel that extends to most computer-related things. You don’t hear much about women using Linux, but there are a heck of a lot of us that do that too!
Anyway, as I am still getting my feet wet in web design, my post probably has no merit, but as a woman I feel that I will be able to design just as well as any man- once I learn all the ins and outs. Afterall, isn’t design about conceiving an idea, planning for certain goals and functions to be met, and then implementing it for all to see?
It’s important to remember that the client sees the design, not the face behind it. Credit is given to the designer, not the man or woman who designed it.
Shelley, the “why bother trying” I was reacting to was your saying I just noticed that Eric listed the names he received. Of course, given that list, the publisher is going to pick…
And the beat goes on. These conversations happen again and again, but nothing seems to change.
Even if we were to have a blind contest of web designs, as long as the judges are all men, chances are a man will win. I think things do change, but they take time. They do not change faster, however, when you say to a man that he can’t be a fair judge because of what he’s got between his legs. Also, I don’t personally buy the idea that there is some sort of biologically-driven men’s design and women’s design. There are cultural trends - acceptable choices by gender in certain societies at certain times - but those preferences change and fluctuate.
I said that we should recognize that it is possible that there aren’t yet many CSS luminaries who happen to be women. Maybe there are, maybe they just aren’t getting the recognition they deserve, but given that not a whole lot of additional names have come out of this wide-ranging discussion suggests to me that it’s possible the leading folks in CSS are about 20-25% women. I could be wrong, but I do not think every case of inequal gender representation is a result of discrimination in that setting.
I do agree that recognition regardless of gender is the responsibility of both men and women.
This can be a really uncomfortable topic for men to bring up since they are likely to hear some harsh generalizations about the behavior of their gender. My point in thanking the men for inviting this hot debate onto their sites was to acknowledge that it was their choice to do so and that it’s appreciated. I don’t believe other people have the right to dictate the topics someone should address in their personal site, however important the issue might be. Perhaps my wry and somewhat self-deprecating wording about ranting was misplaced. The written voice can be a bit tricky that way when it comes to humor.
I’ve been developing Web sites in Vancouver for over 3 years now and never once thought I was working in a male dominated world. I used to work as a Chemist before and took lots of engineering and physics courses. I wanted to become a programmer, but simply found that my head wasn’t “made” for it. I kept going back to photoshop and wanting to play with colours and fonts etc…
I’ve been reading lots lately on Web standards, I validate my code, I got rid of my tables, just like Zeldman, Eric Meyer and all the boys are saying.
I submitted several of my sites of CSS Vault and CSS beauty and they were all rejected. Is it because I’m a woman? I don’t hink so. I think I’m just not in the club. I think that the fact that the club is dominated by a bunch of guys is just a coincidence.
So, and here’s the point it really boils down to,
Start something new.
How many people knew of Dave Shea before CSS Zen Garden?
Not me.
Lycos is shoveling the dirt over Webmonkey. Is there something out there which serves the same function and is as approachable and fun?
Are there any sites oriented to learning good design for kids? for teens? for seniors?
It seems like the things this “club” has in common are teaching and evangelizing. Who can you reach that they aren’t?
Wow, am I out of the reading loop. Just caught this article, which, I think is a good one.
No, I don’t think you are sexist at all. I will agree though, most of the designers and authors that I’ve met and/or read are male.
Not sure if it’s because women just don’t speak out as much or if it’s because women designing with web standards are few and far between.
Your comment Doug got me to thinking (about you using men for the redesigns) and I agree with you. If you knew their (the males) talent and knew you could trust them to get the job done, why not use them? I would do the same if I were in the situation. Only I’m a female and I would be calling mostly males because of the same reason though.
You talk about meeting people from all over…I have to just say, that the best thing I did was to meet one of my teachers/mentors. He is in Germany, I’m in America…yet I would call on him anytime/anyday if I ever needed help. Oh wait…I do that already. ;-) Nothing wrong with sticking with those that you know, as long as you don’t shut out those that you haven’t had opportunity to meet yet. From your article, you are trying to meet a more diverse group of people. Here’s to you meeting many more! We may be few and far between, but us females are here. :-)
In reading through this comment thread, I’ve noticed that all the men seem to have dropped out of the conversation. Is it that the issue is important on the surface but they don’t care to get into the nitty-gritty of gender politics? Is it that the conversation seems to no longer be important once it becomes dominated by women?
Not passing any judgment— just curious.
I was one of those women who read your initial post and was intrigued by it because as a female designer from New Zealand, I know no other female web designers in person - or very well at all in fact. It’s frustrating - in some senses - because I’d like to network more with other web designers, but living in such a remote place means the over-coffee format is pretty limited.
Thanks for opening up this issue again - it’s good to read the comments that come from these discussions.
Why are men, as a whole, better chess players, better poker players, better at pool and darts than women? In none of these activities is physical strength or athletic ability an advantage. In pre-historic times, which comprise most our raceâ?™s development, we women were the child bearers and care takers while men were the providers. Does the selection that shaped us to these roles still influence us today? Do men get more satisfaction from accomplishment than women? Specifically does this provide an explanation for the gender gap in the field of programming and design?
Few would argue with the proposal that most influential people in history have been men. If you were able to subject historyâ?™s shapers to an IQ test would men score higher than women? I say yes. Men are more competitive and driven than women and this shows in areas at the forefront of progress, such as programming as well as in idle pastimes.
Admittedly, society has something to do with it. Women are encouraged to take an interest in fashion, men in gadgets. But society is shaped by people, and people by their fundamental genetic program. If boys were discouraged from an early age from interest in math and engineering would these fields be dominated within a generation by women? I doubt it.
So does a woman have to surrender her femininity to become a programmer? Most programmers would say, and I would agree, that on average the women in this field have less typical female qualities than most women. Yet I can assure you not all of us female programmers and designers have forgotten how to be women. Some of us are fashion savvy, elegant, individuals who have crossed over into this weird computer world of 3am programming and thick glasses.
So where am I headed with this, you ask?
In the post-feminist era there are no remaining boundaries that keep women out of any profession. Changes in laws and business practices, changes in educational policy and sweeping changes in societyâ?™s view of gender roles have opened all fields of endeavor to women willing to enter them. In a tight, competitive field such as programming where talent and intelligence are valued, women who can make the cut will always be welcome. So what is keeping the women out? I would ask the women themselves.
So you ask where are all the women? Well frankly I donâ?™t know. Does such a foreign new profession intimidate them? Maybe. Are they more comfortable in trades traditionally pursued by women? Probably. I think really it comes down to this: most women are not cut out to be in such an aggressive, criticizing, forward thinking field. Perhaps one day they will be and will make the inroads other women already have in areas such as medicine and mathematics.
As proprietor, I often get to have the last word — at least on this site. I’m closing off comments here, as I do with all older entries. The conversation trailed off in productive comments, and became a magnet for chauvinistic statements and sp@m, probably from those arriving from women-related search engine queries. I’m pleased I was able to leave comments open much longer on this entry than the first time this topic came up.
Although I didn’t intend to when I wrote the entry, I stayed out of the conversation this time. The comments quickly turned a corner from the subjects I originally covered, and I didn’t want to derail the conversation.
This is clearly an awkward issue for some people to discuss, be they men or women. Some would rather sweep the topic under the rug and pretend it didn’t exist. Others think it should be a non-issue. I not sure either view gets us anywhere.
Thanks to everyone who participated and poured out their thougts on the topic. May the dialogues continue and change and actions ensue.
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