Just a Girl on the Web…
November 10th, 2007
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about gender and how this particular social construction influences different parts of my life.
I know plenty of girls who participate in online conversations and use the Web to express themselves. To me, this raises some interesting questions: What place does femininity have in the conversations on the Web? What does it mean to be a woman in social conversation?
Wanna talk about this? I want some perspectives- men and women of the Web, what do you think?
17 Responses to “Just a Girl on the Web…”
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Well, to be completely sexist… of course it makes a difference! I’m a big fan of the fairer sex. I love the perspective you all bring, I love the energy. Because your energy is distinctly different than a guys energy, sure, not all females are frilly and pink (I have four daughters I can testify how different they can be) but the essenance that you bring is something special. The perspective, the emotions, the thought process is different, more empathic and intuitive. Face it, you girls bring something unique and fantastic in the feminine perspective, and we’re all better for it!
It all depends on context. If we’re talking technology, gender is largely irrelevant. If we’re talking psychology, it’s supremely relevant.
Why is gender irrelevant when it comes to technology? And in this space, is the psychology and sociology ever totally separate from the technology? I tend to think that women are more aware of their gender when they’re having Web interactions than men are. Thoughts?
Gender is irrelevant because the technology levels the playing field. Between Open Source projects, customer projects, etc you quickly realize that other than an occasional context/language difference, that race, nationality, gender, age, and a whole lot of other factors are irrelevant. This spring, for the first time I met a team leader I’ve been working with for four years… odd experience.
That said, most of the women in tech I know are on the “softer” side of things… design, content management, pr, etc. The handful of women on the development side tend to be fantastic at what they do. Not sure if there’s a causation or just correlation there.
@Keith I would add that I think some of the “softer” work you point to is an incredibly important driver in the mass adoption of the technology that’s being developed. Stereotypically, women are natural connectors and communicators. As the Web is increasingly driven by social technology and community, this adeptness at creating and maintaining relationships and connections will be valued more than it ever has been.
A SQL statement such as the following:
SELECT * FROM WP_COMMENTS WHERE user LIKE ‘%amanda%’ ORDER BY date ASC;
is completely gender neutral. Whether a man, woman, or machine writes it is completely irrelevant. It will work, or it will not work.
When humans interface with computers, that becomes gender relevant because there’s a human, a psychological component to it. Humans are inherently biased, flawed, and partial to psychological phenomena including gender, so you would need to take into account those things that influence humans in your user interface.
I separate the technological core from the human portion of the technology interface. When we speak of technology, such as podcasting, it’s different than the user experience of podcasting. For example, should gender play any role in which MP3 encoder you use? No. Technology dictates that you use the best encoder that you can that delivers the audio goals you want to meet.
Does gender influence content? Absolutely - and it should.
Christopher, your reply assumes that all humans interface with computers (or other technology) the same way. Once they’re connected, yes, I agree that the technical component takes over and gender becomes irrelevant in terms of collecting and transmitting the message.
But I think Amanda’s question goes deeper than that - and I would argue that it speaks to a whole host of personal preferences. While the technological core remains constant for both genders, it’s how the genders (or generations, or another demographic) think about technology that matters (leaving aside what they think for a moment).
While we can’t generalize and say “all men” do this, or “all women” choose that, I think it’s safe to say that, by and large, most women think emotionally and most men think logically. There are always exceptions, but I think the fields of psychology, sociology and history have tought us that.
As a result, I would argue that women are going to opt for communication methods that allow them to connect with other individuals on a more personal basis - IM over email, video chat over phone, etc. It’s about conversing rather than messaging. And yes, while you want to use the best tools possible, you also should be using the tools that your audience is most likely to use. It’s why we offer many ways to listen to our podcasts or to leave comments for the show.
Amanda, as to your question, “what does it mean to be a woman in social conversation?” I can only guess. I have no experience being a woman, though I do have experience conversing with them. And I’d imagine that online is no different than face-to-face. And once you’ve chosen the method of communication, the content is wide open.
Being a woman in this situation is just like being a man - that is, it’s what you the individual bring to the table. We all have different communications preferences and styles, and we each have a unique perspective on any given topic. It’s how we choose to share and impart the information, and what we’re willing to learn from our colleagues that makes the process so thrilling.
Although the technology is gender neutral I think the female voice is vastly under-represented in many corners of the web. For promotionally-saavy women the gold rush is on.
Scott - more or less right. How the technology interfaces with humans is interface, not technology. To me, all technology at its core is bias-neutral. When you boil away everything, you are left with zeroes and ones; something works or it does not, code compiles or it does not. For me, this is actually a comfort to know that the machines we are crafting at their cores are less biased than we are. That said, our layers of interface on top of them still need to be managed to be as appropriate to the user as possible.
It seems to me that social networks and social media have brought the biggest infusion of women into the online community of any Internet development in recent memory. It’s just such a natural fit for what so many women are good at, and like to do, which is connecting, communicating and sharing.
I think a key recent development that has made online participation more attractive for women (and really everyone) is privacy control that allows one to block abusive or annoying users. Really, this has been a boon for everyone on the web, but particularly for women, who far more often face very unpleasant and downright threatening behavior from the spammers, haters and stalkers who hide behind their anonymity. I recently blogged about the power to “unfollow” (a Twitter term) and how it has led to such a pleasant and welcoming community on Twitter.
As to interaction, I think both men and women tend to treat the other gender differently online, but pretty much with the same differences as we treat each other in person. Hmmm. Did that make any sense at all?
Q: What does it mean to be a woman in a social conversation on the web?
I see the web as being even ground for men and women.
Peronsally I’ve discovered my social conversation on the web is not dictated by my gender but is dictated by my personality. Offline I am someone that listens intently and observes conversation and interaction. I want to fully understand the topic and the personalities before I share my thoughts. I do this online also. I find I’m still feeling my way around and am slowly participating because I want my comments to be as meaningful and as impactful as what I’m reading. I want to offer something useful in exchange for all I’m learning.
Is my personality dictated by my gender? Am I this way because I am a woman? I don’t think. I think I’m this way because of me, my family and my influences and environment growing up.
Representation by and of the female voice, as @John Wall pointed out, is lacking. However, in conversations where there are similar numbers of men and women participating, it seems the addition of more women into the social conversation has balanced the energy. As @PhillyMac stated, our “energy is distinctly different”. I tend to believe gender is irrelevant when it comes to how we connect but is relevant in terms of why we connect. Additionally, there does seem to be a significant impact on the interaction when we (men and women) do connect online. Femininity, just like masculinity, is addressed inherently. As long as any online community and/or conversation is contributed to with respect and relevance, gender doesn’t seem to be as much a factor anymore.
Being a women in the social conversation is liberating for those who might not otherwise speak for fear of being laughed at or disregarded, because they still believe technology is a man thing. I have several friends who still don’t participate in great conversations like this one, because they believe they have to be a geek to do so. If you ask them, they say they aren’t geeky enough because they don’t program or build websites, as if these kinds of technical skills is at all relevant to being social. There is still a large need to help women feel comfortable online, in addition to but different than privacy controls. There are a lot of women who are still looking for permission to be a part of the conversation. It sounds dated, but I have emailed and spoken with many, many women who just need and want to be told it is okay.
I think, though, that a lot of this is gendered. Lisa, you say “I think I’m this way because of me, my family and my influences and environment growing up,” but those same influences are what taught you and what teaches you still about what it means to be a woman and a person. In everyday life and in my life on the Web, I am very conscious of my gender within the scope of my participation. In my opinion, people truly do play the role of man or woman to the best of their ability in any given interaction. I think that social media is just an extension of the gendered behavior we have come to learn from other aspects of life. We aren’t conscious of every statement we make being feminine or masculine or somewhere in between, but we definitely act based on a socialization that is deeply rooted in teaching girls to be girls and boys to be boys.
Liana, I think your experience emailing with other women is really interesting. To me, that lack of participation, or the need for permission or approval is very gendered. In traditional society, women must ask permission and they aren’t supposed to speak out. From birth (some argue even before) we receive messages and lessons teaching us how to think, act and believe in this world. I know I’m starting to sound really “gender studies” at this point, but I think it’s worth taking a second look at just what we all bring to the table in our online interactions, and if these things about our contributions fall in line with what we believe it means to be a woman or a man.
Can you tell this paper is taking over my brain?!
[…] link to original post […]
I’ve experienced both very gender neutral spaces on the web as well as very gendered spaces. As I discuss in one of my blog posts (apologies for the length!) I’ve found digg to be a very male gender space online. This comes, in part, I think from technology being a gendered sector to begin with, and with digg being initially about “tech” news it has a very geek, and thus very male audience which can lead to some less than equal space. As I talk about in that post the sheer HOSTILITY towards women on the web (such as the Kathy Sierra harassment) is what scares me– but on the flip site of that the anonymity of the web can be extremely liberating for women.
On the other hand, I don’t think that gendered space on the female side of things is any less dangerous (sk*rt, for example, bothers me just as much as digg if not more). However I’ve also been a part of communities online where gender and gender discrimination becomes very much a non-issue– to the extent where long-time members are often still surprised to find out the gender of other long-time members. I think there is a lot of internal work done by that specific community to keep the tone civil, the interactions non-aggressive and the general sense of things “friendly” to everyone.
As a women’s studies BA with a strong interest in masculinity studies I struggle constantly with the issue of gendered spaces. Are the necessarily bad? I get frustrated with women’s only spaces that see all men as the enemy, but I also value women’s only space as something somewhat sacred and important. I think part of why I love this podcast so much is that while it’s approaching technology from a women’s perspective it isn’t trying to compete or out geek or out cute the gender-neutral but inevitably male dominated tech podcasts, it’s just brining something different to the table. It somehow gets away from the dynamic that grosses me out when intelligent geek women guest host on other geeky podcasts and somehow feel the need to out geek (by being super serious) or seduce the audience and/or their cohost.
So thanks girls! It’s great to see things like this existing!
(Oh wait, I’m not on the ggg website anymore am I? I’m also not paying much attention am I? *laughs* Sorry!
[…] some unknown and slightly annoying reason, I’m always interested in gender and the behavioral factors that divide and unite the sexes. The State of the Blogosphere report […]