'Lets All Evolve Past This'

international | gender and sexuality | other press

Wednesday June 13, 2007 10:08

by Miriam Cotton

mcotton at mediabite dot org

The Barriers women face in tech communities

"gloriajw' has written a very good article which breaks down many of the causes of alienation of women in technical groups and online communities. It was forwarded to the IMC Global women's list with the following comment:

"Generally a subject covered much too little in indymedia communities, on
our websites and in communication we are having with each other.

With the email from Melbourne today that another collective had decided
to shut down, also because they couldn't handle spam on the site, this
seems even more interesting. The article is about gender, and at the
same time about communication, and the anonymity of open publishing."

Gloriajw looks at the typical working environment of usually male dominated groups in a non-confrontational way. Her analysis sets out some astute observations of the characteristic responses of men and women to different sorts of communication styles and patterns and why it is that so many tech women prefer to work in women only groups. For any man who genuinely wants to get a handle on these issues, this article is invaluable. For women it should be a help to those who are wondering why they feel like they don't fit in or are staying silent about issues they are uncomfortable with in their interaction with the men in their group.

Here is an example of one tip offered to tech groups for avoiding offence to women (and other men too) on tech groups:

(2) The technically correct but aggressive/demeaning/overly harsh comment gets returned
to the sender, asking the person to re-word using constructive criticism. Sounds like overkill, but it’s not. The “You’re wrong, here’s the right answer” type of response constitutes picking a battle that most women won’t fight, or won’t even bother dealing with.

Gloriajw points out that many women simply stop participating without ever saying how they feel. They just drift away. If men are wondering why their groups are not attracting or retaining the participation of women there are many likely explanations for what is happening in this article.