Anne Zelenka has written a post titled “An OPML Answer to ‘Where are the women in tech blogging“, which was somewhat co-incidental because I was all set to write a post I could very much have simply headlined: “Where are the women in tech blogging”.
Yesterday, I conduced an exercise. I counted all the links on tech.memeorandum. There were about 120 or so. About 100 of them were blog posts (you’ll have to excuse the fact I’m talking in generalisations but I just didn’t have the time to sit down and make sure my numbers were precise).
Of those, only around 10 were female bylines (nine by my count). What’s more about half of those were not blog bylines, but were MSM female journalists.
Talk about the bloke-o-sphere. What’s going on here? Why is the tech blogging community one big boy’s club.
Are there so few women in tech? Do women not blog? Do the A-List of male bloggers, simply not link to their female counterparts meaning female bloggers don’t register on a blogosphere radar like memeorandum?
Filed under: Blogs
Phil Sim 
See http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/08/08/the_biases_of_links.php and http://www.horsepigcow.com/2005/11/hacking-memeorandum-101-screencast.html
Why don’t more women in tech blog? Probably terrified of the unwanted attentions that a steady stream of male tech geeks would bring.
I don’t write a tech blog as such, but I did analyze my linking behavior for 12 months. Lots of data and graphs may be found here:
http://www.thevisionthing.com/diversity_report.php
Understanding one’s behavior statistically is one thing, changing it is another.
In my two months of tech blogging, I’ve had links and comments from far more men than women. Obviously, one reason is because there are proportionately fewer women tech bloggers reflecting the smaller numbers of women in technology. But there are other factors at play too.
I sometimes wonder if women, on average, blog differently than men, with fewer outbound links especially to people they don’t know. On my mom blog, I’ve been a bit of an anomaly in linking and tracking back to people’s blogs… it seems rather uncommon. I think this is what Danah Boyd talked about in the biases of links article that Marshall pointed out.
Rob – personally, I like getting attention from male and female geeks, because I like to talk tech. But you’re right, some aspects of tech blogging can get a little weird and I wouldn’t blame anyone, woman or man, from shying away from it.
Anne, what I was getting at was the compulsion for male tech geeks, by and large, to show more overt attention to women over men. When I was recently re-jigging my Website, I pondered for a day or two about creating an uber-geek female persona… and still writing all the same stuff… then seeing what kind of traffic difference there was. I reckon it would be huge.
I used to edit a regular tongue-in-cheek gossip style column for a well known channel title. and I’m sure the (predominantly) male readers were far more interested in my female persona than my insight into the nuances of the Australian IT channel… something about women, power and risk-taking I suggest.
I even had a reader ring the office to complain about a report, not to threaten what would have been a pointless legal action, but to bag me out to my colleague… “Hasn’t she got anything better to do with her time????” he asked.
No wonder women don’t often offer unpaid gems in the form of blogs… I wouldn’t bother posting this to yours except it just MIGHT encourage my sisters in IT and other business sectors… Go Girlfriends!… Or just stay quiet as you enjoy your successes if you prefer.
Personally I am happy if anyone wants to think it’s a bloke-o-sphere in blog land. No-one is compelled to poarticipate, and no-one loses if you don’t… soundds like something a woman probably came up with.
Sandy, long time no speak. The Australian IT channel has forever been poorer for your absence…
Rob, you’re such a sensitive, new age guy, I’m sure all you’re readers think your half female anyway 😉
Aw shucks, Phil 🙂
[…] Dave Winer offers his suggestions for reforming the VC industry. Mathew Ingram disagrees with Dave and says “venture capital didn’t create the bubble.” Other opinions from the bloke-o-sphere can be found here, here, here and… oh, why don’t you just go look on tech.memeorandum for the latest. […]
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