…a study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys).Girls also eclipse boys when it comes to building or working on Web sites for other people and creating profiles on social networking sites (70 percent of girls 15 to 17 have one, versus 57 percent of boys 15 to 17).
The quote above is from an article by Stephanie Rosenbloom, who writes for the New York Times Fashion-Style section(s). The article’s placement makes Mary Hodder angry. Hodder says,
So when they interview people like Doc Searls or [Loic LeMeur] or David Weinberger, all of whom are very smart about tech, those articles are in the tech section, but when they talk to girls, who for the record, are far more technical than these three tech experts, girls are put in Fashion.
Can you tell I’m pissed? WTF?
While she has a point, she could make it more judiciously. Working for the Fashion-Style section, Rosenbloom has written loads of features like this on the quotidian emergence of webby trends. One of my favorites was on Atoosa Rubenstein’s Alpha Kitty YouTube series inspired by the book, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B, and Back Again.” In that article, Rosenbloom asks regarding Rubenstein,
Can this old-media veteran make it in the virtual world, where so many others have stumbled?
One thing going for her is that teenage girls are more socially active than boys online and are more likely than boys to participate in blogs, bulletin boards and chat forums, according to Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com.
I think that’s the point she was sharpening with the article that put Hodder’s knickers in a twist.
*** UPDATE ***
Mary Hodder has revised the post at Napsterization, deleting the reference to Shirky and referencing instead Loic LeMeur. She’s also temporized nicely to include assurances that her post wasn’t “about David or Loic or Doc (all extremely supportive of women in tech, btw)….” She goes on to say, “My point is that the NYTimes puts men who talk tech and trends or social impact in tech/biz, and women who code web art / pages in fashion.” I’ve left a comment asking if she’d care to share the reasons for that update. My comment remains in her moderation queue.
I think I understand why the four females featured (ages 13, 14, 16 and 17) aren’t found yet in the Technology section with Doc and David; but, the feature itself is well placed to pick up a readership of young females who — we hope — will have their techno-interests validated and affirmed by their peers in Rosenbloom’s story. Rosenbloom acknowledges,
But even though girls surpass boys as Web content creators, the imbalance among adults in the computer industry remains. Women hold about 27 percent of jobs in computer and mathematical occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In American high schools, girls comprised fewer than 15 percent of students who took the AP computer science exam in 2006, and there was a 70 percent decline in the number of incoming undergraduate women choosing to major in computer science from 2000 to 2005, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology.
It should be obvious to even the most committed feminist that spreading the word about the disparity, giving it the widest possible exposure, including in the Style-Fashion sections of the newspaper, is a positive gesture.I’m glad that people writing on the fashion beat are clued in to what’s happening in pop tech. Mary Hodder should be glad too.
[tags]whoa, no money quote from danah boyd, wtf[/tags]
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