Not "enough" Women?

Scoble got a complaint from a woman who complained "not enough women" were invited to an event at Microsoft. I've encountered that kind of thing myself, and expect to encounter it again.

An example: during Global PR Blog Week, there were complaints from women who clearly hadn't bothered to read the site and discover it wasn't an invitation-only event. It was open to anyone, and no one was considering genders. To me it looked like all the complainers wanted to do was have something to complain about.

In any case, whether it's an invitation-only event or not, IMHO, if some women decide they should complain about "not enough women" are doing this or that, they are quite often barking up the wrong tree. In the first place, the Internet is the most egalitarian place in existence. Never in my almost ten years online, have I ever been made to feel unwelcome, rejected, or passed over due to my gender. That goes for in-person tech groups as well. I'm often the only woman in the room at the Yuma Tech Consortium, but so what?

It's just one of those things -- technology isn't a field many woman are attracted to, is all. There is no blame to place, no one to accuse of anything.

I figure anyone who thinks more women should be in the field should go out and evangelize with the women they know. These women need to get networking and form relationships; build their skills and let people know who they are and what they're good at. That way they can be visible to anyone organizing an event and wanting to invite people. So far women haven't always been as good at that as they should.

I noticed not many women signed up for BloggerCon III. That's nobody's fault, either. That's the way it happened. Any woman who really wanted to sign up could have. Sometimes all you need to do is pay attention and follow the directions. But, if you somehow think the same rules that apply to everyone else shouldn't apply to you, that's where you run into trouble. That is also a whole 'nother subject...

UPDATE: Online resources for women at O'Reilly

Comments

[Meg]

Come on. If MS got one woman out of thirty participants, they weren't trying. I can get more than that by offering free coffee and cookies. This isn't a case of "people didn't read the site and thus excluded themselves." It's a case of not enough women being invited to actually garner a significant number of female attendees, which should be a goal if MS wants decent feedback. This isn't about a lack of women in tech fields, but rather if you're a company trying to get input, you need to plan a little bit better and get a somewhat diverse pool for input, or you might as well just spare the cost and ask your engineers.

[Seun Osewa]

I support her speaking out, anyway. She just said she felt 'alone' and I think it's a legitimate feeling.

[Jason Hasner]

well said.