Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Sexism and The Female Tech Role (BOL 942)

Sexism and The Female Tech Role (BOL 942)

This is something I have been wanting to write about for a long time and Natali's response on BOL 942 to a listener's email prompted me to finally express my feelings on this topic. This writing is to express my larger view on the subject, not just comment on Natali. Want to see a thread just on Natali then go here http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10152_102-0.html?threadID=337215&tag=forums06;forum-threads

A little background on myself. I am 46 year old male that has worked my entire adult life in the tech profession. I've done everything from programmer for a fortune 100 IT Firm, building large multi-national Windows Networks to working an .COM start-up. Presently I run a .COM site that is dominated by women and I work with them everyday.

Natali's response to the email was so genuine and real that I feel compelled to write.

I am a avid follower of technology and increasingly over time more and more women have entered the technology field. I applaud this and think it is fantastic. When I worked in fortune 100 companies in the 90's our network and programming staffs were filled with women. They were respected and treated as equals and quite often held high management positions. Not that sexism did not exist, but I believe in the corporate world it was much less tolerated than in the wild of the Internet. I enjoyed my time working side by side with women and watched them solve some of our most perplexing problems. It was an atmosphere of cooperation and understanding. Quite honestly, the women would bring a point of few that was different from men to problem solving.

Then by the late 90's the Internet evolution was upon us and opened up a whole new way of communication as well as new job market. Women in corporate environments switch to web programming but remain in the corporate IT departments where sexism is much less tolerated. But as the market for tech journalism moved from magazines to Web base reporting more and more women became involved. Back in the day of paper monthly magazines like PC Mag and PC World you rarely saw woman journalist in tech. But the openness of the Internet allowed Tech Journalism to expand a great deal. More and more women came online as tech journalist through blogs, tech sites CNET and through video reporting sites like CNET and Revision 3.

The disturbing trend I noticed is that as more female tech journalists came online the sexism became stronger and stronger. Women like Cat Schwartz, Morgan Webb and Sarah Lane first got nailed with this in forums of Tech TV. The last couple years Molly Wood, Natali Delconte, Veronica Belmont, Ariel Waldman and many other female technology journalists have been burden by sexism. They all do terrific jobs and the same jobs as their male counter parts, however, they have to put with the lowest common denominator of the Internet, the anonymous poster! I am constantly reading stupid stuff written by men like "she's hot", "nice ****", "she's not as hot as so and so" and on and on and on. You get the idea. We've all seen it. It's stupid and ludicrous.

My plead is this, respect the female tech journalist for their position on topics, their reporting and their personalities. They bring a unique perspective to tech that was not around for many many years. Everyone is entitle to agree or disagree with them based on their stance on a given topic. However, rating them based on their sexual parts is just stupid, immature and is going to back fire on us all. Why? Because if they have to put up with constant barrage of crap from a bunch of pin headed idiots that only want to rate them based on the physical characteristics then the female tech journalist will disappear! We'll be back to nearly 100% males reporting our tech news all the time. And we all know you female rating pin heads don't want that!

I will climb down all of my soapbox now and I am ready for the wrath of the trolls and pinheads. I've been on the web since before there was HTTP so my skin is thick! So let it fly.

Finally, I am male as stated in the beginning of my post. And like all males I can admire a beautiful women. But admiring a beautiful woman in your head is one thing. Spouting our sexual ratings online regarding these women to coincide with their ability to an effective journalist is just ignorant.

Sincerely,
Rob