Where are all the ladies
Jeffrey Zeldman is attempting to understand the disproportionate number of women in the web design.
In my own professional experience I’ve found a few constants, both on the part of employers and clients, prior to joining my present employer.
- Men and and women with identical or similar experience will not be paid the same, the woman will be paid significantly less. The men are much more likely to be promoted than the women.
- In technical or code related matters a woman’s opinion will be less valued than a man’s.
This is why I was shocked by my findings at my new job. Not only were there women in both back and front end programming, there are a lot of women in key technical management positions. One of the managers of the tech team is a woman. The manager of my UI team is a woman. And the manager of the entire AG Interactive division? You guessed it, a woman. In fact, it seems like almost every person I directly deal with above me is a woman. While men still outnumber women in technical positions here, I believe that to be a reflection of the field as a whole and not AG hiring practices. In truth they seem to practice what they preach about a commitment to a diverse work environment. I hope that this progress is spreading to other giant companies.
Is web design is a boys’ club? Yes and no. I believe it’s a club in the sense that there’s a group of active designers who get most of the attention, but that’s every field. I think it’s coincidental that few or none of them are women. Do I think An Event Apart and other conferences preclude women? Not inentionally. I belive they’re not even aware of a lot of the female talent out there, and we can’t hold them accountable for an entire field ignoring us. If you were to look at the number of recent men and women graduates in web design and programming, most conferences with younger designers would probably parallel these proportions. Is it irresponsible that they don’t go out of their way to add more women? I don’t know.
Do we as women fail to promote ourselves and get our names into the spotlight? (Please don’t try to tell me we’re all too busy staying at home with our babies) It’s worth noting that web design heavy hitters are usually principals in their own practices. Maybe women aren’t getting the opportunity to leave corporate America and start their own businesses?
I don’t have an answer, but at least we’re beginning to address the problem.
