Tara Hunt of Women in Technology Network hit the nail hard on the head when she tackled a timely question in a growing Web 2.0 environment that is still perceived to be male-dominated: Where are the women in technology?
Well, open your eyes, we’re everywhere. Take it from Tara.
More and more people are realizing that the old ways of doing business inherited from Web 1.0 are just not cutting it in the more community-based, connected world of social networks. The more feminine values, such as relationship building, openness, and cooperation, are growing in popularity for everyone, not just the female entrepreneurs. Many of these values come from the egalitarian outlook of open source, but I also believe they are highly influenced by the diversity of customers. Now when someone around me asks, “Where are the women in technology?” I have a ready-made list to rattle off. Then I take the second part of that question and start to unravel the reason why we’ve been rendered so invisible.
Sporadic as my entries are, my burden for this blog (fine, aside from my self-centered rants about gadgets, pinkness, and other geeky-vain stuff) is to point the spotlight to women who are excelling in their own rights, amidst this manly, testosterone-infested industry that is the Internet.
As I explore more and learn more, I realize that women in technology, after all, are not that hard to find. They are positioned strategically across various forms of networks and firms, performing beyond what’s expected of them, and beyond simply being that “woman behind every great man“.
And while I’m not about to contest the validity of that statement I just quoted, it is also true that women these days are already capable of walking side by side great men, not just behind them.. and be great themselves too. Open your eyes and look around. See what I’m talking about? :)