The Next Web recently posted this article about young entrepreneur and founder of WIWT Poppy Dinsey. Now as a young woman interested in setting up her own business I found Poppy’s story inspiring. She’s young, she seems to know her stuff, and so far looks pretty successful. Sadly, it seems not everyone agrees with me.
Read through the article… go on, I’ll wait.
All sounds pretty good right? But then there’s the comments section. This is actually what inspired me to write this post. A debate has broken out, spurred by the comments by Chris Beach, over pretty people and tech, specifically pretty girls and tech.
The comment by Beach that started it all was this:
At the risk of a Hermione-style whinge on vacuous startups, this is pretty eye-watering.
In fact, speaking of Hermione, seems now she’s got something in common with Poppy. They’ve both founded a startup based entirely on ego and personal vanity. Pictures of themselves plastered all over a website, lacking any innovation or creativity whatsoever.
Quite a statement. Unsurprisingly there was quite a backlash too. Questions were raised over what evidence Beach had to state that their appearance was the reason for their success while others, like Zee M Kane, pointed out that:
there are millions of attractive people out there and 99% of them haven’t had the initiative or pro-activeness to achieve what they have (or even bother trying).
The whole debate got me thinking about women’s role in tech, stereotyping and feminism in the 21st Century. Society’s definitely come a long way when it comes to gender equality (that’s not to say we still don’t have a bit of a way to go) but when it comes to the world of tech… well we’re straggling behind.
The Big Tech Gender Divide
For some reason tech has always been more of a boys’ game. It probably stems back to when men would study science at college while women were expected to study home economics. And it’s a trend that just hasn’t shaken off. An article on the Women 2.0 blog said that 56% of women working in technology will leave the profession before they complete their career. That’s a shocking figure even without considering that nearly 80% of jobs in technology are taken up by men.
The author of the article, Dr. Jane LeClair, puts the number of women dropping out of the tech industry down to the ‘glass maze’. She describes this maze as:
seeing available positions open at all levels but being unable to maneuver through the web of prerequisite positions, interviews, qualifications comparisons, time in grade and other confusing practices typically perpetuated within the “good ole boy” culture of high technology.
There are a number of other theories out there as to why women are underrepresented in tech. Some, like those referenced in Alicia Morga’s article, refer to the effect culture has on how girls learn, how the development of spatial skills affects career choice, and how women’s assessment of themselves has a big impact on whether they pursue work in a certain industry. Others refer to the family vs. career dilemma.
In 2010, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg covered all these factors in her inspiring TED talk. These were her opening lines:
So for any of us in this room today, let’s start out by admitting we’re lucky. We don’t live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited.
But she then goes on to note that ‘women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world’ and that in the corporate sector only 15% – 16% of C-level board jobs are held by women. Ouch. It’s a scary but inspiring speech and I suggest when you have a spare 15 minutes you head over to the TED site.
But coming back to the Poppy Dinsey/pretty girls in tech debate what interests me is the problem of stereotyping.
The Stereotypical Tech Geek
Stereotyping is everywhere. We’re brought up with it. In school the guys on the sports teams are the popular ones who get all the pretty girls, the pretty girls are the ‘bimbos’ and the guys into computers and IT are the ‘geeks’, the outsiders. These stereotypes follow us into adulthood. Yvonne Akpalu, founder of Why Science, is quoted in an article about why women come second in science and math. She says:
Scientists themselves have gender stereotypes that are very strong. There’s a negative culture.
It’s this idea of stereotyping I’m seeing in the comments on the post about Poppy Dinsey. Women, especially attractive women, can’t possibly be successful in their own right. Worryingly, it’s not just the men in tech who are pushing this view. Penelope Trunk wrote a whole article on why men should not work with women in startups. She says women are a ‘distraction’ that cause friction in startups and are too emotional.
It scares me to think these attitudes still exist in this industry. If you were lying ill in a hospital you wouldn’t, I hope, fear for your well-being if a female doctor came to treat you. So, why fear for the well-bring of a start up, or the industry on a whole, just because women are trying to get a piece of the action?
Conclusion
Poppy may have founded a start-up based on appearance in the literal sense – it is a fashion site after all. But it’s not because of her appearance that is a success. As for our very own Hermione Way, founder of Newspepper.com and TechFluff.TV, she’s a journalist and presenter you’d expect to see a few pics here and there but again that’s not why her businesses are a success. I think we all need to accept that, like other industries before it, the tech industry is growing fast and there’s plenty of space for anyone with a good idea.
Plus, I don’t see anyone questioning Tumblr’s existence after its founder and CEO David Karp was selected to model for Uniqlo, do you?
Image Credits: Shutterstock/Sanzhar Murzin/Peter Bernik/Galina Barskaya
If we’re honest with ourselves, we all know that Poppy’s site wouldn’t have got off the ground had she not been an attractive young lady.
Look at the site. Tell me I’m wrong.
This sends out the wrong message to aspiring female developers. It tells them that only the pretty, confident ones succeed in the shallow male-dominated world of technology.
The message we should be sending out is that the tech community is not shallow, and that women can succeed on their technical merit just as well as men.
I want to see a balance of the genders in technology. I want women to be judged equally to men.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we all know that Poppy’s site wouldn’t have got off the ground had she not been an attractive young lady.
Look at the site. Tell me I’m wrong.
This sends out the wrong message to aspiring female developers. It tells them that only the pretty, confident ones succeed in the shallow male-dominated world of technology.
The message we should be sending out is that the tech community is not shallow, and that women can succeed on their technical merit just as well as men.
I want to see a balance of the genders in technology. I want women to be judged equally to men.
well let’s see the innovation
@Chris Beach 1) It’s not the world of technology that is shallow. Maybe the world as a whole is shallow, but definitely not (just) the world of technology.
2) There is not one ‘world of technology’ that we all share. The pretty fashion blogger (m/f) is in a completely different world than the programming geek (m/f). The blogger won’t visit kings of code. The geek doesn’t read blogs about fashion. Different world, different people. Nothing wrong with that.
3) You can’t decide what people can or cannot do. You might not like her blog, and that’s fine, but that’s the end of it.
4) I (male) don’t think there is a big problem with women in tech. Or with males in HR. Or with women in garbage collection. Or with males in nursing. When I was in university, some degrees had a large majority of women, others had a large majority of men. Most students – the ones that made those choices – couldn’t care less…
5) Men and women are equal, but not the same. Different brains, hormones, ways of communication, sexual attraction and more. Once you add a female to an all male team, or a male to an all female team, the dynamics will change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. If you don’t like that, blame evolution :-).
After looking at the WIWT site, I would have to agree with Chris Beach’s comments. The site is driven by fashion and looks. She is a success because she is beautiful, and she wears fashionable clothes. This is not a tech-gender issue though, from what I can see. The “tech” involved is a blog. Anyone can do a blog. Heck even my grandmother could do a blog. So that is not a tech-gender issue. Poppy went on to start-up status, which is fine, and nothing wrong with that. But it is not a tech start up and this article is a bit misleading in that way. WIWT has very little, if anything, to do with women in technology. Nor does it do anything for (or against) the issue of gender stereotypes in technology.
The question isn’t whether it would be successful if she weren’t attractive. Rather, it’s why her looks are presented as the sole reason for her success.
I love what you are saying about wanting to have gender equality in tech. I agree with you. But I also think that thinking about this and talking about it publicly doesn’t perpetuate the problem, it creates awareness and could lead to change.
@fbaa “Women in garbage collection” pretty much made my day. Unfortunately, as an ex sociology student (in a female dominated department that was seen as feminine) who is going into a startup as the sole female there… I have to say that a lot of people don’t see the obvious nature of gender equality as easily as you do. I think leaving it to ‘different worlds’ and ‘evolution’ arguments ignores the fact that gender (not sex) is a social reality that can often make people’s lives difficult, if not prevent opportunities from them altogether. I wish more people thought like you but sadly, they don’t.
@fbaa “Women in garbage collection” pretty much made my day. Unfortunately, as an ex sociology student (in a female dominated department that was seen as feminine) who is going into a startup as the sole female there… I have to say that a lot of people don’t see the obvious nature of gender equality as easily as you do. I think leaving it to ‘different worlds’ and ‘evolution’ arguments ignores the fact that gender (not sex) is a social reality that can often make people’s lives difficult, if not prevent opportunities from them altogether. I wish more people thought like you but sadly, they don’t.
@Stephen Hird I don’t think it’s a hi-tech startup that produces technology, but as a business solely dependent on web technology, it is more tech than many others. PS My grandpa uses gmail and Skype but can’t get blogs. Your gran should give him a lesson! :)
@Stephen Hird I don’t think it’s a hi-tech startup that produces technology, but as a business solely dependent on web technology, it is more tech than many others. PS My grandpa uses gmail and Skype but can’t get blogs. Your gran should give him a lesson! :)
@Evgenia Grinblo It is a social reality indeed. But not one constructed and maintained by (all those evil) men. Gender inequality (in our Western societies) is maintained just as much by women themselves, as it is by men.
I don’t feel responsible for the lack of women in IT studies, nor do I for the lack of men in sociology studies. And therefore I don’t support quotas and I don’t want to be blamed or called shallow for the lack of women in certain fields.
More generally, I believe that if we want to take some of those preconceptions about gender (& sexuality, race & religion) away – we should simply stop talking about it.
Don’t ask stupid questions about gender, religion or sexuality when you’ve finally found a female / Muslim / gay entrepreneur. Do not force these people into some sort of spokesperson role for the minority they represent. They are not the minority. They are individuals and should be treated as such, so we (the public) start seeing them as such.
In your case, yes, you will be seen as ‘the first female’ and ‘the female of the office’ and ‘the female in tech’ etc. Right now, it is more about who you represent (women) than who you are (you). You’ll probably have to prove yourself more than a guy would, had they hired one in your place instead. That’s just the burden minorities experience everywhere. If I would become a nurse, and be the first male on an all female floor, I’ll probably have to prove myself first too, before I’ll be accepted as an equal.
At least, that’s what I think :-).
I don’t think Poppy should be made to represent all women in the carid tech industry (or in business in general). Just because she doesn’t fit the mold of either what we think women in tech should be or what we think they are currently doesn’t mean it isn’t a good business. It just is what it is.