women

The men -- and some women -- of Web 2.0. Keynote audience.

In several places, the Web 2.0 Expo< at Moscone West (April 15-18, San Francisco) blurred the line between the ethereal online community and actual communities of the world in which we live:

Most hearteningly, the line blurred when Architecture for Humanity talked about applying “Web 2.0 principles” in responding with housing to communities in need during times of crisis.
Most uncomfortably, the line was blurred when tragedy hit Virginia between Sunday night’s Excite presentation of “K’Nex Guns” (“What are 14-year-old boys excited about? Weapons!”) and Wednesday morning’s recap of K’Nex Guns.
And most dishearteningly for me, the line was blurred when Jay Bhatti introduced O’Reilly darling Spock to the audience during Monday morning’s multiple-thousands-packed keynote session.

See Shuba’s report, reprinted on watchyourmouth, for a description of what happened next:

Right after the keynote, there was a Launch Pad session where 3 new start-ups launched their product officially in front of the audience. One of the products was a new search engine that can be used to search for people: http://www.spock.com

The founder and CEO Jay Bhatti made a very compelling pitch that had me raring to give the site a whirl until he stuck his foot in his mouth. The first search he demonstrated for the audience was for “bloggers”. For the next search, he said he wanted to make it more interesting, and asked the audience (mixed audience, 16,000+ mostly tech. crowd) whether they would like to search for Swimsuit illustrated models or for Victoria’s secret models!! Folks in the front voted for VS it seems, so he went ahead and used his search engine to pull up Victoria’s Secret models on the multiple big screens for the crowd. The women standing next to me were disgusted, and walked out literally calling him an idiot.

The point: All representations of results in the demo were men (all geeky techie bloggers and the like) UNTIL he pulled that punch. I had already been perceiving a gender imbalance at the conference and in the keynote audience. I had also been in some disarray by the time I arrived at the Expo. Community was on my mind.

Earlier that morning, after dropping my daughter off at school, I had walked through the Tenderloin (on Golden Gate Avenue – such a promising name) towards Moscone West. During that walk through part of what I consider my community, I stepped over and around sleeping or sick people, jumped over rivers of urine, was offered drugs, asked for drugs, and surrounded by clouds of pot, and felt simultaneously ashamed and humiliated that with all of our collective resources, this is the best community some of us ever get. And these are familiar feelings to many of us.

What I didn’t expect was that my odyssey of community-related feeling would continue throughout my conference attendance at the Web 2.0 Expo, and I didn’t predict that I would wind up feeling saddened as a woman in technology as a result of the Expo.

The women of Spock

As the Expo continued multiple-day run, I continued to note that women were vastly outnumbered by men (1:10 in most sessions – and of course there were exceptions – in both directions). Women were not represented in any of the Launch Pad companies, and were poorly represented as speakers. Kathy Sierra was supposed to be there – and is still not able to continue with her speaking engagements. Anyone who is familiar with her story will understand how poignantly related this is. Kathy was relegated by our Web 2.0 community back into the pre-1960s – or is it ahead into the 2010’s?

It might have seemed like a fleeting moment on stage and a “what’s the big deal” for many, but Jay Bhatti reinforced exactly that stereotype. Judging by Jay’s personal posse at Spock, the split in the blogosphere, and the defensiveness of some of the company’s response, I can only assume that Spock and its users will continue to reflect those same values as their community and their search results grow.

One interesting thing “Web 2.0” does offer is a measure of appearance anonymity. Ironically, Spock (and its blurred lines, in turn, between “people search” and “image search”) will serve to strip this away. Mr. Bhatti has indeed assimilated into the community – another by now with which I’m uncomfortably familiar – of (for lack of a better term) “frat boys online who rule the Web 2.0 capital.” Conversely, the women whose images Spock serves will not assimilate as easily – or at least anonymize. Or, perhaps the role to which models are relegated are assimilation enough for Spock.

Tim O’Reilly, for his part, has been even-handed in fielding the blogosphere and Spock itself, for their part, (was it the letters sent by Systers to their VCs?) has cleaned up their Web site of some of its trash, posted an apology (of sorts) to their About page, and continues to try to do (somewhat weak) damage control, the likes of “I’m sorry if we offended you…” A collection of committed people were instrumental in getting Spock to change their behavior – but probably not their minds. The demo (or some would say clever marketing ploy) achieved measures of success both for Spock and for reinforcing a particular image (or lack thereof) of women in technology.

On my way home that evening, I took Ellis Street this time to pick up my daughter. I walked past the long line of people waiting for a bed for the night at Glide Memorial. I wondered what difference any Web 2.0 was going to make for this offline community, while simultaneously feeling like the communities are nothing unless they serve the people who need them the most. My daughter is fortunate: She does not need it the most. But after that day’s regression in gender equality, I wondered.

Ultimately, today’s “search results” are oh-so-fleeting in the great scheme of things and many certainly already wonder what all the fuss is about. But true communities take a long time to build and involve – I believe – trust, compassion, safety, and common goals. In the end, I want these three things:

I want, most profoundly, a community in which my daughter can grow up to be anything she wants
Actually, I want community in which anyone can grow up to be anything they want
And above all, I want a community for people to grow up into in the first place

Spock will be long gone, but let’s hope this unfortunate incident helps Web 2.0 continue its trend towards helping the real communities in need in which we all live, so that the brightest future is ahead for all.

At least the men's room is evolved

women

yesterday, leanne and i went to the mayor’s summit for women at the moscone center and heard an impressive lineup of women speak. very little said directly about breast cancer, though molly ivins herself is a survivor. health care and child care, confusion about hormones, being a leader and being a mother, and running for office were all emphasized. the war continues to disrupt the world, and most made passing but not pointed reference to it – except for maxine waters. i like leanne’s post to noend about it so much that i’m just going to reproduce it here:

yesterday i went to moscone with my gf moya for the mayor's summit for women and felt overwhelmingly humanized.


not being a very big fan of willie, myself, i was impressed that all these kickass speakers consider him to be one of their good friends -- ann richards, molly ivins, marian wright edelman, jocelyn elders, patricia ireland, oral lee brown, maxine waters, and others gave fiery impassioned speeches and sometimes modest accounts of some of the really inspiring things they've done (oral lee brown adopted a class in a poor school in oakland and has helped them all graduate from high school and college and some have gone on to grad school)
maxine waters talked (that seems like too soft of a word -- she was ablaze) about what a warhog george bush is and how the new tax cuts he is proposing will kill head start and other programs that help children -- particularly poor children ... and someone else mentioned that dietrich bonhoefer's test of the morality of a society is in how they treat their children and the u.s. fails that test appallingly easily.
several of the speakers mentioned how the u.s. does not provide healthcare or decent education to most poor children but is happy to lock them up in jail (where they can get healthcare) when they become an errant teenager.
marian wright edelman (founder of children's defense fund and author of a few books) was particularly smart and passionate while she sailed and pounded through statistics about poverty and children and the devastating effects on children and adults and our society.  i wish i could invite her to dinner.
about 4000 women were there.  the food was just awful.  the demographics were refreshingly different from most (tech) conferences that i go to.  yesterday there were mostly women -- and a pretty equal mix of black, asian, white, hispanic, latino ...
there was a most excellent war protest out front in the morning and then a 'save our neighborhood schools -- don't ship our children out of the neighborhood' coalition in the late afternoon.
ann richards rocks.  she told stories and jokes and gave health advice and political advice and bemoaned the current state of the u.s.
molly ivins surprised me by spending her entire speech encouraging women to run for public office and get involved in politics and pass campaign finance reforms (i thought she'd tell funny stories and jokes about bush).  she seemed a bit weary and tired of the current state of the u.s. and the world.
i was surprised that catholic healthcare -- who i've heard doesn't allow abortions and takes over hmo's and limits access to birth control -- was a major sponsor when most of the speakers were pro-choice.
dr. jocelyn elders made me feel so good that my hands hurt from clapping.  i wish she was surgeon general instead of the doofus we currently have.
then i walked to work this morning to the peaceful rumble of my neighborhood without the roar of the fell street exit.  i know it's causing traffic hell for a lot of people, but, for me, it's bringing me closer to my community and neighborhood.
now i've gotta go home for the day .... here's to meeting and mingling with people we don't usually see in our daily lives.  i feel completely inspired.
leanne - skipping - to - from - hayes - valley - lower - haight

Moya Watson

Tag Archives for women

Web 2.0 and My Community: Personal Report