What not to do when meeting a pretty female web designer
Careful! This post is looking a little old and could be inaccurate in many, many ways
Yesterday was the Boagworld 200th episode and I managed to tune into some of it but missed parts here and there due to work. For those unaware of Boadworld it’s a weekly podcast for webbies and on their 200th episode they made it a big occasion by holding a live, visual, 12 hour marathon.
Due to work I had the video screen right in the bottom corner of my screen with the chat channel hidden which I’m glad of as it seems that when any female members of our community appeared the chat channel regressed to a forum of sexist and offensive comments about the females in question. As Rachel Andrew mentions some comments went as far as to say that these women’s appearance on the show was due to their good looks alone.
Dickheads!
I’ve previously written about women in the web and how certain groups segregate themselves from the wider community due to sexism in our industry. At the time I disagreed with the idea of them setting things up aimed primarily at women because I felt if anything it fed the divide and didn’t solve the issue of attracting more women in the industry. I still stand by those views but it does appear that my view of an accepting community wasn’t correct in all instances.
Sarah Parmenter also commented about how people mentioned she was only breaking into the conference set due to her good looks. I’m not going to disagree that Sarah is an attractive woman and certainly gets her noticed by the males in our industry but is she did crap work too then her looks would not be enough to get her appearances at conferences or Boagworld. It’s more likely her good looks where a disadvantage when first starting out in this industry, forcing her to work even harder.
Shut up if you want more women
It’s fair to say almost all men would like more women to join our industry, even if it’s just someone to flirt with but being so obviously offensive sure doesn’t help the cause.
Of course men will be men but most of us have managed to engage our brains and understand when to keep our mouths shut as well as get enough experience and maturity to understand the difference between success due to looks and success due to hard work.
Luckily I think the women in question are intelligent enough to know that the views of the few in the chat room were not an reflection of our community as a whole, or at least I hope it isn’t otherwise we’re all screwed.