Let’s Eliminate Sexism in the Web Industry

My typical post center around sharing my knowledge and experience with other web professionals. This particular post will depart from the norm and cover the very important topic of diversity & respect in the web industry, specifically related to gender.

I recently attended the 200th episode of the Boagworld podcast. The podcast celebrated by spanning twelve hours with special guests; experts in their specific web-related field. As usual with the Boagworld podcast, there was plenty of banter, including a few music numbers and bad jokes, along with the valuable, motivating information. If you don’t listen to the podcast, I highly recommend it.

Special guests included industry leaders Rachel Andrew, Drew Mclellan, Elliot Jay Stocks, Jeremy Keith, Andy Clarke among others. A few guests I was not familiar with, including web copywriter Relly Annett Baker, web/UI designer Sarah Parmenter and web designer Inayaili de Leon. All participants added value and made the podcast an unbelievably smashing success. My lasting impression was of attending a premier web conference for the price of my Internet connection.

While the event was a success, it was also bittersweet. Along with the valuable discussion in the video stream, the supportive chat room contained some disrespectful discussions, pertaining to the appearance of female guests and their credentials to be on the show. It was a distraction from an otherwise wonderful event.

Why? Why did it have to happen? Some say that the disrespectful commentators were likely not web folks, but “thugs” looking for an opportunity to destroy something good. Others think the motivation was jealousy. Whatever the case, as Rachael Andrew stated in her blog post, “We, as a community, need to stamp out this attitude whenever we see it.” Paul Boag, while happy with the overall podcast, was enraged by the behavior (watch a video of Paul’s response).

As upset as I was by this behavior, I believe something very good can come out of this. In the most recent web design survey by A List Apart, only 16% of web professionals responding to the survey were female. This is simply outrageous. And how can we expect an increase in diversity and richness if this type of prejudicial behavior is tolerated.

So let’s make 2010 the year where female web professionals are promoted, highlighted and most importantly, respected for their talent, skill and experience, and not treated like a piece of meat.

Note: Segments of the live, streamed show will be distributed in bite-size chunks over the coming months. A one-hour special will also be packaged up for the show Friday, Feb. 19th. Photos from the podcast can be found here and here.