The past week I have been casting my eye around for potential speakers for the first Girl Geek Dinner in Leeds. As discussed before at Girl Geekdom the visibility of women within the technology industry time and again leaves myself and others asking, ‘Where are all the successful women with a vantage in new media?’
From my own position as a self-proclaimed Geek Chic and social technology strategist, geeky events such as Apple’s recent WWDC highlight that the world of technology remains a testerone – based roll out.
Hmm it’s like a game of ‘where’s Wally?’ And no commentators before you start i’m not implying that Girl Geeks are ‘Wally’ affiliated. BUT it is striking how by comparative numbers Girl Geeks are rarely visible at such events. Especially in ways that would allow us to accurately represent ourselves, our images and our ideas.
Which leads me nicely onto Jarkko Laine’s post ‘NxE’s Fifty most influential ‘female’ bloggers‘. Brilliant, there is a formidible force of at least fifty of us ‘out there’. One query Laine, why the ‘female’ in quotation marks?…
Is Laine drawing attention to the label female per se? (which seems odd given the context of the blog). Is this a typo?
Or perhaps Laine is just being deliberately suggestive.
?
Laine also makes the case that ‘blogging can seem like a boys’ club‘. And so it appears that the rise and popularity of the Girl Geek is being noted. BUT only when she has created her own place amongst the male host of mainstream media.
The NY Times February article Sorry, Boys, This Is Our Domain, argues that the youngest Internet users and the primary creators of Web content are the ‘digitally effusive teenage girls’. Great. Until I realised I had been reading Fashion&Style. So Girl Geeks are visible, but only in a fashion context sweetie darling.
As Karl Martino makes the point on his blog Paradox1x: ‘Not Business. Not Technology’.
And certainly not in the most recent issue of Wired, one has to go back to the year 2000 for even a Girl Geek mention. The ironically titled ‘Girl Geeks want to be heard‘.
And so as Girl Geeks we’re back to ‘not’ again. And I still need to find speakers for a north east based Girl Geek Dinner.
Onwards and upwards…
About Dr Mariann Hardey
I hold the position of Lecturer in Social Media Marketing at Durham Business School. I also spend too much time enjoying social technologies, media+ stuff. That'll make me a Geek then. And a gal.
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