April 2nd, 2007
Women where at thou?
Posted by
Ory Okolloh in
My random observations, TED
Several of my virtual and real buddies have received scholarships to attend TED Arusha. So far, all the receipients that I know are male…a trend similar to the Blogging Indaba last year… and I’m curious to know whether there are any women out there who’ve applied for/ received a scholarship to TED. Please leave a comment if so.
Incidentally, the very successful first BarCamp Kenya (congrats Riyaz et. al), appears to very male-dominated, even accounting for the subject matter…no fault of the organizers, because word was put out and everyone encouraged to attend or volunteer to present etc…so again I wonder where are the women?
Popularity: 17% [?]
on April 2nd, 2007 at 21:46
[...] nya, Tanzania, Gender, Technology Global Roundups Kenyan Pundit asks, “Women, where are thou?”: Several of my virtual and real buddies have received scholarships to att [...]
on April 2nd, 2007 at 22:02
I.T and I.T related matters tend to be male dominated so this turn out is nothing exceptional really.
on April 3rd, 2007 at 2:30
From the female bloggers I know (have met) there are some serious tech-oriented ones . However they seem to drift in-n-out of blogging (not consistent) which may keep them out of award/scholarship picture. Personaly, I’m sure if AfroM was around she would be representing at all events
on April 3rd, 2007 at 2:55
I’ve kind of wondered the same thing. A lot of these events are open, and quite frankly, I imagine many organizers would love to have more women attend and speak. Is it just a matter of pure numbers?
on April 3rd, 2007 at 10:31
@ Aco: The blogging indaba was not really I.T related it was a blogging event and KBW has not shortage of female bloggers, and TED is rather broad so I’m not sure that explains everything.
on April 3rd, 2007 at 11:39
@ Kenyan Pundit
Well in that case I would say that Bankele’s comments somes up matters really well. Women are well represented in KBW but do drift in and out, so that makes the men who are more committed seem like a far larger number.
on April 3rd, 2007 at 20:32
@acolyte…..drifting in and out = lack of commitment?
Hardly
But excellent points you raised.
on April 4th, 2007 at 2:12
It really is not surprising. Most meetings (non-IT) Kenyan women are involved in planning but don’t step up in the limelight. How many weddings would happen without the wedding planning comittee? Who does the work? Who then choses to step back in the shadows? I would also think the shrinking away from KBW was because of the male backlash to some of the women. It is unfortunate,
on April 4th, 2007 at 12:35
@ Amused, I don’t think there were any women even involved with planning Bar Camp. Interesting theory about the KBW backlash, maybe it’s led to limited offline participation.
on April 6th, 2007 at 6:16
Perhaps an illustrative incident makes the point. I noticed on the photographs from Kimunya’s visit to the States that women seemed mostly absent as speakers and panelists. On the other hand, the photos depicting serving food were overwhelmingly populated by women. It is structural, in part. That we continue to enact it is tragic.
on April 6th, 2007 at 15:55
I noticed the dearth of female tech representation as well. I see it as an opportunity to open up the blog arena and IT conferencing schedule to women in a larger way. I work with an American lady here who is an English PhD and IT Technologist with finesse. I am learning much from her.
on April 12th, 2007 at 12:59
On women in IT, I was at a bank this week where half the IT managers were women. So there are women who are seriously committed in IT, unforunately blogging is not seen as being worthy of a full-time commitment perhaps.