Women on the Web

Have you ever read an article or blog post on the internet and assumed a man wrote it, only to find out later it was written by a woman? I’m guilty of doing this on more than one occasion. Despite major steps forward in gender equality, as a society we still have entrenched biases that we’ve carried over to the online medium.

This weekend I attended South By Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas and had the pleasure of listening to a panel discussion called “Increasing Women's Visibility on the Web: Whose Butt Should We Be Kicking?” The panel — organized by BlogHer, moderated by Ayse Erginer, and featuring Virginia DeBolt, Tara Hunt, Jan Kabili, and Liz Henry — discussed how to give women a higher profile online and in the tech world.

Ideas from the panelists and audience included encouraging women bloggers to join established blog networks, tagging content with characteristics of the author like gender or race so it’s easier to find content written by minorities, and having established authors mentor developing authors by inviting them to be guest bloggers on their higher traffic website.

For me, the talk really brought home the power of website like ClubMom and got me energized about the projects we’re currently working on. The collective power of a network of moms who read each other's work and encourage one another is not something to be dismissed or taken lightly. By bringing together women online, we have the potential to do something really big, subvert some gender-based biases, and help make the internet a land of equality for all.