of design, recognition, and the W-word
7.12.2004
Discussions like this: Stopdesign | Women, Part II make me break out in a rash. Not because I don't think it's a valid topic, but simply because they tend to elicit a lot of blanket conjectures about the abilities and propensities of women. Unless you're a women's studies researcher with plenty of hard statistics to back your statements, I don't want to hear your generalities. Maybe not even then. Statements about women (or men, or border collies) in general can always be (and should be) countered by individual exceptions. Some women are good coders. Some men like to make things look pretty. Some women are math wizards. Some men really like toile. Blah blah blah.
For what it's worth, Doug Bowman has my sympathy. I don't think he's sexist. He's a person who invited some other people he knew to join him on a project. I think it's possible, even probable, that at the time he selected designers for the Blogger templates, he didn't consider that people might want to see those designers as a representative sampling of the standards-aware. I don't think he was trying to make the Blogger team a Who's Who. He was a person with a deadline. Everyone has a "go-to" list for crunch time, and he went to his.
In my opinion, the issue of the prominence of women in Web design has mostly to do with this: fame begets fame. Lots of people link to a few popular sites, which often link to each other, too, which is why Molly Holzschlag and Holly Bergevin are at least as familiar to me as Dan Cederholm and Eric Meyer. Want some recognition? Write some articles or post some tutorials that are as useful as the content these people regularly come up with. C'mon, even the Neil Young of CSS feels a little unappreciated sometimes.
