Copy pasted for convenience. Will delete later if it's distracting.
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The coverage of the Arrington kerfuffle provides some great examples of a form of structural bias against women that most people overlook. At this point about 65% of the posts I’ve linked to above are by women (31/47, I think). Here’s TechMeme’s summary of the debate:
five guys and Shira
16.6% women.
In a comment on Gender, race, age and power in online discussions, chapter n back in 2008, I talked about representation issues on Techmeme:
the majority of these blogs are generally what Susan C. Herring et. al. refer to in Women and children last: the discursive construction of Weblogs as “filter blogs”, commenting on external events, as opposed to “personal journals” or “knowledge blogs”; TechMeme’s technology is a natural for filter blogs, so it’s unsurprising that this leads to underrepresentation of women and youth.
It’s nice to have such a clear example!
At the risk of being pedantic,there are a couple of important lessons here:
- The “neutral” algorithms of sites like Techmeme, memeorandum, and mediagazer are in practice heavily biased against women, and so present yet another challenge for women in general — and women in technology, politics, and media in particular
- If you’re getting a large chunk of your news via Techmeme, you’re getting a very male view of reality
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The coverage of the Arrington kerfuffle provides some great examples of a form of structural bias against women that most people overlook. At this point about 65% of the posts I’ve linked to above are by women (31/47, I think). Here’s TechMeme’s summary of the debate:
five guys and Shira
16.6% women.
In a comment on Gender, race, age and power in online discussions, chapter n back in 2008, I talked about representation issues on Techmeme:
It’s nice to have such a clear example!At the risk of being pedantic,there are a couple of important lessons here:
- The “neutral” algorithms of sites like Techmeme, memeorandum, and mediagazer are in practice heavily biased against women, and so present yet another challenge for women in general — and women in technology, politics, and media in particular
- If you’re getting a large chunk of your news via Techmeme, you’re getting a very male view of reality