 |
| Giants of the Internet Panel Photo by @LauraSchne |
It was an interesting experience for me, listening to the conversation between two giant social networkers: Google and Global Voices, make allusion to women representation.
“The
question on women representation in many conferences is useful but in this
conference it is not so useful.” Said Rebecca Mackinnon, vociferously to Bob
Boorstin from Google, moments after he made an introductory remark which drew
the attention of us all, over 300 gathered at the 6th Global Voices Summit 2012 in
Nairobi on 02 July, that the panel:
“Giants of the Internet: What role and responsibility” had a 0% women representation.
Rebecca
Mackinon and Zuckerman co-founded Global Voices, GV, in 2005. Since, this international
community of bloggers and citizen journalists have continue to report and blog
from around the world on topical issues.
That notwithstanding, bringing women’s voices on board remain a concern
as well.
 |
| tweet conversation btwn Judith and Me during GV 2012 |
Nevertheless,
before Bob’s panel discussion remark, on which were: Ivan Sigal (Global
Voices), Ramzi Jaber (OnlineCensorship.org), Max Schrems (Europe vs. Facebook),
I had begun conversation on one-on-one with a few GV and panelist, asking
questions to panelists to commend on women position and their influence within the blogosphere and
social [new] media.
This Archipp
Yepmou from Internet Sans Frontiére shared his most recent experience during an
ICT-Blogging seminar training which took place somewhere in Chad/Cameroon boarders where he
noticed that in the forum, women were absent. While the women present, he added,
“were those organizing the event”.
Judith
Gunter, in addition, also observed further that throughout the panel discussions,
on “how do small African Nations Grab the
World’s Attention?” she co-moderates, there was only one feminine example;
Helena Ferro Gouveia, a Guinea Bissau Journalist who now lives in Bonn,
Germany.
It is
however no doubt that women visibility in the online networks is often
overlooked. And even for those women users with more than a million followers
like Oprah, Lady Gaga, GenevieveNnaji, Omotola, and Martha Karua are still not
recognized.
Women and Technology
During the
Global Voices Summit, Reneta Avila and I suggested to lead a session on “Women
and Technology”. And as part of the session activities, we asked participants
to name at least a woman who is visible in the technology realm. The exercise
was quite stressful, participants say. “It was very difficult to remember these
women”.
“Many
female friends in Bolivia are programmers, software developers but kind of
invisible” said a contributor for Rising Voice, Bolivia.
The truth
is – women use the social (new) media and just the way men do. And it is also
no news that many women continue to find empowerment through technology, which
to some extent has influenced and achieved greater impact in their community
and enterprise, yet the paradox is that these feminine networkers remain
invisible as social actors in the mainstream media and technology sectors.
Understanding
the big question ‘why women are technologically invisible’, one participant
asked: How many of us are writing and quoting our sources but including women.
This however concurs with one of Judith Gunter tweets, ( responding to my
question on GlobalVoices approach to get more feminine bloggers on board having
listened to Archipp experienced) where
she said: @ZoFem @EthanZ Interestingly,
many GV bloggers covering the African countries in question are women. But our
sources are men.Clearly, as bloggers, we need to use our writings to make women visible. We also need to include feminine sources in our search, interviews and research. And should also balance “the twitter gender, we quote the most?” And also to always expose our agenda through mainstream media.
__________________________________________________________
more about Global Voices Summit 2012 on twitter: #gv2012 ; Global Voices Summit Blog GV summit photos on Flickr , Kenyan TV
What an argument. It is hard to differ.
ReplyDelete