Where are the Women?

In writing my article on the top personalities in VRML, I was struck by how very few women were in leading roles in the community. Yes, there are women in upper management, such as Construct President Lisa Goldman and Planet 9 Creative Director Robin Meyer, and highly visible women like Kate Seekings of Microsoft and Linda Jacobson of VeRGE. But there are even fewer, like Intervista’s Barb Singer, who have a strong technical background.

I have been given various explanations for this. Until recently, few women were interested in such technical subjects as 3-D animation, graphics and networking, as evidenced by their past low enrollment in university courses on the subjects. Furthermore, there are some studies that suggest that men are able to visualize objects moving in three dimensional space with greater ease than women. Additionally, popular belief tells us that women are less likely to enter new, highly specialized fields; whether or not this is true, it may serve as self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps women away.

I, however, do not see any explanation for the dearth of women in our field except for plain, old-fashioned sexism, whether it takes the form of a man not hiring a woman because he thinks, however consciously, that she is inferior, or a woman not attempting to do something she is interested in because she has internalized society’s prevailing gender role limits.

So I therefore encourage any woman interested in this business: This is a new field, and therefore, opportunity abounds. Create a niche for yourself. This profession needs you in order to succeed. Otherwise, we will be left with, as one professional put it, a bunch of geeks making geeky worlds.

And I implore men to avoid discrimination. If you are in a position to hire, hire the best candidate for the job, regardless of the person’s gender.

So far, the VRML community has been a highly effective, rapidly evolving organism that recognizes its internal problems and fixes them. But we have merely focused on the technical. It is now time to deal with the personal.

John Gluck
Editor - VRMLSite
editor@vrmlsite.com