WOMEN ONLINE

In August and September of '94, Kishore Bhargava and I were on tour around the country holding seminars on datacommunications. Though we expected (and got) a lot of questions from the 450+ people who attended the seminars, one question really stumped us:

"Why aren't there more women online?"

This was a rather embarrassing question - Kishore and I usually had to look at each other and shrug our shoulders. Being men, it was almost impossible for us to supply an answer to this one without sounding flippant or confirmed MCPs.

The plot thickened on reaching Delhi, when a member of Kishore's ECTCnet BBS, asked the same question - online.

Time to do some serious thinking.

Have I the right...?

Traditionally, any field is initially dominated by the people who first spawn and nurture it. Now no one is saying that Cyberspace is a male invention - God knows that women played an equally important role in the development of the online community.

Then why is it that everyone assumes that Cyberspace is a male domain? Why do even women pre-assume this and stay away?

Now that I have had some time to think about it, maybe I can come up with some answers. I hope that I have it right. I am not exactly qualified to handle a subject of this sort since I am male, but I hope that I spark off discussions that will reveal more.

The male ego

The first answer fairly leaped out at me when I saw some responses to the question - from guys who seemed to represent the average online male - "...such a discussion leads nowhere...", "...pointless...", "...have kitty parties...", etc.

The male ego rearing its head.

I am all for superiority - but not a gender war. Superiority of humans over, say, worms - yes. Superiority over other members of the race - no! What I was seeing here were males clearly stating that they consider women online as a waste of time. Sexist remarks flew thick and heavy. If you were the target of such ridicule, would you want to be online?

So there was the first answer. Online males consider online females as people who have nothing to contribute. And this, naturally, causes women to shy away.

Geeks

The next answer came out of the original question itself. She asked why everyone was discussing anything and everything about computers without paying attention to non-computing subjects.

Ouch! That hurt.

Being a "geek" (a computer fanatic), I naturally like to discuss computing issues. So do a whole lot of other people in the field. To be online, you need to use a computer, so the combination of our interests and the medium tends to ensure that the topic of discussion is computers.

Do women get upset with this? I don't think so. I have had technical "wars" and discussions with possibly thousands of people online. I never realised just how many of them were women. It is a provable fact that the percentage of women in a professional field tends to be extremely high in the computing field.

Then why is the "computer oriented discussion angle" so prominent in this context?

It seems to me that the problem is not just that of women. I could easily ask the question "why aren't there more doctors online?" or "why aren't there more writers online?" and arrive at the same conclusion - computer discussions can make someone shy away if she (or he!) feels that they aren't technically qualified to participate in the discussion.

This doesn't apply to women alone - men are equally scared of being ridiculed for asking a stupid question.

Here is the official Atul Chitnis definition of a stupid question: "A stupid question isn't one that lacks knowledge or content - a stupid question is one that isn't asked."

Once the hurdle of "getting active online" is crossed, things more or less fall into place. It is the "getting there" that is difficult. Which brings me back to the subject at hand.

Feeling at home

A common complaint from women is that no one takes them seriously. We all have heard jokes about "women drivers", seen sexist remarks, etc.

This attitude isn't the fault of women - men are the problem here. If someone has a natural "superior" attitude (I admit that I am one of these creatures), then it tends to show up in messages posted by such a person. A good example is the sort of response the lady with the question initially got to her questions.

If you want someone to interact with you, you must make that person WANT to interact with you, i.e. make him or her feel at home. "Shooting down" someone in a public forum will almost guarantee that the victim of your ridicule will stay away from future discussions.

Why should men feel "superior" in Cyberspace? For that matter, why should men feel superior at all - in any space?

In a recent issue of PC Quest, some egotistic reader wrote a letter that was supposed to prove that women are inferior in the computing field. Good grief! What a moron! His "research" was based on asking MEN - and naturally the answers he got were slanted towards the male gender. If he would have looked around he would have found that, especially here in India, the computer industry would COLLAPSE without women!

If women are so critical in the computer industry, then why do men think they can dominate the online world?

Listen up, my friend

Women have something to say to you. And you better listen. Many of my most critical insights in life came from discussions with women. Without their viewpoints, my own look at life would be completely one dimensional. Discussions with them have helped me resolve situations I couldn't have tackled otherwise.

And not because they are women. They are human, like everyone else I discuss with. Their HUMAN viewpoints were what was of value to me.

We men, with our misplaced attitude of male superiority, are effectively cutting out 50% of our intellectual resources. We are missing out on a lot of things. Women many times can see things that we don't - the term "female intuition" has a lot of merit to it. We lose access to that if we do not encourage them to speak up. And that is an awful price to pay. Keep out the women, and you are effectively shooting yourself in the foot.

What can we do?

The first thing to do is to think twice before you shoot down anyone in public. This doesn't apply to women alone, but is more critical here. If you need to make a remark you think you get away with because of the supposed male dominance in Cyberspace, write it down on a piece of paper first and then read it as if it was addressed to you. Would you still feel the same?

The next thing to do is reply to questions in a supporting (but NOT patronising) manner. Anyone who has ever been online knows the warm feeling of acceptance when someone replies to his message. It encourages him to ask more questions, join discussions, and begin answering queries himself. And the same applies to women.

Some BBSs in India have now begun slamming and even debarring male users who try to "be funny" at the expense of women. I know for a fact that such attitude is not encouraged on Kishore's ECTCnet (which is effectively run by his wife Jyoti and his sister Mala) and on my BBS (I would be skinned alive by my wife). Other BBSs are getting into the act, and it is a good thing.

ECTCnet, Primal Scream and my own BBS now also have areas that are "women only". These areas aren't meant to segregate women or to have any sort of apartheid. Instead, they are areas that will help women get started online, without having to worry about stupid male remarks. Once they are comfortable with online concepts, they feel more confident about venturing out into "mixed" forums - something we sysops very much encourage.

Parlez vous Anglais ?

She also pointed out another pretty elementary thing to me. When we "geeks" write messages, we use a language that sometimes cannot be understood by a person online for the first time. For example, I told someone that "I will send it to you as an attachment. When you read the message, you will be told that there is a binary attached, and you can download it." Now all this makes sense to a computer person comfortable with online terms, but to the average Joe or Jane Ramaswamy, who have come online looking for information about, say, good restaurants in Delhi or something as serious as child abuse, this seems to be complete nonsense.

Though many women use computers, they don't necessarily come online fully equipped with the jargon some of us use. Try using plain English for a change - if a person can understand you, he or she will probably stick around. If not - cul8r (see you later).....

Peekaboo!

One factor that is guaranteed to keep women away is the existance of so called "adult areas" - which are in reality male-oriented cheap-thrills areas. Recent articles in various magazines (even one Indian one) have unfortunately given the impression that Cyberspace is all about GIF pictures of scantily dressed ladies and steamy discussions. Naturally, women get the feeling that they have no place in such a world. If you are a sysop reading this and have such "adult" areas on your BBS in order to attract users, think again - you are scaring away 50% of your audience! Get rid of such areas and watch your user base double.

Non-Geek Discussions

As users, you carry an equally great responsibility. Sure, you may be primarily interested in computers, but please remember that not everyone is. The computer-oriented population of this planet is miniscule. Though many people use computers, they don't make them their life's focal point. A good example of this are the Sports or Music forums on ECTCnet, PCQO and CiX. Confirmed "geeks", who would discuss nothing but computers, suddenly were discussing things completely unrelated with computers! Take a pointer from that - there are more things to discuss than computers. A discussion about non-computer subjects is almost guaranteed to draw in massive and enjoyable participation from "normal" people. Women included.

Cyberspace isn't policed in any way. But it IS the Sysop's job to maintain law and order on the system. Don't be lax about it, even if you are an MCP. If you see a user saying something offensive about women, warn him immediately and remove the offending message. While this COULD be called censorship, I'd call it "weeding". If the user persists with his attitude, give him the chop, and inform your fellow sysops about it. The "nasty" guy will soon find himself persona non grata on every system in town.

Let you female users know that you care and appreciate their presence on your system, like it is with every other user. If you get complaints, react immediately, and hang the offender from the electronic castle wall as an example to others.

If you maintain areas accessible to women only, make sure that you verify a new female user by calling her up before granting access to such an area. You never know when somw slime is trying to be "cute" by saying he is female just to get into those areas.

This, then, seems to be an extremely painful rap across the knuckles for the sysops of the Cyberspace. If women aren't staying online, then we aren't doing our job - which is to make available a facility for the discussion of ANY subject under the sun, making available information about subjects NOT only related to computers. We are creating "elitist" worlds - a concept completely alien to the free world we are supposed to live in.

As I review the preceding paragraphs, I am getting the feeling that the problem of "women online" does not exist. The problem is really that of "humans online". People with interests other than computers, people with a wider perspective of life, people who have something to say and nowhere to say it. Give them a chance. After all, even you were human once....