Is There a "Web 2.0" Gap, Akin To The Pay Gap?

Penelope Trunk makes an observation and asks a very enlightened question:

"Instead of worrying about the wage gap let's worry about the Web 2.0 gap. The second round of the Internet revolution is being run largely by men. In fact, as tech companies need less and less marketing, the usual spots for women in tech companies are disappearing. And as the barrier to entry gets lower and lower, and founders get younger and younger, the hours people put in to start a company verge on 100 percent of waking time, something that women seem to be just plain not interested in doing.

I am not sure what should be done about the Web 2.0 gap. I have a feeling that it ends up getting more and more male-centric -- just like video games. For example, most blogs are aimed at technical types. (Something we might be able to overcome.) Yet the most prominent blog ranking site, Technorati, ranks blogs based on how many people link to them. So a blog catering to people who don't blog themselves would be ranked lower in the blogosphere. The subtle burying of women's voices online.

I'm not sure if it's a big deal or not. But I am definitely sure the time gap and the Web 2.0 gap are having more impact on the business opportunities women see than that statistically irrelevant pay gap is. It's just that the mainstream media is accustomed to writing about pay gap, and not about who is playing poker with the founders of Digg and who is playing Xbox with the founders of Reddit."

Interesting perspective. (I'm still mulling this over and need to check some of the assertions above before buying in wholesale, but this sounds plausible at first blush.)  Your thoughts?

Comments

[Ed McLean (www.SalesItch.com)]

I think there are some fair points there. Certainly, as a side point, ranking blogs by the number of links they have certainly does mean that technical (predominantly male) subject blogs will get more links and hence higher rankings. I run SalesItch.com, a sales related blog with a generally non-technical audience. I get good stats and a fair number of readers, but there are aren't anywhere near as many sales related sites/bloggers out there to raise the blog to the level of the technical ones.

I am, by the way, male (that's "Edward", not "Edwina" ;-)