Rather belatedly, I read the Business Week article about Web 2.0 companies that featured Kevin Rose from Digg.com and various other young entrepreneurs. A sidebar in the article was called “Valley Boys,” and featured a bunch of up-and-coming tech companies (including BitTorrent, Facebook, and LiveJournal) run by BOYS. No girls allowed. Who cares if people like Mary Hodder (Dabble) and Di-ann Eisnor (Platial) are raising good chunks of VC and angel money for their cool Web 2.0 companies? They aren’t BOYS. The worst part was that in a couple of the pictures of the “valley boys” they had women’s bodies in the images as eye candy. My favorite (pictured above) is of Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, staring at the rack on a headless chick. WTF?
It’s so frustrating to be reading an article about a tech space that I’m actually interested in, and discover that the people covering the space are so frakkin clueless that they couldn’t even be bothered to take the “no girls allowed” sign off their clubhouse. Wake up, dorks. There are women in the tech industry, including entrepreneurs and VCs, and they are not amused.
Valley Boys [Business Week]
It is a bit depressing, isn’t it? Having been a geek-grrl since the early 1990’s, and having cut my teeth with the best o’ them, it’s hard to believe that folks are still filtering what matters, according to the SOS.
I read this article and see nothing wrong with it. BusinessWeek and all those business magazines often have specials on successful women, so what’s wrong with a section with some guys? I think you have a double standard.
And I also don’t agree with your observation from the photos. First, only one of the photos has a female and I also wouldn’t assume that Mark Zuckerberg is “staring at the rack on a headless chick” — how do you know he’s not looking her in the eyes?