Podcasting: Where Are the Women?
A recent Wired article focuses on the seeming absence of women in podcasting. At the Portable Media Expo, 85% of the 2,000 attendees were male.
It turns out even the president of Women in Technology International, which had a booth at the show, is a man. David Leighton said his mother founded the group, and he has since taken over.Leighton said he believes the male skew is largely due to the newness of the medium and the fact that many of the most popular podcasts focus on, uh, podcasting.
"Any of these new, cool mediums tend to attract guys at first," he said. "Right now, it's technology for technology's sake. Once we see more practical uses, we'll start seeing more women. It was that way with the internet and e-mail usage, too."
Safety concerns may also play a role, since podcasting is less anonymous than a website can be. One female-run podcast stopped production after receiving threats from a male stalker.
--> "Women Warm the Podcast Bench", Steve Frieiss, Wired, November 16, 2005, http://www.wired.com/news/culture/ 0,1284,69583,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2