Anne Truitt Zelenka

Why do we have to divide everything up by gender? His and hers, boy and girl, female and unfemale. It gets tiresome. There are so many personal qualities more important than gender in determining how you act and what you might accomplish. Like, are you an extrovert or an introvert? Are you good with words, with things, or maybe with both? Would you rather learn karate or ballet or perhaps you’d prefer a team sport? Sure, you might see statistical differences between genders on a range of characteristics. But this time around, the revolution is about individuals in all their uniqueness and glory of the long tail. So this time around, gender doesn’t matter.

Then why did I spend this weekend putting together women-only OPML files? Why am I signed up for a women’s blogging conference? Why do I call out “women in computing” as one of three main topics this blog is about? Why am I one of two contributing editors for Technology & Web on the new BlogHer site? For someone who believes we focus too much on gender, I sure do flap my blogging fingers about it a lot. Why?

Because for all our numbers and our talents, we still get overlooked. Because for many of us, working in technology is alternately joyful and painful. And because the question “where are the women” reverberates across the Web with disturbing regularity.

I have a sticky note on my computer that says, “what do you want to contribute?” That’s a question posed by Peter Drucker as an alternative to “what do you want to get out of life?” What I want to contribute is to share the excitement and power of technology with those who might not otherwise experience them, especially girls and women.

I’m not sure I’ve figured out the best way to do that. I’m uncomfortable with perpetuating a focus on gender as a defining characteristic in how people greet the world when I want people to judge me and other people on our talents and contributions, not through a gender lens. But in my experience, gender strongly influences how the world meets a person. As Jeaneane Sessums says, in response to the idea that BlogHer perpetuates differential treatment of women:

That differentiation’s been done for us. That same argument that we should blur the lines is used by some of my least favorite people when it comes to race, as though the race card’s “being played” — notice the PASSIVE VOICE — when in fact, it’s DONE BEEN played.

Yes, the card’s done been played, but the game’s still going. I’m not sure that my current game strategy is the right one, but I’m having fun and meeting smart people.

I don’t want to be known as that chick blogger who writes about chick bloggers all the time. (Don’t worry, Adam and I are cool with each other on the chick thing.) But you know what? It’s not all about my own personal desires. As much as I think Web 2.0 is about individuals, I believe in the M2Y thing more. That’s Me 2 You, me making a difference in your life and you making one in mine. It’s not about me all by myself or you all by yourself.

Today or tomorrow, when I can see the BlogHer site again—it’s a little wonky this morning—I’ll give some pointers for finding what you might be interested in there. The site covers so many topics and has so many great people involved that it can be a bit overwhelming. So I’ll point to some feeds that let you follow particular categories or bloggers. I also hope to have a couple reading lists available listing women tech bloggers in particular categories, my second cut at an OPML answer to “where are the women in tech blogging?”