Women in Web Design (Book)
I posted a review of one of the O’Reilly Head First books today. Like all the other HF books, it is quirky and fun and fairly easy to read.
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Head First Web Design
Image courtesy O’Reilly[/caption]
But as I was skimming it in my final scan before writing up my review, I realized one thing that startled me:
There was only one woman photo in the entire book (okay, perhaps there were two…).
This is particularly surprising to me because web design is one of the few programming areas that has a higher proportion of women than other jobs in the field.
My question is this, should I let it affect my review? I mentioned this apparent disconnect in my review, but I didn’t let it affect my star rating (5 stars).
So, I decided to flip through it again. This time, from the back of the book forward, and I did see more women in the back of the book. But the front really is male-centered. Every group photo in the front has a group of men.
But the photo that really made me start thinking about this was on page 110. The title of that page is “Design is about audience” and it has a group of seven people on the page. Apparently, the authors see their book audience as being primarily young white guys. This photo has five 20–30 year old white guys, one indian guy, and a black woman. It just bugged me because it seemed to me like a 20-something white guy’s idea of “diversity.”
Of course, it didn’t help that the front cover guy put me off completely from the first time I saw it. I guess that’s the answer to my question.