Masthead CMC Magazine / February 1, 1996
Reach the Unique... Sponsor CMC Magazine  The Electronic Colonization of the Pacific, by Spennemann, Birckhead, Green, and Atkinson

Domination of the Web by Males

There is a clear domination of the Web by a small group of professional males. This issue is of concern to equal-opportunity professionals across the world, as numerous studies have shown that computer ownership and computer use is predominantly male and that the level of online access and use follows a similar pattern. A literature review by Spennemann (1995a) has shown that the data of a number of sources confirm this fact: about 10% of those publishing on the Web in 1994 were women, however this figure stood at about 15-19% in late 1995, with women's membership/access growing a rate outpacing that of men. There is, however, considerable variation between Europe and the United States, with fewer European women accessing publishing on the Net. O'Reilly and Associates surveyed Internet users (rather than publishers) in early 1995 (O'Reilly & Associates 1995). Of these, 34% were female and 66% were male (n=1,000). --


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