Gender Bias In Internet Marketing Industry – StomperNet

Recently I heard some grumbling and insinuations about StomperNet having a gender bias against women. I really didn’t pay a lot of attention to it, however I did remark to Brent when I saw the first Net Effects. I noticed that there were no women in the picture and the first thing I said was what a big PR mistake they had just made. And then today I read the post on Lynn Terry’s blog titled StomperNet Responds.

I guess I was right. For StomperNet it was a PR faux paux extraordinaire but was it anything more than that?

I really don’t think so.

First, let me give you a little background. StomperNet recently did a HUGE give-away of their Stomping The Search Engines 2 program (which is excellent BTW) if you signed up for their new monthly magazine Net Effect. They also gave away the first issue along with something like SIXTEEN bonus items. Well…the picture on the cover of the inaugural issue was a picture of the StomperNet staff…all men. And every bonus that was offered from their circle of “internet marketing guru friends” was from male-owned companies.

So now you can probably imagine the comments on blogs and Twitter, etc. According to a response on Lynn’s blog from Andy Jenkins of StomperNet, people got really nasty and down right mean.

Okay, I can understand, as you can see what some people were thinking.

Call me easy-going, call me naive, call me what you want, but I’ve been around for a long time (I’m a boomer you know) and I don’t think what some people are saying (discrimination, shutting out women, etc.) is what happened at all. I just think men in general are wired differently than women. When it comes business, or anything competitive for that matter, men approach the subject with everything they can muster. They go after the challenge to conquer it. Women tend to examine and approach things on their own terms thus are slower to conquer. Men can give their all to more than one thing, where women tend to divide themselves. And because the internet marketing industry is really rather new, women just haven’t caught up to the men in terms of concurring the industry. And as a woman, I think that’s just fine.

I’ll conquer internet marketing when I’m ready to conquer internet marketing and “the men” won’t hold me back. In fact, if anyone holds me back, it’ll be ME.

On a less general note, I think the guys at StomperNet just got so damn excited about what they were doing, they didn’t even think about the PR ramifications of the “all male” pic on the cover of their inaugural magazine, nor did it even cross their mind that all the bonuses they gave away were from male-owned companies. Was it stupid? Probably. But was it to intentionally “cut out” women? NO WAY.

You don’t have to agree with me on this issue as I know not everyone will, but that’s how I feel and as a woman trying to “make it” in the “male dominated internet marketing world”, I thought it was appropriate to weigh in.

Come on folks, can’t we just get back to business? And damn yes, that’s my affiliate link, I’m trying to make a living in this crazy (but oh so FUN) industry too!

Ciao!

Reba

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