Cyberspace

Closing the gender gap

by Michelle Chihara

Al Gore didn't invent the Internet. In fact, the Internet isn't really through being invented. Some of its standards are actually regulations that are still being determined, many of them by an organization called ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). In October, ICANN is going to hold an election for its governing board -- a board that will have a real impact on the future of the medium. And nowhere near as many women as men have registered to vote in that election.

Sometimes referred to as a kind of "zoning authority" for the wild digital frontier, ICANN is a nonprofit corporation with a mandate from the US government to set certain digital guidelines and policies. For example, it helps resolve conflicts over domain names -- conflicts that can have implications for everything from patent rights to child safety. And it's debating whether to create a "top-level domain" so that sex sites would end with ".sex."

ICANN hopes to have a global board of directors. "Not enough people are involved with Internet policy," says Jennifer Sauler, a spokesperson for the professional trade group Women in Technology International (WITI). In particular, she says, it's important for women to play a role in Internet governance. "Women are greatly involved in working on the Internet, and they're getting more involved in e-commerce," she points out.

WITI coordinated an outreach program with one of ICANN's board candidates, and managed to up the percentage of female voters from 10 percent to 15 percent in July alone. In fact, the day after WITI's initial e-mail plea, the sudden tide of registrants crashed ICANN's servers.

Still, 15 percent is paltry compared to the 76 percent of registrants who are men (the rest didn't disclose their gender). Given that women may outnumber men online by 2002, according to New York market-research firm NetSmart America, women have a vested interest in getting online and clicking in their votes.

For more information about WITI, visit www.witi.com. For more information about ICANN, visit www.icann.org or www.icannvote.com, which is run by a prospective candidate for the board.