Codeur: Bringing Women to the Web
Piper Black
The number of men in technology named Dave is higher than the number of women in the field. Technology, and specifically web design and development, connotes innovation and progress, but how is it possible that such a driving force of our society has so few women in the sector? Any effort to bring awareness to the problem just brings awareness to the problem. Codeur takes action to bring more women to the web. Codeur is a community of girl programmers around a set of online courses that offer real-world incentives through an interactive teaching model. Sparking interest in young women using their own language with real incentives will make them feel comfortable and familiar with the web. While some projects such as Girls Who Code and GoldiBlox strive to get girls involved in technology, they rely too heavily on the color pink. The feminine graphics of these projects are exactly what is holding them back. Girls need to feel comfortable in what is currently a masculine environment, but they won’t if we keep cordoning them off into their own realms. Rather than being a ‘girl-flavored’ version of web design education, Codeur speaks to the girls directly through grown-up trendy design and concrete rewards.