Rachel, thank you! As someone who is relatively new to communicating with other web designers, I’ve been really surprised at the ways in which the two sexes have been communicating and the things that I see no one speak up about. I actually recently wrote to Eric Meyer asking if there were any women-oriented groups or conferences, where we might network and share knowledge about dealing with the unique challenges we encounter. Perhaps even warn each other about certain situations or predators we should avoid.

We also need to take responsibility for the image that we put out there, a lot more than the men do. We have to wonder, “Will this be seen as flirtatious” I honestly do see some of the professional women in our field presenting their work in a sexualized manner and I think it should not be encouraged. Presenting CSS or JavaScript or any content strategy as SEXY??? — that’s just pandering and disrespects the women in the field. We need to call out those women, take them aside and tell them to knock it off. Tell them to use their brains to create something compelling that doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator. Conference organizers need to not book those presentations. This is important, particularly, because so many of our male colleagues are the stereotypical nerds who have no idea how to think about or speak with a woman. How many events do I go to where a man won’t make eye contact with me, unless I make a real effort to make it clear that I’m a clown or something? Too many! There are very very very few men in our field who are mature enough to treat women as equals.

Tell off anyone who dismisses a woman’s success as rooted in her attractiveness. And demand that we are respected for talents and knowledge.

We must take responsibility for what we put out there. Too many talented women have flirty or even suggestively naked Twitter avatars, for example. Think, ladies!

We’ve come a long way, baby… But we can slide right back so quickly.